When I was first introduced to the Visual Culture: Context and Theory unit, I remember being quite nervous as we were all bombarded with all these techniques and words that I have never come across in my life. I found it particularly hard, as sometimes I believed we weren’t given enough tutorials before being thrown into a major project. As time went by I started getting a hang of it and now I feel like I have been introduced to a whole new different world of design, by decoding hidden meanings of image and even text, that affect society around us. A photograph or an image to me at this moment in time isn’t just a picture of a beautiful woman and an attractive man, its so much more deeper than that as I have now learned to analyze their body language, their gaze, dress sense, accessories, the placement of products or even the text; and just in general the mise en scene of the image.
For our final piece we were assigned an essay, to research the issues of Gender or Race in Advertising. I chose Gender as I thought Race was too common and its something that we are all aware of that is going around us everyday, so for me it was a subject that I would have particularly gotten bored of as there’s no answer why there’s racism in the world and why people can be racist to the color of your skin, or your religion or even your nationality. Its just one thing in this world that no matter how deep into it you may go you will never find an answer. So I chose Gender in Advertising as I thought it would be interesting to explore how males and females are perceived in advertising and I wanted to look into the history of Gender in Advertising to see how it has changed over the years.
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Through my research I found it really hard to find information on men in advertising. It was all about women not having much self confidence from back in the day so all they knew was to be obedient to men. I discovered how the beauty of a woman was taken advantage by the advertising industry to sell their products, especially house keeping products, where a typical housewife was ideal. Men weren’t really used much in advertising unless it was for DIY products, as women ruled the advertising world with their beauty and glamour. I found a lot more history on women in advertising than men, which made my essay almost sound bias. But by the end of my research I just about came up with sufficient information for both genders. The first image I chose was a 1920’s Chanel No.5 black and white advert and a 2010 Dolce & Gabbana advert. I wanted to show how the perception of a male and female has changed over the decades. In the Chanel advert both genders were dressed elegant and respectable but still showed glamour, and the woman was domineering, as I believe the beauty of a woman besotted men back in time. The Dolce & Gabbana advert consists of 5 males and 1 female being pinned to the floor by one of the half naked males. The image just screams out seduction and sex as looking at it for a split second, you would think it’s an image of a possible gang rape. I call it the sex sells strategy, as I believe that no one looks at the beauty of a woman anymore, but how sexy her body language is in an image. 
Even after analyzing both images I still didn’t think it was enough. So I decided to grab another 2 images, again one from the 1900’s and one from 2010 of bathing suit models. The first image I chose was an image set in 1906, consisting 2 females and male dressed in what they call bathing suit which looked more like stockings and dresses for the females and a knee length jump suit for the male. Looking at a 2010 Calvin Klein image of a male in shorts just covering his penis area and his buttocks leaving the rest of his body bare; and the female in a bikini covering her breasts, vaginal area and buttocks. I wanted to show how dress sense has deteriorated over the years. From even going to the beach in the 1900’s you still couldn’t show more than your arms and shoulders, then as years passed it got cut to a one piece bathing suit that looked like shorts, then eventually a one piece bathing suit in the shape of knickers and what they call Speedos for men and then eventually a two piece bathing suit called a bikini for women. I am pleased with the way I have structured and research this essay, as it makes you realize, over the years how much society has changed, how its not about beauty anymore its about how sexy you are; how and how open they have become and have no respect for the one thing that should be left within privacy… your body. 
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