Advertising: The representations of women in advertising

 Blog tasks: Representations of women in advertising

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 'Representations 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?

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.

2) What kinds of female stereotypes were found in advertising in the 1940s and 1950s?

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. Thus advertising 'was calculated to focus attention on their domestic role, reinforce home values and perpetuate the belief that success as a woman, wife and mother could be purchased for the price of a jar of cold cream, a bottle of cough syrup, of a packet of instant cake- mix'

3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of women in advertising?

There was also a second major area of expansion in production/consumption - clothes and make-up - which led to women being increasingly portrayed as decorative (empty) objects (Winship, 1980:8; Busby & Leichty, 1993:258).

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. Mulvey discusses this in relation to the narrative conventions of cinema, but it has been noted that she 'provided a theoretical framework

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). 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' (Cagan, 1978:8). 

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 is superficial. At the level of content analysis, the roles that women take on in these advertisements appear to be progressive (the employee, the active woman); however, with a more semiological approach, van Zoonen asserts that the New Woman 'only departs marginally from her older, more traditional sisters.'

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 unliberated coy sexiness' (1982:186).

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 and why was it controversial?

The PR team were clearly courting the female market (19-30) into looking their best for the beach this summer. The advert – featuring a tanned, blonde female in a full-frontal pose – generated so much controversy that in July 2015 the UK’s Advertising Standards. 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.

2) 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.

3) How has social media changed the way audiences can interact with advertising campaigns? 

Social media has given audiences an outlet to share their frustrations regarding the advertising campaigns with others which can lead to the company who created the campaign getting boycotted by the consumers as they don't agree with the ideals and beliefs the company is promoting but this depends on the advert and how audiences take the text as oppositional or preferred reading.  

4) How can we apply van Zoonen's feminist theory and Stuart Hall's reception theory to these case studies?

According to Stuart halls theory for protein World ‘Beach Body’ advert  this is oppositional reading as the audience got the wrong idea of what the producers meant and it didnt mean to offend them or body shame them to look like a certain way but thats the idea they got from the advert. However the Dove advert is preferred reading as it was very succesful 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, and was much praised.

5) 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?

Yes I think the representations have changed in the last 60 years especially linking to the feminism waves and the 4th wave we are in right know which representation of women  in early 2010s and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and intersectionality