t, and a value being a socially shared idea of what is good, right, and desirable and a norm being the behavior expected from those ideas. When people begin to form certain expectations in life there begin to be formed stereotypes. People recognize them universally and use them to form opinions and act or not act in a certain way when they are confronted with a situation or person. It is "human nature" to fear the unknown and cling to the familiar, and desire to fit in but want to stand out at the same time. It is from here that advertising finds its most potent weapons. By focusing on these culturally formed stereotypes they can explicitly affect people, and by feeding on these implicitly realized characteristics of people they can also affect behavior . This seems relatively harmless to the advertiser who simply wants to sell his product, but it becomes harmful when it begins to perpetuate certain undesirable stereotypes to the point of cementing them in impressionable minds. Thus I will further differentiate the discussion presented here into the use of institutions that I do not find as harmful as others. Understanding that the perpetuation of any stereotype is bad in that it robs people of the chance to form original opinions without the hindrance of preconceived notions, but I strongly feel that specific depiction's like that of "the myth of women" need to be eradicated first and foremost because of its direct halt of progress. That's not to say that advertising has not changed somewhat with the changing of women's roles and opportunities in the 1990's. Society ,and specifically men, can accept the need and desire for women to work outside the home, but they still expect them to be mothers who keep everything together from the home to their looks. Perpetuation's of this myth of a woman's abilities run rampant in the advertisements and articles in women's magazines. The portrayal of women can be broken down into sever...
