Masculinity and Femeninity in Advertisements

Representations of gender in advertisements provide powerful models of behavior to emulate or react against. Masculine images typically convey power, strength, virility, athleticism, and competitiveness whereas feminine images show beauty, submissiveness, nurturance, and cooperation. Such themes appear repeatedly in popular culture and are very evident in advertisements especially.

I will show you how advertisements are the hallmark of gender stereotyping and creating certain images to classify people in.

Firstly, In the figure below, boy is playing with airplanes, soldiers, and wild animals—culturally appropriate toys for males. The message in the ad is actually directed to his parent, presumably his mother since it talks about cleanliness in the kitchen and women have been traditionally been assigned that responsibility. In this day and age, it could be speaking to his father instead—a possibility the ad leaves open. The product itself is to some degree gender-neutral. However, ads in the past have often used boys to show just how messy and dirty things can get.


In most ads nowadays the sexuality of mature women is a central focus. Ads like the one in figure below exaggerate sexuality by the wide-spread posture that the woman assumes. She sits, of course, in a model's pose to display the clothing, shoes, and bag in an eye-catching and provocative manner. Ads must break through the clutter of the competition and draw the reader's attention. The somewhat unusual pose here may serve that purpose, but it also serves to reinforce the idea that women are and must be sexual creatures in order to attract attention. Sexist, if you ask me, but grabs attention.



Compare the pose and facial expression of the man in the following ad with that of the woman just discussed. He is not smiling, and is intensely serious in his demeanor. Stoicism and carefully considered emotional reactions are hallmarks of adult masculinity in the world of advertising.



Ads, therefore are platforms in which the audience are swayed to feel in a certain way. Thank you and have a good day. =)

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

K.Reshan a/l Kalaarajan
B0801442

masculinity and femeninity in advertisements

intimacy interpersonal relationships

Basically, relationships involve a mixture of personal and interpersonal communication.
It is between a"we" and a "me" orientation.

Children are continually nourished by physical intimacy: being rocked , fed , hugged , and held.

As we grow older. the opportunities for physical intimacy are less regular, but still possible and important.

Other forms of physical intimacy include affectionate hugs, kisses, and even more.

However, the facts clearly bear out that for nearly all men and women there are significant differences between the male and female brain. This means that in most cases, men and women do not behave, feel, think, or respond in the same ways, either on the inside or on the outside.

-The male brain is highly specialized, using specific parts of one hemisphere or the other to accomplish specific tasks.

-The female brain is more diffused and utilizes significant portions of both hemispheres for a variety of tasks.

-Men are able to focus on narrow issues and block out unrelated information and distractions. Women naturally see everyday things from a broader, "big-picture" vantage point.

-Men can narrowly focus their brains on specific tasks or activities for long periods of time without tiring.

-Women are better equipped to divide their attention among multiple activities or tasks.
Men are able to separate information, stimulus, emotions, relationships, etc. into separate compartments in their brains, while women tend to link everything together.

-Men see individual issues with parts of their brain, while women look at the holistic or multiple issues with their whole brain (both hemispheres).

-Men have as much as 20 times more testosterone in their systems than do women. This makes men typically more aggressive, dominant and more narrowly focused on the physical aspects of sex.

-In men, the dominant perceptual sense is vision, which is typically not the case with women. All of a woman's senses are, in some respects, more finely tuned than those of a man.

Choong Chin Choa

B0800939

Listening

so here is a short conversation..

The editor suggested by phone, "Let's meet for lunch.
We'll discuss your writing project then.""How will I know you?"
I asked."Oh,"
she answered, "that's easy. I'll be the tall, skinny blonde."I formed a mental picture. . . but one destined to be short-lived.

For on that Tuesday, when she walked up to greet me, I was glad she spoke first. I wouldn't have identified her from the description. In fact, I'd glanced at her once, then looked elsewhere.

She seemed average height, with light brown hair, and not all that skinny (which, of course, I couldn't mention).
Everybody has similar experiences. Written and spoken descriptions seem even less reliable than weather forecasts and lottery tickets.
We hear, "Great movie--you have to see it!"
We rent the video, then cut it off after ten minutes, muttering, "This movie got an Oscar?"You dislike the "super restaurant" a friend raved about.
To you, prices were too high, servers were slow and rude, and you'd rate the food bland, at best.As a result, we have popularized statements like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Communication specialists attribute these diverse interpretations to perception. They explain that each of us has a unique window to the world. Consequently, our viewpoints are truly customized, like a contact lens prescription which works for us, but not for the person standing next to us.

Life experiences shape perception.

A Boston native will laugh at the Atlanta weatherman's "frigid" forecast, when temperatures dip into the 40s. Bostonians wash their cars on those days.
A person's needs alter perception.

You've heard the advice, "Don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry."
You'll buy foods you'd skip when shopping just after a meal. Also, think of driving past a bank sign and seeing the time and temperature flashing alternately.
Running late for an appointment, you're likely to focus on the time.
Heading for the beach, you'll center on the temperature. In either case, the irrelevant numbers might not "register" with you.
If asked, you couldn't repeat them.Gender influences perception.
Often we feel there's no exaggeration in John Gray's title, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
As Gray states, many male/female conflicts don't revolve around issues of right or wrong, just decisions made from opposite vantage points.Certainly economic status alters perception. What, for instance, is your definition of an expensive house? Think back to when your salary was one third or one half of your current income.
Your dollar figure for an expensive home was radically different then, wasn't it?
Throw in how housing prices have escalated in the last twenty years, and you'll note another reason definitions change.Physical characteristics play important roles.
In the sixth grade, I learned that I'm largely colorblind. Maybe the editor I met for lunch really was more of a blonde than I thought. Also, were I shorter in stature, she could have fit the "tall" depiction.


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Listening is a crucial skill for professional and personal success.
Yet it seems like such a basic skill - we all know how to listen, right?
But although this skill is basic in theory, it's difficult to execute.
Yes, everyone can listen, but how many people can listen well?Why is listening important? First, it shows respect to the speakerSecond, if you listen well, you can learn something

Here are 5 ways to improve your listening skills:

1.

Focus.If you decide that someone is worth listening to, then give the speaker your full attention. Turn away from the computer and set your cell phone to vibrate. We may like to think we can multi-task, but we really can't do it with tasks, and we certainly can't do it with people.

2.
Show that you are listening.Make eye contact, ask relevant questions n avoid checking your watch frequently
3.
For a few minutes, let it be all about the other person.Don't use the time to think about your rebuttal. It's important to remember that the function of listening is to understand what the other person is saying, not necessarily to agree with it.
4.
Read between the lines.Don't just listen to the words - also tune into the non-verbal communications. Watch the other's body language and become aware of the feelings behind the words.
5.
Resist the urge to interrupt.Ah, this is a tough one for many of us, me included.

Choong Chin Choa
B0800939

Mood and Emotion

Every people does have mood and emotion. We experience many types of mood and emotion at different time and place, happy mood(good mood), sad mood(bad mood) and many more. In fact, there are disparities between mood and emotion. Mood is a relatively long lasting, affective or emotional state. Moods differ from simple emotion in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event.

They make a great difference in communication. No. Communicating influences human's mood and emotion. Actually, it is the concept of chicken-and-egg nature. Our mood and emotion can sway how we communicate with others. To illustrate, when you feel very down, you will not feel like talking to others. In this way, people may mistaken that you are hard to be approached. Another example is when you feel very angry and someone comes to tease you, you might become more angry and probably quarrel with the person. This will ruin your communication and relationship with that person.

Similarly, our mood and emotion can be influenced while we communicate with others. For instance, we are happy for a short moment when someone tells us a humorous joke. The feeling for short moment is our emotion. When more and more incidents make you happy and your happy emotion last for a long time, it becomes good mood.

In a nutshell, we should manage our emotion and mood well so that we will not spoil our communication with other people which will consequently influence our relationship with others.

Reference
1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_(psychology)