The Female Role in Advertisements: Some Experimental Evidence

conducted on this issue and, for the most part, study findings have been disparaging of advertising.' In particular, advertising has been criticized for presenting women as simple-minded, noncareer oriented, and male-dependent. Essentially, say the critics, advertising perpetuates archaic and distorted sex role stereotypes.2 While controversy over the occupational and social roles portrayed by women in advertisements continues to simmer, there is a second, related phenomenon which may possess even more long run significance both for marketing managers and society in general. This is the trend toward increasing eroticism and nudity in advertisements.