Advertising: The representation of women in advertising
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)
Blog tasks: Representation 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 '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?
The notes from the lesson are below.
Jean Kilbourne: Killing us softly
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
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
Blog tasks: Representation 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 '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 proposes that since the mid 1990s, promoting has progressively utilized pictures in which sex and sexual direction of the subjects are extraordinarily equivocal.
2) What kinds of female stereotypes were found in advertising in the 1940s and 1950s?
Not long after 1945, ladies were made to feel remorseful by alerts of the 'hazardous results to the home' that had started to course. Taking a gander at ladies' magazines during the 1950s, Betty Friedan (1963) claims this prompted the making of the 'ladylike persona': 'the most noteworthy esteem and the main genuine responsibility for ladies lies in the satisfaction of their own gentility. Ladies started winding up more typified.
3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of women in advertising?
3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of women in advertising?
The expanding impact of garments and make-up changed the portrayal of ladies in publicizing since it demonstrated that the ladies were just in the adverts for the manner in which they looked. On the off chance that they were pretty they'd be exhibited in the advert.
4) Which theorist came up with the idea of the 'male gaze' and what does it refer to?
4) Which theorist came up with the idea of the 'male gaze' and what does it refer to?
Laura Mulvey's (1975) hypothesis of the 'male look' is significant here; she battles that scopophilia (the fundamental human sexual drive to take a gander at other individuals) has been 'sorted out' by society's man centric meaning of
5) How did the representation of women change in the 1970s?
5) How did the representation of women change in the 1970s?
Looking as a male action, and being taken a gander at as a female 'detachment'. Male power implies that any social portrayal of ladies is developed as a scene with the end goal of male voyeuristic delight.
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?
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 should be 'free, sure and self-assured, discovering fulfillment in the realm of work and amusement, looking for energy, experience and satisfaction'
Additionally, Barthel takes note of that 'the present young ladies can effectively storm the bastions of male power... without undermining their male partners' giving we can promise them that, underneath the suit, we are still 'all lady',
Christian Dior make-up to make themselves explicitly alluring - and that her sexuality is for her own satisfaction. Richard Dyer in any case, guarantees that such pictures are something of a distortion of ladies' freedom: [advertising] offices attempting to oblige new [feminist] demeanors in their battles, frequently overlook what's really important and compare "freedom" with a sort of forceful sexuality and a very unliberated hesitant hotness'
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?
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?' crusade propelled by Protein World highlighted a tanned, blonde female in a full-frontal posture.
2) Why was it controversial?
It created so much debate since it made ladies consider their figures.
3) What did the adverts suggest to audiences?
3) What did the adverts suggest to audiences?
The advert recommended that ladies' body ought to be in a particular shape to look decent.
Buyers differ however, as appeared by the sticker put on the model's stomach. At the point when individuals started to crusade against the blurb's chauvinist depiction, a change.org appeal marked by 71,000 encouraged the ASA to bring the adverts down. A few dissenters reacted outwardly by presenting by the advert in their swimming outfits, to offer an increasingly reasonable portrayal of ladies' bodies.
The crusade includes genuine ladies with genuine collections everything being equal and ages. Pigeon made an intuitive Ad Makeover battle that place ladies accountable for the notices, where they themselves would pick what they saw as delightful, not the publicists.
6) How has social media changed the way audiences can interact with advertising campaigns?
The crusade utilized a FBI-prepared sketch craftsman to draw ladies twice – first dependent on their own self observation, and afterward dependent on that of an outsider. The results showed that the outsiders' depictions were both more alluring and more precise than the ladies' very own recognitions, proposing that ladies are regularly harsh of their appearances, and unfit to see their own excellence. The battle brought about 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 connection to Stuart Hall's gathering hypothesis, the predominant perusing of these contextual analyses would be that ladies would require the definite figure as appeared in the promotion so as to look great.
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?
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 portrayal of ladies has not changed and till this day ladies are as yet being externalized. Besides, they're regularly appeared in notices/magazines to show of their figures.
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