From the year 1995 Gunter is a theorist who discusses how women in particular are represented in magazines and how the representation has changed over the years. He states that women in magazine adverts prior to the 70's were hardly shown in paid work and if they were shown in paid work then they would be in jobs that would usually be associated with the female gender, for example a secretary or a hairdresser. From his study he also concludes that the 'housewife' image began to decline after the 50's but was still quite common in the 60's and 70's. In the 1970’s content analysis of advertising on television found strong evidence of women being stereotyped in house wife roles whereas men had roles with authority.
Cumberbatch
By the start of the 1990’s, Cumberbatch did a study of 500 prime- time TV ads in the UK and discovered that advertisers had seemingly become wary of showing women doing housework, which was seen in 7% of the ad's, but also it was shown for the first time that men were shown in the kitchen doing the cooking more often than women. This role reversal could have taken place due to the changing mind set of the society which started to accept women in more dominant roles.
Scheibe
In a study of TV ads Scheibe (1979) included an assessment of what male and female characters were shown to be concerned about. He drew conclusions to women in ads being only concerned about beauty, cleanliness, family and pleasing others, whereas men were only more concerned about achievements and having fun and even if both gender groups were shown in unusual places or settings, these characteristics were seen to be shining through their role at the moment. This shows that once a group in media is stereotyped that label stays with them throughout.
Macdonald
Macdonald (1995) took an oppositional view on the concept that gender representations in ad's were normally confirming their old stereotypes similar to those in other forms of the media and he stated that "advertisers generally lagged behind women's magazines in the cultivation of new modes of address, even when the evidence suggested that commercial advantages could be gained from modernising their approach", MacDonald argued that advertisers were doing nothing to update and modernise women’s stereotypes and how they were shown and the conclusion can be drawn that advertisers were the group of people who carried on with the stereotypes given to the women.
Greer
Greer (1999) tells us that there is much more pressure on women to impress with their make-up, high heels and wonder bras. This quotation suggests that in order for women to be successful they have to look good to an extent. "Every woman knows that she is a failure if she is not beautiful", this is one of the more noticeable quotations from Greer as he sums up the representation of women both modernised and stereotypical. "Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful now a woman has to have a tight, toned body, including her buttocks and thighs, so that she is in good touch all over", this is another quote which suggests that it is more important for women to look good now than ever before.
Walter
Natasha Walter (1998) in the new Feminism she quotes that “today’s women are more-or-less happy with how they look, whereas a vast majority of men felt unsatisfied with their own appearance” this quotation suggests that men are increasingly becoming more concerned about their image. "If only 4% of men think that they are attractive, we should not be too quick to argue that only women feel cast down by the pressures of beautiful ideals" (1998). However, there have been statistics who disagree with Walter as it was concluded from a survey that women are ten times more likely to be more unhappy with their body image than men.
Cortese
Anthony Cortese wrote a book called ‘Provocateur’ which argued that men and women are made to look provocative through the editing, make-up and clothing. " Displays youth, good looks, sexual seductiveness and [beauty] perfection", and this is very illustrative of how various companies make women look for any type of commercial or TV advert and this is a common factor, for example in the 'male gaze' theory.
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