The Codes of Gender (2010)

Arguing that advertising not only sells things but also ideas about the world media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial cultures inability to let go of reactionary gender representations Jhallys starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies Jhally applies Goffmans analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity the relationship between gender and power and the everyday performance of cultural norms