Gendered Media and Consumerism

Advertisements and cultural icons in America have a strong tendency to tug at people’s inadequacies. Usually taking on the basic premise of “Great/smart/beautiful people buy our products and it’s our products that make them great”. This is easily, and probably most effectively, applied to gender. “Real men drive our cars”, “Real women wear our clothes”, it’s pretty clear that this happens because it’s one of the best ways to drive up sales. People will only buy your products if they feel like they need them, and what better way of creating a sense of need than to question a person’s worth without it? It’s an effective and smart tactic, but at the same time it’s caused us to have very arbitrary definitions of men and women. Consumerism is a big part of American society, and therefore these businesses play a very large role in our society. Should we allow their role to include defining what makes a real man or a real woman?