I rarely watch TV, preferring instead to use my free time in the evenings to read. Recently, however, my twelve-year-old daughter asked me to join her for a much-hyped episode of one of her favorite shows, American Idol. I broke with routine and joined her and a bowl of sweet-salty popcorn on our lumpy leather couch. During commercials, the network repeated a Victoria’s Secret advertisement that had aired just minutes earlier, showcasing the underwear company’s latest—and it seems endless—line of colorful pushup bras. As we watched the stick, scantily clad models parade onscreen for public consumption, my daughter turned to me, her face tight with disgust, and asked, “Why would women do that?”
I did my best to explain how the majority of women are conditioned now to want to be skinny, booby, and sexual, so as to cater to male desire—women as the subject of the male gaze and the object of male gratification. “Like we’re things, for men?” my daughter said, her face twisted into deeper lines and furrows. “Well …” I said. Ever since, I can’t get her horror out of my head. I feel shaken out of my own numbness to the persistent sexism in advertising, and beyond. As the mother of two young daughters, the portrayal of women in popular culture has since weighed heavily and taken on greater urgency. I worry at the terrible messages our culture tells my two daughters, and girls and women everywhere.
The other night, during dinner, my daughter returned to our discussion of women in advertising. She had since noticed that women rarely spoke in TV ads and when they sometimes did it was usually to say something silly. “As if we have nothing worth saying,” she said. “Women in ads seem like they have no insides,” she continued. My daughter also noted that while the women in the Victoria Secret’s ads were at least modeling the merchandise for sale, there are countless other ads where women in bikinis are used to sell everything from yogurt to burgers to cars. Manufacturers don’t even pretend at any correlation between their product and the sexualized female(s) populating commercials. In cultivating consumerism, advertisers overwhelmingly appeal to male desire and businesses pour billions of currency every year into sexist advertising to titillate viewers and make us spend. A glance at these especially grievous 1960s ads below speaks to the history of guyism in advertising.
Most would argue we’ve come a long way toward gender equality in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced we’ve come all that far. Look how right now in our country women have to fight anew for access to contraception, the right to choose, and control over our own bodies and health.
The following image and a related article were published in Maxim magazine in just 2003.
Even a cursory exploration of contemporary culture testifies to the ongoing and widespread debasement of women and the glorification of male dominance. Where once the misogyny in popular culture reinforced male dominance through representations of men commandeering the pubic sphere and women relegated to the home, contemporary representations have merely recapitulated male dominance and now, perhaps more than ever, men are portrayed as predator and aggressor and women as sexualized, objectified victim. Once upon a time, myth and story held up a mirror to the culture and told it about itself. More and more now, the media is the mirror and our reflections there, the stories of ourselves, are terrible and treacherous.
Along with millions of other companies, the fast food chain, Carl’s Jr., knows full well the value of women as sexual objects to sell their product. The wild popularity of the fast food chain’s now-famous swimsuit ads speaks volumes.
Carl’s Jr. isn’t worried viewers will object to the eroticism and guyism of their advertisements, but trust male viewers will go right on conflating their desire for the woman with their desire for the burger. Similarly, women will conflate our desire to look like the bikini-clad model with our desire for the food. Yes, it seems, we consumers really are that stupid. These ads glorify contemporary culture’s notions of youth, beauty, and desirability, and they not only fuel our desires, but also further fuel our insecurities. The majority of us don’t see true representations of ourselves in ads and the popular culture and we flip-flop between feasting on the burger to indulge and console ourselves, a ‘what the hell I’m never going to have a bikini body, might as well enjoy myself’ mentality, or we temporarily shun the burger and rush out to buy aids and enhancements that will supposedly get us closer to the ‘perfect’ body. When such efforts fail, we return to the burger and all its imagined comfort and promise. Often, too, we eat the burger to punish ourselves for failing. Meanwhile, Carl’s Jr. and capitalists everywhere are cackling like Macbeth’s witches.
During the same dinner conversation with my daughter, she also talked about how in ads showing both men and women, the man is always in charge. “Like the [Kia] car ad,” she said, “the one with the one man and the, like, thousands of women in bikinis.” Kia is just one of countless companies that use portrayals of male dominance and women’s ‘perfect’ bodies in bikinis to sell their product. In fact, we might infer Kia doesn’t quite believe in the desirability of the Optima 2012, they feel they need so many bodies in bikinis to sell the car.
Similarly, companies like Belvedere Vodka feed on the vanities, insecurities and power plays of contemporary culture. It seems the vodka empire felt so convinced of our complacency toward gender inequalities and offensive misogyny in advertising, they recently launched this ad on Twitter and Facebook, confident that it would boost sales.
The overt ad backfired, however, and sparked immediate controversy. Belvedere Vodka quickly removed the ad, issued apologies, and donated to the anti-sexual violence organization Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). It’s hard to articulate a measured response to Belvedere Vodka’s contemptuous advertisement and their subsequent petty posturing, and harder still to accept that not everyone is going to be disturbed.
To gloss over the Belvedere Vodka ad in particular, and misogyny in advertising in general, as no big deal is a gross mistake. To dismiss as ‘harmless’ less overt, but no less harmful, misogynistic ads is also misguided and deeply damaging. Manufacturers and marketers bet billions every year on the power of media and the sway their messages have over us. The Belvedere Vodka ad sends a chilling message of tired stereotypes and flagrant prescriptions: predatory male and powerless female victim. Where did Belvedere Vodka imagine the promise of pleasure integral to marketing exists in this ad? Men: you’re going to get the girl, however how. Women: the guy is going to get you, however how. With mixed emotions, I showed the Belvedere Vodka ad to my twelve-year-old daughter and asked her to imagine she was the man in the image and to tell me her thoughts. She said, “He seems excited and dangerous, and a little crazy. He’s stronger than the girl and he’s going to make her do whatever he wants her to do.” I then asked her to imagine she was the girl in the image and to tell me her thoughts. Interestingly, frightening, my daughter spoke in the first person. “I’m scared and I want to get away from this man, but I can’t, he’s stronger,” she said. “I know he’s going to hurt me. He’s going to make me do something bad.” Even now, as I type, my teeth are locked and my body stiff with anger. I’m furious popular culture sends girls and women everywhere these damning messages about how men supposedly look and act and how women supposedly look and act. It seems the majority of businesses are soulless peddlers pushing us to spend, at whatever costs.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t seem to think too much about the ads we’re fed over and over everyday and coming at us from radio, phones, magazines, billboards, TV, and the Internet—an oversaturation of sexist ads that disregard women’s minds and spirits, and glorify only the ‘perfect’ female body. Damning ads that send a disturbing message to girls and women that our value lies in our ‘beautiful’ bodies and our desirability to men. Overall, we are a society complacent about these ads that objectify the female body and glorify male desire and dominance. We shrug at these (mis)constructions and (mis)representations of femininity and masculinity, saying, sex sells. Our language and attitudes here are negligible. The media’s debasement of women and glorification of male desire fuel our consumerism and corrupt our society. To pull from my tween daughter’s popular vocabulary, “That just sucks.” Our views of ourselves, of men, women, and our bodies, are so horribly limiting. We need more real representations of both men and women in our media. We need a more encompassing, realistic, and forgiving reimagining of masculinity, femininity, and human beauty and value. The healthy human body is beautiful. My dilemma now is how to empower my daughters and myself to enjoy and celebrate our bodies and our sexuality without giving in to contemporary culture’s limiting and damning definitions of what it is to be a woman of worth.
26 responses
It disgusts me that I must accept the fact that we live in a Stanley Kowalski-sque and tart tongued society where nothing can be done but something should. The latter seems less an attempt.
It’s sad that this article is still relevant and necessary more than a decade into the twenty first century. With so many women believing that there is no need for the feminist movement and women now have some sort of mythical equality, it is important to continually reiterate how mainstream media has normalised demeaning females.
On a happier note I’m glad your daughter is smart to it, I worry about my own daughter when despite my own awareness of commercial manipulation I still find myself falling for it.
Thanks for this article. It’s a theme that keeps squaring my own mind this week, too, since a mail from a friend brought back the memory of the buzz here in about the first season of Germany’s Top Model while in contrast, there was this un-sanitized novel about a woman and her body turning into a bestseller: “Wetlands”. each was followed by discussions on the way women are portrayed, but then the tv-shows – and the advertising – just keep continuing season after season, like an neverending wallpaper.
Which makes articles like yours so important – to stop and take a closer look at the things that turned to be a part of our days.
PS: i also blogged about this, earlier this week, here: http://virtual-notes.blogspot.de/2012/06/taboo-books-i-sex-hygiene-buzz-novel.html
Hamlet’s witches, you say?
Even the ads that don’t objectify women sexually do nothing to portray us as strong, worthwhile individuals. Why is it that no one but a woman can make a freakin’ sandwich or use a mop? Women in ads are sexy, whiny, or the pack mules of family life. It can be very demoralizing. Thanks for bringing the issue to the forefront where it belongs.
I have to say that, as relevant as it may be to the article, it’s really jarring to see the lead graphic so blown up on the front page. If it were an older ad, I’d know right away that this was going to be a discussion about women as objects in advertising, but instead I just get the feeling that the picture is functioning in the same way it was originally intended – to hook people in. I almost thought it was a pop-up. Maybe that was the point? What does it mean that I was ready to believe I’d see an ad like that here?
Thanks for this article. It’s a theme that keeps squaring my own mind this week, too, when a mail from a friend brought back the memory of the buzz here in Germany about the first beauty-surgery-tv shows and the first season of Germany’s Top Model. each was followed by discussions on the way women are portrayed, but then the tv-show – and the advertising – just keep continuing season after season, like an neverending wallpaper.
Which makes articles like yours so important – to stop and take a closer look at the things that turned to be a part of our days.
(seems the first version of my post is still on hold, probably as it includes a relating link – didn’t realize that posts with links won’t be posted, even if they connect to the theme)
When my oldest daughter was about 14, I took her to our local community college to watch the documentary, “Still Killing Us Softly,” which was about this same topic. It’s pretty sad that in the years since that documentary was made things have actually gotten so much worse, rather than better. Great essay.
thanks ethel. pertinent and important stuff. nicely done. so sad that we’re spiraling backwards as a country…
There’s a great group working to address exactly these problems: Miss Representation. Excellent film to show your daughters. http://www.missrepresentation.org/
I understand how shoved down our throats advertising is, particularly in American culture. It’s unavoidable. It’s always there, as you say. It’s bound to weasel it’s way into our conscious and more dangerous still, our subconscious. But, I’m not offended by what I’m pretty sure is meant to be such over the top misogyny that it makes fun of the very notion that sex sells. A woman wallowing around in the back seat of a car at a drive-in with a burger is completely ridiculous. No one is thinking, “that chic is hot, I want a Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s burger right now so that I can emulate that!” I laugh at the absurdity of that commercial every time I see it. But then I have a kind of sick sense of humor, I guess. What’s more, advertising is the last place I would look to find models of humanity.
It is definitely troubling when we have to be constant watchdogs for our children to explain these subtleties of tongue in cheek advertising to them. As if we didn’t have to be watchdogs for enough already. My son is considerably younger than your daughter at five years old, so my dilemmas related to advertising are different. But even still, I have to explain that Dream Lights don’t make bedtime any more fun than the night light he already has plugged into his room. That advertising is something companies use to make their products appear favorable to make you want to buy them. That they make promises they can’t possibly keep in order to get your money. Ultimately, it’s our job as parents to make sure they can look at something like that objectively and say, “oh, that’s stupid, a half naked girl eating a burger like she’s making out with it. I’m not buying it.”
There are certainly marketing campaigns that miss the mark and completely overstep their bounds. Each person’s outrage will vary. I’m a woman who laughs at the absurdity of the Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s ads and the Dr. Pepper “it’s not for women” ads, but I couldn’t abide that vodka ad. There’s nothing funny about non-consensual anything, ever.
But ultimately, there are a lot of really important things out there to be outraged about and I can’t be bothered by most advertising. I’ll continue to breathe an exasperated sigh every time I have to talk my son down from some excited, regurgitated rant about whatever new toy or product he’s seen on television and how it will change our lives. If I had a daughter, I’d reminder her, with a hint of annoyance, that what she sees in ads on television and in magazines and on websites are not actual representations of real people but digitally enhanced mannequins. I’d make sure to tell her she’s beautiful constantly and in very specific ways to help combat the constant barrage of products which tell her she’s not good enough and here’s a new something-or-other to fix whatever she thinks is wrong with her. It’s irritating that we have to do this as parents, but it’s our job. And if it weren’t ads that were constantly challenging their self-worth, it would be something else. A bully at school, perhaps. An offhanded remark by a friend or relative. Anything really.
What’s more, if we take the time to hold our kids’ hands and direct them toward sources of real role models which will build them up rather than tear them down, I think everyone will be much better off. You’re doing a fantastic job with your daughter! She sounds like she’s engaged in the reality of it and not idolizing some unattainable and unhealthy beauty standard. Well done!
Ultimately, I think the energy I’d waste railing against advertising could be better spent by finding constructive sources of inspiration for my kid. The outrage is genuine and well founded, but at some point we have to stop blaming advertisers and take personal responsibility for raising well adjusted kids. We’ll never be able to protect them from everything in the world that can hurt them, so we have to equip them with the tools to fight their own battles. Self-esteem is easily the greatest of these tools.
Hamlet has been changed to Macbeth. Blame the managing editor.
Jean Kilbourne has been talking about this, amazingly enough, for almost 40 years.
See Killing Us Softly, among other great resources.
Here’s the most recent version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY
Thanks, All, for reading and weighing in. I flew yesterday from Dublin to San Francisco and apologize for my delayed response. Mea cupla also, F and Isaac, Hamlet had enough demons without my setting the witches on him also.
Sonja, the intention in including the ads was both to provide a visual body of evidence (excuse the pun) and to disturb. These ads should disturb, all too often though we are numb to these images and the damage they cause (much like traditional fairy tales) to girls’ psyche and our sense of self.
M.L. Hamilton, thank you for your considered response and your ongoing dialogue with your son to raise his awareness and broaden his worldview. Such discussions with our children and this next generation are critical. Sadly, too many are asleep to the worst of contemporary consumerism and culture and its fallout.
See how jet lagged and sleep deprived I am! I flew yesterday from San Francisco to Dublin! Sigh.
Do you know that you’re unconsciously praising “lady-like behaviorâ€, when being a lady is how males repress women? There is nothing wrong with being a Victoria’s secret model. I don’t listen to the parts of philosophy or religion that says sex, sexuality must be repressed or hidden, that sexuality is inherently bad. In fact sexuality is inherently great.
The fact that women can show so much skin is a protest against heterosexual male control over women. You say “that’s not real feminism because men will still use you and objectify.†Objectify men back! The real inequality is that men are not under the same sexual scrutiny than women. Men get away with a lot; they want the perfect woman but they’re not the perfect man, sometimes because money is the prioritized requirement.
Can you take the truth? I’m real. A person will always be objectfied, when objectification is like judgment. It happens all the time and you can’t stop it. The point is “stop worrying about minor objectifications because first of all there is nothing wrong, morally, celestially, with the human body. †Worry that people are starving, have no shelter, and are starving.
Sexuality empowerment is feminism that does not want the end of men, but the equality of women and men.
Books, with their emphasis on the internal life, contribute to valuing people for real reasons, as opposed to Facebook/TV/media, which present only people’s externals.
Still in the process of reading the article, but I’m trying to figure out if you actually meant this: “men commandeering the pubic sphere” or if it was supposed to be funny. Because it would totally work either way.
Although I agree with you there’s really nothing new offered here. Also, you constantly reference “popular culture” but talk only about advertising. Maybe that’s the biggest problem, mistaking one for the other. Advertising doesn’t dictate popular attitudes, it slavishly follows them. It relies on focus groups and market testing to determine what people will respond to, and then it gives them what they want. Also remember that with the exception of professional sports, television viewers are overwhelmingly female. These ads are not meant for the male gaze so much as the female reaction to that gaze. As Quentin Crisp said “Women don’t dress to impress men, they dress to annoy other women.” As long as women themselves cling to that the advertisers have no choice but to indulge them.
I think also we overemphasize the influence popular culture has on our self-image. Parents and families still remain the most powerful forces for shaping our personality but we put uneven emphasis on the more visible parts of culture, and mistake them for being more powerful. This of course is exactly what the advertising/media complex wants. The women’s magazines for example are constantly criticized for promoting unhealthy body images, yet they address those same issues in article after article because they know that controversy sells just as much as false concern, so why not be on both sides of the issue at once? It’s like reality television. We all hate the Kardashians, but the more we hate them the more we talk about them and the higher their ratings and influence rise. The sponsors and ad agencies always get to have it both ways then. Their only requirement is to not produce anything boring or easily ignored, and as long as sexual desire remains the powerful and inscrutable force it is it will always be used as a tool of influence.
There is also a fundamental misunderstanding of male sexuality that always informs discussions like this, and a similar misunderstanding of the methods of advertising. Men are evolutionarily predetermined to be if not predators, then at least sexual pursuers, even if it remains only in the realm of fantasy. This is true no matter one’s sexual orientation. Being horny all the time is not a character trait, nor is it especially a moral failing. It is a biological imperative. Getting turned on by a woman in a bikini is one thing, but it doesn’t suggest that a man devalues a woman, or considers her property or that she might be subject to rape or abuse. Advertising only reflects male desire, not behavior. It is the other institutions, religion mainly, that explicitly encourage social structures, economic, domestic, legal, that deny women self-determination. Men will always respond to sexualized imagery, and advertisers will always use it because it will always work. A truly empowered woman would recognize the power she has in her beauty and use it, as only one of her attributes of course, to her own ends.
Does your daughter think her Dad would abuse a woman because he’s seen a vodka ad? I doubt it. Her mom seems too smart to let her grow up without the mental acuity and sensitivity to know the difference. Maybe the solution lies in the first sentence of your essay. You rarely watch TV. We all have that same choice and perhaps we be better off to exercise it.
@M.L. Hamilton “But, I’m not offended by what I’m pretty sure is meant to be such over the top misogyny that it makes fun of the very notion that sex sells.”
It would be nice to think society has moved on, but it hasn’t. This “retro sexism” or “ironic sexism” is an attempt to have it both ways: to appeal to the creeps, and to amuse the people who think society has moved beyond that. No, the “creeps” are not conveniently “other” people living in the poor part of town – they are people you work with, socialize with and trust. I strongly recommend reading “Meet the Predators” to help understand who these people are:
https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
@Matty “Also remember that with the exception of professional sports, television viewers are overwhelmingly female. These ads are not meant for the male gaze so much as the female reaction to that gaze.”
This might be logical, but it is wrong. Both the shows and the advertisements still get targeted at men.
http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-women-cant-vote-with-their-dollars-in-film-and-tv/
@Matty “Men are evolutionarily predetermined to be if not predators, then at least sexual pursuers, even if it remains only in the realm of fantasy.”
Some creatures have evolved to maximize the number and range of their offspring. Humans can’t hope to compete. Can you outbreed a rabbit, mouse or mosquito? Newborn humans are among the most helpless creatures. Even after reaching physical maturity (which takes a whopping 20 years), we are feeble and squishy compared to most vertebrates. When we talk about “survival of the fittest”, the fittest humans are not the largest, strongest or most brutal.
What do we have that other creatures don’t? We have society. The fittest humans are the ones investing vast energy and resources into the success of the next generation. These can include some children of your own, but they don’t have to be – the human gene pool has passed through near-extinction at least once, leaving us very closely related even to people on the other side of the world.
I totally concede your point that advertising is horrible and demeaning to women, but my question at the end of most hand-wringing articles like this is: what do you propose we DO about it? Because just stating the facts isn’t enough; action is necessary. Any thoughts?
Here are a few: every time you see a misogynistic ad, find out who made it and send in a complaint to the company that designed it. Trash-talk the company on Twitter or your website for making such crap. Get your friends in on it. Send petitions. Get the FCC involved. Ever read Bitch or Bust? They’re always flagging ads that suck, and giving ’em hell. You can too. Don’t accept it, don’t be a victim–FIGHT BACK.
Also, anybody else got any bright ideas? Cus I’d sure love to hear ’em.
Ethel–
Great topic. I didn’t have time to read through all the other comments so I apologize if someone already mentioned this but you may want to check out Jean Kilbourne’s work. I read her first book over 20 years ago and it is still one of my favorites. Try to go hear her speak too–she gives presentations all over the world.
Also, there is a organization/group called About-Face based right in San Francisco that is dedicated to analysis of ads and taking action with regard to them–very interesting stuff. Their website is http://www.about-face.org.
It’s too bad more men don’t seem to care about these issues..
Thanks again, everyone, and please forgive my delayed response. I especially appreciate the various links and think “Miss Representation” should be mandatory viewing for all.
Agreed, Laura. My intention is writing this article is not to be judgmental, wring hands, or whine victim. It is opinion and questioning and the airing of not a little disgust. It is me taking the opportunity to raise my voice and hopefully give readers and consumers of both sexes pause. It’s amazing to me the mindlessness around our consumption of media and its problematic images, messages, prescriptions, and assumptions. Nora Ephron: “Above all be the heroine of your life not the victim.”
Roxane Gay wrote another excellent essay on her blog re Magic Mike, taboos, female desire, and the female gaze: http://www.roxanegay.com/full-archive-of-posts/
The quest for female empowerment and equality is both personal and political and means different things to different individuals. What’s most important, I think, is to keep raising awareness and our voices and keep an open dialogue going. Yes, absolutely, taboos around the female body and female desire should be lifted and our desire valued, respected, and cherished. It’s equality in all areas, including our bodies and physical desires, I’m after.
Ha, Ha, it’s just an ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTbv2-OF6Z8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I’m just glad that your daughter has somebody to look up to, somebody who is wise and aware of these issues. It’s profoundly depressing. I thought it was difficult growing up female in the 80s and 90s but it seems as if things have gotten even worse since then. Society has done a good job of convincing most of us those feminists in the 70s had a few things right–hey, we can work and even have our own bank accounts and even get birth control without our husband’s permission (for now, sigh)–but that the battle is over and everything became pretty equal in less than a generation, so anyone fighting for the rights of women today must be a bitter, jealous old man-hater. Couldn’t be further from the truth. We have a short memory as a society.
I just hope that people like “Matty” will educate himself on these issues and eventually recognize how self-serving and uninformed the arguments in his post were.
Grackle, thanks for reading and weighing in. It is exasperating that so many, both male and female, believe that gender inequality and the objectification of women are no longer issues. While I respect and appreciate Matty’s thoughtful contribution to the discussion, I am unimpressed by his assertions that negate the power and the damage of advertising. Advertisements and public consumption are mirrors onto ourselves and our culture. It’s a disturbing reflection.
I just returned from the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit here in San Francisco: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. Gaultier’s fashions are dedicated to subverting the prescriptions that imprison femininity and masculinity. His work tosses out the rules and rewrites what it is to be male and female. I would like to see the story of ourselves rewritten elsewhere too. I’m still digesting though how and if Gaultier confronts gender inequality.
My intention in this post is not to contribute to gender divisibility, to pit women against women, or to participate in the tired trope of the female body as battleground. This essay is rather my attempt at honest exploration and a call for inclusiveness and equality.
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