Best 1

Alex Best
Professor Ditch
English 113A
26 October 2015
Selling a Lifestyle
Gender stereotypes are reinforced on a daily basis in western society through media
advertisements. Including billboards, television commercials, social media, and magazines.
Media is a tool companies use to market their products to mass quantities of people. Many
advertisements are geared towards adults who have the money to buy the products, but children
and teens are marketed as well for a variety of products. Many advertisements that are aimed for
adults but can affect teens and young adults negatively. According to the article, How the Media
Affects Teens & Young Adults by author Julia Ransohoff, Many teens and young adults want
to be like the characters they see on TV. Also some forms of media do not show the real
diversity of the world. I believe these messages can be confusing for young people because
there is a continual stream of media that is floating around everywhere selling what a woman is
to look like to be desirable and how a man is to act like to be a real man! The article about body
image, are also can be affected negatively by conforming their beliefs that they need this product
to be accepted by their peers. Adults, teens and children are persuaded to live up to certain
gender expectations from what they see in advertisements. Dos Equis Beer displays multiple
levels of socially constructed messages. This advertisement could make a young male feel like in
order to be successful versus being boring you need to spice it up with two women, cigars, and
beer to be a distinguished man. By having two young women in order to live up to their
manhood. Dos Equis sets a double standard for men and women while objectifying women and

Best 2
portraying them as sexualized beings. Dos Equis is not only selling their product of beer, but
they are also selling a gender performance by showing men and women how they need to act and
behave based on the gender roles they are portraying in their commercials.
Dos Equis Beer advertisements are seen quite often in western society. The media tries to
shape our society with unrealistic ideologies about how to look, act, and perform in everyday
life. This advertisement has an image of a wealthy older man with a Dos Equis Beer, smoking a
cigar, and sitting in between two young women who are attracted to him. The advertisement has
text that says, The most interesting man in the world on being boring, being boring is a choice,
those mild salsas and pleated khakis dont buy themselves. This popular advertisement depicts
men that in order to be interesting you must drink beer, smoke cigars, wear good suits and be
surrounded by two beautiful young women. Dos Equis is painting a picture for men on how they
are meant to act and behave. Men feel they need to perform to these gender expectations in order
to live up to their manhood.
Dos Equis does not just send socially constructed messages to men, but also to women.
This advertisement is one of many that displays female stereotypes. After viewing this ad most
women will feel it is alright to date an older wealthy man just based on his looks, wealth, and
social status. Social status and wealth should not play a factor in why a woman dates another
person. The image displayed in the ad shows two beautiful young women who look attracted to
the older man drinking a Dos Equis Beer. Dos Equis sets a double standard for men and women
in their advertisements, that men can date younger women but older women cant date younger
men. Double standards are constantly displayed in our society and are made to seem like they are
acceptable. Dos Equis Beer advertisements clearly display socially constructed messages and

Best 3
these messages are conforming people to be someone they are not but to what the media wants
people to be.
Advertisements and commercials are meant to persuade you to buy their product and they
are often pretty good at it. Dos Equis Beer advertisements use the objectification of women as a
marketing strategy to increase male audiences into using their product. Most often, men are
portrayed as being the provider, while remaining strong and independent. This advertisement is
obviously geared towards men. The quote on the image itself uses the word man, so that shows
that this ad is aimed towards men. The audience of this advertisement see that the only way to be
interesting is to perform to be a certain way. The media is telling people how to conform by
showing its audience how to act and behave. This Dos Equis Beer advertisement is not only
selling a product but theyre selling a lifestyle as well.
What we see in the media shapes how women and men should act, behave and perform.
In Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender, author Aaron Devor
displays what it really means to become a member of society based on gender stereotypes. Devor
discuses the gender performances of masculinity and femininity and how they are enforced to
children starting at a very young age. Men and women use their bodies in masculine and
feminine ways, the media takes advantage of this in order to sell their products. Women are seen
as submissive and men are seen as dominant in our society, advertisements that display these
gender roles are teaching people these ideas society forces onto us. The media influences so
many other people not just men and women, the media affects how children and teenagers act
and learn. Very young children learn their cultures social definitions of gender and gender
identity at the same time that they learn what gender behaviors are appropriate for them (36).
On average children and teenagers in one week spend at least 30 hours on screen time. Screen

Best 4
time includes television, cell phones, computers, and social media. When children and teenagers
are exposed to the media everyday these socially constructed messages are being consumed on a
daily basis non stop. As we move through our lives, society demands different gender
performances from us and rewards, tolerates, or punishes us differently for conformity to, or
digression from, social norms (35). As we move through our lives we are constantly influenced
from what we see in the media and in advertisements. Dos Equis Beer advertisements are
shaping men and women to perform a gender performance based on what they see in their
commercials. The media is not only trying to selling products but they are selling values, gender
roles, and a lifestyle.
Young adolescents and children are continuously influenced by the media in everyday
life. Our society is saturated with an abundance of endless outlets including advertising,
persuasion, and performance. In the article, Teenagers and The Media by Eagle Ranch
Troubled Teen Support Resource quotes, Magazines, movies, television shows, social
networking sites and many more sources of media have a daily influence on everyone that comes
into contact with them and they maintain an especially great effect on young teenagers,
struggling through a turbulent and confusing stage of life. In the article, From Women, Men,
and Society authors Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran discuss how society can shape childrens
personality and behavioral traits. Children and teenagers become the people they are and learn
from what they see in the media. Being a teenager is a troubling time in some ones life,
advertisements like Dos Equis display the socially constructed messages to teenagers and
children.
The media portrays people in advertisements to be something and someone they are not.
Advertisements are trying to persuade people to buy their products but these ads arent just

Best 5
selling products they are selling a way of life. In the article, How the Media Affects Teens &
Young Adults, author Julia Ransohoff goes into detail about how the media influences teenagers
in everyday life. Most of the media you are exposed to do not show people in a realistic way.
These ads are telling people how to look, dress, act, and behave based on what they want you to
buy. Dos Equis is showing men and women how they need to act and conform based on the
gender roles they are portraying. Messages about alcohol and smoking are also shown in this Dos
Equis advertisement. This advertisement implies that if you dont drink beer and smoke cigars,
then you are boring. Dos Equis sways teenagers in their advertisements by showing teens that
drinking is cool and that everyone does it. Teenagers who see advertisements for drinking and
smoking admit that it influences them to want to drink and smoke. Advertisers leave out the
negative information about their products to make drinking and smoking seem like fun. As a
result, teenagers do not know the health risks when they use these types of products. Many
advertisements that are geared for adults but can affect teens and young adults negatively.
Gender stereotypes are constantly reinforced on a daily basis in western society through
the media. Adults, teens and children are persuaded to live up to certain gender expectations
from what they see in advertisements. Advertisements portray a certain lifestyle, these lifestyles
shown in ads are telling people how they need to look, dress, act, and behave. In order to
conform to societies rules we are taught to look up to the media and portray ourselves to be
something we are not but something the media wants us to be. Dos Equis Beer advertisements
are one prime example of how the media tries to shape our society with unrealistic lifestyles just
to sell their products. Advertises use marketing tools to persuade people to buy their products but
while doing this they are shaping our minds with gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes.
Many advertisements that are aimed towards adults but can also affect teenagers and children

Best 6
negatively. The media is a tool companies use to market their products to mass amounts of
people everyday, but people can learn to conform to what they believe and want in life not with
what the media is persuading them to perform. When we engage with any media, at the end of
the day we choose what to do with it, so people can become more aware with what they are
viewing everyday.

Best 7
Works Cited

Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender. Composing
Gender. Ed. Rachael Groner and John F. OHara. Boston. Bedford/ St. Martins, 2014. 3545. Print.
Renzetti, Claire and Curran, Daniel. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing Gender. Ed.
Rachael Groner and John F. OHara. Boston. Bedford/ St. Martins, 2014. 76-86. Print.
"How the Media Affects Teens & Young Adults." Media. Julia Ransohoff, Oct. 2013. Web. 28
Oct. 2015.
"Teenagers and The Media, Media Influence Over Teens." Eagles Boys Ranch. N.p., n.d. Web.
02 Nov. 2015.