How is women’s identity
constructed through consumerism?
Consumerism is the ever-expanding social and economic order of
consumption that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater
amounts. Women’s identity’s have been manipulated through consumerism, through
adverts telling them how they should look like, how they should act and what
they should own, to be the best person that they could be, although it will
still never be enough. ‘The emphasis on
women’s looks becomes a crucial way in which society exercises control over
women’s sexuality.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page35) Through this essay it will
show how the theories about women and the media, and how consumerism controls
the way that women feel and react to advertisements targeted towards them.
Rosalind Coward has strong theories and beliefs about how women have been
subjected to feel certain ways when seeing many different advertisements, this
will be shown throughout this essay with quotes from her book being supported
by other sources.
‘The saturation of society
with images of women has nothing to do with men’s natural appreciation of
objective beauty, their aesthetic appreciation, and everything to do with an
obsessive recording and use of women’s images in ways which make men
comfortable. Clearly this is connected with feeling secure and powerful. And
women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been
elevated to the position of holding the key to our psychic well-being, our
social success, and indeed to whether or not we will be loved.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page34)
Through time women have been painted and photographed in ways which
make men feel confortable, never looking directly into the camera or being
painted so that the women is looking away, never catching the gaze of a man.
When it comes to ideologies of men and women, women are seen to be the focus of
an image, looking away from the audience or looking back suggestively, allowing
men to look back at them without being challenged, so they can look for as long
as they please without feeling guilty. ‘While
I don’t wish to suggest there’s an intrinsically male way of making images,
there can be little doubt that entertainment as we know it is crucially
predicted on a masculine investigation of women, a circulation of women’s
images for men.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page33) Coward s suggesting that because
the image is created by a man, it is also creating from a male point of view,
therefore will appeal to other men, as it is their way of seeing things.
Through time the idea of gazing upon a women in an advert or image has advanced
and targeted at women too. Showing the women what they could look like if they
did certain things, which will allow men to appreciate what she looks like, as
well as what the women in the advert or image looks like too. Most women have
an overwhelming need to find ‘the one’, they believe that they have to act and
look a certain way to find that special someone. With all of the advertising
that is used now a days women feel like they have to look like the women in
these adverts to compete to find a men who appreciates them aesthetically, but
more importantly, compete with these women so that they feel they are beautiful
enough. Naomi Wolf supports this idea by saying; ‘the quality called “beauty” objectively and universally exists. Women
must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it.’ (Wolf,
N. 1900. Page12)
Not only women but also young girls are influenced by this idea of
being perfect and beautiful. ‘It has been
suggested that all children pass through a narcissistic phase where they become
entranced by their own self-image.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page36). This is
known as the mirror stage, where children start to be able to see themselves
for the first time, and are able to pass judgment on themselves. It is
something that is brought upon them at a young age, where they are vulnerable
to things such as Snow White (fig 2), things that we think are innocent and
just a fairy tale actually communicate a negative message to children. At this
“mirror” stage in life young girls and boys will be subliminally taking what is
taught in fairy tales such as Snow White and applying them in life. Young girls
believing that she will only find her “Prince Charming” if she is “the fairest
of them all”, and young boys believing that they shouldn’t be with anyone
unless they are the “the fairest of them all”. ‘In a recent study of high school girls, 53 percent were unhappy with
their bodies by age thirteen; by age eighteen and over, 78 percent were
dissatisfied.’ (Wolf, N. 1990. Page185) Starting from a young age society
makes girls/women believe that they should look a certain way, and women find
themselves forever trying to improve the way they look to get to the ideal
version of themselves. But they will
never fully get there as there is always something else that needs changing, or
some other product that is now available to enhance your assets, Coward
supports this by saying, “Women’s
relation to their own self-image is much more likely to be dominated by
discontent (…) ’I’m not attractive enough’.” (Coward, R. 2000. Page37)
Therefore no matter what women do, and no matter how many products they buy to
enhance themselves, they will never be content.
‘Advertising in this
society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that,
unless we measure up, we will not be loved. We are set to work on an
ever-increasing number of areas of the body, laboring to perfect and eroticise
an ever-increasing number of erotogenic zones. Every minute region of the body
is now exposed to this scrutiny by the ideal. Mouth, hair (…) legs, feet – all
these and many more have become areas requiring work. Each area requires
potions, moisturisers, conditioners, night creams, creams to cover up
blemishes. Moisturise, display, clean off, rejuvenate – we could well be here
all day, preparing the face to meet the faces that we meet.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page38)
Women often don’t only seek attention from men; they also seek envy
of other women. Attention from other females is hard to measure, although from
men is easily measured. Therefore advertisements that show the consumer a
beautiful women, and make them envious, means that if they do what that women
are doing in the advert, or look like that women looks, other women will also
be envious of them. ‘The state of being
envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of
manufacturing glamour.’ (Berger, J. 1972. Page131) Glamour is something
that now-a-days can be sold, often for a large profit, and although everyone is
glamorous in their own way, and everyone is beautiful to someone, publicity has
molded the definition of glamour and made it what they want it to be to sell
products. Women are no longer comfortable with the way they look, no matter
what they do to try and make themselves glamorous they will never be good
enough ’I’m not attractive enough’.”
(Coward, R. 2000. Page37). Coward supports Berger’s idea that glamour is now
manufactured and most women feel that they will never measure up, and has to
buy all of these products to make them glamorous to even compete with those who
are deemed to “have it all”. When in fact even arguably some of the most
beautiful women aren’t good enough and have to be enhanced and improved.
Jessica Alba (fig 1) on a photo shoot for the cover of a magazine isn’t even
deemed as good enough, they have to change and enhance what she looks like to
make other women enviable and want to look like that too. The original image of
her, before they used Photoshop to “enhance” what she looks like, is beautiful
and glamorous; it is also achievable to some women as its real. Then they
change it so that it is “glamorous” enough for the cover, ‘manufacturing glamour’ (Berger, J. 1972. Page131) this makes women
think that people actually look this way when in fact even the people who women
are trying to look like, don’t look like that. It is an unreachable goal as the
idea of looking “perfect” doesn’t exist, everyone is beautiful to someone, it
is in the eye of the beholder, although women will still be pushed into trying
to get there, or get as close as they can.
Although Hayden Noel argues the point that women’s identities are
not molded by consumerism, but in fact women in consumerism mold the
advertisers and marketers and the decisions they have to make. ‘Marketers need to now why consumers choose
one product over another (…) Understanding consumers preferences and how they
make decisions enables marketers to influence the choice process and determine
how best to persuade consumers to examine their brand and place it in the group
of item being considered for purchase.’ (Noel, H. 2009. Page134) Different
people react different ways to advertising, men and women react differently, as
men react better with humor and lighthearted advertising, whereas women react better
with emotional and life (children and families) advertising. This is something
that advertisers have to do, they have to appeal to their target audience with
whatever product they have. ‘Marketers
are cashing in on the increasing role of women in traditionally male-dominated
markets.’ (Noel, H. 2009. Page81) Although this is good for advertisers and
marketers, seeing all the new possibilities to advertise for women, this is
their job and they are just doing it to the best of their abilities. It could
also be argued that people see what they want to see in an advert anyway,
everyone looks at things in different ways and has different perspectives;
therefore it is the eye of the beholder, and not everyone looks at things such
as Snow White in a negative way, they see them in the innocent way that the
producers intended them to be.
Vance Packard agrees that it is the eye of the beholder as he says; ‘The subject sees in the picture what he
“needs” to see, and thus projects himself into it – his anxieties, inadequacies,
conflicts.’ (Packard, V. 1957. Page59) Only by creating circumstances which
people can project themselves into will relate to the target audience, they
need to feel like the message that is being communication is personally for
them. Doing this is quite difficult for certain audiences, therefore women
reacting negatively to the advert means that it is successful as they are
actually reacting to it. Some people will react to the same advert but see it
in a different way; it will still have the same outcome for the marketers
although the audience will see it positively, it’s all in the eye of the
beholder. For example The Victoria’s Secret Love My Body Campaign (fig 3) is
targeted at women who are comfortable with themselves and have quite small
frames and want to know somewhere that they can buy underwear from that will
make them feel even better about themselves and confident in their bodies. The
‘Love My Body Campaign’ is designed to project a positive message about bodies,
so it will reflect well on Victoria’s Secret. However it can be argued that the
models that have been used for the Campaign are all of a certain size, which a
lot of women would call “perfect” and some women will see this as a goal, to
look like these women. ‘The image like a
mirror reflects back to women their own fascination with their own image.’
(Coward, R. 2000. Page37) They will do whatever they can do to look like these
women, as they think that they would be envied and lusted for, if they did,
although fig 1 shows that this may not be what the women actually look like and
this could be an unrealistic goal. This advert shows the positive and negative
way of looking at this advert, proving Vance Packard’s theory of that it is in
the eye of the beholder.
Vance Packard also suggests on the other hand that ‘any product not only must be good but must
appeal to our feelings “deep in the psychological recesses of the mind.”’
(Packard, V. 1957. Page53) This is a quote made by Dr. Dichter in The Hidden
Persuaders, he tells companies that ‘they’ve
either got to sell emotional security or go under; and he contends that a major
problem of any merchandiser is to discover the physiological hook.’
(Packard, V. 1957. Page53) Packard is implying that marketers look into finding
the way to get into women’s minds, trying to make them paranoid and feel
insecure in their own bodies. As if the marketers are giving them the solution
that they have always been looking for, when actually the only reason they are
looking for a solution in the first place is because of consumerism and how
women are molded to look and act a certain way to be deemed as “beautiful” and
“glamorous”. ‘Women are, more often than
not, preoccupied with images, their own and other people’s.’ (Coward, R.
2000. Page36) The Campaign for Victoria’s Secret (fig 3) has been rebelled
against in Dove’s Campaign (fig 4), when these adverts are put together it
shows a clear reflection of how advertisers and marketers portray women in consumerism.
It displays what real women look like in the Dove Campaign, showing how happy
they are in their own skin, showing how adverts like Victoria’s Secret don’t
affect them, as they now know that it’s not real. Where as in the in the
Victoria’s Secret campaign it is presenting what marketers want women’s identities
to be, it is showing all normal women’s insecurities in one advert, suggesting
that if they buy the underwear from Victoria’s Secret they will look
“glamorous” and how women should want to look.
The Dolce and Gabbana advert (fig 5) is a good example show how
marketers and advertisers don’t try and sell the product, they try and sell the
lifestyle that the product can give you. In this advert the lipstick is not
very clear, although the situation the lipstick puts you in is very clear, and
if the consumer buys this lipstick they will too achieve this lifestyle and be
this glamorous. ‘The spectator – buyer is
meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant
to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for
others, and envy which will then justify her loving herself.’ (Berger, J.
1972. Page134). Berger supports this point, as the advert is showing the women
looking very glamorous, and being desired by attractive men, therefore this
Dolce and Gabbana advert is advertising a lifestyle not just a product. It is
advertising a lifestyle, which is very unrealistic, as not everyone who buys
this product will look like the women in the advert, or have the lifestyle she
has, with the affection of a man. ‘Anxiety on which plays is the fear that
having nothing you will be nothing.’ (Berger, J. 1972. Page131) People fear
that in their lives they will not be happy unless they have found their
partner, had children, and own nice things. It is seen that if you have a lot
of money you are doing well in life, which means you can buy all these things
that are advertised, which infers that having “things” means you will be happy
in life. ‘The power to spend money is the
power to live.’ (Berger, J. 1972. Page143) If a women doesn’t have a lot of
money, the advert offers the opportunity to buy the product and live a
lifestyle as if she did, whilst getting envy from other women for having this
product and potentially living this lifestyle. For example in this Dolce and
Gabbana advert Scarlett Johansson is wearing nothing but the lipstick whilst
looking glamorous and wanted, suggesting that all you need is this lipstick to
look like Scarlett Johansson, and owning this lipstick will communicate the
message to other men and women that you have money and can afford to buy this
luxury product.
Women’s identity is constructed through consumerism. Through time
women have been objectified and there are many ideologies of what women should
look like to be seen as beautiful, or what women should own to be socially
accepted. There is an argument that suggests consumerism has been molded around
the development of women and the current women-dominated market, although the
argument is floored due to the fact that women have only developed to buy
certain things and act a certain way because of consumerism and how adverts
portray an ideology of women and their overall aesthetic. Starting from a young
age, girls are lead to believe that there is a particular way to act and look
to be considered as beautiful and glamorous. This is something that women don’t
grow out of, as there are constant reminders of what women should/could look
like, and people follow this sometimes very drastically, which is a huge danger
that consumerism is responsible for. ‘The
youngest victims, from earliest childhood, learn to starve and vomit from the
overwhelming powerful message of our culture (…) Until our culture tells young
girls that they are welcome in any shape – that women are valuable to it with
or without the excuse of “beauty” – girls will continue to starve.’ (Wolf,
N. 1900. Page205) Adverts such as Dove (fig 4) should be seen more, showing
young girls and women that curves are beautiful, normal and womanly, and that
beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It all comes down to being accepted and
not being judged, for what women look like or own, ‘The girl-child discovers herself to be scrutinized, discovers herself
to be the defined sex, the sex on which society seeks to write its sexual and
moral ideals. She learns that in this scrutiny might lie the answer to whether
she will be loved.’ (Coward, R. 2000. Page39) Ultimately women just want to
be loved, being envied by other women is something of a desire to make women
feel better about themselves, but finding a love is the overall aim.
Consumerism makes women believe that they won’t find love unless they are
“perfect”, “beautiful”, and “glamorous” and look like then women in the adverts
who are slim and Photoshopped, this is an unreachable goal, and isn’t necessary
as everyone is beautiful someone, no matter who they are, what they look like,
or what they own. Women’s identities are constructed by consumerism, sometimes
in a positive way, making women feel good about themselves and actually helping
them to achieve their personal goals, although it is also mostly negative,
making women feel bad about themselves, thinking that they need to be like the
women in the adverts, changing drastically to become what consumerism has
portrayed as beautiful.
Examples
Fig 1
Fig 2
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
Wallpapers (1920x1080 Pixel) #Images 18322 - Photoinpixel: HD Background
Picture And Wallpaper. 2014. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
Wallpapers (1920x1080 Pixel) #Images 18322 - Photoinpixel: HD Background
Picture And Wallpaper. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.photoinpixel.com/picture/1920x1080/snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-wallpapers-18322.html. [Accessed 09 February 2014].
Fig 3
Fig 4
Fig 5
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