Theories

My original hypothesis will be difficult to test because it is based on common sense and kind of what I thi nk rather than actual evidence or theories. I realised it would be a good idea for me to research through the internet and books and try to find something relevant to sexism which I could add to my hypothesis. I came across a book called "The Equality Illusion - The Truth About Men and Women Today" written by feminist Kat Banyard. In looking briefly through the book I came across some useful quotes;

“The equality that so many people see existing between women and men is an illusion”.

“Throughout the world, men still hold a higher status in society than women.”

However, clearly neither of these are closely related enough to advertising. However, I dont believe this doesn't mean i can't still use them. In the mean time, though, I will still be looking for theories which are more specific and more closely-related to my topic.

Evaluation of Data

I definitely do not feel as though my data is a representation of the whole data pool of sexist and non-sexist advertisements, but I knew this all along as there are just too many. This is why it is going to be so hard to limit the variables and why I have been thinking about changing my idea. I am unsure of whether or not my data will be enough to test my hypothesis and write 1500 words on as my data is not particularly comparable. This is why I think it may be a good idea for me to find modern day equivalents to my research from the 1950s with modern day equivalents. 

Updated Methodology

In thinking of a way I could limit my variables to make my searches more fair, I decided it might be a good idea to look into different articles on feminism and sexism and look into other people's research which has been grouped together, so that my collection of research isn't so random. I found an online pinboard, which although has photos uploaded by lots of different people, I thought maybe good as it would help me to get an un-biased opinion on the adverts. However, the fact that they are all tagged and grouped as being sexist makes the data a little bit unfair. I realise I need to stop limiting my research to just internet sources and begin looking into womens magazines etc. and analysing the adverts. I need to collect three of the top womens magazines/cooking magazines and study the adverts they contain. I will also continue to search the internet for more reliable data and theories I can challenge and base my hypothesis on.

Methodology Draft

During choosing a subject I wanted to focus on I came up with the idea to investigate advertisements from the 1950s and compare them with adverts nowadays based on the level of sexism they contain. I chose to investigate this because I am very aware that sexism in advertising was a common thing in the 1950s and if it really has lessened as much as a lot of individuals think. I realised this may be too broad, so I limited the data I collected specifically to cooking advertisements. I collected my data from the 1950s by searching ‘1950s cooking advertisements’ into Google. I collected my newer data by searching ‘cooking advertisements’ into Google, although after assessing my findings I realised this probably wasn’t a very fair way of collecting information and I wasn’t limiting my variables particularly well. This is due to the individuals that have posted the images on Google. Because of the wide awareness of sexism in advertising in the 1950s, the word sexism is often tagged in amongst the words ‘1950s’ and ‘advertisements’. This means that during my search for 1950s cooking advertisements, I am bound to find the sexist adverts almost immediately. However, with newer cooking advertisements, I have had to type in ‘new sexist cooking advertisements’ in order to find more than just a few, which makes my search unfair. The reason for this is because cooking advertisements nowadays are not deemed as being so obviously sexist, although a lot do still come across as very sexist, just more subtly. In understanding that the research I have already done doesn’t really limit the variables, I have realised that I may have to find a more fair way to collect my data, or change what I am going to be investigating slightly. Another idea I could consider investigating if I don’t find a way to make my searches fair, is to instead investigate how women have been portrayed differently in the past to nowadays in advertising. I think there may be more data available for me to use if I do decide to switch to my plan B.

My Hypothesis

For my English language investigation I have decided to look at the sexism in cooking advertisements and cookbook pages and compare them to that of the 1970s, and again to the 2000s.

My Hypothesis: I predict that sexism in cooking advertisements will have dropped dramatically between the 1950s and the 1970s, and again between the 1970s and the 2000s.

I think that this will be an interesting hypothesis to investigate and discuss because in researching data, I have noticed that although advertisements nowadays are not as directly nor obviously as sexist as they were a while back, some are still subtly sexist without meaning to be, and some seem to portray women as sexual objects in order to draw (presumably male) customers in. This means I will be able to argue against my hypothesis during my essay and see it from both sides before finding out the truth.