Maybe you follow the " Pépite sexist " account on Twitter and/or Instagram. In this case, you will have seen Valentine's Day campaigns of questionable taste, an advertisement for tea bags playing on gender roles in parenthood, the banner of an e-commerce site assuming the stereotype of the spendthrift woman, a slew of gendered toy visuals  and bias You want some in the commercials. Is advertising having trouble making its anti-sexist revolution? We talk about it!

A bit of history...

For some historians, the history of advertising begins around the same time as that of writing, about 3000 years before our era. Indeed, some frescoes and inscriptions can be considered as commercial messages. But we agree that modern advertising is the legacy of the press advertisements that appeared in the seventeenth century and whose spirit unfolded with the display in the public space during the industrial revolution and the revolution of the audiovisual media during the twentieth century with radio and TV spots. The third major step in this modern history is obviously the advent of the digital age.

But over the course of history, one thing has not changed : the principle of the attention economy. For an advertiser, a good ad is an ad that delivers an incentive message (to be consumed) in the most effective way possible, and at the best price. To understand this advertising price, it is necessary to integrate the cost of production (copywriting, graphic design, filming, editing, voices, etc.) but above all the cost of broadcasting : the insert in a newspaper page is all the more expensive the larger its audience, the minute of radio or TV is billed at a high price at times when the audience is the most numerous and the most attentive. We don't really have the space and time for long explanations. You have to be directly impactful to touch the most sensitive place in consumers ' hearts: emotions.

Stereotype, advertising's best friend?

But what makes it possible to produce a quick message that resonates with emotions ? The stereotype, of course ! It's cognitive : the fast system of our brain (the one that aims to establish our sense of security and comfort) loves what we already know, what we firmly believe in, what saves the forces of our slow system (the one that pushes us into the entrenchment of the apprehension of ambiguity, critical doubt, reflection, openness to diverse opinions).

The stereotype has everything to put us at ease, to touch us, to amuse us, to make us dream and desire, to flatter us, to make us forget the complexity of reality, to give us the pleasant feeling that we are in the right and the good. A godsend for advertising that must in a few moments attract our attention, tell us a pleasant story and anchor a brand image in our brain.

Gender stereotype, a good marketing plan?

There can be stereotypes about just about everything : social classes, generations, cultures, professions, sectors of activity, styles of music, etc. But the gender stereotype has a certain advantage over many others : if it is not universal in its forms (women and men are not looked at in the same way in all parts of the world), it is everywhere characterized by a hierarchical distribution of roles and functions attributed to the feminine and the masculine (we refer in particular to the work of Françoise Héritier to affirm this). In any case, it is cross-sectional : it can affect several generations, several social classes, several cultures.

Take, for example, the stereotype of the mother, which advertising readily exploits when it comes to selling products for children or food and everyday consumer products that enter the famous " housewife's basket" : in a sober outfit, a gentle look, a warm smile and a few benevolent gestures, It establishes the idea of care, attention, well-being, a warm home, fulfillment, in short, " goodness ." Not bad for making snacks, baby food, laundry detergent, ready meals, household linen, home automation and so on desirable.

Another example : the stereotype of the femme fatale. A sculptural body, luscious lips, cascading hair, bare shoulders and/or thigh and voila. The story goes that you can't resist her perfume, the designer chair on which she leans, the sexy lingerie she wears. If it's not tempting to be as desirable as her by adopting the same attributes !

Another one ? Let's take the idiot on duty, the one who doesn't know how to make a niche, who is a stiff as soon as there is a little technology and who has a goldfish memory. It has the merit of being comic at a low price : who has never felt " a little blonde " in one situation or another in life, a household appliance distributor told us a few years ago to invite us to contact his hotline in case of difficulties.

Objectification and hypersexualization of women : a witness to the " male gaze " effect?

But sometimes the image of women seems completely uncorrelated with the message that the ad wants to convey. Female nudity was exploited in the 1970s to sell men's sweaters, a car or office furniture, but also closer to home to promote sneakers, gym memberships, to sell a handbag, a motorcycle, etc. a boiler, to defend the animal cause.

But why so many naked women in advertising ? The essayist and journalist Titiou Lecoq sees in it (and she is not the only one) the mark of the " male gaze " : this masculine gaze to which messages are addressed intended to arouse the desire not only of heterosexual men (it's not silly, inequalities in pay mean that their purchasing power is higher than that of women) but also of women through the effect of projection (the imagination makes desirable for women what claims to make them desirable in the eyes of men). The woman-object would therefore have a rational function in the conception of the advertising message since the very job of the advertiser is to arouse desire. And desire, it goes to our unconscious...

When advertising plays cat and mouse with feminists

However, there are those who consciously assume an uninhibited use of sexism. Sometimes it is a matter of flattering the toxic masculinity that is assumed in its targets, as for example in the case of a brand of bodybuilding prot' having fun in 2019 broadcasting a woman's ad in a posture worthy of an X-rated movie with the sardonic mention " We apologize to feminists for this ad. But hey... We thought we'd publish it anyway. So, please, take it as a compliment ."

Grossly provocative, the process nevertheless places movements defending women's rights and dignity in an uncomfortable position: to react is to do the job of amplifying the dissemination by creating a buzz that could help bring together part of the masculinist community under the double cover of humor and anti-politically correct freedom of expression; Not reacting is adopting a certain posture of self-censorship satisfying misogynists who love nothing more than to see the beak of a feminist nailed.

But advertising most often has a much more subtle relationship with women's rights activists... Especially since the cause has gained visibility and respectability, thanks to major international movements such as #MeToo, major institutional campaigns such as the UN's #HeForShe system, the growing awareness of large companies seduced by the software of inclusion as a performance factor and the assumed involvement of ultra-mediatized stars (Beyoncé, Emma Watson, Taylor Swift, Myley Cyrus... Not to mention the men : Ryan Gosling, Daniel Craig, Bono, Andy Murray...). It is becoming more and more interesting, from a marketing point of view, to associate your brand with respect for women, or even with militant messages and public commitments to actors in the fight against sexism and violence against women. While some denounce opportunistic "femwashing ", questioning the sincerity of advertisers and advertisers who would " surf" on the #MeToo wave, others are rather pleased that this high vector of pop culture and soft power that is advertising is taking hold of the messages of gender equality.