ORTHODOXY
Equality between women and men has been and still is an endless debate. Sexism has ruled from the mid-20 century, and some people will claim that it is still to be found on several places in society. It is true that today’s advertisements are not exactly showing equality, but they are not as blunt and forward as the vintage ones.
The rage that the vintage adverts evoke is due to the content and the imagery, the vision of looking at women as physically weak, submissive, ignorant and inferior beings is what has created so much controversy over the years. This rather up front vision is evident through out all the adverts via the use of powerful language/ dialogue or by the boldness of the image itself.
These vintage ads are blatantly sexist and stereotypical in terms of categorizing a ‘woman’s role’, which is considered cooking and looking beautiful, being useful in terms of being a home maker and arm candy. Treating women as objects of an inferior nature and that have specific jobs is what is portrayed. The effect these adverts have had on the daily life is disturbing, the media moulds society and vice versa; hence these adverts have a great psychological effect and con people into thinking a certain way. They have led to the dreams and career prospects of many women during that time period being crushed and a stereotypical life layout being placed before them to follow. Their aspirations were crushed to the ground, which is where they belonged ?
Don’t answer that; it was a rhetorical question, heavily dripping with sarcasm ! Also, a common feature in all these adverts is the importance of a woman’s physical appearance. The way it is made so prominent actually made me throw up inside my mouth. I find it rather repulsive that the intentions are so very boldly presented and the photography is so direct and degrading. What people don't realize (or maybe realize and look over it as a small/non-important issue) is that the way the media portrays a woman, affects thousands of women around the world. The way a stereotypical image is built, that only a beautiful and slim woman is useful, literally destroys the women who are plus sized. The way the women are portrayed in turn results in healthy bodied women being looked down upon. Which I find atrocious, everyone should be allowed to feel good about their body. And media has built the stereotype, skinny is beautiful. Every day, there is a woman who wakes up unhappy with her body, because even the woman herself has been tuned into thinking that being thin is being beautiful. This is one way media has impacted society, and because of this one thing, there are girls all around the world being anorexic and bulimic, and there are cases when it has caused death (anorexia). The media has a heavier impact on society than we can ever imagine. It is a key factor that develops a societies ideology.
The quotes on adverts for clothes such as “If a woman wants more excitement in her life, she can wear it” – the not-so-subtle message is rather discourteous and implies that women have bland and monotonous lives. The pragmatics (the subtext) in these adverts is used as a prime way to convey the meaning. The lexical choices made by these advertising companies are horrifying to an extent and moreover humiliating. The use of words such as "simple" (The mini automatic. For simple driving) is rather demeaning, and portrays the image of a woman as being incompetent to drive. The stereotype adapted by the vintage media helped further build up the stereotype woman with driving disabilities. This stereotype woman may have been one woman, but not all, and for the media to target a wider audience of women all around the world using lexis that are "dumbed-down" to make it "simpler" for us, is what is infuriating. The word 'simple' has negative connotations of being intelligible and uncomplicated, therefore pragmatically implying that women are inept to grasp/learn/drive and hence need the functions of the car to be made 'simpler' for their level of understanding. The quotes in these adverts are definitely dripping with underlying meaning, but what is even more pragmatical is the imagery. These adverts heavily rely on graphology, for example: (PEP Vitamins advert) shows a woman holding a duster and leaning into the arms of a man who is holding her sturdily and strongly. This implies that a woman is weak without her man, and "so the harder a wife works the cuter she looks". The look on the woman's face depicts gladness and she is looking up to the man, which in the literal sense, means the woman looks up to her man! The pragmatics in the graphology is a key aspect to the functioning of these adverts. Graphological horrors of the past are here on display, and the most appalling imagery award goes to Advert number 4 (leggs), the graphology (including the sizing and layout) and the dreadful image have Misogynist written all over it big, bold, bright red. Although it does do a good job of catching ones eye and then wishing they never laid eyes upon such ingloriousness.The degrading image of a mans foot on a womans head is supposed to be a "reality check" for the women(of the generation of the advert), if the adverts were aiming for a reality check or a better campaign by trying to imply the inferiority of women to the male supremacy then I'd be glad to announce that they failed. All of these adverts have a recurring theme of women being inferior and use the support of the strong pillars of lexis and imagery to hold up that theme.
The Van Heusen Tie advertisement uses the quote "Show her it's a mans world" over an image of a man sitting on his bed content in the morning, with a woman on her knees by the bedside bringing him tea in bed. The graphology is focusing mainly on the image, and the image has a prominent message. The body language of the woman, the posture and the action portray a world where the women are lower than the men, intellectually and physically (imagery). These evident yet trying to be subtle messages are the language of the media, and frankly they remind me of the voice of the J.L Austin. A quote by the philospher would help you fathom the reason better: " Men are the norm, and women are seen just as departing from the norm". This evidently shows the start of the moulding of the society's ideology of men being the "standard" and women just a branch that tries to achieve the same stature as them.
Dale Spender’s book Man Made Language (1985) is another example of the hypothetical belif , that offers an intriguing thesis that, like other forms of culture, men have controlled language. This hypothesis is what builds/ had helped build this ideology of male dominance and reign over the world. Feminists have often raised this issue in the past, and it has been casually dismissed off to discuss 'serious' political issues. Since language is a powerful tool to construct reality with, women are seen as inferior and deviant. This 'inferior-female' status down the years has led women to see themselves in negative colors and has created a set ideology for the society around them. An ideology builds the thought and the future of a society and is responsible for its actions.
In conclusion, this blog post was an analysis of sexist vintage adverts, and a walk down the memory lane to appreciate how far we as a society have come. The adverts today are rarely sexist and look at women as independent individuals and looking back at the vintage ones, I only feel glad that times have changed. Yet, it is still important to remember that the 'sexist impressions' over the years became 'natural' and 'common sense' and turned into part of the psyche of a society. Language is a highly political phenomenon and far from being a passive tool of communication. It is actively involved in the construction of social reality, hence new media should use this tool with caution and care. An image paired with language (a simple graphological layout) as a means to get a message across, is a far more dangerous weapon than assumed or known to be.
