Advertisers Often Use Rituals of Gender Behaviors and Hyperritualization in Their Advertisements

Advertisers often use rituals of gender behaviors and hyperritualization in their advertisements to try and persuade audiences to connect and relate to their products and the models they have selling it. Rituals of gender behavior help to interpret the roles of social reality as well as work as guides to perception. Advertisements convey the social construction of gender roles and that is the reason why most ads do not look strange to us. They are extremely concentrated reflections of one aspect of our social lives and reflect the realm of gender displays. Rituals of gender behaviors also reinforce what is means to be a man or a woman where men are seen as the strong protectors and women are seen as weak and fragile. There are so many ads that display gender differences in which men are seen degrading women yet viewers do not automatically see a problem because it has became a normal part of our social reality. Ads that degrade and display women as the inferior sex is a hyperritualization because it emphasized one aspect while deemphasize others. The ad I chose for this critique is of a man spanking presumably his wife while the text above reads "If your husband ever find out you're not 'store testing' for fresher coffee..." showing the wife being punished for not being out store testing coffee on her free time. Hyperritualization can easily be spotted in this ad as it emphasizes the control of men over women as the superior sex and the requirement of women to feel the need to please them. The man is sitting on a chair with his back facing towards the viewer and is holding out his arm in a forceful manner as he is about to strike his wife for not "store testing" new coffee. The wife is seen looking at the viewer with a scared look on her face, her mouth wide open, and her legs dangling in the air while she is lays on her husbands lap completely powerless and awaits his punishment conveying the man's dominance over the helpless woman.

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