Gender & Advertising HW

For 13C to be completed by Tue 12.10...

Reading/Questions

After reading 'Gender in Advertising' (Gauntlett, from 'Media, Gender & Identity'...the link provides most of the book - read it!) and 'Sexism With an Alibi' (from 'The Guardian'), answer the following questions (on your blogs)...

1. What sort of images of women and men dominated advertising pre-1970s? Why was this the case?
2. How did the advertising of the 1970’s continue to perpetuate the stereotype of women, despite depicting women in a greater range of roles?
3. Can Gaye Tuchman’s quote regarding under-representation and the ‘symbolic annihilation of women’ still be applied in 21st Century advertising? If so, how?
4. Do you agree that adverts, such as those for the 1990’s Boots No. 7, ‘It’s not make-up. It’s ammunition.’ campaign, are post-feminist (thereby representing women as better than men?). Explain your answer.
5. Is the representation of women by the media accountable for the results of a survey in which ‘women were up to ten times more likely than men to be unhappy with their body image’?
6. Is the contemporary representation of men in advertising perhaps also a negative one where they too are treated as sex objects?

Research

Using YouTube, find the following and embed on your blogs...

1. THREE historical adverts (1950s-1970s) featuring women - one positive representation, one negative, and a third you find interesting (could be either)
2. THREE adverts featuring men - one historical, two contemporary (one of which treats men as sex objects)
3. A post-feminist advert (research this idea if you're unsure what it means)

For each one, provide a paragraph of textual analysis, explaining how it is positive or negative and why you think this is so.

Remember to include the gender keywords (below) where possible and try to make reference to the theorists and researchers in Gauntlett's article too...

Misogyny, Patriarchy, Self Objectification, Feminism, Post-Feminism, Voyeurism, Androgyny, Male Gaze (Mulvey), ISA/RSA (Althusser), Dominant/Subordinate, Content/Textual Analysis, Naturalisation, Myth (Barthes), 'Fourth Estate', Phallic Symbols, Fetishization, Hegemony, Abnormal/Deviant, Femme Fatale, Stereotype, 'Symbolic Annihilation' (Tuchmann), Sex/Gender