Advertisers' Moral Duty in Avoiding Stereotypes

Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people? Justify your position. 

It really comes down to the role advertisers play in our society. Advertisements are, in a way, a reflection of our society's views. This is because these advertisers usually observe the values and traditions we hold socially and culturally, and then reinforce them through advertisement in order to cater well to their audience. 

But it is important to consider that as they are reinforcing these old beliefs into newer and newer demographics over time, they are in a way impacting our society as well. It's almost like a never-ending loop. 

So to come back to questioning whether they do have a moral duty, yes, they do. It is morally and ethically right for them to realize that stereotyping people almost always leads to a negative consequence and can be detrimental to a person's self-image. These stereotypes are also untrue most of the times, and tends to confine people into certain categories when in reality, we are all different. Sometimes, they can even lead to psychological issues such as anorexia nervosa or depression.

But the real question is, do they need to care about this moral duty? These advertisers need a set target audience and so they need to confine people to certain categories and roles. They also would want to target people's insecurities in order to encourage others to want to buy their product, for example the beauty industry. While it would be morally good, not all of these advertisers would care about it unless they themselves see the importance in being true and ethical. 

The only way we can force advertisers to be morally good is to boycott them. When we as a society decide that our current values and traditions are not very morally good or unnecessary, we must stand up and refuse to support such advertisers and encourage them instead to have a more inclusive target audience. Instead of categorizing toys for boys and girls, the toys can just be targeted towards children, and we also a society must be accepting towards boys wanting to play with dolls and girls wanting to play with trucks.