Context Of Practice Essay - Leah Haywood

Leah Haywood, BA (Hons)Illustration Level 4, OUIL401, Studio Brief 1 To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?

American Apparels controversial representation of women in their adverts objectifies and overly sexualizes women and their bodies. This essay intends to explore American Apparel adverts and their representation of women in light of third wave feminism and the sexual subject/sexual object argument.

Throughout we will examine a range of different advertisements from American Apparel and compare these to the standards and differences of being a sexual object and a sexual subject. We will also look at how an image is composed and how this can help us differentiate between a sexually subjectified woman and a sexually objectified woman.

Sexual subjectification is seen as a form of female empowerment rather than objectification. In contemporary advertising women are portrayed as sexual subjects as a pose to sex objects, willing and playful, knowing of their sexual power. Third wave feminism see’s this as a positive advancement in women’s portrayal in the mass media, an empowerment of the female body where as others may argue that even though woman aren’t presented as sex objects, they are still seen as objects as their appearance still aims to satisfy the male viewer, ‘women are presented not as seeking men’s approval but as pleasing themselves; in doing so, they just happen to win men’s admiration.’ (Gill, 2003, 101).

A sex object is defined as being someone that is acted upon where as a sex subject is defined as being someone that acts. Rosalind Gill argues that ‘young women are presented not as passive sex objects, but as active, desiring sexual subjects, who seem to participate enthusiastically in practices and forms of self-presentation that earlier generations of feminists regarded as connected to subordination’ (Gill, 2003, 97). To most, this is seen as a form of empowerment. Young women, specifically in the western culture are taking it upon themselves to become more sexually liberated, celebrating their bodies and their sexuality for themselves rather than for the enjoyment of men. Others argue that as much as it can be interpreted as a form of female empowerment, sexual objectification is still rife, and causing damage to the way women and girls view themselves, and how others view them, ‘beyond the internal effects, sexually objectified women are dehumanized by others and seen as less competent and worthy of empathy by both men and women’ (Heldman, 2012) Although sexual subjectification may be seen as a leap forward in how women are viewed and how women view themselves, it only seems to apply to one specific group of females; white, slim, young, typically middle-class women. These women are able to represent themselves as sexual subjects, her feistiness and self-assertiveness is seen as sexy and appealing, yet when you apply the same behavior of these kinds of women to women that are of different ethnicity, different body shape or weight, different social classes and backgrounds, their behavior is read as distasteful, ‘a woman’s permission to desire still depends on her ability to evoke desire in others’ (Hills, 2015)

This idea of sexual subjectification is mainly aimed at an advertising category commonly know as ‘the midriff’. The ‘midriff’ can signal a generational group, usually woman in their 20’s/30’s but also encompasses women in their early 40’s and girls in their late teens. It also includes a range of individuals who have certain attitudes towards the body, sexual expression and gender relations. The advertising techniques that are aimed at this audience are noticeably sexual, but the women in the adverts are not shown as sexual objects. ‘In today’s midriff advertising, women are much less likely to be shown as passive sexual objects, than as empowered, heterosexually desiring sexual subjects, operating playfully in a sexual marketplace that is presented as egalitarian, or actually favorable to women’ (Gill, 2003, 99). In contemporary advertising, the body is displayed as a womans most important feature, overriding her capability to do anything else, and midriff advertising supports this way of thinking and viewing the female body by constantly focusing on an emphasis on the body, sexual subjectation and empowerment.

Some may argue that this has created a shift in power, the female body is no longer under scrutiny from the male-gaze, but now also from an internal narcissistic gaze. This now means that as well as coming to terms with sexual objectification, women must come to terms with their own objectification and see it as pleasurable and self-initiated.

This midriff

example of advertising by

American Apparel depicts a young, female model, laying suggestively on a bed with her legs spread. The phrase ‘Now Open’ printed in big bold lettering next to her face is supposed to be a reference to a new store opening in Amsterdam, but instead directly comments on the woman, her position and suggest the idea that she is ‘open for sex’. This idea is prompted even more with the fact that her legs are spread widely open, as if she is presenting herself, ready for sex. Some may argue that this is an example of sexual subjectification whilst others may argue that it is an example of sexual objectification. I believe this to be a perfect example of what Rosalind Gill describes as advertising aimed at the midriff, ‘the construction of a young, heterosexual woman, who knowingly and deliberately plays with her sexual power and is forever ‘up-for-it’.’ (Gill, 2003, 98). As much as this can be seen as some form of sexual empowerment, surely it must also be seen as sexual objectification. This woman is literally being displayed for sex, she is being advertised as being ‘open for sex’. Her posture is suggestive and the candid nature of the photo may lead us to believe that this was a ‘spur of the moment’ kind of image, the model knew what kind of image she wanted to give across, she knew that she wanted to be viewed in a sexual way. Or if this image is staged, it leads us to ask why a well established clothing company feel the need to have this woman with her legs spread to draw attention to a store opening and whether or not the model was wanting to be shown in this way, if the image was staged then it is those behind the advertisement that are responsible for the high levels of sexuality in the image, and not the women herself, in turn reverting the woman back from sexual subject to sexual object.

This new way of advertising, promoting female sexuality as an empowering feature of a woman’s identity is very much influenced by third wave feminism.

Third wave feminism has embraced sex and sexualization with porn, revealing clothes, and strip clubs now being considered empowering. Third wave feminists are reclaiming sex as their own, playing with their sexuality, being in full know of the power that their sexuality holds, linking up directly to the kind of advertising you see aimed at the ‘midriff’ category of audience. Third wave feminism empowers a certain kind of power that any woman can have, ‘the power to bring men to their knees’ (Gill, 2003, 103). Third wave feminists want to explore sexuality and embrace a sex positive culture for women to live and thrive in. When thinking about third wave feminism and sexual empowerment, I wondered what is the line between being a sexually empowered individual and being a sexually exploited and objectified individual. Sure, you can display your body how you want in order to feel empower, dominant, sexy, and in control of your own body, but surely there’s got to be a point where something stops being a display of empowerment and just become another grossly objectified image of a woman.

Another American Apparel ad titled ‘Meet Sophie’. The text on the top right of the image reads, ‘Italian and French Canadian Sophie is currently a student in Montreal. She met an American Apparel employee on the street there, and was photographed the following evening.’. This picture looks extremely candid, nothing was posed, nothing was set up. A mans feet can be seen at the bottom of the image, indicating that the photographer was lying underneath Sophie when this picture was taken. I think it’s clear to see that this image is very sexual, and is focused on the idea of sex and sex with this particular girl. It is almost advertising the fact that this male employee slept with the girl, to me it feels like he is bragging about it, as if it’s so easy to just meet a girl on the street and get her back to your bedroom the next night. It’s hard to put into words how I feel about this picture because it outrages me so much. I don’t understand at all how these images have any relation to American Apparel or the clothes that they sell. You can hardly see any clothes in the image, this is purely focused on the woman as an object of sex. As Rosalind Gill states ‘I want to argue that midriff advertising re-sexualizes women’s bodies, with the excuse of a feisty, empowered postfeminist discourse that makes it very difficult to critique’ (Gill,2003,104). I completely agree with how Gill says that this kind of advertising is difficult to critique, especially in light of the new wave of feminism. Some may say that this is empowering and others may say its is objectifying and degrading. Ultimately I believe it is down to the viewer and how the image will be viewed by them as to see whether or not the image can be seen as an empowering example of the modern female or a degrading and objectifying image of a woman.

When looking at the idea of how an image is viewed, it’s obvious to look straight to John Berger’s ‘Way’s of Seeing’. Berger argues that ‘men act and women appear’ suggesting that the way in which a woman is viewed is down to how the man decides to view her. He argues that a woman ‘turns herself into an object’, a statement which I think lines up with the idea of midriff advertising re-sexualizing women’s body and Gill’s argument that women now have to create and understand their own internal objectification.

Furthermore to back up Bergers argument that how a woman is viewed is dependent on how a man decides to view her, Naomi Wolf argues that ‘female sexuality is turned inside out from birth, so “beauty” can take it’s place, keeping women’s eyes lowered to their own bodies, glancing up only to check their reflections in the eyes of me.” (Wolf, 1990, 155). Looking between these three statements, it’s obvious to see how even through becoming a sexual subject as a pose to a sexual object, women still come under the sexual glare of men, they are still objectified in one way or another. Women try to liberate themselves in terms of their sexuality and appearance, convinced that they are doing this for themselves, but at the same time this appeals to the male viewer, once again turning the female into an object, once again placing women under the scrutiny of the male gaze except now it is her ‘choice’ to put herself in this position.

I think that in order to be able to take a step closer to understanding whether or not someone is being portrayed as a sexual subject or sexual object is to look at how the image is composed. More often than not we see fragmented images of women, we as viewers only see certain body parts, images are cut off at the neck of the woman, depersonalizing her, turning her into a sexual object of which ‘the effect is to deny women’s humanity, to present them not as a whole but as fetishized, dismembered ‘bits’.” (Gill, 2007, 80). Another way of looking at the composition of the image is , if the head is included, whether the women is looking at the viewer, or merely glancing away, gazing into the distance, in a sense of licensed withdrawal, this is also achieved by having women look into mirrors, showing them in withdrawal but also adding a narcissistic tone to the female.

Another American Apparel ad, titled ‘Pantytime’ clearly portrays the sexual objectification of a woman in terms of cropping an image and fragmenting a woman’s body parts. The only part of the woman we really see is her lower back, bottom and thighs, there is nothing here that points to her being a willing, confident sexual subject, it is just yet another example of how American Apparel objectify and hyper-sexualize their females models. The candid nature of this photograph also makes it difficult to tell whether the girl knew she was being photographed, her back is obviously turned away from the camera. The thing that is most unnerving about this image is the fact that we can’t tell if the woman in this image was aware of the photo being taken, it is obviously taken from the males point of view, who is laying underneath her, and seems to cross a boundary in how much of this intimate moment we are allowed to see, it’s like a direct look into someone else’s sex life and that in turn can make the viewer uncomfortable.

When we look at these three examples of American Apparels advertising it is easy to see how they can come under scrutiny and judgment for their oversexualisation of young women and even though third-wave feminism is in support of women reclaiming their sexuality and becoming these confident, sexy women, this is not how it should be done. These adverts are not examples of women being comfortable and sexually sure of themselves, these are examples of women being objectified, sexualized and viewed only as objects, viewed as objects to the point of the image of the woman being more important and more prominent than the items being promoted in the adverts themselves. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘sex sells’, but these adverts take it a step further, these adverts purposely objectify, dehumanize, and sexualize young women to the point where they are being seen as no more

than an object used for sex, or a body part used for sex. There doesn’t seem to be any sense of control in these images, the women are not in control of their sexuality, they aren’t playing on it, their bodies are being used to sell an item and a brand, nothing more. It’s a struggle to see how anyone could be okay with their bodies being viewed in this way, how a young women can have her body positioned and photographed in a way that compares her to the opening of new store doors. Furthermore how can two young women can be okay with having there bodies photographed in a very intimate, candid way that shows us exactly what the male is seeing. Its almost as if we are the man himself, looking at these women exactly as he see’s them, in a undignified, objectified manner.

In conclusion when we examine the three images above it is easy to see repeated examples of sexual exploitation and objectification. These women serve no more purpose than to show their bodies in a way that will attract male attention which in turn pulls people into American Apparel stores, making the company profit from the objectification of these young women. We must wonder why such a huge company, with stores worldwide, feels the need to continually objectify women in this way, surely they must be able to use other advertising techniques to gain interest, or under the new light of third wave feminism, they could adjust their advertising techniques to show and promote this idea of a strong, independent woman who is in control of her sexuality. It is hard to understand why they feel the need to objectify women when their adverts for men’s clothes are pretty tame, showing the clothes and accessories for sale rather than the bodies of the males. It also seems strange as to how the advertisements for men’s clothes are directed at men but that the women’s adverts, for women’s clothes, are so overly sexually, obviously being directed at men as well, what is it that draws women into buying these clothes when all they are being fed is images of how men want to look and what men want to look at. The difference between the men and women’s advertisements are huge in how they are composed, shot and delivered to the public, the men’s adverts are more focused on the clothes, look more professionally shot and have come under no criticism where as the women’s adverts are focused on the women’s bodies, shot to look candid and ‘in the moment’ and have come under fire for their provocative nature and their over-sexualisation. If we are too move forward in the world and encourage women to embrace their sexuality and become a confident, knowing sexual subject then surely there needs to be measures put in place to bring the objectification of women through advertising to a halt, we will never see true equality until women’s bodies are stopped being seen as an object, and if we keep valuing women on their appearance, their bodies and their sexuality.

Bibliography Gill, R , (2003) Supersexualise Me! Advertising and ‘the midriffs’ in Attwood, F ed Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualisation of Western Culture , London, I.B. Tauris Gill, R (2006), Gender and The Media, Cambridge, Polity Press Heldman, C. (2012). Sexual Objectification (Part 2): The Harm. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/06/sexual-objectification-part2-the-harm/. [Accessed 26 March 2016].

Hills, R. )2015). I Failed At Being A Sex Object.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-hills/failed-at-being-a-sex-object-andbecame-something-hotter_b_7933376.html. [Accessed 26 March 2016].

Wolf, N (1990), The Beauty Myth, Chatto and Windus