The GAP Ads: A Question of Gender

Hey everyone, it’s Emily again! Today I’m writing about a couple ads by GAP for children’s clothing. There’s one for boys and one for girls, and some of you are ahead of me on where this post is going. 

The major differences between the two GAP ads are the way the children are depicted. The smiling boy is depicted as intelligent and candid , while the “social girl” is pouty and posed. Looking at the first ad, I was pleased that GAP wanted to inspire young children to pursue scholarly careers. The girls’ ad brought everything crashing down. Instead of encouraging children, they’re supporting stereotypes. I’m a little disappointed in these ads. The implication here is that girls should be social instead of intelligent. It also implies that only boys can be intelligent and that they can’t be social. I’m not really okay with these ads. There’s a culture of sensitivity surrounding bigotry lately, but this is serious enough to cause a problem. I don’t think they warrant a huge storm of reactions, but we need to call out companies on their sexism before girls grow up thinking they can’t be smart. More companies need ads promoting equality among children. Maybe gender stereotyping in advertising isn’t something that can easily be changed in the way companies work. If that’s the case, parents need to work on it with their own children first. 


I think that GAP as a company has some work to do on the sexism front. The boys’ buzzwords like future and genius can apply to everyone, and indeed they should. Science can be the talk of the playground too!

Thanks for reading, everyone. See you next time!

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