Throughout the semester, prompts based on class readings, screenings, lectures, and discussions will be posted on this blog. Responses will be graded on their level of critical thinking, pertinence, engagement with class texts, and grammar/spelling/proofing/
length. Be sure to read the prompt carefully and fully engage with the content of the class materials. At the bottom of your response, type your FIRST NAME and the FIRST INITIAL OF YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Claudia Z.).
Friday, April 7, 2017
Week Eleven: Response 11.1
What are some of Zeisler’s examples of
“empowertising” or “#Femvertising” that address women through the power of
choice? How do ads like these show
the ways neoliberalism is co-opting the women’s movement?
Andi Zeisler explains #Femvertising and empowertising as the branding of feminism as products that can be bought and sold. Femvertising and empowertising depoliticize the feminists’ movements by alluding that women can be feminists simply through their buying potentials, specifically supporting large corporations that claim to have feminist ideals. Women are encouraged to think that consuming products has to do with having agency to consume the products of their choice. In other words, claiming that women have the power in “choice’ and buying power from their wallets. Some of Zeisler’s examples of #Femvertising and empowertising include the Verizon “Inspire Her Mind” and Always “like a girl” campaigns. “Inspire Her Mind” commercial follows a young girl throughout her adolescence; showing the ways in which she is constantly discouraged from engaging in explorative activities such as going through a creek, observing tide pools, or using a drill to build. The final scene shows the girl staring at a window reflection displaying a science fair poster only to use the window to apply lip gloss. The final message ultimately asks the viewers to think about the ways in which we limit girls and keep them from engaging in STEM fields. The alarming disproportion of girls and boys in STEM has gained public support and traction. The “like a girl” commercial is set up in an interview style in which adult women, young girls, and boys are asked a sequence of questions about what it means to do something like a girl. The boys and adult women naturally do exaggerated versions of each activity, while the young girls actively put in their best effort on each task. Both campaigns use feminist or empowering messages to sell products, often time products that do not even appear in the commercial ads. Ultimately both advertisements send the message that these corporations are socially aware of serious issues that affect young girls and women and they’re the companies that care about it. As Zeisler notes, the unspoken truth remains “Hey we’re the carrier (who cares about you and your daughter’s potential, so choose us.” At the end of the day, even though the companies’ messages are positive and appear to be for feminism (dismantling oppressions and inequity), brands are co-opting empowering ideals into their advertising for their best interests. Their main goal is to capitalize off feminist movements as brands and trends.
Two examples that Zeisler’s mentioned in her book about empowertising was the Verizon ad, and the ad “like a girl”. In the Verizon ad you had a little girl doing different things like getting dirty, examining marine life, building rockets, etc. The last scene that was shown is her looking at a science fair poster, instead of her reading the poster she used it as a mirror to put on her pink lip-gloss. While she was trying to build a rocket using tools she was told to let her brother do it, while she was looking at the marine life she was asked, “what are you doing”, it seemed as if everything she was doing and wanted to do she could not. Ads like this are keeping our young girls from experiencing more, keeping them from doing what they really want to do, in other words putting a restriction on what they can and cannot do. Another ad of empowertising was the ad created by Always “like a girl”. In this ad Lauren Greenfield is asking adults and children to run, hit, fight, jump, throw, etc like a girl. This ad was very much untrained by stereotype, the children where confused by doing those things like a girl is an insult. While the adults who participated in this ad were well aware that it was an insult. It was like they knew exactly what they were looking for even though that might not be how they really run, jump, fight, etc. Both this ad are showing this trickle down negatively, the women's movement is to express and show positive things able women not bring them down. In both ads women are not seen in a positive one, the first ad women are told what they can and can not do, in the second ad you have adults and children showing that women are not strong as a men but saying “like a girl”. Both ads are portraying women and a negative light and that is not the trickle down effect of neoliberalism they are looking for in the women’s movement. The companies that put out these ads are well aware if the issues that are affecting young girls and women but they are letting us know that they do not care they are just here to sell a product at the end of it all.
#Femvertising or empowertising is advertising that employs pro-female talent, social issues messages, and imagery to empower women and girls with little to no mention of the product itself. It implements the combination of neoliberalism and feminism choice to make women feel empowered by their consumer choices. Zeisler analyzes the effects of #Femvertising by breaking down two campaigns that claim to champion women’s fight against gender inequality. The fist ad, “Inspire Her Mind” by Verizon features a young girl in various stages of child and adolescence discouraged in different scenarios by an off-screen voice—when she is stomping through a creek (“Don’t get your dress dirty”) when she is examining marine life in tide pools (“You don’t want to mess with that”), when she’s building a rocket in the garage (“why don’t you that drill to your brother). The final scene of the commercial finds the girl stopping in front of a science-fair poster in a school hallway, and then uses the window’s reflection to apply lip gloss. The ad concludes with statistics on how girls have often steered away from STEM fields bloomed on the screen. Another ad, for Always menstrual product, features young adults pantomiming running, fighting, and throwing “like a girl.” They did so with exaggerated, simpering steps and rubber-wristed movements. Greenfield then asked young girls to do the same activities, and they followed directions with a fierceness untainted by stereotype. Afterward, Greenfield questions the kids why they thought that doing things “like a girl” is meant to be an insult. The purpose of this commercial is to redefine what “like a girl” means and to challenge the stereotype that girls are weak when it comes to physical activities. Although both campaigns address gender inequality and encourage the audience to fight these stereotypes; the ultimate purpose of the ads is to generate profit by positioning their brand as a “friendly female brand.” Today, more organizations and brands are co-opting the women’s movement because women have the vast amount of the purchasing power in a household. As a result, campaigns that take a social responsibility tend to influence women’s purchasing behavior more. SheKnows Media conducted a survey to 600-plus women and found out that: “52% have bought a product because they liked how the brand and their advertising portrays or encourages women”. Also, Ad Ages reported that campaigns such Dove “Real Beauty Sketch” and Always’ “Like A Girl” campaign “not only do a majority of consumers feel the ads promote a positive message for women, but they have a strong, positive impact on the brand’s reputation.” In fact, #femvertising is good for the bottom line of a company, but it is at odds with feminism itself. Both commercials fail to address the complexity of gender inequality, the factors such class and race that deter women from pursuing careers in STEM fields or what contributes to kids and young adults to form negative perceptions of what it means to be “like a girl.” Zeisler concludes that epowertising and #femvertising are both ways to learn about specific issues that impact women and girls and perhaps they can help to find alternatives to mainstream products. But these marketing strategies shouldn’t be celebrated for their effectiveness to co-opt women’s movement and to reduce feminism to a brand. Feminism is an unfinished, complexity and polymorphistic movement that requires collective action; hence, it shouldn’t be reduced a brand.
Historically, the 20th century was filled with consumer products that sent the message to women that they needed to buy a product to impress men, please men, or be a good wife or mother. It was not until the 1980s with the rise of post-feminism that the marketplace shifted it’s sales toward empowering women. This shift is referred to by Zeisler as “empowertising.” Zeisler identifies that this shit paired with the neoliberal idea that “greed-is-good, if-I-have-an-umbrella-it-must-not-be-raining rhetoric became the common tongue of the overclass, luxury beauty products, designer labels, and exercise regiments became liberatory achievements, rather than mere consumer goods” (p. 19). The empowertising movement became a way that women would continue to buy products or pose for advertisements which were inherently sexist, but it was framed as the woman’s choice to buy, which some believed made it feminist. This was such the case in the 1994 billboard advertisements for Wonderbra. Model, Eva Herzigova was pictured looking down, in awe of her pushed up breasts with the caption “Hello Boys.” While possessing inherent sexism and objectification of Herzigova, millions of women bought the Wonderbra because it was their choice to do so a women. The idea that these advertisements were still made with the male gaze in mind was apparent when Herzigova explained that in her transition into her acting career, “Hollywood executives [aka white men] wanted to check out her underthings first: [she explained], ‘I met people who said ‘yes, we can talk about the movie over dinner.’ I was like, What dinner? I can just read the script here.” This scenario demonstrates that the so-called feminist advertisement did not aid in the stopping the male and advertising sexualization of women. Empowertising also portrays the message that any choice a woman makes is feminist and that being a woman is something to celebrate in itself, failing to recognize the fight for equality and action that is the most necessary element of the feminist movement.
Although feminists have since identified this neoliberalist, marketplace co-opting of the women’s movement, advertisements continue to capitalize of feminism in the present day. Because it has become “cool” to be a feminist in the present day, advertisements have shifted to selling products with feminist messages, a tactic Zeisler calls #femvertising. Instead of the previous advertisements for diet pizzas, lingerie, or other products that were finally recognized at not necessarily being the most appealing to women, because instead it made them feel awful about themselves, #femvertising took the different approach of empowering women. Although the advertisements had absolutely nothing to do with the product at all, they were still identified and awarded for creating positive and women friendly ads. Some of these were Verizon, Always, Kotex, and along with many more. In the case of the feminine product ads, periods are portrayed to be happy times of the month. Women run, wear white pants, dance, all of which are surrounded by blue and pink failing to address the embarrassment, shame, and discomfort involved in a menstrual cycle and more than often fail to mention the word period. When it came to the Always “Like a Girl” ad and Verizon “Inspire Her Mind” ad, although very inspiring positive messages were portrayed, the inherent objective of these companies remains to be profit. The like a girl act had a woman, off camera, asking females of all ages and young boys to demonstrate a number of activities “like a girl.” After each individual concluded this display they were asked if that was how they ran or, in the case of the boys, if they were making fun of their sisters when doing this. The individuals had an “ah-ha” moment and were then filmed redoing the activities as women. The ad did not mention menstruation at all but portrayed to the world that they wished to redefine what doing things “like a girl” meant. Similarly, Verizon’s ad shows a young girl in different stages of her life exploring. She is told “not get her dress dirty” when playing by a river, “you don’t want to mess with that, put it down” when discovering marine life in the tide polls, “your project has gotten out of control” when creating an extraordinary display of the solar system, “whoa be careful with that, why don’t you hand that to your brother” when using a drill, ending with the young girl putting on lip gloss. The ad shows statistics of 4th grade girls who are interested in science and math (66%) compared to the female engineering majors in college (18%), closing with the quote, “isn’t it time we tell her she’s pretty brilliant too.” While this ad possesses an incredible message and thrives off of sad socialization of young girls in America, the idea that the ad was to promote Verizon makes the message misplaced. Through their positive messages, what these companies are really trying to get across is the idea that the support women (wives, sisters, daughters, etc.) and this is why consumers should chose their company over another. Always and Verizon are run by capitalist CEOs (white men) who could care less about feminism or the women’s movement. Their main concern is that their patriarchal rule continues when women purchase their products and feed into their false, women-friendly persona.
Andi Zeisler explains #Femvertising and empowertising as the branding of feminism as products that can be bought and sold. Femvertising and empowertising depoliticize the feminists’ movements by alluding that women can be feminists simply through their buying potentials, specifically supporting large corporations that claim to have feminist ideals. Women are encouraged to think that consuming products has to do with having agency to consume the products of their choice. In other words, claiming that women have the power in “choice’ and buying power from their wallets.
ReplyDeleteSome of Zeisler’s examples of #Femvertising and empowertising include the Verizon “Inspire Her Mind” and Always “like a girl” campaigns. “Inspire Her Mind” commercial follows a young girl throughout her adolescence; showing the ways in which she is constantly discouraged from engaging in explorative activities such as going through a creek, observing tide pools, or using a drill to build. The final scene shows the girl staring at a window reflection displaying a science fair poster only to use the window to apply lip gloss. The final message ultimately asks the viewers to think about the ways in which we limit girls and keep them from engaging in STEM fields. The alarming disproportion of girls and boys in STEM has gained public support and traction. The “like a girl” commercial is set up in an interview style in which adult women, young girls, and boys are asked a sequence of questions about what it means to do something like a girl. The boys and adult women naturally do exaggerated versions of each activity, while the young girls actively put in their best effort on each task.
Both campaigns use feminist or empowering messages to sell products, often time products that do not even appear in the commercial ads. Ultimately both advertisements send the message that these corporations are socially aware of serious issues that affect young girls and women and they’re the companies that care about it. As Zeisler notes, the unspoken truth remains “Hey we’re the carrier (who cares about you and your daughter’s potential, so choose us.” At the end of the day, even though the companies’ messages are positive and appear to be for feminism (dismantling oppressions and inequity), brands are co-opting empowering ideals into their advertising for their best interests. Their main goal is to capitalize off feminist movements as brands and trends.
Natalie Y
Two examples that Zeisler’s mentioned in her book about empowertising was the Verizon ad, and the ad “like a girl”. In the Verizon ad you had a little girl doing different things like getting dirty, examining marine life, building rockets, etc. The last scene that was shown is her looking at a science fair poster, instead of her reading the poster she used it as a mirror to put on her pink lip-gloss. While she was trying to build a rocket using tools she was told to let her brother do it, while she was looking at the marine life she was asked, “what are you doing”, it seemed as if everything she was doing and wanted to do she could not. Ads like this are keeping our young girls from experiencing more, keeping them from doing what they really want to do, in other words putting a restriction on what they can and cannot do. Another ad of empowertising was the ad created by Always “like a girl”. In this ad Lauren Greenfield is asking adults and children to run, hit, fight, jump, throw, etc like a girl. This ad was very much untrained by stereotype, the children where confused by doing those things like a girl is an insult. While the adults who participated in this ad were well aware that it was an insult. It was like they knew exactly what they were looking for even though that might not be how they really run, jump, fight, etc. Both this ad are showing this trickle down negatively, the women's movement is to express and show positive things able women not bring them down. In both ads women are not seen in a positive one, the first ad women are told what they can and can not do, in the second ad you have adults and children showing that women are not strong as a men but saying “like a girl”. Both ads are portraying women and a negative light and that is not the trickle down effect of neoliberalism they are looking for in the women’s movement. The companies that put out these ads are well aware if the issues that are affecting young girls and women but they are letting us know that they do not care they are just here to sell a product at the end of it all.
DeleteRoshandra S
ReplyDelete#Femvertising or empowertising is advertising that employs pro-female talent, social issues messages, and imagery to empower women and girls with little to no mention of the product itself. It implements the combination of neoliberalism and feminism choice to make women feel empowered by their consumer choices. Zeisler analyzes the effects of #Femvertising by breaking down two campaigns that claim to champion women’s fight against gender inequality. The fist ad, “Inspire Her Mind” by Verizon features a young girl in various stages of child and adolescence discouraged in different scenarios by an off-screen voice—when she is stomping through a creek (“Don’t get your dress dirty”) when she is examining marine life in tide pools (“You don’t want to mess with that”), when she’s building a rocket in the garage (“why don’t you that drill to your brother). The final scene of the commercial finds the girl stopping in front of a science-fair poster in a school hallway, and then uses the window’s reflection to apply lip gloss. The ad concludes with statistics on how girls have often steered away from STEM fields bloomed on the screen.
Another ad, for Always menstrual product, features young adults pantomiming running, fighting, and throwing “like a girl.” They did so with exaggerated, simpering steps and rubber-wristed movements. Greenfield then asked young girls to do the same activities, and they followed directions with a fierceness untainted by stereotype. Afterward, Greenfield questions the kids why they thought that doing things “like a girl” is meant to be an insult. The purpose of this commercial is to redefine what “like a girl” means and to challenge the stereotype that girls are weak when it comes to physical activities.
Although both campaigns address gender inequality and encourage the audience to fight these stereotypes; the ultimate purpose of the ads is to generate profit by positioning their brand as a “friendly female brand.” Today, more organizations and brands are co-opting the women’s movement because women have the vast amount of the purchasing power in a household. As a result, campaigns that take a social responsibility tend to influence women’s purchasing behavior more. SheKnows Media conducted a survey to 600-plus women and found out that: “52% have bought a product because they liked how the brand and their advertising portrays or encourages women”. Also, Ad Ages reported that campaigns such Dove “Real Beauty Sketch” and Always’ “Like A Girl” campaign “not only do a majority of consumers feel the ads promote a positive message for women, but they have a strong, positive impact on the brand’s reputation.”
In fact, #femvertising is good for the bottom line of a company, but it is at odds with feminism itself. Both commercials fail to address the complexity of gender inequality, the factors such class and race that deter women from pursuing careers in STEM fields or what contributes to kids and young adults to form negative perceptions of what it means to be “like a girl.” Zeisler concludes that epowertising and #femvertising are both ways to learn about specific issues that impact women and girls and perhaps they can help to find alternatives to mainstream products. But these marketing strategies shouldn’t be celebrated for their effectiveness to co-opt women’s movement and to reduce feminism to a brand. Feminism is an unfinished, complexity and polymorphistic movement that requires collective action; hence, it shouldn’t be reduced a brand.
Historically, the 20th century was filled with consumer products that sent the message to women that they needed to buy a product to impress men, please men, or be a good wife or mother. It was not until the 1980s with the rise of post-feminism that the marketplace shifted it’s sales toward empowering women. This shift is referred to by Zeisler as “empowertising.” Zeisler identifies that this shit paired with the neoliberal idea that “greed-is-good, if-I-have-an-umbrella-it-must-not-be-raining rhetoric became the common tongue of the overclass, luxury beauty products, designer labels, and exercise regiments became liberatory achievements, rather than mere consumer goods” (p. 19). The empowertising movement became a way that women would continue to buy products or pose for advertisements which were inherently sexist, but it was framed as the woman’s choice to buy, which some believed made it feminist. This was such the case in the 1994 billboard advertisements for Wonderbra. Model, Eva Herzigova was pictured looking down, in awe of her pushed up breasts with the caption “Hello Boys.” While possessing inherent sexism and objectification of Herzigova, millions of women bought the Wonderbra because it was their choice to do so a women. The idea that these advertisements were still made with the male gaze in mind was apparent when Herzigova explained that in her transition into her acting career, “Hollywood executives [aka white men] wanted to check out her underthings first: [she explained], ‘I met people who said ‘yes, we can talk about the movie over dinner.’ I was like, What dinner? I can just read the script here.” This scenario demonstrates that the so-called feminist advertisement did not aid in the stopping the male and advertising sexualization of women. Empowertising also portrays the message that any choice a woman makes is feminist and that being a woman is something to celebrate in itself, failing to recognize the fight for equality and action that is the most necessary element of the feminist movement.
ReplyDeleteAli p. part I
Although feminists have since identified this neoliberalist, marketplace co-opting of the women’s movement, advertisements continue to capitalize of feminism in the present day. Because it has become “cool” to be a feminist in the present day, advertisements have shifted to selling products with feminist messages, a tactic Zeisler calls #femvertising. Instead of the previous advertisements for diet pizzas, lingerie, or other products that were finally recognized at not necessarily being the most appealing to women, because instead it made them feel awful about themselves, #femvertising took the different approach of empowering women. Although the advertisements had absolutely nothing to do with the product at all, they were still identified and awarded for creating positive and women friendly ads. Some of these were Verizon, Always, Kotex, and along with many more. In the case of the feminine product ads, periods are portrayed to be happy times of the month. Women run, wear white pants, dance, all of which are surrounded by blue and pink failing to address the embarrassment, shame, and discomfort involved in a menstrual cycle and more than often fail to mention the word period. When it came to the Always “Like a Girl” ad and Verizon “Inspire Her Mind” ad, although very inspiring positive messages were portrayed, the inherent objective of these companies remains to be profit. The like a girl act had a woman, off camera, asking females of all ages and young boys to demonstrate a number of activities “like a girl.” After each individual concluded this display they were asked if that was how they ran or, in the case of the boys, if they were making fun of their sisters when doing this. The individuals had an “ah-ha” moment and were then filmed redoing the activities as women. The ad did not mention menstruation at all but portrayed to the world that they wished to redefine what doing things “like a girl” meant. Similarly, Verizon’s ad shows a young girl in different stages of her life exploring. She is told “not get her dress dirty” when playing by a river, “you don’t want to mess with that, put it down” when discovering marine life in the tide polls, “your project has gotten out of control” when creating an extraordinary display of the solar system, “whoa be careful with that, why don’t you hand that to your brother” when using a drill, ending with the young girl putting on lip gloss. The ad shows statistics of 4th grade girls who are interested in science and math (66%) compared to the female engineering majors in college (18%), closing with the quote, “isn’t it time we tell her she’s pretty brilliant too.” While this ad possesses an incredible message and thrives off of sad socialization of young girls in America, the idea that the ad was to promote Verizon makes the message misplaced. Through their positive messages, what these companies are really trying to get across is the idea that the support women (wives, sisters, daughters, etc.) and this is why consumers should chose their company over another. Always and Verizon are run by capitalist CEOs (white men) who could care less about feminism or the women’s movement. Their main concern is that their patriarchal rule continues when women purchase their products and feed into their false, women-friendly persona.
ReplyDeleteAli P. Part II