Blog tasks: Representation of women in advertising
Blog tasks: Representation of women in advertising
Advertising: The representation of women in advertising
Start by watching her Ted Talk…
The representation of women in advertising is a vital area of study. We need to be able to discuss how representations have changed and apply these ideas to both unseen advertisements and our CSPs.
The notes from the lesson are below.
Jean Kilbourne: Killing us softly
Activist and cultural theorist Jean Kilbourne has been studying the image of women in advertising for over 40 years. Her series ‘Killing us softly’ highlighted the negative representation of women in advertising.
She went on to make further documentaries studying this issue and whether it was changing over time.
Liesbet van Zoonen: Feminist Media Studies
Liesbet van Zoonen was one of the first theorists to explicitly link gender, feminism and media studies. Writing since the 1990s, van Zoonen is a key figure in third wave feminism alongside theorists such as Butler and McRobbie.
Looking specifically at the representation of women in advertisements in the 1970s and 80s, van Zoonen questioned how much things had really changed. For example, women in adverts may be shown to have jobs but their appearance was usually still the vital element.
Liesbet van Zoonen: third wave feminist
Like McRobbie, van Zoonen was interested in the pleasures female audiences took from the women’s magazines that were heavily criticised by more radical 1970s-style feminists.
In a similarity with Butler, van Zoonen sees gender as negotiated and dependent on social and historical context. She wrote the meaning of gender is a “discursive struggle and negotiation, the outcome having far-reaching socio-cultural implications.” (van Zoonen, 1994)
Liesbet van Zoonen: constructing meanings
Van Zoonen also built on Stuart Hall’s reception theory with regards to how gender representations communicate their meanings to audiences. She suggested the media’s influence in constructing gender is dependent on:
•Whether the institution is commercial or public
•The platform (print/broadcast/digital)
•Genre (e.g. drama/news/advertisement)
•Target audience
•How significant the media text is to that audience
Academic reading: A Critical Analysis of Progressive Depictions of Gender in Advertising
Read these extracts from an academic essay on gender in advertising by Reena Mistry. This was originally published in full in David Gauntlett's book 'Media, Gender and Identity'. Then, answer the following questions:
1) How does Mistry suggest advertising has changed since the mid-1990s?
Since the mid-1990s, advertising has increasingly employed images in which the gender and sexual orientation of the subject(s) are markedly (and purposefully) ambiguous. As an ancillary to this, there are also a growing number of distinctly homosexual images - and these are far removed from depictions of the camp gay employed as the comic relief elsewhere in mainstream media. This essay is concerned with providing a critical analysis as to the potential of such depictions to undermine conventional gender role stereotypes and the norm of heterosexuality that dominate advertising and the media at large. empowering LGBT
2) What kinds of female stereotypes were found in advertising in the 1940s and 1950s?
At the same time, women were suffering their own identity crisis. Prior to the war, feminists had been articulating the idea of women having their own plans and careers; but soon after 1945, women were made to feel guilty by warnings of the 'dangerous consequences to the home' that had begun to circulate (Millum, 1975:73). Looking at women's magazines in the 1950s, Betty Friedan (1963) claims this led to the creation of the 'feminine mystique': 'the highest value and the only real commitment for women lies in the fulfilment of their own femininity.
3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of women in advertising?
Though she is sensual, she 'is meant to live as in fairy-tale stupor. She waits to be awakened - sexually, emotionally, even intellectually - by her prince'.
4) Which theorist came up with the idea of the 'male gaze' and what does it refer to?
Laura mulvy
From the mid-1970s there was a proliferation of distinct images that became labelled as the 'New Woman', and that were seen as representative of the 'changing reality of women's social position and of the influence of the women's movement' (van Zoonen, 1994:72). The New Woman was supposed to be 'independent, confident and assertive, finding satisfaction in the world of work and recreation, seeking excitement, adventure and fulfilment' (Cagan, 1978:8). Giving women more power
6) Why does van Zoonen suggest the 'new' representations of women in the 1970s and 1980s were only marginally different from the sexist representations of earlier years?According to Liesbet van Zoonen, however, the ability of these images to undermine traditional female stereotypes which is superficial.
7) What does Barthel suggest regarding advertising and male power?
Barthel notes that 'today's young women can successfully storm the bastions of male power... without threatening their male counterparts' providing we can reassure them that, underneath the suit, we are still 'all woman', that 'no serious gender defection has occurred' (Barthel, 1988:124-125; Davis, 1992:50). In other words, that there is no real threat to male power.
8) What does Richard Dyer suggest about the 'femme fatale' representation of women in adverts such as Christian Dior make-up?
Richard Dyer however, claims that such images are something of a misrepresentation of women's liberation: '[advertising] agencies trying to accommodate new [feminist] attitudes in their campaigns, often miss the point and equate "liberation" with a type of aggressive sexuality and a very unelaborated coy sexiness' (1982:186). Thus, all we are really left with is a woman who continues to construct herself as a spectacle and, just like the innocent maiden, is presented as a willing co-conspirator of men's sexual advances - and worse, believes she is 'liberated' in doing so.
Now go to our Media Magazine archiveand read the feature on Protein World's controversial 'Beach Bodies' marketing campaign in 2015. Read the feature and answer the questions below in the same blogpost as the questions above.
1) What was the Protein World 'Beach Bodies' campaign?
Launched in Spring 2015 on London Underground, the PR team were clearly courting the female market (19-30) into looking their best for the beach this summer.
Although we understood the claim,'Are you beach body ready?’ invited readers to think about their figures, we did not consider the image of the model would shame women who had different body shapes into believing they needed to take a slimming supplement to feel confident wearing swimwear in public.
3) What did the adverts suggest to audiences?
It suggested to the female audience that they had to be as slim/skinny as the women promoting.
5) What was the Dove Real Beauty campaign?
The campaign features real women with real bodies of all races and ages. Dove created an interactive Ad Makeover campaign that put women in charge of the advertisements, where they themselves would choose what they saw as beautiful, not the advertisers. The campaign’s mission is to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety.
7) How can we apply van Zoonen's feminist theory and Stuart Hall's reception theory to these case studies?
8) Through studying the social and historical context of women in advertising, do you think representations of women in advertising have changed in the last 60 years?
Media Magazine: Beach Bodies v Real Women (MM54)
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