The following tasks are challenging - some of the reading is university-level but this will be great preparation for the next stage in your education after leaving Greenford. Create a new blogpost called 'Representation of women in advertising' and work through the following tasks.
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?
Mistry suggests that since the mid 1990s, advertising has increasingly employed images in which gender and sexual orientation of the subjects are markedly ambiguous.
2) What kinds of female stereotypes were found in advertising in the 1940s and 1950s?
Soon after 1945, women were made to feel guilty by warnings of the 'dangerous consequences to the home' that had begun to circulate. 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. Women begun becoming more objectified.
3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of women in advertising?
The increasing influence of clothes and make-up changed the representation of women in advertising because it showed that the women were only in the adverts for the way they looked. If they were pretty they'd be presented in the advert.
4) Which theorist came up with the idea of the 'male gaze' and what does it refer to?
Laura Mulvey's (1975) theory of the 'male gaze' is important here; she contends that scopophilia (the basic human sexual drive to look at other human beings) has been 'organised' by society's patriarchal definition of
looking as a male activity, and being looked at as a female 'passivity'. Male power means that any social representation of women is constructed as a spectacle for the purpose of male voyeuristic pleasure.
5) How did the representation of women change in the 1970s?
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).
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?
The New Woman was supposed to be 'independent, confident and assertive, finding satisfaction in the world of work and recreation, seeking excitement, adventure and fulfillment'
7) What does Barthel suggest regarding advertising and male power?
Similarly, 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',
Christian Dior make-up to make themselves sexually attractive - and that her sexuality is for her own enjoyment. 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 unliberated coy sexiness'
Media Magazine: Beach Bodies v Real Women (MM54)
Now go to our Media Magazine archive and 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?
The 'Are You Beach Body Ready?' campaign launched by Protein World featured a tanned, blonde female in a full-frontal pose.
2) Why was it controversial?
It generated so much controversy because it caused women to think about their figures.
3) What did the adverts suggest to audiences?
The advert suggested that women's body should be in a specific shape to look nice.
4) How did some audiences react?
Consumers chose to disagree though, as shown by the sticker placed on the model’s stomach. When people began to campaign against the poster’s sexist portrayal, a change.org petition signed by 71,000 urged the ASA to take the adverts down. Some protesters responded visually by posing next to the advert in their bikinis, to offer a more realistic depiction of women’s bodies.
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.
6) How has social media changed the way audiences can interact with advertising campaigns?
The campaign employed an FBI-trained sketch artist to draw women twice – first based on their own self perception, and then based on that of a stranger. The outcomes demonstrated that the strangers’ descriptions were both more attractive and more accurate than the women’s own perceptions, suggesting that women are often hyper-critical of their appearances, and unable to see their own beauty. The campaign resulted in upwards of four billion PR and blogger media hits.
7) How can we apply van Zoonen's feminist theory and Stuart Hall's reception theory to these case studies?
In relation to Stuart Hall's reception theory, the dominant reading of these case studies would be that women would need the exact figure as shown in the advertisement in order to look good.
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?
I think the representation of women has not changed and till this day women are still being objectified. Furthermore, they're often shown in advertisements/magazines to show of their figures.
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