Media Culture and the Representation of Women

Media Culture and the Representation of Women Introduction Media culture is media-imposed, festive version of culture, increasingly intertwined with consumer society, and is the hegemonic form of culture in the age of globalization. It furnishes people with \"branded identities\" and lifestyle options that are everlastingly becoming the real markers of status and social distinctions among people. And it meets the capitalist logic of growing marketization, providing public consent for capitalist power relations, and demanding that everything be defined in ways that are financially profitable to capitalism. Media culture usually stereotype women in four different categories which are: homemaking roles, career-oriented roles, decorative roles concerned with aesthetic and erotic beauty, and lastly roles expressing the individualist, subjective experiences of women as equal to men. These media-based images at once mirror and constitute reality : homemaking mirrors traditional \"women's work\" ; career image reflects the employment of women in the modern service economy ; beauty image expresses the consumer boom years of the modem era; and the individualist image points to postmodern pluralist identities. And the images (re) constitute reality in the sense of participating in its ongoing (re)construction, furnishing women with cultural world views that shape their attitudes and beliefs. All the media images of women subscribe to the all-inclusive notion of commodity feminism. Women's identity is recognized as solely possessing a supreme commercial value tied up to the consumption of particular products. The \"real\", diverse, and multiple women's images 1

are replaced with symbolic , flattened, and routinized feminine myths worked out through a Pavlovian conditioning linking cherished values such as beauty, love, sex, and self-confidence to the consumption of products like perfumes, creams, clothes, and cars. This connection, though false, is shown as somehow natural and commonsensical, while its materialization is kept unconscious. Media Culture Media culture in the contemporary world is the mass production and dissemination of cultural artifacts (texts, images, ' and art products) that are \"imposed\" on people through the various primarily avenues of the mass media. It is basically a popular, figural version of culture (as opposed to high culture), unfolding in the everyday life of people and connoting \"branded\" (from brand names) identities and lifestyle options that are increasingly subsuming peoples' values , tastes , and status . The construction of Identity as a foundational pillar· of media culture implies the ever-growing consumption of commodities . Further , it meets the logic of capitalist marketization ( and profit-making ) and fetishizes commodities , trivializing social relationships among people to the benefit of economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade. The origin of media culture stems from the so-called \"culture industry\" of globalized homogenization and mass-mediated societies. Its major component is the expansion of a global culture of music, sports, fashion , TV and cinema, and lifestyle options. The growth of information- communication technologies provides the means to the expansion and the ensuing homogenization of this culture of global dimensions . Global media culture, however, is tainted with cultural heterogenization voiced by marginals across the globe who resist the encroachment of 2

global culture and reaffirm their local cultures , or at least attempt to limit its impact to the externals of technology and economy, safeguarding the private domain of family, sexuality, and traditions from its influences, or seek to work out creolized versions of culture, mixing up elements of the local and the global. And, consequently, global media culture incorporates certain elements of local cultures and, henceforth, comes to embrace some threads of cultural heterogeneity. .. Today, media culture, rather than high culture or anthropological culture, is the dominant form of culture which socializes people and provides them with the material for identity in terms of both social reproduction and change. Put differently, it invades the various dimensions of social life and subsumes them to its dynamics. Media culture gives rise to a quite recent branch of learning dubbed cultural studies . The themes of this new branch of inquiry might be imagined as follows: one theme brings to focus the globalization debate of world cultural homogenization (MacDonaldization, Cocacolonisation, transnationalism ) and heterogenization (glocalization , hybridization , multiculturalism); a second theme posits the debate of modernity and post-modernity, making glosses over the transition from the former to the latter, describing the collapse of the modem metanarrative and the concomitant rise of the postmodern small local narratives, and tossing out various conceptual frameworks to capture the nature of postmodern society and culture (such as information, digital, flexible, turbo, flat, consumer society); a third theme, developed at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (under the influence of Hoggart, Williams, Hall, Gilroy and others), absorbs the themes of the critique of culture (of Frankfurt School's critique of the \"culture industry\", Gramsci's cultural hegemony, Althusser's ideological domination; Marcuse's one dimensionality of manufactured consent, Foucault's knowledge/power nexus, Baudrillard's simulacra, and Bourdieu's cultural capital) and articulates an agentive approach that stresses people's critical capacities of reappropriating cultural texts by decoding mass-produced products (as opposed to encoding) and working 3

out a subversive writerly readings of texts of culture (as opposed to dominant readerly readings); a fourth approach adopts the liberal and plural approach of audience-oriented research , focusing on the assessment of how well (and how badly) the mass media perform in fostering democracy . It deals with the diversity of responses to a given item of culture by examining as directly as possible how given audiences actually understand and use culture texts; a fifth theme concerns the promotion of life-style identities, bringing to focus what Giddens calls \"life politics\" which is connected to the ever-increasing expansion of culture to the point that everything in social life become absorbed and subsumed by culture. It argues that one constructs a social identity according to one's style, look, image, taste, commodity choices,_ and pursuit of leisure activates; a sixth theme is the semiology of the creation of meanings . Ronald Barthes' structuralism and Jean Baudrillard’s' poststructuralism are landmarks in this approach , and both see cultural texts as chains of signification that connect objects (signified) and their representations (signifiers) .In his \"Mythologies\", Barthes' structuralist approach updates Ferdinand de Saussure's structuralism by adding a second level where signs are elevated to the level of myth: first-order signification or denotation arbitrarily connects the object to its representation and is described as the \"literal\" , \"obvious\" or \"common sense\" meaning of the sign, while second-order signification or connotation refers to the intended generation of new mythological or ideological meaning that serves to naturalize the values and attitudes of the dominant culture by making its message or ideology seem self-evident and true. Baudrillard , moves a step further , and presents a poststructuralist study of simulacra and simulation that views mass society as a prime example of pure connotation : the process of signification in that society involves the construction of and saturation with signs to such an extent that signs become depthless and more likely to refer to each other than to any external reality, triggering instead a free- floating chain of associations with other cultural sings. The real object \"dies out\" and the system of signs replaces it instead with simulations or simulacra of the real. These simulated signs are ultimately perceived by people as being more real than true reality itself. They are neither original 4

copies nor mediations of reality, they simply hide that anything like reality is relevant to our current understanding to our life; a seventh theme takes up the topic of feminist studies, investigating the oppressive conditions of women in the family, labor market, sexuality, media culture, and consumerist networks. Further , most research carried out under the rubric of feminism attempt to explore the perspectives for women's emancipation. Media culture is thought to produce symbols of reality (transmission model), expressing in an abbreviated form the nature of a particular reality. However, it has another capacity as well that is often overlooked in transmission models. It functions as symbols for reality, (re) constructing reality while simultaneously representing it (constructivist model). As a work of imagination, media production is both mirror and lamp: it reflects reality and illuminates it at the same time; it is an echo of reality and a constitutive element of it, yet transfigures it in a manner that surpasses what is and looks forward to what can be, effectively participating in its ongoing reconstruction (Van Zoonen 1994). The reality of media culture falls neatly within the Barthian mythical view of media text. In effect , the great theoretician of symbiology, Roland Barth, contends that the media perform the mythical functions of expressing basic concerns, core values, deep anxieties, and public ways of resolving them. He notes , furthermore, that media texts construct community through rituals , shared histories, beliefs and values, and operate to provide not information but confirmation, not to alter minds but to represent an underlying order of things. However, unlike myth , the media, he argues, do not connect mundane everyday life with the sacred and unreachable words of God and ancestors but rather with the inaccessible words of show business, politics, and sports and coronations (Barthes 1957). The mythical constructions of the media , Barthes declares, furnish us with flattened, routinized, and common-sensical knowledge of reality that interpolates or hails the individual and obscures its diverse and 5

multifaceted qualities. Firstly, the myths entertain the false assumption that because things are shown as connected, this state of affairs is somehow natural. A sort of a Pavlovian conditioned reflex links a product such as perfume or dress to most cherished values of love, beauty or sexiness, while the process of this linking is kept unconscious. In this way, brand names are attributed human qualities, and real relationships are replaced by symbolic relationships. Secondly, they obscure and avoid the real issues of society, those relating to work: to jobs and wages and who works for whom. These issues are sublimated into meanings, images, lifestyle, to be bought with products, not with money. Products , not classes, and the judgments, tastes, and sensibilities that go with them, are assumed to unite or differentiate people. Thirdly, they give illusionary powers that are disconnected from real transformations of people's social positions in life. The individual is portrayed as a free choosing agent who consumes the brand name of his or her particular choosing, and gains power, even magical powers, over brute nature and , accordingly, moves to the higher realm of culture. In effect, the recurrent theme of cooked food, juice, soup, tamed muscle bodies, \"free\" bra, and \"wild\" cream in ads imagery celebrate the triumph of culture over nature and, hence, consumer's empowerment (Barthes 1957; Goldman 1992; Carter and Steiner 2003; Tasker and Negra 2007; Genz and Barbon 2009). The theme of empowerment, however, is a sort of black hole. It is completely ideological, offering no transformation in actual socio- economic and political positions in the real day-to-day life of real people. As a matter of fact, this power is doubly alienating: it alienates people from products in that they forget their material process of creation in the workings of society; and it alienates people from themselves, since they allow objects to speak for themselves and become identified with them , and at the same time, are rendered powerless regarding the mastery over their destiny in real life situations (Ibid) . Media myths construct hegemonic definitions of what should be accepted as \"reality\". These definitions, inevitably real and natural, are in this respect instrumental in the process of gaining public consent for a system 6

that privileges those already in dominant positions. Audiences are invariably encouraged to make sense of media texts in certain \"preferred\" (dominant) ways that constantly help to reproduce and legitimate the social order and the system of hegemony . Yet hegemony can never be perpetuated. At some point, audiences resist hegemonic definitions and make their oppositional readings of cultural texts, though, it is claimed, this resistance is less common and more difficult to accomplish, requiring resources that might not be always available to people (Abercrombie and Bryan 1978; Carter and Steiner 2003). Media culture's mythical/hegemonic construction of reality consolidates a rising corporate culture with its ever-increasing commercial embrace and integration of critical aspects of social life into its ever-growing planetary market. This inclusive overall trend of commercialization subsumes, not only durable goods, but increasingly the very idea of beauty, fashion, sex, youthfulness, race, (black glamour), and gender relations as well as the domain of sports, entertainment, literacy, and artistic production. This expansion of the commercial nexus sanctions the capitalist order and provides public consent for those in power, and what may be the most important, demands that everything be defined in ways that are financially profitable to capitalism (Gilroy 2000). At the heart of corporate culture there is a consumerist ethos built on the assumption that basically everyone is first and foremost a consumer, and that the production and management of appearances are compulsory obligations in modern times. It functions as a sort of fashion-police metaphor predicated on the imperative to be stylish and dress stylishly: people are what they appear and what they wear; lifestyle options and leisure preferences and tastes are the things that really matter in social life rather than ethnicity, class, or nation and familial ties; and aesthetic lifestyle experts (designers, cosmetic artists, journalists, etc.) are the priests of modem times who are increasingly regaining power and remodeling people's bodies , tastes, identities, homes, and talents in line with the dictates of the fashion and beauty industries (Carter and Steiner 7

2003; Tasker and Negra 2007; Genz and Brabon 2009; Goldman 1992; Gilroy 2000). Consumerism, furthermore, encloses a deep inner meaning that complements its obsession with appearances. It takes on the role of engineer of the human soul, with the therapeutic power to transform and rejuvenate people's lives and, consequently, dismantle fixations and obstacles that hinder their progressive movement on the path of happiness and fulfillment at the market place (Ibid). Central to consumerism is the celebration of identity branding. Stemming from expanded marketization of commodities' brand names, it involves an increased orchestration of people's identity by corporate powers producing the branded products, and a heightened imperative to aestheticization in terms of product's quality, packaging, and marketing. And it is premised on a Pavlovian association of branded commodities (such as perfume, creams, and clothes) with most cherished human values and qualities (of beauty, youthfulness , love and freedom) (Goldman 1992; Gilroy 2000). The expansion of brand culture is predicated on the triumph of visual culture over print culture. The mass media generates endless visual images of beautiful, muscle, and exotic glamorous bodies (of black bodies for instance), sex, and sports rather than discourses of liberation of women, minorities, and exploited people in the four corners of the globe. Televisual and cinematic representations, music videos, and fashion and life style options are permanently played out on the screens with overwhelming hypnotic impact on the minds and hearts of people everywhere. And the blossoming of youth/ cool/hip-hop culture is visualization in its most excelled form ( Gilroy 2000). Proponents of media culture celebrate its rhetoric’s of individual freedom. It is claimed, the argument goes, that consumer choice is at once an appeal to obey the call of the market and a thirst for uniqueness. It embraces the right to buy products, make \"free\" choices at the checkout counter, choose 8

beauty and glamour from the endless range of products and services now available, and learn to cook up one's own lifestyle and culture from the supermarket of meanings accessible to consumers . It is noted, furthermore, that free consumer choice glorifies an ideology of hedonism centered on promoting the image of the self-indulgent and pleasure- seeking consumer, and on exploring the fun and wonders of the growing leisure opportunities of consumer society. People today, it is asserted , seek new life styles, not new rights; they want the joys of self-gratification best serviced at the shopping mall, not self-determination (McRobbie 1994; Whelehan 1995). Another positive assumption that underlie the \"paradise\" of free play with lifestyle options concerns increased sovereignty of consumers: all have access to and participate in consumption; all have their say in consumption; and all enjoy the fruits of consumption. The individual consumer, as a matter of fact, is constructed as an entrepreneur who increasingly concentrates on his private life and consumer capacities as the sites for reflexivity and agency. He or she is called upon to negotiate a range of diverse lifestyle choices, invent his / her self-identity and monitor his /her self through lifestyle gurus and self-help guides, and is urged to self-care, self-regulate, self-express, self-actualize, and maximize his/ her own powers of reflexive achievement (Ibid). Opponents of media culture, however, put forward a diametrically opposed view on consumer choice. · To them, the triumph of consumerism dismantles collectivist policies of liberation and strives to co-opt oppositional forces into the language of freedom and empowerment through consumer choices. Yet, this language only sells people an illusion of progress that ends up subjugating and oppressing them even further and on more unconscious levels through the subtle manipulation of people's values and tastes. Put differently, it gives them the \"paradoxical compulsory freedom\" to acquiesce to domination in its multifaceted dimensions and, henceforth, to enslavement to the dictates of the market (Faludi 1991; Wolf 1990). 9

Women's Representation in Media Culture The portrayal of women in the mass media can be grouped into four main categories: (1) women stereotyped in traditional housework roles of managing the affairs of the house; (2) women depicted as career-oriented professionals who juggle work and family; (3) women pictured as aesthetic and erotic objects of an invented beauty myth associated with the norms of young, tall, and thin bodies; and lastly( 4) women shown as unique, individualized, self-confident persons with aspirations to play out their feminine subjectivities in line with the jargon of the women's movement. The diverse women's representations mirrors societal contexts: the traditional housekeeper image of confinement to the private domain of family life and denial access to the public life is the emblem of a traditional societal perspective that assigns women to what is dubbed traditional \"women's work\" of cleaning and caring; the modern career image is the outcome of the massive entry of women into paid occupations in the expanding service sector of the Post War II economic boom ; the modern image of the beauty myth symbol reflects at once the consumer boom years and increased leisure time of the 1950's and the sway of freer attitudes towards sex that allowed women to assert more control over their sexuality and advertisers to use their bodies as sale gimmicks for products; and the image of the individualist, free, and self-confident women expresses the blossoming of postmodern plural identities and consumerist life style options , leisure preferences , and tastes (and the decline of modern universal and essentialized identities). It is noteworthy to mention that women's images are arranged in chronological order of occurrence in time. The chronology goes from traditional to modern to postmodern, following the classical perspective of social change . However, the images may coexist one with the other. 10

Today, for instance, all the images are present in the media, though the rate or range of their occurrence and influence vary greatly. Far from being a passive mirror of society, women 's representation (and all representation) in the media is an effective and pervasive medium of influence and persuasion, and its impact is cumulative, often subtle, and primarily unconscious. It reconstructs the social reality of women , fashioning their ideas in the here and now and the beyond . The media propagate the ideal notions of what constitute the good homemaker, the successful career-oriented professional, the beautiful and the sexy , and the individualized self-confident, and call women to live up to those ideals. In other words, they sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth , love and sexuality, beauty and self-confidence, popularity and self-normalcy. They tell women who they are and who they should be. Sometimes they sell addictions. They create an entire cultural world view, often hypnotically irresistible, shaping women's attitudes and beliefs. Henceforth, popular mass media depictions of femininity become femininity itself. Media culture constructs flattened or routinized feminine myths that at once efface women's diversity and banalize their day-to-day problems, presenting them as eternally submissive to the male-dominated social order and always happy, successful, and sensually beautiful: the myth of the homemaker portrays women as a scientist well versed in the science of home management, fashionable and daintily dressed, and a happy exciting companion for her husband; the myth of the career woman is depicted as a superwoman who is professional at work, competent at home, and passionate in love, and up-to-date in fashion and information know-how; the myth of the beautiful woman delineates her glamour, sensuality, and romances, focusing on the aestheticism of her tall, young, thin body and stylish make-up and dress; and the myth of the individualist woman pictures her as free, independent, self-confident, stylish, and in total control of her destiny. 11

The realization of the media myths of femininity is contingent on diffusing a hegemonic \"commodity feminism\" version that carries women's commodification to extremes. Women , in effect , are recognized as solely possessing a supreme commercial value: they are depicted as the holders of the domestic purse- strings and the real buyers of the products of consumption; shopping is portrayed as the imagined pathway to their heart, and the emblem of their identity, desire, expectation, and sexuality; and women's commercial embrace helps promote the expansion of more niche markets to satisfy the growing needs of multiple feminine identities, and concomitantly, consolidates capitalism as a system of markets and profit-making. A Pavlovian conditioning is worked out linking cherished values of beauty, freedom, love, sex, professionalism, and self-confidence to particular products such as perfumes ,creams, dress, and home appliances. And women are made to feel dissatisfied with what they already have, entertaining the idea of a \"lacking\" or a defect in the female consumers that can only be remedied or amended by ever-expanding consumption. Only then, women can live up to the ideals of the media myths. The various items of consumption subsume the ideals of the myths of femininity and place women on the path of their realization in their day- to-day lives: the myth of the homemaker is enacted thanks to high-tech, labor-saving Hoover or Electrolux vacuum cleaners; the myth of professionalism of the career-oriented superwoman is applied owing to the wear of Ralph Lauren \"Power Suit and that of excellence at work, efficiency in homemaking, and passions in love is embodied by cause of the wear of Enjoli perfume; the myth of glamorous beauty is practiced by the wear of Dior J'Adore perfume, romance by Chanel No5 perfume, seduction by Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume, sexiness by Calvin Klein's jeans or Maidenform bras, and passionate love by Light Blue Fragrance of Dolce &Gabbana; and the myth of worthiness of individualist woman is realized by virtue of L'Oreal hair coloring, freedom by Messengill deodorant, sexual awareness by the wear of Wonderbra, self-confidence by Volkswagen Golf, and hedonist life style by Rive Gauche perfume. 12

The Homemaker Homemaking is the act of overseeing the day-to-day operations of a house, and the managing of the concerns of cooking, cleaning, raising children, and grocery shopping .Traditionally speaking, it indicates \"women's work\" that is generally performed by a mother or wife within the private confines of the household. In this context, the term refers to the traditional and exclusive roles defined by nature in that only women are capable of performing them: nurturing and caring. Only women can feed her family, cloth them, heal their sickness, and provide them with a clean and healthy environment. By contrast, \"men's work\" in the traditional sense of the term refers to \"bread-winning\" employment in the realm of the public. It involves dealings with money and the usage of strength or higher reasoning to perform tasks. Generally speaking, it does not include activities within the home or with children (Hochschild and Ehrenreich 2003). Homemaking in the traditional perspective is devaluated work. The reason is simple: homemaking is not classified as productive work, but rather as reproductive work. Consequently, it is a non-income-generating activity, and in a society that bases value in terms of wages and cost- benefit analysis, it becomes impossible to adequately assign a value to this kind of work .And this domestic division of labor between men and women is consistent with traditional patterns of society whereby women are persistently maintained in subordinate positions (in the economy, polity, and culture) and degraded as a human person with aspirations to self-fulfillment (Ibid). However, in the interwar period, homemaking gained some value as it was redesigned as scientific management compatible with the spirit of modernism. The increased production of home appliances and the growing availability of prepackaged foods and cleaning agents turned women into experts well versed in the science of household management, 13

able to manipulate the products of science and technology and capable of calling into play method, plan, economy, and judgment. These developments conspired to free women from the drudgery toil of housework and enhance their leisure opportunities and keep them elegantly dressed and up-to-date and cheerful (Macdonald 1995: 77, 78) Today, there is a neo-traditionalist endeavor to appreciate homemaking , reinterpreting and re-negotiating it in the light of the resurgence of the cult of domesticity or the \"cocooning\" back-to-the-home movement. On one hand, this resurging domesticity glorifies the bliss of home and sees it as the one, true, most rewarding and fulfilling domain to master. On the other hand, it diabolizes the evils of women's work and the selfishness and the lovelessness of careerist women. It abhors the abominations of crack babies and teen pregnancies and other symptoms of the decline of the family such as rising homosexuality, divorce and abortion (Douglas and Michaels 2004: 153, 158, 160, 161, 204, 205; Faludi 1991 :56). A more creative, and surely more pleasurable and relaxing, aspect of homemaking is invented by stay-at-home women or aspirants to this privilege. The vision of breeze-filled, lavender-scented, and voile- curtained homes is cherished and creative domestic chores such as baking, decorating, interior design ,and entertaining or gardening are wholeheartedly embraced as the most rewarding endeavor in the life of a woman (Douglas and Michaels 2004: 205; Macdonalds 1995: 95, 96) . And a new romanticized vision of momism is brought to focus, furnished by enlightened, resourceful, mature , and selfless mothers who choose to stay home and offer their kids boundless love and endless energy and abundance of play and excitement. Their aim is to stimulate, educate, and indulge their kids and promote their emotional, cognitive, and imaginative development (Douglas and Michaels 2004: 5, 6, 11,18, 23). Despite the appraisal of homemaking ,feminists continue to stigmatize neo-traditionalist cocooning as a backlash against the advances of feminism, a real war waged on women's rights gained in the preceding decades. Neo-traditionalists, feminists claim, resort to semantic/ 14

rhetorical manipulation to relabel the terms of the debate: opposition to women's liberation is pro-family; resistance to women's entry into the work force is pro-mother; hostility to women's sexual freedom is pro- chastity; and opposition to women's reproductive rights and the anti-vice crusade against contraception and abortion is dubbed pro-life (Faludi 1991: 65, 66, 232, 238, 239, 401, 403). Many ads on homemaking posit it as the traditional \" woman's work \", claiming that women are good for only one thing: cooking. \"The chef does everything but cook - that's what wives are for!\" commercial for Kenwood Cookers in the l 950's just spells out women's job loud and clear ( www. businesspundit.com/ 10-most-sexist-print-ads-from-the-1950's/?img=2 l 45) . Some ads set out the multifaceted tasks of homemaking as woman's most urgent priority , and insist that women's self-indulgences come second, following, never preceding, the termination of such tasks. The 2008 commercial for Dove soap portrays a morning scene of a woman preparing her family to leave for their daily businesses. Once done, the woman chooses to indulge herself, taking a peaceful shower with Dove soap. The caption \"today, you will feed the hungry, cloth the naked, heal the sick and today, just for a moment , you will achieve peace on earth\" is an admirable statement of women's priorities as defined by the commercial (www.youtube.com/watch?V=pwZooOgJzOEO). Women's inability to perform their \"natural\" task of cooking breakfast (and having children) correctly could spell disaster for any husband. The 1950 \"Now she can cook breakfast again\" ad for Moridine drug proposes the remedy for lousy cooking. Thanks to the drug, designed to combat morning sickness, women could continue to make breakfast for the family even when suffering from symptoms of pregnancy (Ibid). A primary activity of homemaking is women's shopping. The 1950 Chase and Sandborn coffee commercial \"If your husband ever finds out you're not \"store-testing\" for fresher coffee ... \" and \"If he discovers you're still 15

taking chances on getting flat, stale coffee . . . woe be unto you!\" heralds women's good shopping and tells us its secret: the husband may need to hit his wife on the ass to discipline her into good store-testing shopping (www.businesspundit.com/10-most-sexist-print-ads-from-the- 1950's/?img=21450). Other ads celebrate a more \" libertarian\" vision of women , hailing them as experts well versed in the science of household management where economy, plan, and method are called into vigor. Advertisements for Electrolux vacuum cleaners in the 1950's “ turn the housewife into a scientific educator, able to interpret diagrams explaining the advantages of the Electrolux filter and dust collection system: \" ... by means of its chemically-treated pad through which all the air in the room is passed, the Electrolux removes the dangerous germs and bacteria and leaves the air germ-free and wholesome\" (Macdonald 1995: 78). Advertising also acknowledges that women share information and ideas, suggesting a bank of feminine knowledge and information. Science is evoked repeatedly in the 1930's commercials for cleaning agents. \"Do you use Persil the right way? \" advertisements ask, as the product's chemical properties are outlined: \"it's the oxygen set free by Persil which does the work\" (Macdonald 1995: 79). In the same vein, women's access to modern labor-saving home appliances is celebrated as liberating them from the drudgery toil of housework, allowing them to enjoy the modern pastimes of the age. Repeatedly, the l930's ads for Hoover vacuum cleaner implies that the woman released periodically from housework would make a more exciting companion, enticing husbands, by claiming that leisure is what a woman needs \"to keep herself daintily dressed and up-to-date\" (Macdonald 1995: 79, 80). Regarding the traditional \" woman's work\" of mothering, ads ruthlessly exploit women's capacity for guilt and maternal insecurities and anxieties about child care. The quality of nourishment provided by mothers is one 16

of the worries advertisers encourage, especially in commercials for the new cereals and food supplements. The l930's parables of the \"Skinny Kid\" and the \"Unraised Hand\" in the classroom are echoed in advertising, as women are urged to identify with mothers whose son is not \"good enough for the team\" until she feeds him Grape-Nuts or the mother whose baby does “ not look as strong as others “ because he misses his Scotts Brand Emulsion (Macdonald 1995: 81). Another major concern readily evoked by advertisement is women's fears about hygiene and anxiety about diseases. The invisibility of germs, advertisers emphasize, makes it particularly impossible for the housewife to be certain of their total extermination. Lifebuoy soap advertisements of the l930's visibly describe dust as the \"invisible enemy\", portraying domestic scenes where children are at risk from lurking microbes, while Vim piously declares \"it's not original sin but original dirt we have to fight.” And when mother's anxiety is worn out, fear of scorn from neighbors or friends could be equally effective. Harpic advertisements of the l 930's, for instance, feature a pair of disapproving eyes, with a caption intended to strike terror in the reader: \"Are you SURE your lavatory never offends? Friends won't tell you about your lavatory\" (Ibid). The Career Women Women's massive entry into paid work in the economic boom years of the l950's shifted their focus of interest from the domain of the private life of the family to the public domain of society at large. This water-shed of modem times brought about the image of the modern career woman who is power driven, competent, competitive, a believer in equal opportunities for the sexes, and capable of shouldering her work responsibilities, while simultaneously running smoothly the affairs of her household, and engaging in what Hochschild calls the \"second shift\" of traditional \"woman's work\" of housekeeping, mothering, and lavishing affection on her man (Hochschild and Machung 1989). 17

What might be most peculiar to women's work is the media's propagation of the image of the superwoman who excels in both the \"men's world\" of work (and politics and culture) and in housework and care for children and husband, juggles job and family, boardroom and babies, carries briefcases , wears very tailored suits, keeps a spotless house, raises perfect children, cooks gourmet meals , and cares for her husband (Sivulka 2009: 306, 307). The notion of the modern superwoman, however, is highly controversial. Its bright side stems from its emancipatory connotation from what Friedan calls the \"feminine mystique\" (Friedan, 1963) of stay-at-home woman devoted to traditional housekeeping. Its dark side reflects a kind of \"female machismo\" (Friedan 1981 ),again to use Friedan's reconsidered stand, that hides the same inadmissible self-hate, weakness, sense of powerlessness as machismo hides in men. This feeling, the argument goes, is derived from the non-win trap of trying to be perfect mothers and also perfect on the job. And in the view of Friedan the way out for women is simple: renounce power and success, go back to marriage and relationships, and devote themselves to the feminine business of caring and loving (Genz and Brabon 2009: 66-72, 121, 125). The media takes up the idea of woman's work and reconnects it to the most basic function of advertising: the express commodification of work. It attempts to persuade career women to indulge in ever-increasing consumption of commodities with the explicit view to make women's work experience more efficient, rewarding, and joyful. Thanks to the absence of a unified business wear for women (while men possess an overarching business suit), the great brand names of fashion advertise different styles of what they label as \"dress for success\" and \"corporate dress for overachieving chicks\" or \"casual women's career wear\"; the beauty industry advertises cosmetics and perfumes for \"hot\" working women; and banks, airlines, and communications and information firms promise marvels once career women consume their products. 18

The idea of the superwoman is cherished by quite a lot of ads. The 2007 Spadel ad for spa barisart water is a case in point. It features a woman flying over the cityfront of a city, holding in one hand a spadel bottle with the caption \"The Explosive Water\". The message is a straightforward declaration of female exceptional power (www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/spa-barisart-watersuperwoman- 9521905). Other ads explicitly state that women are superior to men. The 1997 campaign for Virginia Slims cigarettes heralds women as more resistant to starvation, fatigue, shock, and illness with the slogan \"we make Virginia Slims especially for women because they are biologically superior to men\" (www.jimsburntofferings.com/adsbiologically-html). The ads for American Telephone and Telegraph (AT & T) embody what might be called a real superwoman worker. A 1972 ad in the series portrays one of its first female installers. It reads: \"The phone company wants more installers like Alana MacFarlane\". She isn't dressed in feminine clothing or seen in an office or department store. She is 20 feet high on a telephone pole dressed in a basic white shirt, jeans, and sturdy boots in order to climb that high. At this time, it would be men doing this type of handy work and climbing onto things as their jobs. And needless to say, no company would have provided this equal opportunity employment (Sivulka 2009: 299, 300). The \"I dreamed\" campaign for Maidenform bra in the 1970s and 1980s stretches the boundaries of what was acceptable at that time for women. The ads, which bear the tagline, \"I dreamed . . . .. in my Maidenform bra,\" feature half-clad female models in a variety of extraordinary environments, transforming their private experience into male-oriented public activities. Each ad features gorgeous ladies, their bottoms modestly dressed and their tops only in their bras, dreaming they \"rode fire trucks\" or \"worked as lawyers\" or \"animal trainers\" or \"crossed the Nile\" or went on a tiger hunt\", all in their Maidenform 19

bras(www.pzrservices.typrpad.com/vintageadvertising/maidenform-i- dreamedads/). The 1953 campaign Trans World Airlines (TWA) \"Fly the Finest\" celebrates the rise of a new women's world . The ad features two women wearing very tailored suits, descending the aircraft with the slogan \"who says it's a man's world\"? The answer is a straightforward no . Not the woman who flies TWA. For since she's discovered the swiftness of TWA constellation flight, her whole outlook has changed. Her horizons are broader . . . . . She's found new freedom and greater opportunity to see and enjoy. Not only that, she can travel alone without a worry in the world, enjoying service that benefits a queen. Meals are served right at her seat; friendly TWA hostesses are always on hand to help smooth her way. Yes, women of all ages are going more places in the world today because of world-proved TWA (www. vintageadbrowser.com/ gender-ads-1950). The idea that fashion could empower women and turbocharge their careers is entertained by the 1980s Ralph Lauren campaign for the \"Power Suit\" . One of the series features a model in office wearing a dark blue business suit, a jacket/ pant match, striped with white, and characterized by sharp cuts, wide shoulder pads, and stiff rigidity. The message is clear: women too could be equal to men in the office, put up a formal attire, and play the power game seriously with professionalism and competence (www.vitaminw.co/culture-society/timeline-power-dressing-l980s- present ). Good management of the household, attending to its different chores, including cleaning the kitchen pots, is a primary concern of the career woman. It is a double-edged promise of success at home and at work. The 1967 ad for Jif Foam Spray features a woman dressed in a business suit, holding files in one hand and kitchen pots in another with the caption \"for women who go to work and also do their own cooking and cleaning” (Sivulka 2009: 308). 20

Doing the laundry is also a major worry for business women. The 2014 ad for Tide \"Freshness Laundry Detergent\" portrays a mother in a business trip chatting on the iPad with her two daughters back home. The mother tells us she travels a lot for business purposes but thanks to Tide's laundering she manages to remind her daughters of her motherly love for them despite the physical separation. Tide's secret is straightforward:” its freshness and cleansing of the kids’ clothes act as a sort of substitute for motherly love” (www.youtube.com/watch?V=eXIHwqXuLOw). Working mothers have the arduous task of providing nourishment for their families. Exploring the themes of shopping and cooking abounds in advertisements: the 2011 \"Busy Moms shop at Hays Supermarkets\" ad, featuring a working mother and her two kids glossing over the different foods in the supermarket, proposes the ideal solution of food shopping for career mothers (www.youtu.be/6ta44QRSbe8); the 2009 \" let's Dish, busy Mom Commercial\" offers working moms healthy and delicious prepared meals without stretching the budget, and delivered to the home to meet the demand of dinner time crazies (www.youtu.be/tEvnXJZFZ3g); and\" Working Mom's Recepies \" of \"Big think\", circulated in 2008, suggest a week-long plan of healthy and quick meals with all the details of cooking methods (www.youtu.beNEc9kAkAYzs ) . Caring for kids figures high in the priorities of successful career women. Attending to their needs and promoting their physical and cognitive growth as well as improving their self-expression and self-esteem and enhancing their enjoyment, are the desired goals of all achieving working mothers. The 2006 \"Lifestyles for Ladies Only\" with the caption \"Busy Moms can be Healthy Moms\" tells us how overworked women do it . It portrays a woman doing her workout in the club while simultaneously her kids, healthy and cheerful , enjoy playing out in the club's supervised environment. The ad tells us loud and clear that ingenious ways are always available for mothers to care for their kids (www.youtu.be/wFG8c7k7xE). Finally, the superwoman successfully combines in her person the roles of worker, housekeeper, and lover. The 1978 Enjoli ad \"The 8-hour 21

Fragrance for the 24-hour Woman\" portrays a beautiful blond wearing simultaneously a business dress, simple clothes for homemaking, and a sexy evening dress with the caption \"I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget you are a man cause I am a woman\". The theme suggests that the magic of Enjoli perfume extends throughout the whole day even though it is originally manufactured for the 8-hour working day, and that the perfume goes along, even accentuates, woman's working and homemaking roles, including cooking for her husband, as well as her sensual qualities in the evening outing (www.youtube.com/watch?V=4X4MwbVf50A). The Beauty Myth Today there is a beauty myth associated with the aesthetic norms of the mannequin and other beauties of the display professions such as actresses, dancers, and sex workers . The mannequin, for instance, has no lines or wrinkles, no scars or blemishes - indeed, she has no pores. She is thin, generally tall and long-legged, and above all, she is young. All “beautiful” women in advertisement, regardless of product or audience, conform to this norm. Women are constantly exhorted to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel that their desirability and lovability are contingent upon the perfection of their beauty (Macdonald 1995: 194- 198; Wolf 1991 : 9 ,10,27 -31). This addiction to the aesthetic beauty of slenderness is an invention of the modern boom of the 1950s . For men, it is a response to the anxiety produced by female sexual desire as women moved increasingly into the public sphere of work, politics, and culture, and, for women, a welcome refuge from the maternal and reproductive definitions of bygone traditional femininity triggered by the ample, full, and well-rounded female form (Macdonald 1995: 198). For both sexes, there is a modern shift from ovaries as collective property to the aesthetic value of the female body, and from the obsession with and cure of women's physical 22

(menstruation, pregnancy, etc.) and psychological (hysteria) impairment to beauty therapies and cosmetic surgery (Wolf 1991 : 10, 11 , 222, 223 , 227) . The beauty myth requires a consumerist-driven beauty labor, a third shift, of sustained body adornment and discipline to achieve the difficult and impossible image of flawlessness , thinness, and everlasting agelessness. This labor, boosted by the consumer boom years and the increased leisure time of the 1950s , involves numerous beautification strategies of hard work: the wear of appropriate forms of make-up, perfume, hair style, dress, and shoes ; the consumption of weight-loss pill ; the use of skin- care and anti-aging creams, and dieting plans ; fitness workouts ;aerobic classes ; and cosmetic surgery (Wolf 1991: 26, 27, 56, 201 - 203 , 243 ; Macdonald 1995 : 193-195). The beauty myth is becoming a gospel of a new religion predicated on an evangelically inspired crusade to fight the sins of fats , dry skin , wrinkles and aging. The great medieval industry of pardons and indulgencies reappear as the holy oil industry of today. Creams, shampoo, and pills perform the good works, care, caress , love, calm, sooth, comfort, purify and save the elect, the female beauties, damn the rest of the women, and ensure the victory over the demons of weight and age (Wolf 1991 : 88 , 89, 95 , 96, 102, 119 , 121 , 206 , 207). Is Women's embrace of the beauty myth servitude or freedom ?Some argue that the beauty imperative to ever-increasing consumption is all enslaving. It commoditizes women into the drugged sex of modern times, addicted to the enhanced consumption, not only of fashion and household products, but also, and mainly, of beauty products of the era of pharmaceutical cosmetics. It also heightens their objectifications in the sense that women are emptied of selfhood, decontextualized, and admired solely as aesthetic or sex objects (Wolf 1991: 9 -13, 65-67, l 06, 268).0thers, focusing on the exploratory and celebratory practices of fashion, maintain that it opens up new freedoms to experiment and 23

play with dress and personal style and explore different subjectivities and create new meanings for women (Macdonald 1995: 210-215). The ultimate expression of glamorous beauty is embodied in the 2011 \"Dior J'Adore\" perfume ad which portrays the most exquisite of all fashion shows, the Dior fashion show. The icons of beauty, actresses and models symbolizing absolute, sophisticated, and gorgeous femininity, are all filmed wearing Dior fragrance and dressed up with Dior high couture and beautified by an array of make-up, cosmetics, and hairstyles. And the commercial is shot in the most sumptuous scenery of all time: the splendid Versailles' Hall of Mirrors. In the first part of the commercial, the beautiful seductive actress Charlize Theron, running late and clad in dark glasses, slips incognito into the backstage of Dior's fashion show. She politely makes her way through the hives of preshow activities of make-up artists, stylists, designers who swarm around models, including the actress herself, as they prepare for their runway spins. And surprisingly, Charlize meets the late Hollywood greats who are very believably digitized back to the reality of Dior fashion show : Marlene Dietrich sizzles in stockings and top hat; Grace Kelly appears as demure as ever in a grey ball gown; and Marilyn Monroe, sparkling in silver, coos over the curved J'Adore bottle. In the second part, Charlize makes her onstage runway debut just in time, strutting down the runway in a slinky beaded Dior gown. And the commercial ends showing the image of the curved Dior bottle (www.youtube.com/watch?V=mXrWiJcmvB1 ). Beauty, romance, and style are the aura of the 2004 ad campaign published by Chanel No . 5 perfume. Starring the stunningly beautiful actress Nicole Kidman, the commercial tells the semi-biographical story of a stylish movie star stalked by paparazzi, who goes into hiding with a mysterious handsome man who she meets by chance. The ad, featuring Kidman wearing Chanel perfume, jewelry, and high couture dresses, portrays the love story, the sympathy, the hugs and kisses , and the 24

cherished moments embracing the star and her man (www.youtube.be/a GVRC8IPjA). Beauty of the nude or half nude female body became standard in the business of advertising in the l 930's and 1940's . Scantily clad and unclad women began to appear in mainstream advertising for skin-care products, underwear, hosiery, soaps, and later, for fashion and car commercials. At present, female nudity reflects the easing of social and sexual mores: it no longer shocks and offends. Rather, it grows out of a sophisticated understanding of consumers' desires. The nude picture supposedly reflects how the prospect would like to think she would look in such garments or in using the advertised product, rather than how she looks in the real world . The 1936 ad for Woodbury's Facial Soap went far beyond the previous decade's standards of acceptability in advertising. It was one of the first ads featuring a naked woman. The Woodbury woman, an unclothed model, is stretched out next to a swimming pool, her back to us, wearing only sandals. The text below connects the image to the product benefits: the Woodbury soap formula packed \"Filtered sunshine, nature's source of beauty for the skin!\" into every ray to give the consumer \"all the benefits of a sun bath\". (Sivulka 2009: 183-186). Wonderful hair, naturally radiant, youthful and fresh, and sparkling with life, is an essential part of the package for women's beauty. Miss Clairol 1955 ad \"Does she . .. or doesn't she?\" promotes hair coloring to women as a way to maintain their self-confidence and identity as well as boost their morale. The hair coloring promises to cover grey hair and keep women young and fresh. It just makes time stand still! But it also gives women the license to experiment with new shades, one shade a day, and another shade the next, providing them with immediate and affordable means of transformation (Sivulka 2009: 260- 264 ). In addition to the blatant abuse of women's beautiful bodies as sale gimmicks for beauty products, different items of mass consumption such 25

as cars, cigarettes, beverages, sportswear, food, home appliances, resort to the same strategy to promote sales . (Macdonald 1995: 87). The most exemplary of this trend is Cadillac Catera commercial published in 1997. General Motors, the manufacturers of the car, signed up Cindy Crawford, dressed her in a mini skirt and leather boots and had her portray a bored princess who had almost everything, yet wanted a little more magic in her life. She went to see a wizard in the castle and asked him what to do with her life. Suddenly, magic took hold and her life brightened when the wizard handed over the keys to a Cadillac Catera (www.youtube.com/watch?V=n WEPw-WZuDQ&feature=kp). The other side of the beauty myth is the erotic. It involves viewing the perfection of women's bodies as intrinsically related to their sexual desirability. Showing the attractiveness of different parts of the female body, and portraying women proposing sex, making sex, and enjoying sex (along with men) are the basic ingredients of the erotic game (Macdonald 1995: 194, 195). Is the erotic and the pornographic clearly demarcated one from the other. Some say the erotic is simply high-class porno; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumers. And fashion and cosmetics simply follow the area of erotic interest, increasingly amplifying the contours of the female body, rendering it sexier than ever before (Wolf 1991: 10, 162). One of the 1950's campaigns of Maidenform brassieres \"I dreamed\" campaign captures current sensibilities of erotic beauty. The \"To be socially attractive, to be attractive, and to win a husband, to keep a husband, a woman had to look sexy, free, and available\" suggest that any woman is basically a born exhibitionist, desiring to look more appealing and sexy and always available for sex (Sivulka 2009: 257, 258). Seduction in its most excelled form is portrayed in \"The Film\" ad published by Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume in 2011 . The commercial sees actress Keira Knightly wake up to an idyllic morning , 26

slips on some Coco Mademoiselle, dresses up in a skin tight beige leather cat suit, and motor bikes her way through the sunny streets of Paris. She heads to a photographer's apartment, where an incitingly sexy photo shoot takes place .Once there, Knightly plays the mischievous, fierce, sexy, and sultry seductress who takes charge of her destiny. Her sensual undressing as if preparing for love, her penetrating looks, and her graceful bodily movements just testify to the power of irresistible seduction(www.youtube.com/watch?V=Nx8hnDOMn9w). Sexy talk is also part and parcel of the erotic game. The l981 Calvin Klein Jeans' commercial features actress Brooke Shields wearing a shirt and jeans while whispering: \"You want to know what comes between me and my Calvin ? Nothing\". The message implies readiness for sex for nothing comes between Calvin Klein woman and sexual encounters (Sivulka 2009: 359). Sexy talk can go a step further to suggest sleeping in bed with the loved one. Chanel has unveiled its new 2013 campaign for Chanel No5 perfume which features archive footage of Marilyn Monroe in sexy postures. The headline quotes Monroe as saying \"They ask you questions like ... what you wear to bed - a pajama top? The bottoms of the pajama? A nightgown? So I said \"Chanel No5\" because it's the truth! And yet I do not want to say \"nude\"! And, of course, the slogan gives free reign to all sorts of erotic fantasies (www.refinery29.com/2013/10/55609/marylin- monroe-chanel-no-5-perfumeadvert). In the same vein, Revlon's \"Fire and Ice\" lipstick campaign of 1952 entertains the idea that there is a duality in every woman, a bit of bad, a little immoral side: a woman is hot and cold, good or bad, a lady and a tramp, fire and ice. And the headline confirms that the Fire and Ice girl \"is a tease and temptress, siren and gamin, dynamic and demure . .. \". Wear it, the ad promises, and make the great things of women's desires, romances, and freedoms come true (Sivulka 2009: 253-256). Women's cosmetics and clothing styles are symbolically made to satisfy 27

women's underlying desire of the male phallus and penetrative sex. The endeavor relies on understanding the deeper meaning of women's buying motives. In the subconscious world of Freudian analysis, any elongated object such as a lipstick tube could be interpreted as a phallic symbol, suggesting penetration into women. Ads channel women's unacceptable desires into acceptable outlets that are satisfied by appealing commodities (Sivulka 2009: 207-209). Tangee\"BRIGHT'N CLEAR\" ad of 1954 stands for, or represents, female consumer's true desires . The lipstick tube is placed in a position too close to the lips of a beautiful woman, suggesting the act of penetrating her mouth. The shade, the ad claims, \"is the brightest, clearest, most dazzling red on record\", and it \"stays bright and clear for hours and hours. It will not dry your lips .... (and) will not go dull and lifeless even after blotting\". It is a \"Just-right-for-you shade\" specially made for the \"brightest jewels of all (that) can be your lips\"(Sivulka2009: 207-209). National Airlines \"Fly Me\" campaign of 1971 is a blatant proposition for sex. It portrays flight attendants as little more than flirtatious sex objects. The ad promises passengers that they would fly like they never had before. One of the ads pictures a stewardess and the headline: \"I'm Cheryl, Fly me\"' followed by \"I'm a girl. I'm airplane. I'm a fresh way to get you where you want to go\". Other ads in the series introduce \"Margie\", \"Karen\", and \"Eileen\", among others (Sivulka2009: 296). Some ads hit all the right chords of sex and desire, going to the extreme of showing passionate love-making. The 2013 \"Light Blue Fragrance\" of Dolce &Gabbana portrays a good-looking couple, stranded on a raft, surrounded by sparking turquoise blue water. It is understandable that the two are attracted to each other because they are wearing the perfume. The man, wearing only an underwear, is aroused by the lady love sitting opposite him, who is wearing a white button-down shirt drenched in water. He leans his oiled body over to kiss model Marija Vujovic, and they make passionate love in the middle of the sea (www.youtube.com/watch?V=zLrUJY4D5Bc). 28

The Individualist Woman During the l 990's,recognition of women's individualism began to feature in society and culture. The repertoire of feminine subjectivities was extended, claiming to address women as unique in person, style, and aspiration. More subtly, the images of the free, independent, self- assertive, self-indulgent, and sexually-aware woman gained momentum while those of women as an object of beauty and sex declined in importance (Macdonald 1995: 81, 85-92). Women's individualistic fever falls within postmodern deconstruction of universal and unified identities including the essential, comprehensive identity of women itself. This deconstruction implies the reconstruction of plural and diversified postfeminine identities defined in terms of the individual/subjective experiences of women, beyond the limits of the broad categories of sex, race, nation, religion, and class (Genz and Brobon: 27-33). Postfeminist pluralism and diversity are tied up to lifestyle options and consumer choices . Freedom to buy consumer goods of one's own choice, to earn as much money as one possibly could, to indulge in the pleasures of life as well, including wearing provocative clothing and doing great sex, become the landmark of the good life for women (Macdonald 1995: 90-92: 27-33, 76-86; Suvilka 2009: 348-349). It is simply power feminism that prioritizes the use and arrangement of the tools of power-media, money, technology, sex, and the power of consumers, viewers, and readers. The mastery of such tools, it is claimed, is the sole option available for women who wish to move forward on the path of self-assertion and self-fulfillment. The reason is simple: only the master's tools can dismantle the master's house and, consequently, open the way for women's betterment (Genz and Brabon 2009: 78). 29

It is also promotional fun at the expense of emancipatory politics. It identifies other women through shared pleasures and strengths, rather than shared vulnerability, oppression, pain, and political struggles. As such, it is straightforwardly sexual and understands that good pleasure makes good politics (Genz and Brabon 2009: 81-83; Sivulk 2009: 348m 349). Finally, it is commodity feminism par excellence. It is a marketable fashion statement, offering a shopaholic version of the good life, heralding retail therapy as a means of personal fulfillment and, of course, liberation, while turning women into unwitting dupes of obsessive and degrading consumerism (Genz and Brabon 2009: 78, 77, 87). Perfume ads readily catch the individualistic fever. Cachet features snap- shot images of 18 different women to accentuate its caption: \"A fragrance as individual as you are\". In the same vein, Max Factor's Blase shows a range of individualistic women to bear witness to its slogan: \"It's not what you wear: It's the way you wear it\". (Macdonald 1995:88). Hair coloring follows along the same line and celebrates the personal excellence of the individual woman . Clairol's 1970 ad replaces the \"Hate that gray, wash it away\" with \"You're not getting older . You 're getting better\", acknowledging age, but confirming growing up to become wiser, more learned, and more interesting. Three years later, Clairol Woman appears as the best of all women. The campaign depicts woman as jockeys, artists, filmmakers, doctors, and politicians with the new slogan \"To know you're the best\". L'Oreal ad of the same year goes a step further and challenges Clairol with the memorable \"Because I 'am worth it\", rather than writing an ad about looking good for men (Sivulka 2009: 300, 302). American Express celebrates the \"Interesting Lives\" of confident, independent women. Its 1985 campaign shows women using the credit card to indulge in their varied interest - take husband to dinner or kids to lunch, plan surprise weekends with husband in a luxury inn, banter with a 30

flirtatious man in a book store, or check into a hotel with suitcases and scuba diving gear (Sivulka 2009: 356). Emotional truths about individualist women's lives is conveyed by Levi's Blue Jeans' 1990s campaign. Pop-up titles include \"Women finding love\" \"Women finding balance\", and “ women getting things off their chest\" , touching on such hot buttons as emotional well-being, men, love, beauty, sex, and food ( Sivulka 2009: 376). Fantastic lives of individualist woman is sketched by Nike's 1990s campaign \"I am strong and I dream and I want to be fantastic\". The ads portray young girls wearing Nike athletic shoes , playing sports , and talking about the benefits society reaps when females participate in sports, such as higher academic performance by girls in school ,fewer teenage pregnancies, reduction of male violence, decline in breast cancer, more readiness to leave violent men, and many other benefits occurring to both women and men (Sivulka 2009: 375, 376). Liberation-themed advertising portrays beauty products as tools that power women in every facet of their life, rather than as something that enhances their beauty or make them feel better as housewives or as women engaged in traditional pursuits. In this context, the notion of freedom is primary. Messengill Feminine Deodorant sells with the 1972 bold caption \"The Freedom Spray\", and Kotex sanitary pad of the same year heralds its ad as the \"New Freedom\" with the slogan \"Free to be myself all of the time\" (Sivulka 2009: 299). The image of woman's self-confidence dominates the action as in the Volkswagen Golf 1980s' advertisement where a jilted woman discards the jewelry and fur coat given to her by her lover and keeps her Volkswagen car keys as her passport to independence (Macdonald 1995: 93). The premise of women's empowerment is the main thrust of the 2003 \"Me Ring\" campaign of DeBeers diamond rings. The ad encourages women to think of diamond rings on their right hands as expression of personal style 31

for the independent, worldly, assertive, and self-indulgent side of their personality. One caption reads \"Your left hand says \"we\" (engagement ring). Your righthand says \"me\". Another claims \"Your left hand declares your commitment. Your right hand is a declaration of independence\" (Sivulka 2009: 346, 347). Some ads encourage women to assume the full responsibility of their person. The 1979 Jean Nate Fragrance ad features a female jockey with the caption \"take charge of your life\", and the 1985 Sunsilk styling mousse urges women to \"take control \"and put an end to wrestling with their hair (Macdonald 1995: 93). Other ads offer women an alternative, hedonistic life style, a care free life. The 1971 campaign for Rive Gauche perfume features a contemporary woman who is having too much fun to marry, tearing through the night in a sports car and arriving at the beach for the first morning light (Sivulka 2009: 306). The individualist woman celebrates the pleasures of sex and sexuality , wears adornments and put on provocative clothing , and heralds sexuality as a means to attain power and freedom. She is sexually subjectified in the sense of presenting herself as active, desiring sexual subject who is untrammeled, assertive, and exuberantly faithful to the libertine notion of sexuality. And she refuses all straightforwardly objectified sexual images that define women as erotic objects of the male desire and judging gaze (Genz and Brabon: 16). The 1994 Wonderbra Campaign best exemplifies the theme of sexual subjectification. One campaign poster presents model Eva Herzigova in a Wonderbra gazing down at her breasts with the caption \"Hello Boys\", ambiguously addressing either male admirers or her breasts (Sivulka 2009: 375).Another poster, also featuring Herzigova , uses the provocative caption\" or are you just pleased to see me\" to extend the distance between talking dirty and having sexual freedom, and taunt her men while inviting them into her boudoir, promising them enticement of 32

pleasures to come (Macdonald 1995: 177, 1787). Other posters show beautiful models in Wonderbras with slogans underneath such as \"look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me\" and \"live it up\", portraying women at ease with their femininity and aspiring for love and sex (Sivulka 2009: 372). Equality between the sexes is a cherished theme of individualist women. It hinges on the various domains of social life, going from sex, to clothing, to entertainment, to relationships. Calvin Klein \"Obsession\" perfume commercial of 1985 promotes the theme of equality in nudity and erotic fantasy between men and women . The ad portrays a nude photo of a woman and a man in a position of equality, where both aim at pleasing each other rather than the woman pleasing the man. The photo suggests that an erotic fantasy world awaits the couple, exactly as it awaits consumers of Obsession (Suvilka 2009: 361 ). Other perfume commercials even go a step forward and show the female dominating the male person. \"The Outspoken Chanel\" published by Chanel perfumery in 1977 tries to convince female buyers that if they buy and wear the perfume they also will become outspoken. The ad shows a woman positioned higher than a man, embracing him rather than the other way around (www.flickr.com/photos /290697 l 7@N02/1l909622693/). Some ads entertain a mannish attire of women, acknowledging the equality in dress as power dressing. Revlon's Fragrance \"Charlie\" commercial launched in 1973 shows a confident woman striding about town in trousers, pursuing traditional male activates, but aware of her own sexual appeal - \"gorgeous, sexy, young\". Revlon is careful to strike a balance between feminism and femininity: Charlie woman is \"independent and not needing a man, but still feminine, not into women's lib\" (Macdonald 1995: 88). Other ads espouse the \"role reversal theme\", viewing women as spectators and men as sexual objects of women's gaze. The 1990 \"Diet Coke Break\" commercial of Coca Cola tells the story of events unfolding in the 11:00 33

am break in the office. Women do not drink the soda. Instead they race to the window to watch, with unabashed admiration, a sweaty, muscular, construction worker who strips to his bare chest and refreshes himself with a cool Diet Coke. As they stare down from the window, they fill their imaginations with all sorts of fantasies . At the end of the break , the women, seemingly fulfilled, move away from the window but not before saying, \"Same time tomorrow?\" to their colleagues (Sivulka 2009: 376- 379). In the same vein, the \"I don't need a man attitude\" reflects women's independence of men and the prioritization of their person rather than their bygone enslavement to the whims of men .In the 1985 Camay Soap ad, a young, elegant and affluent woman steps from her Porsche into her executive flat, and ignores a ringing telephone to lavish attention on herself in the bath. The answering machine deals with her male friend's telephone and a male voice concludes with a statement :\"rich creamy Camay .... for women who choose to please themselves\" (Macdonald 1995 : 90). And women who don't need men can easily dispose of their disloyal or troublemaking boyfriends, replicating men's reactions, and get themselves new boyfriends more conformist to their wishes. The 1993 \"New hair, new look, new bra. And if he doesn't like it, new boyfriend\" ad of Triumph Brasserie admirably embraces this stand (Macdonald 1995: 94). Conclusion Media culture propagates commodification of women's image as a primary objective in so far as women's whole existence is recognized as possessing supreme commercial value. Basically, this endeavor involves 34

linking up women's identities, desires, and expectations to the consumption of particular products. Time and again, women are told that they need to consume to amend a defect, a lacking, in their very existence, and that this propensity to consume empowers them to live up to the cherished media image . The media-imposed images construct a feminine mythical definition that replaces the \"real\", multifaceted, and diverse images of women with symbolic, flattened, and routinized myths .This is worked out through a Pavlovian conditioning linking cherished values to products. Women's beauty, sex, love, professionalism, and self-confidence are associated with the consumption of particular products such as perfumes, clothes, cosmetics, creams, or home appliances . And, needless to say, the process of this linking, assuredly false, is kept unconscious, while the visual image is shown as somehow very real, natural, or commonsensical. These myths of women construct a hegemonic model of women, squarely market-oriented, that defines what should be their natural (or commonsensical) femininity, and that subsumes their whole existence and conditions it to the logic of capitalist marketization and profit-making. Put differently , it is an all oppressive and all-enslaving feminine model , addicting women to enhanced consumption through media manipulation of their values and tastes in the most subtle and unconscious ways . All media representations subscribe to the media game: The home-maker is a good manager of the house, fashionable, and _happy thanks to labor- saving home appliances; the career woman is professional at work, competent at home, and passionate in love owing to the wear of an exceptional perfume or dress or the use of a particular detergent; the beautiful woman is glamorous, romantic and sensual because she slips a specific fragrance or dress up in a particular jeans ; and the individualist woman is free, self-confident, and stylish by reason of wearing an exceptional deodorant or coloring her hair with a specific dye or purchasing the latest car model. 35

36

Bibliography Abbot, Pamela, Wallace, Claire, and Tyler, Melissa . 2005 . An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives. London: Rutledge. Abercrombie, Nicholas and Turner, Bryan S. 1978 . \"The Dominant Ideology Thesis\", The British Journal of Sociology. 29 (2):49-70 (June). Barth , Roland . 1957 . Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Sevil. Baudrillard, Jean . 1988 . Simulacra and Simulations. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Carter, Cynthia, and Steiner, Linda (eds.) . 2003 . Critical Readings: Media and Gender. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press. Douglas, Susan and Michaels, Meredith . 2004 . The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women. New York: Free Press. Faludi, Susan . 1991 . Backlash:The Undeclared War Against Women. New York: Three Rivers Press. Friedan, Betty . 1963 . The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, INC. Friedan, Betty . 1981 . The Second Stage. New York: Summit Books. Genz, Stephanie and Brabon, Benjamin . 2009 . Post- Feminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Gilroy, Paul . 2000 . Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. I

Goldman, Robert . 1992 . Reading Ads Socially. London: Rutledge. Hochschild, Arlie R., and Machung, Anne . 1989 . The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. New York: Viking Penguin. Hochschild, Arlie R., and Ehrenreich, Barbar . 2003 . Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York : Metropolitan Books. Macdonald, Myra . 1995 . Representing Women: Myths of Femininity in Popular Media. London: Bloomsbury Academic. .. McRobbie, Angela . 1994 . Postmodernism and Popular Culture . London: Rutledge . Tasker, Yvonne and Negra, Diane (eds.) . 2007 . Interrogating Post- Feminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Van Zoonen, Liesbet . 1994 . Feminist Media Studies .London: Sage Publications . Whelehan, Imelda . 1995 . Modern Feminist Thought from the Second Wave to \"Post-Feminism\" . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press . Wolf, Naomi . 1990 . The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women. New York: Harper Perennial . 32 II