Advertising Post #3

Social media, a powerful tool that can shape and manipulate ones perception of the world. Perception is a cognitive construct; cognition is a term often used to refer to awareness and thinking. Perception is a mental representation of the environment imprisoned and manipulated by the available senses and then elaborated by the mind. People act on the premise that their mental representation of the world.Advertisement plays a key role of one’s perception of the world. Advetisement , “the created image that has the hold on our most vibrant, immediate sense of what is, of what matters, of what we must pursue for ourselves” Where “women are mere beauties in men's culture so that culture can be kept male (Wolf) Due to this notion the emergence of an identity at an early age, in turn, leads to perceived gender biased roles (Basow, 1992). Young boys categorizing jobs and duties based on sex.

Children in a study where shown drawings of males and females performing activities that are both consistent and inconsistent to their gender roles (Martin & Halverson, 1983). An example of a gender consistent photograph is a girl holding a tray of freshly baked cookies standing in front of an open oven. Conversely, two girls in dresses, boxing each other, indicated a gender inconsistent photograph. A week later, the children were asked to recall their memory of the pictures they had seen. Results showed that children significantly distorted inconsistent pictures by changing the gender of the inconsistent pictures to make them consistent with social norms. Children had a tendency of recalling an image of a girl sawing a block of wood as a boy was actually performing the task. It is suggested that when one’s self-esteem becomes intrinsically motivated to conform to their gender role, society does not have to force that child to accept their role; rather, the child would gladly accept it in the process while distorting inconsistencies (Bem, 1984). Predetermined gender roles are indubitably influencing children’s perception of what is socially accepted.

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, she doesn't have what it takes. They will say, women don't have what it takes."-Clare luce

Furthermore, Martin & Halverson (1983) recorded the level of confidence in regards to the validity of their response by utilizing a Likert Scale that is appropriate for the sample. Children were to recall the gender of the photograph after they were asked to point to one of the four boxes. The boxes were arranged in increasing sizes and the children were told to point to the box that represented their confidence. The largest box signified absolutely sureness while descending sizes indicated mostly sureness, partially sureness  and no sureness, consecutively. Boys who reported a distortion with gender inconsistent images had high levels of confidence in regards to the validity of their response.  In fact, mosty of the boys had higher confidence in their memory recall in comparison to those of the girls’, which reveals sex differences in self- confidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6yf1jhEj60

To fix advertisement, we have to break stereotypes and to stop relying on them to propel a product.

to diversify the people making the advertisements so it would not soley be from the view of the white male.

to empower both genders