ABSTRACT
Advertising images pervade our everyday lives, bombarding us with snapshots of what we supposedly lack and what we need to fill the void. Images of idealized bodies, particularly female bodies, are some of the most dominant and pervasive messages produced by advertisers. Their pervasiveness has called forth popular and academic discourses foregrounding the crucial issue of how these images are implicated in the ongoing construction, negotiation, and maintenance of gender identities and social relationships between women and men. This chapter provides an intellectual history of gender advertising research across the past three decades by reviewing empirical and theoretical advances in the depiction, representation, and decoding of gender images in advertising. This evolution in intellectual work on gender and advertising reflects not only the historical location of academic research at different times and geographic locations, but also its often uneasy relationship to feminist politics. Finally, the current ferment in gender advertising research is discussed.
