A few years back we featured a series of Playboy drawings from the 1960s and ’70s that trivialized the social movements of the time: feminism, the anti-war movement, native rights, and the civil rights movement. You should really go take a look; they’re something else.
In any case, Peter from Denmark sent in another example from the same time period. A 1970s JC Penney ad for pants; “slack power” is a reference to “Black power” and it’s no coincidence that an African American man is modeling. Notice, too, that it calls the pants “anti-establishment” in the bottom right.
While companies like Komen are getting a lot of critical attention these days for turning cancer awareness into consumption, this strategy has been around a long time.
For examples of appropriation of feminism, see these framing consumption of clothes, make-up, jewelry, cigarettes, magazines, and cosmetic procedures as expression of freedoms.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
