SC2220: Gender StudiesGender and Popular Culture

Dr. Eric C. Thompson

In this Lecture…

• Gender and Advertising

• Variation in Standards of Beauty

• Why do standards of beauty seem to impact women more than men?

“Killing Us Softly”:Gender and Advertising

“Real Beauty”

• Dove “Real Beauty” Campaign

• Revolutionary?• Shock/Difference =

Attention = Interest = Sales = $$$$

• And still . . . “Advertising involves selling us things we did not know we needed to solve problems we did not know we had.”

Shaping Possibilities• Brittney Spears Pepsi Ad Campaign• Influence on Clothing Styles• In mass market, clothing choices are

determined by producers as much as by consumers.

• Low-cut jeans become the norm (and the only thing available in stores).

• How many people choose to wear clothes other than those available in shops?

Masculinity and Advertising• “Instruction Manual” & “structure of

appropriate behavior”• Advertising exaggerates male status-

seeking (as ‘what women want’) and female beauty & sexuality (as ‘what men want’)

• Men who view beautiful models are less satisfied and less committed to current partner.

• Women who listen to stories about successful men are less satisfied with current partner.

Men and Women in Advertising

• Content Analysis of Advertising general shows the following:

• Men as “expert” voiceover announcer on all types of products

• Men overrepresented numerically

• Women younger, shorter, more likely secondary role

• Women more often a smaller % of image

Content Analysis of Advertising (Continued…)

• Men less often in family role; if dads then less often with daughters or infants

• Women more likely appear unemployed or in “pink collar” job; men are shown in all jobs (especially occupations with authority).

• Men more often give advice, women receive advice

• Ads selling to women more often focus on appearance; those selling to men focus on status.

A Pop Culture Critique of Pop Culture…

Pink

“Stupid Girls”

Second & Third Wave Feminism

• Pink “Stupid Girls”– “Second Wave” Feminism– Rejection of “Emphasized” Femininity– Gain Power through Competing with Men (“What

happened to the dream of a girl President…”)

• Spice Girls “Wannabe”– “Third Wave” Feminism– Assume Equality/Status as a Given– Gain Power through leveraging Femininity and

Sexuality (“If you want to be my lover, you got to give…” i.e. you get sex if you do what I want you to do.)

Cultural Differences inImages of Beauty

• Some aspects of beauty are consistent across cultures (e.g.):– Symmetry– Waist-to-Hip Ratio (.70)– Indicate Health, Fertility

• Many others are not.• Why do standards of

beauty vary widely in different societies and cultures?

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640): Set the standard of “Rubenesque” beauty.

Mauritania Fat-Farms:Force Fed Beauty

Radically Different Images of Beauty: But Equally Extreme

• Correlation between Body Image and Status

• If little food is available, fatness is a display of wealth and high social status.

• If food is abundant, thinness is a display of discipline and leisure time to exercise and high social status.Anorexia = Beauty

Obesity = Beauty

Skin Deep Beauty• Agricultural societies:

– Dark skin = Working Outdoors = Low Social Status– Light skin = Staying Indoors = High Social Status

• Industrial societies:– Dark skin = Leisure Outdoors = High Social Status– Light skin = Working Indoors (factory/office) = Low Social Status

• Racism: White = European = Wealth = High Social Status

Skin Whitening Products Skin Tanning Products

Influence of Mass Popular Culture

• Mass popular culture = greater body image pressure.

• Introduction of television correlated with increased emphasis on body image cross-culturally.

• Societies without mass media are much less obsessed with body image. (e.g. Shostak 1981, Nisa)

Objectification of Women• Why are women’s bodies objectified and not men’s?

(or women’s bodies more so than men’s)• Thesis 1: Men control advertising firms; they choose

to display women as sex objects (for their gratification and to perpetuate male power over women).

• Thesis 2: Heterosexual dynamics are such that women are a sexual commodity in ways that men are not (there is a “market” for women’s sexuality; but not much of one for men’s).

• The two theses are not mutually exclusion; evidence exists to support both.

Men Don’t Seem to Need a“Real Beauty” Campaign

Cultural, Social, Biological

• Popular Culture: Images teach us how to be men, women, gendered beings

• Social Organization: Different social-economic organization (agricultural, industrial; scarcity, abundance) influences cultural representations of high and low status

• Heterosexual Chemistry/Dynamics: Inclines women to be Sex Objects more so than men.