Search results for sex sells

The 2017 Super Bowl was an intense competition full of unexpected winners and high entertainment value. Alright, I didn’t actually watch the game, nor do I even know what teams were playing. I’m referring to the Super Bowl’s secondary contest, that of advertising. The Super Bowl is when many companies will roll out their most expensive and innovative advertisements. And this year there was a noticeable trend of socially aware advertising. Companies like Budweiser and 84 Lumber made statements on immigration. Airbnb and Coca-Cola celebrated American diversity. This socially conscious advertising is following the current political climate and riding the wave of increasing social movements. However, it also follows the industry’s movement towards social responsibility and activism.

One social activism Super Bowl commercial that created a significant buzz on social media this year was Audi:

The advertisement shows a young girl soapbox racing and a voiceover of her father wondering how to tell her about the difficulties she is bound to face just for being female. This commercial belongs to a form of socially responsible advertising often referred to as femvertising. Femvertising is a term used to describe mainstream commercial advertising that attempts to promote female empowerment or challenge gender stereotypes.

Despite the Internet’s response to this advertisement with a sexist pushback against feminism, this commercial is not exactly feminist. While at its core this advertisement is sending a fundamentally feminist argument of gender equality and fair wages, it feels disempowering to have a man explain sexism. It feels a little like “mansplaining” with moments reminiscent of the male “savior” trope. There is also a very timid relationship between the fight for gender equality and the product being sold. The advertisement is attempting to associate Audi with feminist ideals, but the reality is that with no female board members Audi is not exactly practicing what they preach. There are many reasons why ‘femverstising’ in general is problematic (not including contested relationship between feminism and capitalism). Here I will point out three problems with this new trend of socially ‘responsible’ femvertising.

1. The industry

The advertising industry is not known for its diversity nor is it known for its accurate representation women. So right away the industry doesn’t instill confidence in those hoping for more socially aware and diverse advertising. The way advertising works is to promote a brand identity by drawing on social symbols that make products like Channel perfume a signifier of French sophistication and Marlboro cigarettes an icon of American rugged masculinity. Therefore companies are selling an identity just as much as the product itself, while corporations that employ feminist advertising are instead appropriating feminist ideologies.

They are appropriating not social signifiers of an idealized lifestyle, but rather the whole historical baggage and gendered experiences women. This appropriation at its core is not for social progress and empowerment, but to sell a product. The whole industry functions by using these identities for material gain. As feminism becomes more popular with young women, it then becomes a profitable and desirable identity to implement. The whole concept is against feminist ideology because feminism is not for sale. Using feminist arguments to sell products may be better than perpetuating gender stereotypes but it is still using these ideologies like trying on a new style of dress that can be taken off at night rather than embodying the messages of feminism that they are borrowing. This brings us to the next point.

2. Sometimes it’s the Wrong Solution

Lets consider Dove, the toiletries company that has gained a fair amount of notoriety for their social advertising and small-scale outreach programs for women and girls. Their advertisements are famous for endorsing the body positive movement. But in general the connection between female empowerment and what they actually sell is weak. Which makes it feel insincere and a lot like pandering. Why doesn’t Dove just make products that are more aligned with feminist ideologies in the first place? If feminist consumers are what they want, then make feminist products. Don’t try to just apply feminist concepts as an afterthought in hopes of increasing consumer sales.

Dove is a beauty company that is benefiting from products that are aimed at promoting a very gendered ideal of beauty. The company itself is part of the problem so its femvertising makes me feel like Dove (and their parent company Unileaver) is trying to deny that they are playing a huge role in the creation of these stereotypes that they are claiming to be challenging. If you want to really empower women then don’t just do it in your branding start with the products you are making, examine your business model, and challenge the industry as whole. Feminist concepts should run through the entire core of your business before you try to sell it to your consumers. We don’t need feminist advertising, we need a system that is not actively continuing to increase a gender divide where women are meant to be beautiful and expected to purchase the beauty products that Dove sells. Using feminist inspired advertising doesn’t solve this underlying core problem it just masks it. Femvertising therefore is often the wrong solution, or really not even a solution at all.

3. Femvertising shouldn’t have to be a term

We really shouldn’t be in a situation where all advertising is so un-feminist and so degrading towards women that there is a term for advertising that simply depicts women as powerful. When the bar is set so low we shouldn’t praise companies for doing the minimum required to represent women both accurately and positively. We should be holding our advertising, media, and all other forms of visual representation to much higher standards. Femvertising shouldn’t be a thing because we shouldn’t have to give a term to what responsible advertising agencies should be aiming for when they represent women.

So as to not leave you on a depressing and negative note, here are three advertisements that should be acknowledged for actively challenge the norms:

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Nichole Fernández is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Edinburgh specializing in visual sociology. Her PhD research explores the representation of the nation in tourism advertisements and can be found at www.visualizingcroatia.com. Follow Nichole on twitter here.

Originally posted at Scatterplot.

Olympic fever has hit! As we all marvel at the power, precision, and grace of the athletes, a more disturbing commentary has also emerged, one that diminishes women athletes’ accomplishments, defines them by the men around them, places them in tired tropes of sex objects, or infantilizes them as “girls.” Some journalists, in combination with a robust social media discussion, are calling this bad behavior out. But should we be so surprised?

According to past research, no. In our work, we see this as a more pervasive issue, and women’s collegiate coaching is a prime example. When Title IX was enacted in 1972 approximately 90% of women’s teams were coached by women; in 2014 that number dropped to 43%. Women comprise only 23% of head coaching positions. Why are women coaches – especially of women’s teams – being left out? We talked to 9 female and 12 male coaches of women’s and men’s teams and many of their own explanations suggest a view of fundamental and “natural” differences between men and women.

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Talking to Coaches… Gender Matters

In general, the qualities of sport – competition, confidence, physical strength, aggression – are seen as masculine, while characteristics of cooperation, passivity, and dependency are coded feminine, raising suspicions about women’s capacity to excel. Masculine dominance has helped to define the parameters of what it means to be a coach.

Interestingly, coaching may be seen as an example of conflicting masculine roles. Given the low pay and high time commitment, coaching undermines the traditional male family role as breadwinner. As this male head women’s tennis coach explains,

I’ve been kind of lucky… I didn’t feel like I had to make a certain amount of money, X amount of dollars to be happy. So I was ok with where I was at salary wise… I think that the key to that is having a wife that also works, and that we can still make it happen, and sort of live the way we want to live and be happy.

Many of the men echoed the idea that without a spouse’s support, a coaching career would be difficult. Although respondents all felt women opt out of coaching due to family pressures, none felt that men needed to opt out to support their families. Arguably, the relationship between masculinity and athletics provides men with the social compensation necessary to remain in coaching in a way that does not operate for women.

Especially when asked why women don’t coach men, many of the respondents did not think women would have the strength, athleticism, authority, and leadership abilities to be effective men’s coaches. As a male head men’s soccer coach expresses:

I think the game is slightly different. The understanding of the nuances of the men’s game versus the women’s game… for a female to go into a men’s athletic team and command respect from those guys, it’s difficult. A female wouldn’t be able to step in and play seven versus seven and be able to play at the same level. Not technically, not tactically, I mean simply physically…just the strength factor.

Other arguments highlight the assumed biological connection between men and leadership. A female assistant women’s soccer coach argued that “the leadership gene is much more apparent in guys, it’s much more inherent in them.” Additionally challenging is the perception that taking orders and guidance from a female threatens masculinity and calls into question male superiority in a male dominated field. A former male head golf coach notes,

A woman coach is going to have to work harder to gain respect from a guy player than a male coach will have to work from a female player. … [Individuals are] raised to say if a guy’s leading, you give them a little benefit of the doubt. A woman has to prove herself, and until she does there’s going to be doubt.

By internalizing and enforcing stereotypes a gender pecking-order can be preserved. As this woman, an assistant women’s soccer coach, suggests, socialization improves men’s leadership ability:

When girls are socialized… it’s share, everyone in groups, be nice to everyone; guys are taught much more of competitiveness… a guy leader comes out in a group much easier… because in a girl’s environment it’s no one should be above anyone else… guys and girls are just different. They’re socialized different.

Stereotypes about men’s competitiveness and women’s need for emotional bonding were prevalent, and if these are carried into hiring decisions it is easy to see why male coaches are favored. Yet, if gender differences are so stark, we would expect to see same-sex coaching across the board, instead of the current disparity. Instead, this difference only legitimated women’s absence and was not used to question men’s presence as coaches of women’s teams. None of the women said they wanted to coach men’s teams and nor were they upset at being denied access to these positions. Respondents were more in favor of increasing women coaching women, but did not question or challenge any of the main gender stereotypes. This man, a former head men’s golf coach said,

I’m a fan of a woman coaching women’s sports, if skill levels are equal, because there are certain intangibles – I don’t understand the woman animal as well on certain things.

Shattering the “Glass Wall”?

Coaches we interviewed recognized the role that resources and opportunities played in incentivizing men into coaching women, but none challenged any aspect of the system. Respondents automatically buy into the “glass wall” such that 50 percent of jobs (those coaching men) are off-limits, thus if women coach approximately 50 percent of women’s teams, it’s “fair.” We see that unquestioned assumptions of gender difference supported perceptions that masculinity and men were superior to femininity and women. Twenty years ago scholars on this topic said it is beliefs in male athletic superiority that justify gender disparities in coaching, and according to these interviews little has changed. So, yes, observers should continue to call out the failures of Olympic commentators to treat women athletes equally, but as we say goodbye to Rio, let’s not forget how these issues are shaping coaches’ and athletes’ experiences every day.

Catherine Bolzendahl is a professor of sociology and the co-author of Counted Out: Same Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family. Vanessa Kauffman is a PhD student.  Both are at the University of California, Irvine. Jessica Broadfoot-(Lee) is an alum and was a member of the women’s tennis team and a two-time Big West Scholar-Athlete..

Cross-posted at The Ethical Adman.

So it turns out there’s this company that makes “zombie” targets for gun enthusiasts. They have clown zombies, nazi zombies, “terrorist” zombies, dog zombies and even a green zombie named “Rocky” that has Barack Obama’s ears.

And one woman.

Here’s their explanation:

The Zombie virus does not discriminate and neither does Zombie Industries.  We take preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse seriously, which is why we strive to have all groups of undead monsters represented in our product selection.  In addition to the Ex Girlfriend Zombie, we currently sell 15 male zombies, 5 animal zombies & 2 aliens… to discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist.

Each of the zombie targets has a story.  Here is the story of “The Ex”:

Be warned, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but a man scorned is nothing to mess with! A young gent from Louisiana, we’ll call him André to protect his identity, was deeply committed to his one true love and her to him, or so he thought. While partying with her friends during one particular Mardi Gras, she took several suitors over the course of the festivities. André felt something odd indeed, so he paid a visit to his great aunt, Marie, who helped him see the truth. With a few eggs, candles lit and kiss upon his forehead, her voodoo curse was set in motion. Late each night while lying in bed, a smile would appear across his face, for a slight breeze would travel through a cracked window bringing with it, a faint whiff of decay and a unnatural cry of regret.

That’s right. In this narrative, a man kills a woman for cheating on him, and has her turned into a zombie. Which you, bro, are now invited to blow to bits.

Despite the game-like zombie theme, it is notable that the single human female representation has been created specifically as a target of violent male anger towards a woman’s ownership of her own sexuality.  And “The Ex” is portrayed in a highly sexual way, with what seems to be a bare lower torso and busting out chest.

Policymic writes, “Every day, at least three women are killed by an intimate partner in the US alone.  Let’s make sure those numbers go down, not up. Let’s make sure companies like Zombies Industries know that we’re not buying it.”

Some people, however, are buying it. And this is what’s most troubling.

From the product reviews:

This Zombie Bitch is awesome, reminds me of a girl I knew in High School, My LMT LM308MWS should put a stop to the undead bring them on !!! Later Party till you drop Corvette forever !!!!!

And:

I love that this target looks like Britney Spears and it bleeds when I shot it.

And from YouTube:

Tom Megginson is a Creative Director at Acart Communications, a Canadian Social Issues Marketing agency. He is a specialist in social marketing, cause marketing, and corporate social responsibility. You can follow Tom at workthatmatters.blogspot.com.

For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2012.

In Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family, released last month, authors Brian Powell, Catherine Bolzendahl, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman look at how Americans conceptualize “the family” — that is, not what they think about their own families, but what they think counts as a family. Which groups or living arrangements do they include in the definition of “family,” and who is excluded?

Based on surveys conducted in 2003 and 2006, Americans still hold the stereotypical nuclear family (husband, wife, kids) as the gold standard — virtually everyone agrees that such a group counts as a family. Being legally married, or the presence of children, generally leads to acceptance of a grouping as a family — the overwhelming majority believed single parents and their children count as families, as do married heterosexual couples without kids, and even unmarried heterosexual couples who have children. But when couples are same-sex, or don’t have kids, Americans are much less certain that they can qualify as a family. In 2006, the percent of respondents believing gay or lesbian couples with kids are families was notably smaller than for those agreeing that single parents or straight couples count, though it had increased since 2003:

And notice the importance of children to definitions of family — only a minority of respondents thought that gay, lesbian, or straight couples without kids are a family.

The authors divided respondents into three groups, based on their answers: exclusionists (those with the most restrictive definitions of family), moderates, and inclusionists (those with the most expansive definitions). Looking at the words these groups used as the talked about their characterizations of family, we see clear differences. The words used most frequently by exclusionists highlight the centrality of marriage, as well as an emphasis on what type of people constitute a family (husband, wife, woman, man), and the explicit inclusion of religious-based elements in their ideas of what makes a family:

The language used by inclusionists emphasized emotional attachments rather than the legal institution of marriage as the basis for determining what counts as a family:

Women were more inclusive than men, in general:

The more educated respondents were, the more inclusive their definitions of family tended to be:

The Russell Sage Foundation released these and many other charts and tables from the book, so it’s definitely worth a look if you’re interested in how Americans think about the family. Overall, the authors found that definitions of the family were becoming more inclusive. Presumably this trend has continued and even accelerated since the 2006 survey, given how attitudes have shifted on a number of issues involving gay and lesbian rights in the past few years.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Earlier this month, Lisa posted about the objectification of female beach volleyball players at the Olympics, discussing the types of photos and poses that are used when reporting on different types of sports, including gendered differences.

Autumn B. sent in another over-the-top example of the objectification of female athletes. The commercial is for RoadID, a company that sells “identification gear.” Autumn saw it while watching the Tour de France; she found this shortened version online, which she says actually features less objectification than the original did.

The main focus of the ad is a slow investigation of various aspects of cyclist Jenny Fletcher’s body. The camera travels slowly up her leg, then shows her full profile before zooming in on her breasts as she zips up her shirt:

Jenny Fletcher has no dialogue. She exists as a body to be broken down into eroticized parts for the consumption of the viewer. As Autumn put it, it’s frustrating that, a fan of the “the male-centric Tour de France,” that “when they do FINALLY feature a female cyclist, it is as a sexual object.”

For other posts on this topic, see Serena Williams’ patriarchal bargain, Sports Illustrated covers, feminizing female athletes, Serena Williams in ESPN magazine, and media portrayals of female athletes.

SocImages Meet Up in the Twin Cities!

On the weekend of April 2oth Gwen and I will be visiting the University of Minnesota to attend the Sociology Research Institute and humbly accept an award on behalf of SocImages.  We’d love it if you’d come and celebrate with us on Saturday, April 21st 6pm to 8pm.  Stay tuned for a location…

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Please feel free to follow SocImages on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest. Gwen and I and most of the team are also on Twitter, too.

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

Next month I’ll be giving my talk about hook up culture at CSU Northridge (11:00am on Apr. 26^th) and in September I’ll be at Indiana State University to give a featured lecture at the International Crime, Media & Popular Culture Studies Conference (Sept. 17^th).

A big thank you to the staff, students, and faculty at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Boston University!  I had a wonderful time sharing my research and ideas last week!  Special thanks to Harvard Sex Week for letting me debut my new talk on media stereotypes and sexual pleasure. Reviews of the talks in The Harvard Crimson and The Dartmouth are linked from my website.

And thanks, too, to Amy Schalet and the rest of the faculty at UMass-Amherst for giving me the opportunity to talk in depth about Sociological Images!  It’s such a treat to be able to talk about our little blog.

SocImages in the News:

Our post on the racially-charged Disney-themed candy raised some eyebrows. The story was covered at The Root, Business Insider, Babble, Gawker, Jezebel, The Daily Meal, The Week, and in the Phoenix New Times.

Miss Representation, the fantastic documentary featuring SocImages contributor Caroline Heldman, is getting amazing reviews!  Here’s the latest at CNN.

Reuters gave me the opportunity to weigh in on a controversy over a San Antonio mural featuring the “sleepy Mexican” stereotype.

Finally, The Frisky picked up on our post about pink in Saudi Arabia.

We’re happy to announce a new Pinterest Board:

• The Tyranny of Pink and Blue

I’m thinking about putting together one that includes subliminal and not-so-subliminal uses of sex in advertising. I’ll try to get to that in April.

Best of March:

Our hard-working intern, Norma Morella, collected the stuff ya’ll liked best from this month. Two of our posts received over 1,000 “likes” on Facebook this month:

• Distrust for Atheists and the New Relevance of Faith
• The Manly Origins of Cheerleading

Other popular March posts include:

• Exotic Dancers in 1890 and the Plump Body Ideal
• Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and Whiteness in the U.S.
• Women’s Parts as Urinals and Sinks
• Boys Want Success, Girls Want Boys
• Gingerism: Prejudice Against Redheads
• Bad Romance: Woman’s Suffrage, a Gaga Re-Make
• Gender and ESPN’s Coverage of March Madness
• Head Covering as a Common Practice
• The First Black Disney Princess Loves Watermelon

Thanks so much to all our readers!

Laura McD. sent in an extra-disturbing sexist ad from Turkey. The ad, for Biomen shampoo, uses the ever-so-common marketing tactic of shaming men for any association with femininity. The voiceover says:

If you’re not wearing women’s clothes, you shouldn’t be using women’s shampoo either. Here it is. A real man’s shampoo. Biomen. Real men use Biomen.

So far, so predictable. But this ad has drawn intense criticism because the exhortation to avoid girly stuff is recorded over historical footage of Adolf Hitler:

Via AdWeek.

According to Adland, it was still airing as of a couple of days ago, despite complaints from Turkey’s Jewish community and other groups, but JTA reports it was finally pulled.

Cross-posted at Ms.

I thought it would be fun to have a round-up of examples of masculinizing the feminine — that is, attempts to sell items to men through repackaging and renaming, drawing on ridiculous stereotypes of masculinity to assure men that they can use these products without becoming girly.

To start off, how might you sell nail polish to men? Call the brand Alphanail and associate the product with sex and warfare, of course, with, as submitter Gabriella says, “women as props and men as warriors”:

Clémentine C. noticed that Canova, a British company that sells candles, has a line of candles specifically for men, identifiable by the manly images and scents. While the other candles are given names like sweet pea or watermelon, the men’s versions have more detailed names, with allusions to “bringing out the dog in you,” “the sweet smell of success,” and “a splash of motor oil.” The Cassis & Fig with Added Danger candle  includes a silhouette of a woman behind a martini glass, reminiscent of a stripper pole:

Jennifer W., Kirstie McC., Savannah G., Kristina K., Dmitriy T.M., and Scott C. informed us that CIL Paints, a Canadian company, is trying to masculinize paint colors. The website provides men with a range of colors for their “ultimate man caves.” Scott saw this ad for the line in Toronto’s Metro back in September:

What makes these colors masculine? A simple name change. The website helpfully translates the “real” names of their paints into man-speak:

According to a video created as part of the ad campaign, a quick name change instantaneously changes men’s perceptions, making them compliant with women’s wishes (“The colour she wants with a name he’ll agree to”):

Indeed, the central message is that men are incredibly stupid and easily duped; women just have to manipulate them a bit:

Now we’ve got the house painted; it’s time for some chores! Anjan G. let us know that appliance company Philips designed an iron just for men:

The man-friendly features on this “robust” iron “power tool for ironing,” described on the Philips website as the “Anodilium soleplate man iron,” include “more power, more steam, more performance” to give you “an endless excellent gliding experience.”

Now, let’s say that you’ve just ironed all your clothes with your ironing power tool, and now you want a little rest. Hmmm, you might think, I’d like a nice warm beverage, but I don’t want to appear girly. Thanks to Elisabeth M., we discovered that Man Teas has an answer for you, with their goal of making tea safe for men:

…most of the specialty teas out there have stuff like rosehips and lemon zest in them (what the hell is “zest” anyway?) and they are packaged and merchandised to appeal to women. What guy is going to pick up a box of Cozy Sleepytime Tea with a pajama’d teddy bear on it? Not this guy.

At least three different varieties of their teas are bacon-flavored. And to make sure every element of your tea-consuming experience is sufficiently manly, you can steep your tea is this manly T-Baggin Tea Bag:

And finally, along with your tea, perhaps you’d like some healthy cereal, but you’re worried that health foods are associated with women. Well, don’t worry; Tesco sells Chunky Muesli, a “cereal for men.” It’s made safe for men with construction-zone packaging:

Thanks to Sophie K. for sending us the photo!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.