FASHION MAGAZINE ADVERTISING: THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF 'FEMININITY' IN SEVENTEEN by SHELLEY J. BUDGEON B.A., The University of Calgary, 1990 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Sociology) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA July, 1993 © Shelley J. Budgeon, 1993 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. (Signature) Department of Sociology The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date August 19, 1993 DE-6 (2/88) ABSTRACT Examining the ways in which 'femininity' is defined and reproduced via cultural representations has become an important part of feminist critical practice. By addressing the power that images of women have to define the feminine in specific ways, this work has contributed to our understanding of 'femininity' as ascribed and not as an intrinsic female quality. Advertisements in fashion magazines, however, seek to define and naturalize a particular version of femininity while ideologically masking the fact that this definition is an arbitrary construction. These images are one of the sources of information which organize the ways in which the social category 'femininity' is understood in our culture. Thus, advertising images directed to an adolescent audience are particularly significant given that adolescence is a peak period of gender differentiation. While much research has focused upon the content of advertising images of women, this work has not given insight into how the text works to construct the meaning of femininity. The purpose of this research is to examine current definitions of femininity in Seventeen, an adolescent fashion magazine. Quantitative content analysis is used to obtain a systematic description of the manifest content of the representations of femininity. Through the development of a semiotic method further textual analysis addresses the ways in which the text works to construct the meaning of femininity. It was found that despite the incorporation of non-traditional liberation themes into current constructions of femininity, advertisements operate to reproduce traditional definitions of femininity through ideological processes. These processes included the appropriation and reformulation of cultural knowledge, the naturalization of constructed meanings, and the management of contradictions via the appearance of choice and difference. The implications that these constructions have for women's empowerment and struggle for equality are discussed. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Table of Contents List of Tables List of Figures^ vi Chapter One^Introduction^ 1 Gender and Advertising^ 2 Studying Advertising Images of Women^5 Chapter Two Images of Women in Advertising: Advertising and Sex Role Stereotyping: Content Analysis Studies^ 9 Occupational Roles^ 12 Non - Occupational Roles^ 15 Activities^ 16 Relationships^ 19 Women's Goals^ 20 Women Minorities^ 22 The 'New Woman'^ 23 Thematic Analyses: Visual Imagery^24 Conclusion^ 28 Chapter Three Theoretical Perspectives: Sex Role Stereotyping^ 31 The Liberal Feminist Critique^32 The Rise of Cultural Studies^ 36 Femininity as Discourse^ 38 Textually Mediated Discourse^ 42 Advertising as Ideology^ 46 Conclusion^ 52 Chapter Four Research Methodologies: Analysis of Texts: Quantitative Content Analysis^ 54 Criticism of Content Analysis^55 Studying Advertising as Signification^57 Semiotics and Decoding Advertisements^58 Principles of the Semiotic Method^60 The Second Order of Signification^70 Outline of Current Study^ 74 Content and Textual Analysis^ 78 iii Chapter Five Findings: Content Analysis^ 83 Advertisement Decodings: Maybelline Illegal Lengths Mascara^95 Soft n' Dri Antiperspirant^106 Covergirl Marathon Mascara^114 Chapter Six^Conclusion^ 121 The Operation of Ideology in Advertising^123 Affirmation of Dominant Codes^126 Textually Mediated Discourse^ 130 Commodified Social Relations^ 131 Implications for Empowerment of Women^133 Practical Struggles^ 134 Limitations and Future Directions For Study 136 Notes^ 139 References^ 142 iv LIST OF TABLES ^ Table One: Space Devoted to Advertising and Features ^ in Seventeen Magazine, 1992 78 ^ Table Two: Types of Products Advertised in Seventeen ^ Magazine, 1992 83 Table Three: Sex and Age of Models Shown in Advertising ^ in Seventeen Magazine, 1991 85 Table Four: Representations of Ethnic/Racialized ^ Identities in Seventeen Magazine, 1992 86 Table Five: Relationships Portrayed in Advertisements ^ in Seventeeen Magazine, 1992 87 ^ Table Six: Comparison of Female and Male Activity Levels ^ in Advertisements, Seventeen Magazine, 1992 90 Table Seven: Enviroments of Female Models in Advertisements Seventeen Magazine, 1992^ 91 Table Eight: Characteristics of Femininity: Recurring Themes in Seventeen Magazine Ads, 1992^92 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1:^Maybelline Illegal Lengths Mascara^96 Figure 2:^Soft n' Dri Antiperspirant^ 107 Figure 3:^Covergirl Marathon Mascara^ 115 vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: Advertising is no longer just a business expenditure assumed for the purpose of moving products off the shelves. Rather, it has become an inherent component of modern culture. In this century national product advertising has become less concerned with the communication of essential information about goods and services and more involved in the manipulation of social values and attitudes. It has become one of the great vehicles of social communication (Dyer, 1982; Leiss et. al., 1986). Advertisements make up the most consistent body of material in the mass media today and many people claim that advertisements are one of the most important influences in our lives (ibid.). Advertising images and messages saturate the fabric of daily life to the extent that our encounters with them have become routine. The pervasiveness of advertisements in modern consumer culture breeds a familiarity within which we take for granted the deep social assumptions which are embedded in them (Goldman, 1992:1). When advertising underwent the shift from merely announcing the availability of goods and merchandise to attempting to define wants and needs, it went from being a part of business enterprise to becoming a social institution. It has become a central part of the culture of consumer society and by creating structures of meaning, advertising has in many ways replaced the functions traditionally fulfilled by art or religion (Berger, 1972; Williamson, 1978). Today advertisements are involved in the 1 transmission and acquisition of cultural values. Like religion or formal education, advertisements provide a framework for society by defining a set of roles and social identities. By serving as a source of authority, advertisements tell people not only who they are, but where they fit in. Furthermore, advertisements circulate a set of social values, transmit a normative standard against which behaviour can be judged, and portray goals and ideals to be pursued (Vinikas, 1992:vii). Advertisements use the material of everyday life but they draw upon this material in a highly selective fashion. That which is chosen for inclusion is reintegrated into the signifying system of advertising where this material then provides the basis for the creation of new meanings. The result is the production of meanings and categories not found elsewhere (Leiss et. al., 1986:169). Advertisements do not therefore reflect the social world but re- create it, reconstitute it, and communicate this manipulated version to the audience. GENDER AND ADVERTISING In modern advertising gender is one of the social resources most often used by advertisers (Jhally, 1987:134). Gender is part of advertising's social structure and psychology (Barthel, 1988:6). Indeed, we are daily surrounded by hundreds of advertising images which address us along the lines of gender. Given the pervasiveness of advertisements in our culture and the representations of gender within them, it is not surprising that advertising has become a focus of analysis for feminist researchers 2 concerned with the ways in which advertisements, as a discourse, produce forms of knowledge about femininity. In the past decade feminist researchers have become increasingly concerned with the ways in which the subject 'woman' has been constructed in the discursive formations of the popular media (Young, 1989). Media representations work to constitute gender difference, rather than simply reflect or represent that difference. While femininity and masculinity are constructed via media representations, these constructions often appear as though they were direct knowledge of the social world - that is, representations of reality (Saco, 1992:25). As argued in Betterton (1987:7), "the visual is particularly important in the definition of femininity, both because of the significance attached to images in modern culture and because a woman's character and status are frequently judged by her appearance". The images of femininity, as they appear in advertisements, have the power to narrowly define and construct the 'feminine'. Therefore feminist engagement in the analysis of these mass produced and mass circulated images has been an engagement in a struggle over meaning. This struggle has been motivated by a concern over the implications that definitions of 'femininity' have for women's lives. The importance of understanding media representations of women is that these "visual images, along with other cultural texts and practices, help to organize the ways in which we understand gender relations" (Betterton, 1987:8). It has been claimed that advertising, as a central text of 3