The History of Ownership and Advertising

      The patriarchy finds its roots in the Neolithic era, the time during which humanity transformed itself from a nomadic group of hunters and gatherers to constructors of culture. As humans settled down, they claimed large stretches of land upon which to build permanent residences and grow food through agriculture and livestock. Thus, the idea of ownership and individuality came into being, as the nomadic cultures never had the need to declare something as “mine.” Everything was shared and everyone had a part to play in the group’s survival. Women were highly regarded in these societies and had a necessary role to play tribe. However, as soon as humans became self-sufficient, the reliance upon community waned. At this point, the focus was taken off of pure survival (requiring the aid of everyone in society, especially women) and placed upon the maintenance and consolidation of power, by means of ownership. The only way for power to be maintained through generations is to have strict control over reproduction. People of the time believed that the only thing women could do that men could not was give birth. In their eyes, this was the only aspect of femininity that mattered, sexuality and the ability to bear children. From this point on, women were basically traded like cattle. Parents would sell their daughter to a prospective family for a “dowry” or marriage gift. Marriages were not for love, but for a financial transaction, trading one piece of property for another. Despite attributing a female’s true worth to her sexuality, female sexuality has been consistently demonized throughout history (Berger 46).

Notice the explicit lack of body hair that represents
female passion and power

Sexuality is a powerful aspect of the human existence and is granted even more power in a patriarchal society. Therefore, sexuality is a huge threat to the establishment and was placed under strong societal constraints.

      That is, until the 20th century. The 1900’s were revolutionary in how they transformed life for women, people of color, and those in the LGBT community, affording them freedoms that only the establishment had had access to. Sexual liberation from the puritanical past was a major concern at the time, especially for women who were forbidden from wearing anything revealing. Throughout the century, women continued to push boundaries, wearing shorter dresses to reveal ankles, then working towards pants and skirts. The goal was to allow women to finally express their sexuality and gain power over their own body. Unfortunately, this movement ended up backfiring by the close of the century and the dawn of the new millennium. As always, the mainstream had co-opted the movement, both lending it credence as well as twisting it to their own ends. As acceptance of the female form grew, advertisers switched from insulting women’s intelligence directly to ignoring it altogether in favor of their bodies. By using sex to sell products to consumers, ad agencies were implicitly selling a “buy one, get a wife” message.

An ad for cars without many cars, circa 1990

Despite the sexual revolution having begun to regain control over one’s body, the advertising industry snuck insidious mechanisms of control into the images of sexualized women.

      Patriarchy systematically controls every member of the populace by deceiving men into thinking that they are better than women, and thus deserving of control over women (hooks 23). Ads clearly deliver this message by implying that women are merely objects that can be bought with a cool car or a puff of a cigarette. Patriarchy exerts control over women by convincing them that they are, in fact, worthless objects, only capable of being fulfilled by a man. It is difficult for media to actually brainwash the oppressed into thinking that they deserve to be oppressed, but it can be done by eroding one’s self-confidence and self-worth. By consistently representing a narrow and impossible expectation for how women should look (as in, thin, and white with zero imperfections), the women who repeatedly view these images will begin to assume that that’s how society expects a woman to look. Any woman who does not fit this standard feels their inherent existence in the universe lose worth. The only way to regain that worth is to merit validation from the male gaze, by participating in consumer culture and buying make up and clothing. Everyone who does not conform to the strict standards of society experiences this process, albeit in differing ways for each group. 

      A major unintended effect of advertising’s corruption of the sexual liberation movement is the pushback against representations of female sexuality by second-wave feminists. Prominent feminist theorists like bell hooks and Laura Mulvey argue that further repetition of the image of the sexualized women will only exasperate patriarchal control. Mulvey came to the conclusion that women shouldn’t be represented in films at all if sexualization is the only alternative, and hooks has criticized transgender actress Laverne Cox for donning the look of a hyper-sexualized woman (Mulvey 843). Unfortunately, this line of thinking contributes to the demonization of female sexuality, an issue women worked to overthrow only decades earlier. Slut-shaming has since become an issue within feminism, “real” feminists chide women who have interests couched in patriarchal culture, like make-up and Lana del Rey. This interpretation of feminism allows no nuance within the representation of female sexuality and therefore limits artistic discussion of female sexuality and the lived experience of women. Lana del Rey is troublesome because she depicts a hyper sexualized woman who welcomes abuse, however the character she displays on her records is an accurate depiction of the mindset of a woman suffering through a violent relationship. While the representation isn’t ideal, it reveals a complicated personality residing in the grey areas of life. To vilify complex representations of, albeit sexualized, women is denying a major aspect of femininity, let alone humanity. I will admit, however, that even the best of these representations of women can be damaging. The ironies and hypocrisies of these characters only reveal themselves to those with a critical eye. The majority of mainstream viewers will only absorb the depiction at face value, retaining only the negative aspects of the image. I agree that repetitiously displaying hyper-sexualized women will have a harmful effect, but the problem is not female sexuality, the color pink, or revealing clothing.

Hunger Games flips the script but still makes
 femininity the villain and masculinity (Katniss) the protaginist

The problem is deeply engrained social expectations of what a person, or woman in this case, SHOULD act like. By representing a range of people, races, genders, sexual orientations, body sizes, ages, and careers, there will no longer be expectations as to how people should act. Therefore, a woman could choose to forego having children without accusation from the mainstream. Or she could choose to become a full-time mother without accusation from feminists. She could even do both if that was her choice, because it should ultimately be her choice to make. By representing as many possible variations of the human condition in media and advertising, children will not grow up with a set of expectations of what they ought to do. Instead, they will grow up dreaming of what they want to do.

Citations:
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing
hooks, bell. Understanding Patriarchy
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure