Trendy with sexist advertisement?

The purpose of this study is to gain comprehensive knowledge about gender-discriminatory practices within advertising used in Sweden. This research intends to convey this to the reader through completing the following objectives. Firstly, to showcase how advertisers portray both genders in sexist ways. Secondly, how the advertisers react to the guilty verdicts made by the Reklamombudsmannen. This investigation focuses on the work of the Swedish foundation “Reklamombudsmannen”. Their task is to promote and maintain ethics in the Swedish market by communicating ethical decisions, training and guidance offered to advertisers. This theoretical research consists of theories about gender research, gender stereotypes and sexist advertising. The analysis evaluates five of Reklamombudsmannen’s verdicts for sexist advertising from the year 2021. These five advertisements will be interpreted through a rhetorical and semiotic qualitative content analysis applying concepts such as logos, ethos, pathos, connotation and denotation will be used. The results indicate clearly that the advertiser's use different kinds of sexist, gender stereotypical or discriminating portrayals of both genders. However, the study can state that the female sex is significantly more objectified than the male. Furthermore, the commonality between each advertiser was the disagreeance of Reklamombudsmannen’s guilty judgements in denying the usage of discriminating content within their advertisements.