Ideologies and Gender

Gender and capital ideologies have become more evident to me in systems like advertisements ever since I've started taking this class. I didn't realize how much of an impact they had until we started closely analyzing capitalism and marxism and how they related to gender. In advertising, women are viewed as the primary targets since they are the main consumer audience, even if the product is for men. Many advertisements are geared to either make women want to improve their man with the product advertised or to make men want the product so that they can get more women/feel more masculine. Like in the newest Dr. Pepper ad, they have a guy who seems like he's trying to emulate Rambo in an action movie like situation, doing stunts and acting extremely masculine. The main point of the commercial is that women don't like those kind of situations, which is why Dr. Pepper is a men's only drink. The commercial is blatantly stating that this drink isn't for women and yet, will still have a consumer pool that will consist of both men and women, hence gaining a profit even from women when they are obviously being undermined in the commercial by the slogan. When I first saw the commercial, I was kind of taken back by how straight forward the message was. I was curious as to why Dr. Pepper would even take that approach to their advertising campaign since it seems like a pretty popular drink with both genders. However, this is how gender and capital ideologies influence systems like advertising. Companies know they can still gain a profit even with overtly "sexist" advertising.