Advertising: The representation of women in advertising

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

Blog tasks: Representation of women in advertising

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 ambiguous. 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.

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

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. 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 fulfillment of their own femininity. The highest good is keeping house and raising children'. It was presupposed that women would be purchasing such goods for the household, 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?

A second major area of expansion in production/consumption - clothes and make-up - led to women being increasingly portrayed as decorative (empty) objects.

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'. 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'.

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?

Van Zoonen suggests the 'new' representations of women in the 1970s and 1980s were only marginally different from the sexist representations of earlier years because these images only undermined traditional female stereotypes by depicting it as superficial. Therefore, these women are being shown as more progressive by having a job, however in a more semiological approach.

7) What does Barthel suggest regarding advertising and male power?

Barthel highlights how 'today's young women can successfully storm the bastions of male power...without threatening their male counterparts' giving them assurance, underneath the suit they are still women, that 'no serious gender defection has occurred', so there is no 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?

Christian Dior make up advertisement make women feel as if they will be sexually attractive and that her sexuality will be for her own enjoyment if they purchase their make up - this interpretation is made through the way they use women in their advertisement and portray them to be sexual and confident.. However, Richard Dyer suggests that femme fatale images are something of a misinterpretation of women's liberation: 'Advertising agencies are trying to accommodate new feminist attitudes in their campaigns, often miss the point and equate of "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 this spring caused a real stir amongst the media and consumers. 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. 

2) Why was it controversial?

The advert – featuring a tanned, blonde female in a full-frontal pose – generated so much controversy for the image of the woman used that in July 2015 the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority waded in.

3) What did the adverts suggest to audiences?

The model in the advert looks simultaneously seductive and aggressive. The use of a slim model for a 'weight loss collection' screams out to the audience: "are you slim enough to walk around on a beach?".

4) How did some audiences react?

Some audiences reacted in extreme ways. One way was that two females stood in front of the poster wearing their bikini saying "How to get a bikini body, put a bikini on your body." Another way was that people protested-"grow your balls".

5) What was the Dove Real Beauty campaign?

The Dove Real Beauty campaign featured women of all races and ages with untouched, natural bodies - this was to show the beauty in imperfect bodies and real people. They created an interactive ad makeover campaign that put women in a dominant position, where they 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'.

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

Social media has changed the way audiences can react with advertising campaigns because it is a platform where people that can pass on their views and opinions, contradict the adverts. 

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

Van Zoonen's feminist theory can be applied to these case studies as she focuses on the portrayal of women in advertising - the sexualised images of women are used to promote and sell the brand. Van Zoonen sees gender as negotiated and dependent on social and historical context, she also built on a theory with regards to how gender representations communicate their meanings to audiences and the medias influence constructs gender, these images could be seen as offering the male gaze.

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?

Yes I think that throughout the last 60 years the representation of women has changed quite a lot but is still controversial.