Media Project: Beer Ads and Gender

The media presents us with countless examples of sexist ads that perpetuate gender stereotypes as dictated by our culture and the patriarchal structure on which our relationships are based. We are constantly inundated with messages from television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and internet that tell us how men and women should and should not act in society in order to be accepted. Susan Douglas in Enlightened Sexism brings up several examples of television programs and print advertisements that perpetuate gender stereotypes, portraying middle class, white, thin, and made-up women as ideal females and middle class, athletic, humorous, and powerful men as ultimate males. In her article, “Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” Gloria Steinem explains her struggles as an editor of MS Magazine to secure untraditional advertisements targeted towards the un-stereotypical woman reader. She points out that most advertisements we see geared toward men, like cars, technology, and beer, are products in which women too are interested. Yet, these industries continue to advertise solely to men, perpetuating stereotypes that a man should be interested in cars, electronics and watching football on Sundays with a cold glass of beer in hand, while a woman should dress in a short skirt and cleavage-bearing top as she rides in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, begs her male counterpart for help fixing the stove, and serves her honey a frosted mug of his favorite brew for the big game. Fortunately for us, advertisers have it all wrong; women are interested in things other than makeup and fashion. Then why are we continually ignored?

When thinking of the most sexist ads in the media today and the ads that are most clearly directed at male consumers, one cannot forget to mention beer. There are numerous examples of sexist beer commercials and print ads that depict stereotypically “hot” women, with low cut shirts and overwhelming cleavage, as merely props in a man’s world. In one commercial, brought to us by Miller Genuine Draft, a man asks a stereotypically attractive female bartender for a light beer. When she asks him if he prefers a certain taste, the man responds that he does not care. The bartender’s response? “When you start to care, take off your skirt and grab a Miller,” as the camera pans to the gentleman’s frilly sarong. Miller’s “brilliant” advertisers have devised a way to threaten men into drinking their product. Stop being such a girl and start drinking Miller! Unfortunately for Miller Genuine Draft, the fact that a “hot” female delivers the line does not make up for its sexist message that only real men care about how their beer tastes. Would a woman ever care about how their light beer tastes? Forget it. Her only concern is that she doesn’t spill beer on her frilly skirt or accidentally order a regular beer, jeopardizing her new low-cal diet.

Sure, Miller advertises beer to its male consumers, but fear not! Miller advertises to women as well. This print advertisement, which appeared in magazines in 2009, promoted the 64-calorie Miller Genuine Draft 64 (better known as MGD 64). The ad features a stereotypically beautiful woman, thin, fashionable, looking carefree and happy. Next to the model it reads, “Looking to: drop a dress size or two? Put more pep in your step? Have a little less jiggle in your giggle? Join Resolution64.com. Get in Shape. Look Great. It’s FREE!” The website, which is no longer in existence, featured “customized interactive fitness programs, e-mail with custom exercises plus tips for better eating, drinking, fashion and beauty, leisure and relaxation recommendations and a community of members to encourage one another” (Librescu). Besides the fact that Miller is equating beer-drinking with weight loss, which is simply contradictory, the ad is clearly directed towards women, whose only desires, according to Miller, are to lose weight and appear to be as happy as the size-zero model in the picture.

I think that Miller’s advertising tactics have clear goals: to appeal to each group of consumers’ interests and aspirations. However, Miller has false conceptions of what each demographic values and as a result, the company fails to develop accurate portrayals of the markets to which they are advertising. In the first commercial, Miller assumes that all men wish to belong to the selective “boy’s club.” In order to gain entrance into this selective group, Miller seems to say, men must display their macho persona, boasting their heterosexuality and manliness. Gloria Steinem in “Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” agrees, “Beer makers are still selling masculinity” (4). While she says food and beverage have no gender, beer companies continue to market to who they believe are buying their product: masculine, white, middle class, heterosexual men. And while USA Today reported in 2001 that women made up twenty-five percent of beer drinkers and forty-five percent of Amstel Light drinkers, there is no sign that women are gaining entrance in the exclusive boys’ clubs.

Further, while the statistics show that women drink beer, it seems that the only beer advertisements geared towards women take the form of the second ad, which combines beer-drinking with dieting and weight loss. Steinem, in her article, expresses her same concern that advertisers are not paying enough attention to the facts. She asks, “Do you think, as I once did, that advertisers make decisions based on solid research? Well, think again. ‘Broadly speaking,’ says Joseph Smith of Oxtoby-Smith, Inc., a consumer research firm, ‘there is no persuasive evidence that the editorial context of an ad matters’” (Steinem 7).

As a result, we continue to see ads that further expound gender stereotypes. In “Body Projects,” Joan Brumberg explains how dieting has become a way of life for women and young girls in the twenty-first century (Brumberg 119). She states, “This preoccupation is persistent rather than episodic; it characterizes the teen years of most middle class girls, regardless of race; and it underlies their struggles with self-identity, peer relationships, and even educational and occupational choices” (120). Susan Douglas agrees that the pervasive preoccupation of females to attain the perfect body is kept alive through the media. She explains how companies like Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria’s Secret idealize the Barbie doll figure, delivering the message to women and girls that “your body is your central, crucial resource in establishing your net worth as female, and if it isn’t like Giselle’s, well, aren’t you kind of worthless?” (Douglas 216). Miller’s advertisement for Resolution64.com is just another example of an ad that pushes this message to women that the number one concern should be to literally fit the mold.

I think that advertisements like those from Miller Genuine Draft, which ignore consumer research and merely further gender stereotypes, are major causes for more serious issues that face women and men today. The mixed messages we constantly receive through the media, and especially through advertisements, produce standards of femininity and masculinity for which each sex should strive. As a result, we see larger societal problems that include, but are not limited to, the prevalence of eating disorders, an entire economy surrounded by methods to make oneself more “beautiful,” and a culture that puts down those who do not live up to the media’s unrealistic standards of masculinity and femininity. Once companies start paying attention to the facts, perhaps they will begin to advertise to our real interests, excluding gender stereotypes altogether. Until then, it is up to us to navigate these mixed messages, however difficult it may be.


Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. New York: Random House, Inc., 1997.

Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2010.

Librescu, Marc. “Does MGD 64 (Miller Genuine Draft) Keep You Fit?” AdMonkey, 17 February 2009, < http://admonkey.org/2009/02/17/does-mgd-64-miller-genuine-draft-keep-you-fit/#comments>.

McCarthy, Michael. “Women take stage in beer ads.” USA Today, 30 April 2001, .

Steinam, Gloria. "Sex, Lies & Advertising." MS Magazine, July/August 1990.