Selling Feminism - Scholarly

In this journal, it talks about advertisements and how they affect women. They held a study experiment focused on femvertising which are messages aimed at empowering women. In this study there was a campaign that “was designed to start a conversation about beauty standards, relied on research showing that few women considered themselves beautiful” (p. 18). They introduce behind the scenes details like how women in magazines are digitally edited to make them look perfect. With this campaign, other advertisers have been introducing femvertising to their marketing, “marketers have recognized that femvertising sells, as it improves a brand’s reputation and promotes a positive message for women (Zmuda and Diaz 2014)” (p. 18). Based on the new marketing idea, “the new lens aims to reclaim femininity and sexuality for women by suggesting that women and girls have the power to “wear makeup and seek glamour, and still be a feminist” (Hains 2009, p. 98)” (p. 21). This study was made in order to see how advertisements makes women of all body types and ethnicity feel in comparison to the models on the page. Based on their results, they aimed to create a way to make women feel more empowered and beautiful.

In response to this study I thought the authors did a great job in coming up with and accomplishing their experiment. As a woman myself, I know what it is like to look at a photo of another woman and wish that I could look like that. Constantly through society women are comparing themselves to others and it is very unhealthy. It causes a very negative mental image of themselves. With this idea of “femvertising” I feel like it is a really good way to make women feel like they aren’t alone, or that they shouldn’t compare themselves to these women in the magazines because they aren’t even real. I think putting positive outlook messages in places where a lot of women will read it will make a difference in how they portray themselves. After reading this journal I think the point was to share that all women are beautiful no matter their size, shape, or color and that women need to remind themselves of this instead of putting themselves down, to embrace our beauty and diversity. Instead of putting each other down, women should lift each other up. Women empowerment! I put the link at the bottom of the post in case you are interested in reading about the study, thank you. -Kelly

Windels, Kasey, et al. “Selling Feminism: How Female Empowerment Campaigns Employ Postfeminist Discourses.” Journal of Advertising, vol. 49, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 18–33. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00913367.2019.1681035.

Vancouver/ICMJE

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