Representation: Woman 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?

Advertising has increasingly used images where gender and sexual orientation are become the subject of attention to viewers

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. Looking at women's magazines in the 1950s, Betty Friedan believes this led to the birth of the 'feminine mystique'. The highest good is keeping house and raising children.

3) How did the increasing influence of clothes and make-up change representations of 

women in advertising?

Women portrayed as decorative objects

4) Which theorist came up with the idea of the 'male gaze' and what does it refer to?

Laura Mulvey says that the basic human sexual drive to look at other human beings of looking as a male activity and females and being looked at as a female 'passivity'. Social Media created by men, for men.

5) How did the representation of women change in the 1970s?

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', a incredibly different perspective on woman compared to the past.

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 ability of these images to undermine traditional female stereotypes is superficial. 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'. In other words, that there is no real threat to male power.

Barthel states 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". Male power is not at threat.

8) What does Richard Dyer suggest about the 'femme fatale' representation of women in adverts such as Christian Dior make-up?

The images are a misrepresentation of women's liberations. We are left with women who tries to construct herself as a spectacle and is willing to be a co-conspirator of men's sexual advances and believes that she is 'free' as she does so.

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?

It was a campaign clearly courting the female market into looking their best for the beach this summer. The advert was arguably aimed first and foremost at the male gaze but the question was definitely designed for women as it makes people think that they have to look like the woman in the advert, which goes against modern society's idea of body positivity.

2) What was the Dove Real Beauty campaign?

The campaign shows women with different body types, different ages and races. Dove created an interactive Ad makeover campaign that allowed women to be in charge, allowing their insight on what is genuinely beautiful, and not just advertisers.

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

The Beach Bodies advert caused 71000 people to sign a petition to take the advert down. This became more extreme as protestors took to social media and began posing next to the advert in their bikinis to offer a more realistic view on women's bodies.

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

Van Zoonen's theory suggests that media products represent the female body as spectacle, this is displayed in the Beach Bodies advert where the woman in the bikini takes the pose that can be considered a sexual come-on.

Stuart Hall's reception theory suggests that media texts contain a variety of messages that are encoded by producers and then decoded by audience which can be linked to Beach Bodies as they take advantage of the Male Gaze in order to attract an audience

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?

I agree that it has changed as before, the representation of women would be housewife, or a low level worker. Nowadays, it's now become more about women positivity and women having more power and superiority. Even if the change is little, it has changed.