Women Vs. Women: The Art of Postfeminist Media Culture

      After years and years fighting for equal rights for women, do they really have them? It seems easy to point to the popular commercials like this one from dove and say that this type of message would never have been included in an advertisement campaign and how far we have come as a society. How that positive body and self love messages have helped media pay attention to the inequalities of women. Unfortunately, these messages are hindered, overlooked, and outnumbered when stacked up to the numerous of propaganda spread with little disregard to their sexist message.
     Throughout history we have seen waves of feminism each aiming to spread their message of women's strength to the masses. In a postfeminism age  we see some of the effects of advertisements and other media on young women. Which much of the messages being told to women being negative, author Rosalind Gill set out to analyze the post feminist media culture. In her article about postfeminism, one of her main discussion points was on the sexualization of a woman's body. She wrote:

"Different forms of sexualization are also evident in popular magazines. In the 'lad mags' sex is discussed through a vocabulary of youthful, unselfconscious pleasure-seeking, whilst in magazines targeted at teenage girls and young women it is constructed as something requiring constant attention, discipline, self surveillance and emotional labour. Girls and women are interpellated as the monitors of all sexual and emotional relationships, responsible for producing themselves as desirable heterosexual subjects, as well as for pleasing men sexually, protecting against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, defending their own sexual reputations, and taking care of men's self-esteem. Men, by contrast, are hailed by the lad mags as hedonists just wanting a shag'."

Women are being sexually objectified at increasingly younger ages which is a direct result of these magazine advertisement stigma's. With the magazines targeted towards women bearing concerns over how to please your man and all of the things you need to worry about surrounding sex we have seen an increase of two things: Women being comfortable with their bodies and men sexualizing them. This has been the topic of debate for womens rights because there is no line between helping women be confident with their own body and giving into the sexualization. This is where I think that as much as feminism has pushed women to wear whatever they want it has created a bad cycle where the outfits that the young women are exposed to are the ones that are thrown in front of men to get them drooling. So as much as they might be wearing that article of clothing for their own interest it is ultimately being decided by the same advertisments that are picturing provocative women.
    Rosalind Gill also points out about postfeminist media culture is that it is obsessed with the body. She says. "It appears that femininity is defined as a bodily property rather than a social structural or a psychological one. Growing up I have noticed this trend too because of the body shaming that occurs on popular television shows like What Not To Wear. In her article, Gill uses a quote from Angela McRobbie after she noted what she heard when she listened to an episode of WNTW.

‘'What a dreary voice', 'look at how she walks', 'she shouldn't put that ketchup on her chips', 'she looks like a mousy librarian', 'her trousers are far too long', 'that jumper looks like something her granny crocheted, it would be better on the table', 'she hasn't washed her clothes', 'your hair looks like an overgrown poodle', 'your teeth are yellow, have you been eating grass?' And 'Oh my God she looks like a German lesbian'. (McRobbie 2004: 118)

This is disgusting. As a male viewer I cant stand these types of shows specifically because of these comments. I don't know where in history it became a norm for women to be so harsh to each other but all it does is oppress them more. We see this catfighting in a lot of modern media but unfortunately we see it so often that we don't even bat an eye. This is what I believe is causing the disconnect in society with the word feminism. Women don't want to be associated with the crazy feminists so they join in the shame of them. In turn the same thing happens with advertisements and in many other forms of a women's life. Constantly women are comparing themselves to another woman, and they notice the flaws of themselves way too easily. This breeds a lack of self confidence and a necessity for society to tell you you're beautiful. Unfortunately this is the opposite of what they are being told. It is all part of the scheme to create a necessity of fitting in and shaming those who don't. All of a sudden if the advertisement shows something that is associated with beauty or fitting in the viewer is more apt to purchase that good or service. Even to this day we see sexual ads that are very degrading towards women.

This ad was ran in 2015:



        It shows that there is still a long way to go with feminism and making strides in the advertisement industry. This ad depicts a beautiful and intimidating woman with the "perfect body" with the words :Are you beach body ready?" next to her. I chose this ad to highlight because I felt it really shows the challenging that goes on between women and the competition that women endure with beauty. This ad calls out its audience and even in a slight way body shames other women who are not in the same shape as their model. Gill would tear apart this advertisement because it is doing the exact thing that will take away from the feminist movement. In a sense this is a parallel between the comments that were on the show What Not To Wear.
      There is also a good possibility that this model was photoshopped in order to accentuate or furthermore exaggerate her beauty features, This fad has dumbfounded many young women as to why they are not as beautiful as the women they see in the media but what they don't realize is that most of the advertisements they are seeing have been changed in order to provoke her sexual attraction. This is exactly what Rosalind Gill was talking about when she noted that women were becoming sexual objects within postfeminist media culture. She would be upset to see this ad run because it is not only sexualizing the model but shaming the audience who might not posses those beauty features.
      Women will never be truly equal unless they stop competing with one another and band together to refuse to model in ads that sexualize themselves. It dehumanizes them and it creates a bad set of standards for young girls growing up and having these women be their idols. Hopefully, with a strong set of role models that are body confident without being sexually promiscuous girls will grow up in order to be comfortable in their own bodies.