Gender stratification is defined as "the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women (Macionis 350)."" Popular culture has a significant effect on the inequality of men and women by the ways men and women are portrayed, whether in movies, television, or in different magazines. With popular culture being such a broad subject, this focus will be on magazine ads and what exactly these ads are saying to the men and women who read them. What exactly are the images of them (men and women) in recent various types of fashion magazines portraying? .
Data Collected:.
Men have their magazines and women have theirs. You find products that men would typically purchase in a men's magazine, and the same goes for women. In the data collected from 5 different men's and women's magazines: Bazaar, Maxim, Details, Vogue, and GQ, the findings were that most of the men and women posing for the ads were targeted to that sex who typically picks up the magazine. This was shocking, as the opposite would tend to be thought to be true. Men would sell themselves in women's ads and women would sell themselves in men's magazines, right? Wrong. The majority of the ads in the magazines were of the same sex as the people who buy them. .
Some of the people in the ads were even selling their product in rather unrealistic situations. This is interesting to consider that most people just flipping through the magazine would rarely take the time to think about what the ad is telling them. All they are concerned with is who is in the ad. Rarely would a man flip through Maxim and think to himself, "Gosh, she is in a bathing suit on a ski slope."" Most of the companies in the magazines wanted to send the message to the reader to "buy this product."" But how would they get people to look? Advertising executives know that sex sells, and what is found in the majority of these ads was that these models are drop dead gorgeous and barely wearing any clothes.