Feminism doesn't sell...yet

        Picture your ideal woman. Do you imagine a pretty face, beautiful dress and flawless hair?  What you may forget to consider is a vibrant personality, powerful attitude and the well-nature of a person. These are qualities commonly associated as part of the ‘package deal.” What scares me is that they are perceived so minimal, insignificant, and temporary, associated to the whole image of beauty. The physical attributes of women are represented most prominently by models that exemplify these values of themselves most.  “Through advertising, the face becomes a mask (something you put on) and the body becomes an object” (Cortese 55).

        Let’s say you take off your make-up for a second, put on your fat pants or God forbid, get old! You’re undesirable now? There is a constant struggle for women to reach an unattainable goal of perfection.  And the more effort a woman puts into attempting to reach a desirable portrait of beauty will reflect in a depressive state encountered by anyone who is unsuccessful.   Ads for Covergirl portrayed cosmetic privileges for women who suddenly became insecure people without this very mask to shield them.  This negative affect on women increased revenue in stores but at the cost of every woman reliant on their product.  And it is because society accepts that, for which it continues. The message promoted by advertising campaigns is extremely detrimental to how our society thinks as a whole more so than the individual gain from the use of their product.  That’s the point.  You would think it gets redundant, people looking sexy to promote a false hope, but it doesn’t.  As long as people continue to support and accept these images, consumerism will last.  The feminist movement challenged beauty industries exposing the “beauty myth.” Unsuccessfully, they were countered by an increase in commercial beauty images exposed to women across the world. 

        “While the masculine gender role is valued, the feminine counterpart is disregarded or devalued”(Cortese, 53) If you open up the front page of a Sports Illustrated Magazine geared towards men the image of a woman in a bathing suit appears on the cover page.  This is the image associated with their magazine although the woman is completely irrelevant to any of the articles concerning sports news since it is a sports magazine, not a fashion magazine.  “Women are mere “beauties” in men’s culture so that culture can be kept male” (Wolf, 59).

        The Super Bowl is notorious for selling the idea of women as sex objects attracted to materialist products. Again, in a market that appeals to men, women are used as bait to pleasure the male experience during the game.  This is a representation of our culture wherein ”men look at women, and women watch themselves being looked at” (Wolf, 58) Unfortunately, some women embrace this by taking advantage of these self-exploiting opportunities, like working at Hooters, a low-class restaurant often conveniently mistaken for a show girls joint.  Women who work here are selling food, but what is more attractive to the customers are not the items on the menu.  Women exploit their sexual appeal to make an honest living but in doing so they completely disregard themselves as more than objects and they misrepresent the worldwide perception of women.  In addition, ads that depict women working at Hooters also convey a very specific type of woman, light-skinned, blonde, tan, curvy and white.  It is very rare that you will find a black woman representing Hooter’s. This corporation is distributing the notion that a white woman is more desirable than a black woman.  Is that why Beyonce keeps getting lighter? “The perfect provocateur is not human; rather, she is a form or hollow shell representing a female figure.  Accepted attractiveness is her only attribute. She is slender, typically tall and long legged” (Cortese, 54) That superficial appeal to look beautiful and empty almost like this desirable attraction set in stone for women. Maybe not, the kid’s doll, Barbie, which emulates physical proportions of an unrealistic body type consequentially seeps into the subconscious of the child who interacts with the doll and subsequently, they attach this as an important value to themselves.

 

        Women’s magazines for over a century have been one of the most powerful agents of changing women’s roles, and throughout that time-today more than ever-they have consistently glamorized whatever the economy, their advertisers, and, during wartime, the government, needed at that moment from women” (Wolf, 64).  Yes, now the very advertisers that promoted self-consciousness and insecurities since existence, are presenting alternative representations that provide a healthier and more optimistic approach the way women see themselves and to even how men do.  Covergirl, a product that sells “cover-up” of all companies was one to promote self-confidence in women in a #GirlsCan campaign which conflicts with every other message they have delivered before to “sell” confidence. Always, a pads company, demonstrated the truth about adult perceptions of themselves, more specifically women, and then astounds the viewers with the contrast to little girls showing us how a real woman acts.  The most awakening scene in this #likeagirl campaign is that little girls thinks higher of themselves than they tend to after puberty.  This advertising strategy outlines that there are many things that need fixing in the media and the way in which this ad was distributed was during the Super Bowl, the most testosterone based atmosphere.  Even in media when we see role reversal themes we realized how engraved in minds some of these stigmas can go. The more media we see delivering messages portraying women like they rightfully should, the higher regards we will have for these messages in accepting them as true as we perceived advertisements.