Judith Butler's Queer Theory.

Queer Theory is the theory that gender is performative, and that you construct it through your own repetitive performance. It also means that any ideologies about gender may be reinforced in the media (gender roles, gender norms).

An example of this would be gender advertising – targeting a specific product for a specific gender. In the past few decades, society has progressed from gender advertising, however, it does appear occasionally.

The patriarchal society that once was in the 50s created adverts showing the ideal housewife. The advertisement industry had made sure that every product involving housework had this perfect housewife using and recommending the product to other women. This advertisement for Hardee’s states in big bold writing ‘women don’t leave the Kitchen!’, which is evident by how the perfect housewife is observing her husband and child from the sink. The ad’s target audience is presumably men, as it also reads ‘if you are enjoying the bachelor’s life and don’t have a little miss waiting on you...”. this completely contrasts to how women would be ridiculed if they weren’t married, however, this advert seems to ‘praise’ the unmarried life for men.

This advert changes the gender roles around, so instead of the housewife being stuck in the kitchen it’s the husband. As well as this, it also gives the ‘if the roles were reversed’ response. I personally think that this modern version of the advert is important for today’s society as it completely contrasts from the ideal housewife picture.