Tag Archives: male gaze

Marketing to Women: Who Is the ‘Male Gaze’ For?

Debbie says:

ETA: Sociological Images apparently posted the piece this blog is about early by accident. It will be on their blog again tomorrow and I’ll link to it then.
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I wanted to write about a post on Sociological Images called “The Male Gaze in Female Sterilization Marketing,” but that post has been removed. I’ve written to them to ask why; I’m curious about what they’ll say. The primary image they were talking about seems to have also been removed from the product marketing site they were talking about, but you can still see a small image of it here.

The product is Essure, a relatively new (and interesting sounding) form of female sterilization, using thin plastic inserts to block the Fallopian tubes without either surgery or hormones. The disappearing ad showed a young white woman sitting on the grass with a young white man’s head in her lap. The caption is the company’s slogan: “When Your Family Is Complete, Choose Essure.” There are no children in the picture.

As well as I can remember it, the post focused on the way Essure is targeting female sterilization as something men want. But what I’ve been thinking of is how, both frequently and stereotypically, advertising aimed at women is about making men happy. I would say that the message in the Essure ad is not so much, “Hey, fella, wouldn’t you be happier if your wife had this done and you didn’t have to worry about having kids? Wouldn’t you rather do this than have them cut on your dick?” as “Hey, lady, don’t you want him to be all relaxed and loving around you? Don’t you want the time and energy to take care of him? Don’t you want to spare him the stress of having his dick cut on?”

If the culture implants a hierarchical belief deeply enough in people’s psyches, as the patriarchal beliefs have been implanted in all of ours–and taken root in so many–then a given advertiser (without even thinking about what they’re doing) can leverage that belief in its target audience without targeting the dominant group.

Audre Lorde is famously quoted (though I can’t find a reference on the We) as saying “it’s easier to raise girls than boys, because it’s easier to raise children to fight oppression than to resist privilege.” Whoever said this, it’s probably true and only half the story: it’s damned hard to raise children to fight oppression, because of the relentless message that happiness comes from accepting your role.

As long as young women dream wistfully of having the opportunity to sit on the grass and massaging their husbands’ temples, it won’t really matter whether advertisements showing that dream are “aimed” at women or at men, or even whether anyone in the system that created the ad knows that “men” and “women” is a false binary. The advertisements play on almost everyone’s ingrained sensibilities, and they work across the board.

Historical Perspectives: To Be Nude or Naked

Laurie says:

Sociological Images linked to  art historian John Berger in the BBC documentary Ways of Seeing.

…perspective on the objectification of women in European art and advertising, starting with paintings of nude women.  “To be naked,” he argues, “is to be oneself.  To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A nude has to be seen as an object in order to be a nude… they are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own.”

I didn’t note until after I played it that it was from 1972, so his oracular voice and uncomplicated perspective grated a bit. I kept wanting to make the conversation more nuanced and complex. And that oracular male voice giving us truth undercuts his point a bit. But in the context of 1972, it’s groundbreaking and brilliant, and unfortunately still true enough. These images occur over and over in contemporary advertising and art and we are mostly oblivious to their long history.

Obviously, I’ve thought a lot about images of the nude in art. Before I began Women En Large I spent a lot of time looking at historical nudes.  I wanted to be clear enough, so that I was aware of the classic cliches of specific poses and postures. One of the most anatomically striking is “the nude with the broken back.”

I did the same for the male nude when I did Familiar Men.  Although, of course (unsurprisingly) there were far, far fewer images to look at.

I was always looking for pictures that were true portraits rather then objectified pictures of unreal women. Berger says that historically there are only 20 or 30 of them.  If so, I’m surprised that I had seem most of them when I was doing my research. My favorite in the video is Titian’s portrait of his young wife hugging her breasts.

For me the best thing about it is not the commentary, but the changing vision of the female nude through time. The European art that is shown from Medieval times to Impressionism really illustrates differences in beauty standards. And the images he chose illustrate it superbly.

These are very well worth watching.  As is the third part, a discussion by a panel of women on his talk. Be patient with the introduction in the first one. The painting discussion and images happen fairly quickly


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