Question: “How have ads changed based on the gender that home products are marketed towards?”

This topic explores how advertisements for kitchen products have changed over time based on the gender they are marketed towards. I wanted to compare ads from different decades to try and find an example of shifting gender roles in the home.

Throughout the decades, kitchen ads have changed from only targeting women as homemakers to acknowledging that both genders have roles in the kitchen and promoting shared domestic responsibility.

Advertisements from earlier decades clearly associate cooking in the kitchen to women. The ads showcase them as cheerful, domestic caretakers who enjoy cooking and providing as their only pasttime. As time progresses though, the message of these ads change as by the 1980s, there’s a more modern, stylish approach, and by 2010, the House Beautiful ads simply don’t include a person in it to remain gender-neutral. These changes reflect broader social shifts in gender roles and domestic labor proving that both genders are capable of the same thing

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