Women In Advertising: Suggested Reading List

Here, we have compiled a list of scholarly and non-scholarly sources of information that have helped us truly understand the nature of “Women in Advertising”  and why.

07, 2017 Nicola Kemp March, and How long? 1 minute. “Six Stereotypes of Women in Advertising.” Campaign: Marketing, Advertising and Media News & Analysis, 4 Mar. 2017, www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/six-stereotypes-women-advertising/1426391. 

This article is a non scholarly article published in 2017 that explains the six stereotypes of women in advertising, which are; domestic obsessive, selfless nurturer, sex object, unattainable goddess, the fraught juggler, and the bit part. This article will be helpful to our group project because it will help categorize how women themselves are categorized in advertising. Since we have a focus on women, I think it’s first important to see how we are stereotyped and then with the other sources see what why we are stereotyped that way. This article is just a basic summary of a bigger project.

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Rogers, Charlotte, et al. “Just 19% of People in Ads Are from Minority Groups.” Marketing Week, 30 Jan. 2017, www.marketingweek.com/2016/12/06/lloyds-diversity-report/. 

This article is a non scholarly article published in 2017 that explains the small amount of representation in ads from minority groups. There is only 19% of people who are minorities in ads even though 65% of people would feel more favorable about a brand that promotes diversity. They also compare advertisements that do include more minority groups and those that don’t. I think this article is helpful because although it’s mainly centered in the UK, it still has the same concepts for the US because minorities are still a small part in advertisements here. And because it’s so recent I think it will help us have a more recent perspective to compare with older ones.

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Brown, Stephen W., et al. “The Portrayal of Women in Advertising: An Overlooked Area of Societal Marketing.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 4, no. 3, 1976, pp. 577–583., doi:10.1007/bf02729770. 

This article is a scholarly source published in 1976, it is about the “feminist complaints” on female image in advertisements. It explains the stereotypes included in advertisements and the message it sends to the public. Lastly, it is meant for a framework for future research on the female image. This article is a little older at a time where women were still subjected to the objectification and stereotypes of the damsel in distress, so I think it’s still important to compare how women back then and women back now were like and if anythings change. I think it’s apparent that the sexism is very much alive because of how they said “feminist complaints” so the progress that was made is good to compare.

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Kim, Minjeong, and Sharron J. Lennon. “Content Analysis of Diet Advertisements: A Cross-National Comparison of Korean and U.S. Women’s Magazines.” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, vol. 24, no. 4, 2006, pp. 345–362., doi:10.1177/0887302×06293029. 

This article is a scholarly source published in 2006. It is essentially comparing the western ideal of beauty and how that affects Korean women’s magazines compared to U.S. women’s magazines. What the article concluded was that, the western ideal had a very big impact on Korean’s. This article unlike the others focuses more on minorities and the effect that western beauty advertising has on other cultures. It’s a lot different because it’s not necessarily about the stereotypes but the why and the effects of these images of women in advertising themselves. Which will be helpful because it’s important to cover all bases of how women in advertising affect people all around the world.

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Crockett, David. “Marketing Blackness.” Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 8, no. 2, 2008, pp. 245–268., doi:10.1177/1469540508090088. 

In this article, David Crockett discusses how ideas of blackness, black culture and traits like common ways of speaking, hairstyles, style of dress, music and looks are used and manipulated to market products and services. Through analyzation of data we notice similar themes and signifiers used to create a sense of relatable identity with the black viewer. Often we see that the product is advertised as a key part of the black experience and necessary for the needs of a black person and not just for anyone. Crockett goes onto say that we need more critical research done on the impacts of advertising to black people and on the way we market black people to see if there are any possible negative impacts. I would say Crockett gives a thorough evaluation of blackness and the black identity through advertising considering the limited information that can be found. In my personal experience, I do believe his claims to be true and have found similar themes in advertising without making the connections he had.

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Woodard, Jennifer Bailey, and Teresa Mastin. “Black Womanhood: Essence and Its Treatment of Stereotypical Images of Black Women.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2005, pp. 264–281., doi:10.1177/0021934704273152. 

In this article, Jennifer Bailey Woodard and Teresa Mastin closely examine the portrayal of black women in the magazine “Essence”, marketed as a “Black women’s lifestyle guide for the latest in fashion trends, black hair, love & sex advice.” and whether the magazine “works as a liberating feminist text that dispels, as opposed to validates, stereotypical images of Black women.” They do this by examining their uses of four common stereotypes or archetypes of black women; mammy, matriarch, sexual siren, and welfare mother or queen. They conclude that through their work its found that yes, the magazine aims at dispelling these stereotypes and have significantly reduced the portrayal or adressing of these roles as times have changed, like “mammy” and “welfare mother/queen” but have difficulty straying away from the “sexual siren” and “matriarch” persona in their writing as of today. I believe Woodard and Mastin’s claims to be true. Although the magazine aims to stop these stereotypes they still cannot help but follow the less “out-dated” ones as they are so deeply ingrained in the identity of what makes a black women, not only in advertising but in the everyday experience.

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Barletta, Marti. Marketing to women: How to understand, reach, and increase your share of the world’s largest market segment. Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2003.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3il58OdP1mUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR19&dq=marketing+women&ots=AfaQeNaRHL&sig=Kl4MuvJisVmxY9yL6EleEanPdi4#v=onepage&q=marketing%20women&f=false (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

This book, written by marketing expert Martha Barletta, effectively discuss the problem of companies do not aware the power of woman buyer. She uses a compelling business case to illustration the discipline of the marketing professionals of men and women. Meanwhile, how women reach more purchase than men, and the marketing plan created targets women, are discussed in detail. I found this book useful because much of the content of the studies can be easily accommodated to fit the group project of marketing and women.

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Seligmann, Linda J. Women traders in cross-cultural perspective: Mediating identities, marketing wares. Stanford University Press, 2001.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AKzAGCNAmHAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=marketing+women&ots=nNpHEiZCMx&sig=ItrZh4j6jyUTt4qVag0aU1J-pK8#v=onepage&q=marketing%20women&f=false (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  (

In this book of studies women as language, economic, political, and value in informal market. Linda analyze the global influence of women in economic and political activities. The research also led to a new hypothesis of women in market impact social movement. I use this book as resource because it not only presents the relationship between women and market, but also give more information in different area, which will be more reliable the research of the group project of marketing and women.

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Simpson, Jack. “17 marketing campaigns with a positive message for women.” Econsultancy, 8 Mar. 2016, econsultancy.com/blog/67626-17-marketing-campaigns-with-a-positive-message-for-women. 

This article, Jack Simpson summaries the post wrote by Chloe McKenna about social media campaigns that celebrate women. He chooses to highlight seventeen other marketing campaigns he has seen that depict a positive message about women. The article is interesting describe the relation between women and marketing, which like bring a fresh air for the research with different point of view of the project topic.

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Tilearcio, Tatiana. “Wonder Woman Inspired: The Leading Women in Marketing.” Synthesio, 11 July 2017, www.synthesio.com/blog/wonder-woman-marketing/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. 

Tatiana Tilearcio metaphor the leading marketing women as “Wonder Woman”, and give a list of some top name in the industry, and brief the label of each one. The article seems to be very simple, but with list of marketing legend women list. I could explore more after for the group project of marketing and women.

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Suggett, Paul. “The Objectification of Women in Advertising.” The Balance, www.thebalance.com/advertising-women-and-objectification-38754. 

The article was written December 21st, 2016. This was quite recent and hopefully should still be relevant. It is more of a think-piece and it was written as an examination of women in the marketing/advertising industry. How their body image is constructed towards benefiting the male gaze through ads and how impossible standards translate to human desire on a superficial scale.

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“Women: Representations in Advertising.” Ad Age, 15 Sept. 2003, adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/women-representations-advertising/98938/. 

This piece was written in September, 2003. It focuses more on the historical landmarks of women in advertising and how the role of women in ads have changed. Since it is from a website called “AdAge” they focus less on the social justice aspects of women in advertising and more the cultural impact that women had on ads and vice versa.

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Nielson, Hailey E. “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.” Eating Disorders: An Encyclopedia of Causes, Treatment, and Prevention, edited by Justine J. Reel, Greenwood, 2013, pp. 147-149. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX2723200058/GVRL?u=wash_main&sid=GVRL&xid=d5bfeed8. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.  

This article by Hailey Nielson in 2013 looks at the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and how it challenged the typical depiction of women in beauty products. It challenged that and it also just challenged the idea of what beauty is. It looked at body dysmorphia, it looked at all shapes, all sizes, all races, basically provided a spectrum of women to provide greater inclusion.

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Matthes, Jörg, et al. Sex Roles, Springer US, 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023740/. 

This source breaks down the stereotypes in print and visual media of both men and women as comparisons to the pitfalls of advertising. This article was written by Jorge Matthes and Michael Prieler on April 5th, 2016. It speaks on how these stereotypes were built and how their construction affects the way an audience perceives what they are selling. Why sex sells and why it works.

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Teri Del, Rosso (2017) “There’s a cream for that: A textual analysis of beauty and body-related advertisements aimed at middle-aged women”, Journal of Women & Aging, 29:2, 185-197, DOI: 10.1080/08952841.2015.1125698n

This is a scholar article published in 2016 by Teri del Rosso. It has four sections talks about: aging studies, media and beauty/body ideals, advertising and age and advertising and body image. I thought this article would be helpful in understanding the strategies behind women advertisement. Particular in aging and body image. For example, how advertisers often pathologize aging and how they use model that is younger then targeted women’s age, also how advertisers force women into feeling dissatisfaction in their body. Moreover, it also talks about how advertiser create a hegemonic beauty and how it establishes an idealized version of women.

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Reissman, Hailey. “Spotlight TEDx Talk: The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women.” TEDx Innovations Blog, 28 May 2015, tedxinnovations.ted.com/2015/05/27/spotlight-tedx-talk-the-dangerous-ways-ads-see-women/.  

This is a 2014 TEDx talk by Jean Kilbourne. She is a researcher on advertising within the context of gender and culture. In this video, it gives a lot of example and talks about how normal women in ads is portray in a more feminize and sexual way. Even though guys are being objectified more than it used to be, but it’s not the same as women and girls being objectifies. When women are being objectifies there are some degree of dangers that come with it because of gender and culture difference. And nowadays even little girls are sexualized in ads. I thought this video gave us a general idea and evidences on how women are portrayed in advertising.

(Annotation provided Demi)

 

Black Women’s Representation in Advertsing

In recent years, with the evolution of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook we have seen varieties of marginalized groups and minorities decide to take on the the role of representing their demographics themselves, using their own voices and platforms to portray what they believe are more accurate, less cut and dry, depictions.

Initiatives like #blackgirlsrock, #blackgirlmagic, #carefreeblackgirl and more were created as a result of black women’s dissatisfaction of their characterization in various media forms during what some are referring to as the new “black renaissance”. Now we must ask ourselves, why has it gotten to this point? Why must these black women have to create their own initiatives and carve their own paths in order to be accurately presented in a way they feel is productive?

The reason is even though there has been a revolution in the communication industry with the internet giving access and a voice to those often voiceless, things really haven’t changed too drastically and a majority of power still lies in the same hands of the same few large corporations whose agendas haven’t changed much either (Carah and Louw, 28). These institutions are responsible for relaying negative imagery of black women as it sells better and this is especially present in advertising. Here I’ll be going over some common themes and stereotypes we see in relation to black women and advertising.

 

The “Mammy” a.k.a. Your kind-hearted, subservient, jolly, black servant

Perhaps one of the oldest depictions of black women in advertising is the “mammy” caricature. Images of darker skinned black women, in their headscarf meant for work and wide smiles were used to allude to the idea that blacks were happy to be slaves and enjoyed catering to the whims of their white owners. Even going as far to brand them as loving “aunts” instead of property to their white “families”.

 

 

 

 

 

We saw this initially with Aunt Sally in 1875 used to market baking powder and then again with Aunt Dinah’s molasses.

The most popular image of the sort was Aunt Jemima, who’s face although has gone over a bit of a makeover over recent times to look less “mammy-ish” is still around today and is the most successful of the bunch as a staple pancake mix and syrup. In the companies start, a real life “Aunt Jemima” was depicted by an actual former slave at the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago, where she dressed up for the part, sang songs, baked pancakes, and recalled stories of her “happy” life in the South working for whites (The Mammy Caricature, 2000).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diluting Blackness: The Phenomenon of Whitewashing

“Okay, okay, we’ll post your black women in our ads if you insist. But only if we can strip their blackness away as much as possible…”

Most often seen in beauty campaigns and brand deals, whitewashing involves the use of editing software or tools to make a darker skinned persons skin lighter. It usually doesn’t stop there though, there is often manipulation of the nose and lips to appear thinner and closer to that of the mainstream European beauty standard (Ziege, 2016).

 

 

 

 

 

 

But whitewashing can also come in other forms; by infiltrating black spaces, brands and experiences and making them about white people. A great example of this was seen in Spring of 2017, where Shea Moisture, a very popular hair/skin care company most regarded for its natural hair care products aimed at black women, released a commercial where a blonde woman, two red-haired white women with straight hair and a mixed, lighter skinned black woman with loose curls complained about their struggles of managing their hair and dealing with “hair hate”. Many consumers complained that their struggles were nowhere near that of those of black women with kinkier hair and that with so many few successful black brands in the market, they were going to be abandoned for the larger white audience again.

 

 

Excotsicism/Dehumanization – Comparing Black Women to Animals

From the days of slavery and Jim Crow, black people have been compared to animals and closely associated with the dark depths of “jungles”, as if they were not dehumanized enough by being treated as property, they were also seen so beneath whites- they were compared to the likes of uncivilized apes and monkeys most often. This allowed for more degrees of separation between the races, blacks were the “other”, almost an entire species of their own. The prevalence of this can still be seen in recent times (Ziege, 2016).

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might ask yourself, “why is all this still happening?”, I know I am. The answer truly lies in the lack of black voices in these conference rooms and board meetings. Had there been a black woman in the room to say “hey… this is offensive to me and could be to others” then maybe so many of these mistakes could be avoided and there would be no need for apology campaigns in the first place. For this reason,  if we ever want to dismantle the oppressive nature of our media today, we must take a stand and advocate for the inclusivity of black and other minorities in these spaces.

 

Works Cited:

Carah, Nicholas, and Eric Louw. Media and Society: Production, Content and Participation. Sage, 2015.

Callahan, Yesha. “Black Women Are Upset Over SheaMoisture’s New Whitewashing Marketing Ploy.” The Grapevine, 4 Apr. 2017, thegrapevine.theroot.com/black-women-are-upset-over-sheamoistures-new-whitewashi-1794603970.

Crockett, David. “Marketing Blackness.” Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 8, no. 2, 2008, pp. 245–268., doi:10.1177/1469540508090088.

Pilgrim, David. “The Mammy Caricature.” The Mammy Caricature , Jim Crow Museum of Racist Caricature, Oct. 2000, ferris.edu/jimcrow/mammies/.

Woodard, Jennifer Bailey, and Teresa Mastin. “Black Womanhood: Essence and Its Treatment of Stereotypical Images of Black Women.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2005, pp. 264–281., doi:10.1177/0021934704273152.

Ziege, Nicole. “Why Representation of Black Women In Advertising Needs To Change.”The Odyssey Online, 5 Nov. 2017, http://www.theodysseyonline.com/african-american-women-in-advertising.