Download - Sc2220 Lecture 6 2009
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SC2220: Gender StudiesGender and Popular Culture
Dr. Eric C. Thompson
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In this Lecture…
• Gender and Advertising
• Variation in Standards of Beauty
• Why do standards of beauty seem to impact women more than men?
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“Killing Us Softly”:Gender and Advertising
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“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.”
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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?
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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.
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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
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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.
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A Pop Culture Critique of Pop Culture…
Pink
“Stupid Girls”
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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.)
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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.
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Mauritania Fat-Farms:Force Fed Beauty
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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
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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
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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)
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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.
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Men Don’t Seem to Need a“Real Beauty” Campaign
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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.