 |  |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Action Project! Women in Advertisements Emilie Vu
Introduction
We as a group of feminist women want to change this trend. Our project consisted of getting people aware of how advertisements can affect the culture. Our idea was to send postcards with a letter of protest and a petition to the CEO of Gucci because of the oppressive images this company conveys. It turned out that this project became more of a personal protest rather than a class assignment. We began to incorporate our own ethical and moral values, which brought out greater devotion to the project itself. The whole process from the beginning to the end was a tremendous journey. We first started by going to Barnes & Nobles bookstore to look through the various magazines to find a main focus. We tried to compare men to women's magazines (GQ vs. Vogue), or teenage to women's magazines (Seventeen vs. Elle.) We kept gathering ideas and it became too widespread, too broad and difficult to direct our project to one aspect. But while looking through the magazines, we came across many Gucci advertisements. These ads captured our attention because of the direct implication of violence and oppression in the images. So when we found the particular picture that we later used on the postcards, we knew what we wanted to concentrate on. However, we still had problems finding a specific task and deciding what to do with the picture. Should we write to the editor/publisher of each magazine in whi e found the ads? Or write only to magazines in particular and have them pull the ad out? We also thought just to write to Gucci. We even considered surveying the customers and employees at the Gucci store at South Coast Plaza Shopping Center for their thoughts on the advertisements. From the beginning to this point, we were so desperate to have a direction that we asked the instructor for help but still could not decide on what to do, until on day we found a web site called About-Face while searching on the Internet. This is where we got the idea to make postcards. The problem now was how we would create the postcards. We needed to figure out where we could get them done, where to distribute them, who we should send them to and what should be written on them. We chose Kinko's for printing, decided on South Coast Plaza Shopping Center for the location of our action project (because there was a Gucci store in the mall.) We got the name of the CEO of Gucci from the store and wrote this following paragraph to express our message to Pat Malone (CEO of Gucci): We oppose perpetuation of women portrayed as sexual objects. Your advertisement promotes violence against women and portrays them in a sadomasochistic and submissive manner, as seen on this card. The subliminal effects of negative images in the mass media are more pervasive and persuasive than any other force in society in shaping our ideas and attitudes about love, sex, success, popularity, and normalcy. In a society where we want to teach young people that women and men are equal, it is UNACCEPTABLE to represent women the way you do it, for it preserves them myth of the dominant male. We would prefer to see women depicted in a more positive manner. We would like to see them strong, confident, professional, powerful, not anorexic, vivid, natural, dominant, not submissive to men, shown for their character, for who they are as human being, not as objects. We would appreciate your collaboration to our cause by withdrawing the advertisement shown on this card.  Some of the issues that blocked our progress were the complications with permission to set up a petition table at South Coast Plaza. We were denied the access to a table the day before our action was supposed to take place. Disappointed and angry, (we were p----- off!!!), we resigned to have the action on campus at IVC (Irvine Valley College). We (Emilie and Alysia) arrived on campus at 7:30 in the morning to set up our posters and our display. The project began promptly at 8 a.m. and we caught our first petitioner. To our surprise, it was a man who had first decided to stop and read our signs. He seemed very interested in the topic and wanted to know more about our cause. He immediately signed our postcard. This was only the beginning....
Throughout the day, we encountered and experienced numerous battles, discussions, fights, and debates with various types of people. More than fifty percent of our respondents were in favor of our cause and were more than delighted to sign the petition. However, the other half of people refused to understand our reasons for this project. Many claimed that it was wrong for us to be against the Gucci ads because they did not see anything wrong with them. Both women and men commented by saying "it's only sex, and sex is natural", or "this is art.... To our surprise, there were as many women as there were men who did not want to petition. Some refused to sign because they "loved Gucci" and "loved Tom Ford", they did not understand that it was not Gucci or Tom Ford we were up against, but only the images of women portrayed in the ads. We expected a peaceful outcome, but instead we were insulted, ridiculed, and yelled at. A few of our many frustrating moments came when a group of young male adults came by and took a few copies of our postcards for their "personal pleasures", and then we found our precious cards on the floor in the restroom. We were concerned about the women who just walked by and ignored us, and a man who said that his ex-girlfriend was a Women's Studies major and he wanted to stay away from "our kind of people". Our worst experience of the day was when we met a woman who claimed to have a dominating presence, and felt that the women in the ads looked dominant. She would not listen to our opinions. Rather, she tried to push her opinions on us. We were upset that people like her would allow the publications of pictures that we found so offensive. This type of belief influences future generations to accept and integrate violence and pornography in their value systems. Luckily, not all of the people responded to us in a negative manner. In fact, those who supported us did so in a significant way. We caused quite a commotion inside the Student Services building. There were debates going on inside which lead many workers to come out and ask us questions and sign their own postcards. Supporters were eager to know more about our topic and were even enthusiastic to help us debate with opponents. They helped to make our day easier because they helped fight our battles and for that we are extremely appreciative. Especially those from the Women's Center at IVC who wanted to give us another chance to petition at the Health Fair on the next day. Our most gratifying moment came when we e with a recovering anorexic girl, who told us that advertisements were "more influential than we think". She knew. If we were happy to reach anybody with our cause, it would be her. Tired but satisfied, we ended up with fifty-seven postcards signed. We obtained ninety-eight more the following day. The cost of this entire project was extensive. We spent a total of $130.10--$111.60 for the color posters and postcards, $4.50 for accessories, and $14.00 on magazines. We were astonished to find out that the Women's Center could have made our postcards for free. Looking back, we should have done many things differently. We should have shown positive images of women to show a comparison and give an idea of what we wanted to see. Another image we should have shown was a stereotypical negative image of men. We regret that our research was limited, but that was due to difficulty in finding a topic and conflicting meeting times. Also, if possible, it would be interesting to videotape this type of experience to show people's reactions though we think petitioning would have been less successful because people would have been afraid of the camera. We are proud and overjoyed with what we have accomplished with our action project. The postcards have been sent (for free, thanks Rosana!) and we are currently awaiting a response from Ms. Pat Malone. The Women's Center on campus is planning to frame our poster board and our pictures! And we plan to have our project displayed on the Internet on the About-Face website (http://www.about-face.org)!! Some might ask if we would do this again. We assure you we would (but with more preparation). We hope that with this project, we motivate others to defend women and preserve the positive and healthy image that they deserve.
REFERENCES:
Copeland, Tara. "Kilbourne Blames Advertising for Negative
View of Women". Kilbourne, Jean. "Still Killing Us Softly". Video
Roberts, Rob. "Sex, Violence...and Advertising". The Daily
News, July 22,1991
Wren, Christopher S. "Drugged Look in Fashion Ads Angers
Clinton". The New York Times, May 22.1997
"Media, Advertising, & Violence Against Women" |
Advertisements are the most influential media in our world. They shape our ideas and affect our look and behavior. People look at pictures and tend to mimic what they see. Nowadays, advertisements depict women in a passive/submissive, almost childlike manner. This implies that women are subdued, that they need to be controlled and dominated. Or that they are not beautiful unless they resemble the models. In other words, fat, short, stubby, too tall, too skinny, different ethnicity is not attractive.
