Students will be required to write a paper in which they identify a print or video advertisement dealing with the themes from the course. Students will be required to address how the advertisement deals with masculinity, femininity, sexual desire, body image, etc. The paper should be 4-6 pages, typed, double-spaced, and stapled. It will not have a title page or any sort of binder or cover. The Term paper will count for 20% of your final grade.
- For this paper, students are required to choose two advertisements from the Gender Ads Project website (genderads.com) (NOTE: Do not choose ads from the Stripper category). One should be targeted to women, and the other targeted to men.
- For each ad, students should address how the advertisement deals with masculinity, femininity, sexual desire, body image, and social constructions of gender.
- Consider some of the questions we have been discussing this semester:
- What assumptions do we make about masculinity and femininity?
- How do these assumptions create standards for male and female sexuality?
- How does advertising influence our socialization around these concepts?
- How are standards for men and women different in advertising?
- How might advertising challenge some of these standards and assumptions?
- Consider some of the questions we have been discussing this semester:
- In addition, each category of ads features discussion questions that should be addressed in the final paper.
- For example, the ads relating to strippers features the following discussion questions:
- Why is the stripper such a prevalent theme in popular culture?
- Are male strippers—either in actual performance or in their visual representation in the media—presented in a manner similar to female strippers?
- What do images of strippers and dancers suggest about male and female roles in society?
- For example, the ads relating to strippers features the following discussion questions:
Teaching Writing at John Jay College 