 Gender Advertisements is a 1979 book that , as part of Goffman 's series of studies in the anthropology of visual communication , deals with the topic of gender representation in advertising . The book is a visual essay about sex roles in advertising , differences in the depictions of men and women and the subtle , underlying messages about the sexual roles projected by masculine and feminine images in advertising , as well as and symbolism in advertising . In the book Goffman examined over 500 advertisements in order to find general patterns in stereotypical gender representation , which he placed into six categories : 
