Since time immemorial, women have traditionally had little to no say in their life decisions. Surely enough, with increased financial independence and networking more female voices are being heard and we have managed to dictate our portrayal in society and the media to a certain extent.
However, as we continue to live in a dynamic world where we are bombarded with information, has the world’s perception of women really changed?
Let’s look at how the “average woman” has changed over the years and what exactly influenced identity.
The post World War Era of the 50’s and 60’s saw men returning to reclaim the jobs which were mostly held by women during World War II. Following this, the US experienced an economic boom, giving the breadwinner (in this case, a man) unprecedented dominance over his female counterpart.
As a result, everyday advertisements in the 50’s and 60’s that catered to women depicted them as a domestic caregiver whose primary objective was to keep her husband happy. This is reflected in the ad protagonist’s need to make the perfect cup of coffee for him.
However, some advertisements like the posters shown below depicted this new dynamic between men and women in a manner that would be perceived as grotesquely sexist today.
Come the 70’s and 80’s, history bore witness to a variety of social movements, one of the most notable ones being the Women’s Liberation Movement. This, combined with the boom in advertisements during the 70s, allowed various social groups to channel their concerns and demand for change. Representation of women in everyday media consequently became unrelated to their societal expectations.
The Apple advertisement above uses “saving humanity” as a metaphor for launching Macintosh, in that the product will bring something novel for society. Apple’s use of a female athlete to “save humanity” can arguably be seen as a symbol for change and societal progression, especially since all people “entrapped” are men.
However, not all advertisements complied with the liberal viewpoints of social movements. There were several instances of mockery and open backlash towards these protest groups as evident through the given poster.
This Smirnoff poster mocks the ‘bra burning’ movement- “The message, of course, is not that a woman who drinks the vodka will become politicised; instead, it is that Smirnoff will “loosen her up” and facilitate seduction.” (Wade, 2012)
By the 90’s and early 2000’s, the depiction of women as domestic or sexualised objects became far less as more women opted to work in tertiary sectors.
These decades were deemed as “The Best Era for a Working Woman” and the average female office- goer saw representation from shows like “Sex and the City” and “Friends” to iconic movies like “The Devil Wears Prada”.
However, it still wouldn’t be correct to assume that the representation of women in the media was 100% feminist by then.
The Clairol ad given above positions Britney Spears as a stereotypical party animal. Evidently, some notions of thought still suggested that a woman had to fit into a “type” and ignored the fact that every woman has several facets to her character and cannot be defined linearly.
Arrival of feminist, pro- woman advertisements using celebrities and influencers became prevalent in the 2010’s. By now, showing women solely doing domestic work and associating us with just cooking or cleaning became far less than it was in the 50’s and 60’s as made obvious by the advertisement below.
At first glance, this ad seems to have gotten everything right as far as feminism is concerned. However it ignores a long standing issue of referring to women as ‘girls’ and while the repetition of “girls can’t” seems to directly quote objectifying comments that have been made to women over the years, the ad campaign could have changed it to “women can” in the second half, since all the ladies in the video are evidently adults.
While our portrayal in the media is slowly but surely changing, we still need to question- after years of suppression and demanding for equal rights and representation, do we live in a man’s world after all?
Take a look at these post- 2015 advertisements and let us know in the comments down below!
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