ABSTRACT

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“Remember when we thought the next horizon of feminism was going to be wage equality or universal health care? Turns out, it’s underpants.” Andi Zeisler (2016)

In this thesis I am researching the concept of #femvertising. According to the advertising industry, femvertising is a form of advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls. With this type of advertising, I have been confronted with since I was a 12-year-old girl who was learning from media, like tv and the internet, what it means to be a woman. Where I was first mesmerized by this femvertising, I started to grow an annoyance and anger towards femvertisments. However, I didn’t completely understand why. Learning from writers like Sara Ahmed, Simone de Beauvoir, Guy Debord, Betty Friedan, Roxane Gay, Jean Kilbourne, Naomi Klein, Katie Martell, Caroline Criado Perez and Andi Zeisler. But also, by looking at different types of femvertisments over the years and looking at designers harnessing political topics like feminism in their works. I concluded that most companies, that are aligning themselves with feminism through advertising, aren’t practising what they preach. They are merely using feminism this to appeal more to a demographic of female consumers. Which leads towards stylistic, aesthetic and empty representations of feminism known as: Marketplace feminism. The biggest danger of Marketplace feminism is that people might subconsciously start to think that things have already improved, and we no longer need feminism. However, numbers are show there is still a very long way to go. By redefining Femvertising, I want to put more emphasis on the fact the goal of advertising is always to sell a product. Femvertising is a form of advertising that is taking advantage of feminist imagery and ideas, to sell products and change consumers’ brand perspective.

Unexpectedly, through researching this topic I understand better what feminism means to me and how as a graphic designer I want to apply it in my work.

FOREWORD

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Starting this thesis, I would like to give some context to who I am. Normally this would not necessarily be required. But I have learned that the political is always personal, so I think my thesis needs this context. I am a 25-year-old white female, who studies at an art academy in The Netherlands. I am an Intersectional feminist and I am aware that there are different forms of feminisms. Whilst I believe they are all working towards the same goal: equal rights for womxn. How we accomplish this and what this exactly entails (equality and womxn) will be different for many individuals.

In this text certain aspects and perspectives will be more present than others. Since they are better available to me. I have been aware of this and tried to let as many different voices influence me, but this thesis is written in my world. I understand that I cannot write or speak for the experiences of black people, people of color, non-binary people, disabled people or Trans-people. I admire Sara Ahmed (2017), who in her book Living a Feminist Life only cites women of color. She does this because she sees her book as a contribution to feminist of color scholarship and activism. With this she contributes to the world she calls home. However, our worlds are different, and this thesis is only the first time I officially establish a written position within the graphic design field.

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH FEMVERTISING

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As long as I can remember there has always been advertising around me. In the form of tv commercials, that were a lot more present and important to me around Christmas time, to the first banner advertisements on the internet, and in the form of billboards and abri’s on the streets. They were everywhere. Their form has especially changed a lot in the short twenty-five years that I have been consuming them.
I was born in the mid-90s, the time of the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kate Moss, K3 and a whole bunch of other beautiful skinny (white) people in the media. Not really a problem if you are an under ten-year-old white girl.

Growing older, however, things started slowly changing. Being born mid-90s also meant growing up with the internet. By the time puberty hit me, I was already spending 80% of my spare time on the internet: chatting to my friends on msn, building my own websites, and being active on a fashion forum.
I started to read more blogs discussing the portrayal of women in media and them causing girls and women to feel insecure about themselves. When reading these blog articles at first, I was convinced this idea was stupid. Sure, these women I saw everywhere were extremely beautiful and thin, however I convinced myself that I didn’t wanted to look like them. I saw them in an editorial or artistic way. I didn’t think I was feeling more insecure than any teenage girl would. The boys and girls at my school were causing more of my insecurities than any magazine anyway. So, I brushed these blog articles off as some people complaining on the internet.

Then came the advertisement that changed it all: Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’. Especially the ‘Evolution’ ( vid. 1) commercial made a big impact on me. In the video commercial a woman walks on set, poorly lit and with no make-up. Then a time lapse starts in which the woman is completely transformed. Firstly, with better lighting, make-up and hair styling. After this transformation, a picture is taken and selected. This picture is again completely transformed through an image editing software. The video ends with a shot of the final completely edited and transformed image on a billboard, that has two young girls passing it.
The commercial is part of Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ . Even more than a decade after its first launch, people are still talking about this campaign. —Although over the last ten years the conversation has been less and less positive, but I will get back on that later. —

This advertisement from Dove was different than any advertisement I had ever seen, and I was totally into it. This advertisement was showing something that I already read about, but nobody had ever shown it this clearly. This advertisement was making the same statement about beauty and the portrayal of women in media as those ‘complaining’ blog articles did. This specific commercial, however was starting to change my mind. Maybe these articles had a point, maybe this weird portrayal was damaging for girls’ and women’s self-image. Maybe they were also influencing me much more than I realized before. By making it visual, Dove helped me realize this. It was the first time I came in contact with a form of femvertising. —Of course, when the campaign was launched the word femvertising didn’t exist yet. — Even though it was not the first piece of femvertising; it is referenced as the re-introduction of femvertising into the 21st century.

What is this femvertising and where does it come from? You could explain it by taking the word apart: Femstands for Feminist, and -vertising is for advertising: ‘Feminist Advertising’. According to SHE Media and Adweek femvertising is defined as “advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages and imagery to empower women and girls.” (Powell, R. 2014) But what does that mean exactly. What is pro-female talent? What are pro-female messages? And what are images that empower women and girls? What does advertising include and what is not advertising? What even is empowering for women or for people in general? These are all questions that popup when reading this vague definition.

Since I saw the Dove ‘Evolution’ commercial, that I was so impressed by as a young teen, I noticed a pattern. Other brands (with a female target audience) seemed to have seen the success Dove had with their ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ and it inspired them to use the same strategy. At the start this change of how advertisements were speaking to women was very not really noticeable and very welcome change. However, the more time past, the more it began to look as if this new approach to advertising and branding towards women, became more the rule than the exception. The more I started noticing this, the more femvertisments were starting to annoy and anger me.

THE FIRST FEMVERTISMENTS

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As stated before, Dove reintroduced femvertising back into the 21st century with this ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’. Which means femvertising isn’t an invention of today. Examples of femvertising date back to 1929.

In 1929 Edward Bernays got the assignment to think of a campaign to sell more cigarettes to women. It was, in 1929, very controversial for a woman to smoke and it wasn’t even permitted to do so in public. However, the American Tobacco Company (ATC) felt that they were missing out on 50% of the people they could sell their product to. So, they assigned Edward Bernays to make smoking appealing to women and increase their target audience. Bernays first, unsuccessful, attempt to speak to this new target audience was by promoting cigarettes as a way of weight loss. “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” (fig. 1) Then on the 31st March in 1929, during the Easter Parade in New York, Bernays hired female participants to smoke their Lucky Strikes as “Torches of Freedom.” (fig. 2) Whilst encouraging bystanders and participants of the march to “Fight another sex taboo!” by inhaling the smoke of gender equality. Bernays paid these women in the march to smoke the cigarettes, and he informed the press about the event and the tagline “Torches of Freedom”. Just to make sure they would show up and write it all over their newspapers the next day.
This ‘PR stunt’ has all the ingredients of a femvertisment: It is an advertisement for cigarettes, and it is ‘employing pro-female messages, and created an image for the empowerment of women and girls. “Torches of Freedom” PR-stunt was a success for Bernays and ATC. Combining this PR-stunt with the “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” campaign, they nudged the percentage of female cigarette buyers up by more than half, from 5 percent in 1923 to 12 percent post-march. (Zeisler, A. 2016)

Barnays was aware of his time and because of that a success. During the first world war many women were leaving the home to take over jobs from the men that were sent to the front lines. After the war, these women felt that they deserved more rights, since they had experienced what they were capable of. At the time of the march (certain) white women had recently received the right to vote and the first wave of feminism was still fresh on everyone’s mind.

Others noticed these successes of Barnays and ATC in their targeting towards women and they especially noticed the results in their sales. And so, companies started to apply similar messages in their campaigns directed at women.
An example is Maidenform’s “Dream” campaign from 1949 (till 1969). (fig. 3) The, mainly visual, campaign is showing women in their Maidenfrom bra doing all kind of ‘dream-like’ activities. For example, “climbing the highest mountain” or “going on a tiger hunt”. Others suggested ‘dream-like’ activities as going to work, school and win an election. Because women can, apparently, only dream of things like education, work and winning elections. Looking back, this campaign feels ironic. The campaign was created to empower women to dream about things that should not really be dream-like activities. Going to work, going to school and winning an election. Even sadder is that since, there still hasn’t been a female president in the USA or a female Prime Minister in the Netherlands.

However, I would argue that the Maidenform’s “Dream” campaign would classify as femvertising. Considering when it was created. After the second world war, feminism got a little bit of an image issue. When the men came home from the warfront, all they wanted was to come home to a beautiful wife that would nurture them and their beautiful children.
“It was easier, safer, to think about love and sex than about communism, McCarthy, and the uncontrolled bomb” Betty Friedan states in The Feminine Mystique (1963). Societies perspective on the role of women changed, and so did advertising strategies.

Women were dropping out of education earlier than ever before to get married and become housewives. They didn’t develop an identity next to the identity of a housewife. Advertising of the time tried to give meaning to this housewife identity, with the newest vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, cooking recipes, etc. “With increasing skill, the ads glorify her ‘role’ as an American housewife — knowing that her very lack of identity in that role will make her fall for whatever they are selling.” (Friedan, B. 1963 p. 186)

You could call this area the most sexist time in advertising. Feminism was definitely not top of mind, so femvertising wasn’t either. So, when looking at the Maidenform’s “Dream” campaign through the eyes of that time, it was definitely more feminist than other advertisements of the time. Creating new dreams and fantasies for women. Still of course not encouraging them to pursue them for real. Buying the Maidenform bra would give them the same feeling of empowerment, as actually doing the actual thing.

SECOND WAVE OF FEMVERTISING

In The Feminine Mystique (1963), Friedan started to question the position of the woman in the times after the war. When interviewing the women of her time, she noticed that their situation wasn’t ideal at all for woman. “Man finds himself by losing himself; man is defined by his relation to the means of production; the ego, the self, grows through understanding and mastering reality - through work and love.” (Friedan, B. 1963 p.270) “Women, as well as men, can only find their identity in work that uses their full capacities.” (Friedan, B. 1963 p. 273) Together with others of her time she stood at the start of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). They were slowly starting to change the perspective of society again. Brenna Fahs (2020) describes this period as follows: “Feminist manifestos exploded onto the scene from 1967 to 1971, a period marked by rampant sexism, emerging feminist resistance, consciousness-raising, and collective organizing. Building on the momentum of the civil rights movement, the feminist revolts of the late 1960s paved the way for decades of feminist activism that followed.”

As the second wave of feminism rose and the popularity of feminism. Femvertising also reappeared. Virginia Slims, the first cigarette explicitly marketed to young and professional women, even went as far as to celebrate how far women already got. In their print and TV campaign, launched in July 1968, they paid a little homage to the “Torches of Freedom” from Lucky Strike. The campaign carried the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby” (fig. 4) which suggested that being able to inhale that formerly masculine smoke was liberation itself, rather than a by-product of it. This way Virginia Slims established themselves as a real cigarettes brand for women and by 1980s their market share had grown from 0.24 percent to 3.16 percent. (Zeisler, A. 2016) However, this campaign had nothing really to do with feminism. It is merely celebrating women and how great it is to be a (smoking) woman in a time you can buy cigarettes for women.

In the seventies new aspirational archetypes for women were created like Charlie the perfume “for the new woman”. (vid. 2 / vid. 3 / vid. 4) This advertisement campaign was launched in 1973 by Revlon. The advertisements feature Shellie Hack walking all over town in beautiful (sparkling) suits, spraying her parfum, meeting people, being adored and accompanied by a jingle that assured potential buyers that this was the fun kind of liberation.“Kinda young, kinda now, Charlie! / Kinda hip, kinda wow, Charlie!” With this campaign advertisers were again careful not to explicitly name feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement of the time. The idea was to capture potential customers who believed just enough in women’s liberation that they would want to support companies that referenced it. But never go as far as promoting certain movements themselves.

In 1979 Revlon followed Charlie’s success with the launch of Enjoli, which took it a tiny bit further. Where Charlie represented a carefree symbol of the liberated American female, Enjoli actually showed what it took to maintain that freedom with its tagline: “The 8-hour fragrance for the 24-hour woman”. (vid. 5)

A woman that knew what she was doing and who was putting in the hours to make sure everything was carefree and well organized. These aspirational women were only promoting the aspects that most of the public could easily agree with or recognize. Everybody wants to be or be with an independent woman, that can do whatever she pleases, do things her way, go out and about, be welcomed everywhere, maybe even earn her own salary, to spend it on beautiful things like perfume. A woman that makes sure everything goes the way it is supposed to go, because she is fantastic. These Revlon advertisements were celebrating the liberated woman and all she does.

FEMVERTISING'S NEW APPROACH

In the nineties femvertisments were starting to take a different direction. Sports brand Nike ventured into the world of femvertisment with their successful “If You Let Me Play” campaign. (vid. 6) This campaign was led by a tv commercial in which girls tell you about the studied benefits of young girls playing team sports as a girl-power tagline: “If you let me play sports, I will like myself more, I will have more self-confidence. … I will be 60% less likely to get breast cancer, I will suffer less depression. … I will be more likely to leave a man that beats me. I will be less likely to get pregnant before I want to. I will learn wat it means to be strong. If you let me play sports.”

This was one of Nike’s most successful campaigns ever. It served to align the brand with feminism, education, and progressivism and it was doing this without compromising. ( Zeisler, A. 2016) “It wasn’t advertising. It was truth.” said Janet Champ, who served as Nike’s chief copywriter during the campaign. Here I want to note that even that this might be true; it being the truth about young girls playing sports, it is still advertising. It is beneficial for Nike if more girls play sport. If girls start playing sports, they need clothing and equipment to do so, which Nike is happy to supply. By 1997, the company’s female positive focused advertising was rewarded with 43 percent of the athletic-footwear market. With this campaign from Nike it seemed that the focus of femvertisments shifted from celebrating the liberated woman to liberating the girls.

From Nike’s successful femvertising campaign in the nineties the timeline brings us back to the, for me, perspective changing “Campaign for Real Beauty” by Dove. Entire essays are written on this campaign and the impact it had on society and the perspective of the brand. The campaign started in North America and the UK with advertisements that showed women of all ages, colors and sizes. Next to the portraits of these women were checkboxes with questions like “half empty, half full?”, “withered, wonderful?” and “grey, gorgeous?” Some of them, like the “grey, gorgeous?” had a line that said “Why can’t more women feel glad to be grey? Join the beauty debate.” All of them had a website URL to their campaign website. More than 1.5 million women were inspired or curious enough to visit Dove’s website on the strength of the “Tick Box” campaign. (fig. 5) (Zeisler, A. 2016)

However this was only phase one of Dove’s campaign. In phase two, all over major cities (mainly in the US) huge billboards started popping up with images of ‘real’ women. The images for the campaign were shot by famous female photographers Annie Leibovitz and Peggy Sirota (fig. 6), together with a 2004 study commissioned by Dove and developed in part by Harvard University’s Nancy Etcoff and the London School of Economics’ Susie Orbach. 1 1 Whom both had written popular books about women and body/beauty image. Conducted in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. This study was named “The Real Truth About Beauty” and its questions sought to measure how women in different countries and cultures value beauty, in themselves and in others, and how conventional beauty standards affect their perceptions of their own bodies. 2 2 Forgetting about a large part of Asia and the entire continent of Africa.

Dove decided to mainly focus on the positive findings of the study which led to that the overall picture of the ads showed how women were bonded in an urge to celebrate the beauty of women. And so, Dove’s new mission was to “start a global conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty”. Well that, and to make women buy their soaps/creme’s/deodorant/etc. Because every size/color is beautiful, but even more beautiful with smooth skin.
They were trying to do it in a way that nods to body-positivity and by showing different examples and representatives of women.
Consumers definitely responded: in 2006, two-thirds of Dove’s sales were generated by people who bought more than one Dove product, double the number from 2004 before the start of the campaign. And ten years in, sales had grown from 2.5 billion to 4 billion. (Zeisler, A. 2016)

Dove is still running the same campaign. However, over the last decade they have also missed the boat a few times. For example, when Dove was trying to use the shape of their bottles to “Celebrate the many shapes and sizes of beauty”. (Dove UK, 2017) (fig. 7) Or when Dove, in 2017, launched a Facebook advertisement for Dove bodywash that showed a black woman, removing her brown shirt, which then reveals a white woman in a light shirt. (fig. 8) The transition from the black woman to the white women evoked a long-running racist trope in soap advertising: a “dirty” black person cleansed into whiteness. (Astor, M. 2017)

ADVERTISING AND POLITICS

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Why do these brands want to jump onto any political bandwagon like feminism? Naomi Klein wrote about this in her book No Logo (1999). We used to buy all our products at our local store or our local farm/butcher/etc. Here you would buy products from people you had a relationship with, that you knew and, because of that, could trust.
Then at “the turn of the century” the shift happened where more and more factories started producing products in bulk to sell to the public. To keep giving people the feeling of familiarity, these product producers used branding. Often in the form of a fictional person or character: a Brand Mascot. Someone that would take up the role of a familiar face, like the business owners or neighbours you bought products from at first. With this way of branding, people could more easily relate to a certain product, since they were given the same sense of trust in a different format.
Somewhere down the line we went from this very simple role of branding to something Naomi Klein calls “Brand tribes”. A society in which we almost follow brands like we would follow our idols. We relate to certain brands as if they are part of our own identity. For example, someone could be a Nike type-of-person or a Tommy Hilfiger type-of-person.

Certain brands realized that marketing could play a larger role than simply branding their product as a market quality. They understood that they could sell ideas, that they could sell lifestyle. For example, the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight claims to have had an epiphany in the mid-eighties. Knight realized that he didn’t want to compete in a commodity marketplace anymore. He wanted to be a sports company that at the core was not about their sneakers being better than Reebok’s, but about the nature of sports and that pure athletic ability and the raw ability of truly superstar athletes; a kind of metaphor for the American Dream. And so, he decided to sell that idea. (Media Education Foundation, 2005)

The powerful ideas of our society, like democracy and revolution, are treated like brand content. The environmental movement is at the core identity of soap company Lush, Apple has used revolutionary icons like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, long after their deaths as pitch men for the brand. Because, allegedly, the Apple brand stands for doing things differently, like these men did. Ikea’s brand identity, they claim is democracy because you can put together your furniture on your own and “Become an architect of your own destiny.”

This way brands are morphing into all aspects of our lives; it becomes easier for us to identify with them. See them as a truly part of our identity. Especially seen the fact that they are everywhere around us. Dutch television program Tegenlicht interviewed jurist Ramsi Woodcock for the “Rebels against advertising” episode. (Woodcock, R. 2020)

In this Woodcock explains more about how advertising is manipulating the consumer. He uses Coca-Cola as an example: “Most of the Coca-Cola advertisements you see actually don’t provide you with any useful product information. When you see a billboard with Santa drinking Coca-Cola. That advertisement is not telling you that Coca-Cola exist, you already knew it existed because you have seen previous advertisements telling you it exists. It’s not providing you with any product information. So why is it there? It’s there because it is designed to generate a habit in you. Which will seduce you to value the product, see it as different and to purchase it. Simply because the advertisements, through repetition, have played upon your mind. Studies of brain scans show that when consumers are told that they are drinking Coca-Cola their brains light up. Not when they are drinking Pepsi but when they are drinking Coca- Cola. Even when they are drinking Pepsi and they are lied to their brains light up. Because they believe that Coca-Cola must be better because they have had it advertised to them so much. What this means is that advertising, giving the obsolescence of advertising information function, can now be treated as a purely manipulative, illusory and anti-competitive practice.”(Woodcock, R. 2020)

Woodcock preaches for a world without advertisement, he believes that it is cluttering our landscapes and our minds. It is not even delivering on the core function of providing information about products to create an honest and open marketplace. If you have an innovative product, which could be better than the mainstream product people currently use. But you have no budget for ‘great’ advertisement, you and your product stand no chance to reach the masses or to even compete on the market. This makes advertising as a tool for an open and honest marketplace obsolete.

THE KILLJOY

If you don’t use the topic of feminism in a way that will appeal to you audience, you might lose much more than you will gain. The core idea of most feminisms stands directly opposite to the ideals of capitalism. The root issues that feminism is addressing and confronting —wage inequality, gendered divisions of labour, institutional racism and sexism, structural violence and, of course, bodily autonomy— are not meant to be fun. Or as Sara Ahmed explains in her book Living a Feminist Life (2017), being a feminist could mean being a feminist killjoy. A feminist killjoy is, or is perceived as, a person that will bring up uncomfortable issues during for example a family dinner. By bringing up these feminist issues, conversation flows can be interrupted. Creating a moment of tension, which stands in the way of ‘happiness’. If someone is known for being a feminist killjoy, sometimes they don’t even have to say anything. Just being present already is enough for this tension. “The feminist killjoy comes up without you having to say anything. You can kill joy just by not being made happy by the right things. Or maybe whether you are happy or not is not the question: you have to appear happy at the right moments.” (Ahmed, S. 2017 p. 53) 3 3 In Living a Feminist Life Ahmed explains more about ‘being a killjoy’ she explains that being a killjoy (or a feminist killjoy) is more than only stating uncomfortable things at a dinner table. It can be in the form of not smiling when a sexist joke is being told, or not being happy by certain happenings that society expects you to be happy, for example being pregnant. In the ‘Killjoy Manifesto’ Ahmed also explains that there can be strength in being a killjoy: Whether or not you are being difficult, you are heard as making things difficult for yourself as well as others. So much difficulty, you would think feminist killjoys would give up. And yet, when I first began presenting and talking about the feminist killjoy, when I first began working with her as well as on her, picking her up, I noticed how energetic the room would be. Sometimes speaking of her, letting her into the room to do her thing, felt like an electric shock. And she finds herself quickly in a company of killjoys: trans feminist killjoys (Cowan 2014), ethnic killjoys (Khorana 2013), Crip killjoys (Mullow 2013), indigenous feminist killjoys (Barker 2015). There will be more of that I am sure. Why? Because the figure of the killjoy comes up whenever there are difficult histories to bring up. The killjoy is appealing not despite what she brings up but because of what she brings up. She acquires vitality or energy from a scene of difficulty. To be willing to be a killjoy, to be willing to get in the way of happiness, raps hold of a judgment and takes it on. We even transform the judgement into a rebellious command. Killjoy? Just watch me. Bring it on.” (Ahmed, S. 2017 p.267)

THE SPECTACLE

This partly explains why it started to anger me. So again, I am wondering why use feminism in advertising? I tried looking at the phenomenon of femvertisment and marketplace feminism with help of Guy Debord’s critique on modern capitalism: The Society of the Spectacle (La Société du spectacle) (1967). In this Debord explains, through a series of 221 short theses, the concept of the Spectacle. Our current capitalistic society convinces us that we ‘need’ things in order to survive and thrive. But in truth we don’t need these things, we want them, we long for them. These things might help us climb the social ladder, or at least make us appear as if we are higher on said social ladder. The way our capitalist society convinces us the ‘need’ of things is by showing us visual representations of what we want to achieve: success, power glory, etc.

However, it is not a one-way street. These visuals or representations are only reflecting and enlarging that what we as society already see as ‘correct’ or as success, power, glory. An example for this is, how I mentioned in the beginning, that when society sees feminism or empowerment as something positive. The media will start and use this visual, so femvertisments are more prominent. When society sees feminism or female empowerment as unnecessary, femvertisment will be less prominent or completely absent in the landscapes of media.

Debord argued, already in the early 70s, that every experience we were having, all the things we are longing for, are all empty visual representations of real things. Debord calls this capitalistic society driving by visual representations: ‘the Spectacle’.
Even more now so then we did in the 70s. We live in a world where social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook have a huge impact. These are, mainly visual, spaces where we get our information from and where we keep in touch with our friends and families. Where we show our friend and families well edited version of our lives, our success, our ideas and ideals. Social media could be seen as an example of how the Spectacle at its best. How we are contributing to the Spectacle by creating what we seem as the ‘best’ version we can be.

Another aspect Debord reveals about the Spectacle is how it manages to take images/visuals/representations that are used to critique the capitalistic society and the Spectacle itself, and (trans)forms these critiques back into stylistic, aesthetic and empty images that can be used to again add to the Spectacle. Debord call this ‘récupération’, translated to recuperation or co-option in English. The Spectacle harness the energy and aesthetic that surrounds subversive or radical movements while taking away their substance. It has both worked out how to numb any subversive ideas through co-option and récupétation and with doing so, increasingly made even imagining an alternative society impossible. (Nicholas, T. 2019)

FEMINISMS

Récupétation is also what ‘happened’ to feminism, which resulted into Marketplace feminism and femvertising. Marketplace feminism is a term Andi Zeisler (2010) uses in her book: We Were Feminists Once From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl. With this term Zeislers is referring towards the idea that there isn’t one type of feminism. History shows that the definition for feminism isn’t the same for each individual.
In 1995, the Fourth world conference on women was held in Beijing. Here it was decided that term feminism should be changed to feminisms. Since there are multiple forms of feminism, which makes a singular word incorrect. (Shojaee M., 2018) The clearest example for this is how for an American woman wearing a Hijab might be the ultimate form of oppression. Whilst for a Muslim woman this has nothing to do with oppression, it is about religion. And creating rules that would make it illegal for her to wear it, would feel as oppression. I am an intersectional feminist4 4 Intersectional feminism is a term first mentioned by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Thirty years later she explains it by saying: “These days, I start with what it’s not, because there has been distortion. It’s not identity politics on steroids. It is not a mechanism to turn white men into the new pariahs. It’s basically a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts.” (Steinmetz, K., 2020); I believe all forms of oppression are interconnected.

Zeisler’s (2016) Marketplace feminism5 5 Others also are calling this ‘white feminism’, ‘pop feminism’ or ‘feel-good feminism’. is describing a feminism where the problems that make the feminist movements necessary are still in place, but there is, at the same time, a mainstream, celebrity, consumer embrace of feminism. A feminism that is positioned or branded as cool, fun and accessible identity for anyone to adopt. It is kicking the least sensational and most complex and difficult issues under a blanked. It is assuring us that we’ll get to these issues once we have everybody’s on board.
Marketplace feminism is a way to promise potential detractors that feminisms can exist in fundamentally unequal spaces without posing any foundational changes to them. It has harnessed the energy and aesthetic that surrounds feminism but has taken away it’s substance.

This looks like a T-shirt that states: “this is what a feminist looks like” (link) to wear on you Instagram and believe you have contributed to and changed the visual appearance of a feminist to a beautiful shaven heterosexual white woman, or maybe even crazier: a man.6 6 “This is the vintage slogan tee to end all vintage slogan tees!” affirmed Elle in its september 2014 issue. “First worn by well-known feminists like Tracey Emin, Kirsty Wark and Shami Chakrabarti, we have teamed up with the forward-thinking team a Whistles to reinvent he iconic tee for the modern feminist. Want one? Of course you do.” (Zeisler, A., 2016)
Marketplace feminism is when a period brand Bodyform was celebrated in 2017 for being the first to show actual blood when talking about periods. Instead of “pretty blue liquid being absorbed by something.” (Morgan, H. 2017) (vid. 7) But when Libra wanted to do something similar in Australia in 2019, they received hundreds of official complaints about the advertisement calling it “distasteful”, “offensive” and even “disturbing”. 7 “Despite hundreds of official complaints, the Aussie ad regulator has dismissed them all.” (Angwin, A. 2019) (Angwin, A. 2019) (vid. 8)
Marketplace feminism is when waxing company Veet wants to remind me that in the time of the Corona pandemic I might have ‘bigger issues’ than thinking about body hair, or not, the choice is mine to make. “#LetsTalkAboutHair” (Facebook Ad Library, 2020) #LetsNot. (fig. 9)

GOOD, BAD AND REALLY BAD FEMVERTISING

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If the history of femvertising proves anything: femvertising works and the numbers are there to prove it. In 2017, Swedish students from the Stockholm School of Economics (SWOCC, 2017) conducted a research and experiments with stereotypes in advertisements.
They conducted these experiments for different brands in different. They concluded the following: using women in advertisements, stereotypes or not, will make women feel more addressed and makes the advertisement seem relevant to them.
The use of stereotypical images, however, can lead to women not recognizing themselves in the advertisement. This tension can then easily create a resistance to the advertisement’s message/product. Since femvertising is, or at least is trying, to break from these stereotypes, it creates less tension. Which creates more successful advertisements.

The SWOCC research also concluded that femvertising is not bound to a product category. They actually advise to pull femvertising wider and to not only apply it to typically feminine products and brands.
Unilever, Dove’s parent organization, again proves this to be true, and very beneficial. Their numbers show that 40 percent of the target group no longer feels attracted by the more stereotypical advertisements of the company. The first figures already showed that advertising without “stereotypes” yields 25 percent more revenue and more impact. (Oerlemans, A. 2018)

The best example of a Unilever brand that made the switch from very stereotypical advertisement to something more in the direction of femvertisment was the deodorant brand AXE. AXE commercials and campaigns were famous for commercials that went something like this: a man uses AXE deodorant, and all the women go crazy for him. They chase him down, flirt with him, and want only one thing: sex with this amazing smelling man. (vid. 9 / vid. 10) During these years of misogynist adverting, Unilever was also heavily criticized to only use feminism when it was convenient.
Then in 2016 AXE changed course with their “Find You Magic” campaign.(vid. 11) Suddenly suggesting that men all have their own ‘special’ something. All they need to do now is find it, use it, and improve it. Still the idea behind this campaign is that they can find happiness and using AXE might help with that. At least this ‘happiness’ is no longer only in the shape of a woman.

After receiving positive feedback on the change, AXE went one step further with their “Is it Ok for Guys” advertisement. (vid. 12) Which was still part of the “Find You Magic” campaign released in 2016. However, in this AXE commercial starts with “72% of guys have been told how a real man should behave.” Taken from some study from 2017 called “The Man Box Study”. The commercial shows guys asking themselves all different types of questions like: “is ok for guys to be skinny?” “is it ok for guys to have long hair?” “is it ok for guys to wear pink?” “is it ok for guys to be depressed?” etc. Real questions, that according to AXE, guys are searching every day.

AXE explains why they changed their advertisement strategy so extremely:“For 33 years, we’ve been a key player in male attractiveness. We’ve always been there for guys, helping them to find their magic; that special thing that makes them unique. But as our guys evolve, so do we. … Society is changing and we’re starting to see a shift in the definition of masculinity. It’s beginning to be talked about more in the media but there’s still a long way to go. Now is the time to use the power of the Axe brand to raise awareness of the dangers of toxic masculinity and do something about it.” (McHardy, C. 2017)
As AXE says, society changed, so they had to change with it. Luckily like Unilever stated before, this change with society sells better.

When looking at She Media’s and Adweek’s definition of femvertising as advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls. This switch within the AXE’s branding wouldn’t be considered as femvertising. Since it is not empowering women and girls, but boys and men.
However, with this campaign AXE is showing men that there is not one way to be a man. This could create space for more equality, since they are also celebrating traits that are considered feminine, for men. The AXE commercial is trying to challenge gender norms and is busting stereotypes from their brand. This might not directly involve women and girls; however, gender equality is not a one-way conversation only for girls and women. I would consider this campaign a welcome change in the media narrative.
In my opinion it is a feminist move and so it is a femvertisment. (If femvertisment would just simply be defined as feminist advertising.)

SHE MEDIA AND THE #FEMVERTISING AWARDS

On their website SHE Media claims to be “the founders of #Femvertising”. Their #Femvertising Awards have been hosted every year since 2015, which this January marked their fifth anniversary. For which they launched the 2019 call for entries on International Women’s Day.8 8 International Women’s day is on the 8th of April. Honestly, I do not understand why this is important that the call for entries was on this day, or what the connection should be. But it is specifically mentioned on their website so it meant a great deal to them. These awards were created “to honour brands that are challenging gender norms by building stereotype-busting, pro-female messages and images into ads that target women and girls.” (SHE Media [n.d.])

There are six different categories brands can win at the #Femvertising Awards: The Inspiration category which in 2019 went to Bumble with “The Ball Is in Her Court”. (vid. 13) The Next Gen category that went that year to Secret and their “Cheer for Each Other - All Strength, No Sweat” campaign. (vid. 14) The winner of the Inclusion award was Microsoft with the “When everybody plays, we all win” campaign. (vid. 15) The #Dadvertising award went to Facebook Groups’ for their TV Commercial “Her First Baseball Game”. (vid. 16) The Award in the Humour category went to Bud light’s “new RITAS Spritz” advertisement. (vid. 17) The Social Impact award went to “#DefyTheName ‘A PSA by Monica Lewinsky’”. (vid. 18)
All very different categories and so the winners of these #Femvertising awards also vary quite a lot. However, by awarding them all under the same flag of #Femvertising they all get collected under the same trend. But I can’t help but wonder if they all should be.

For example, it is really unclear why the Bud light advertisement for the “new RITAS Spritz” should be considered a femvertisment at all. According the description on the Femvertising Awards website they are honouring brands that are challenging gender norms by building stereotype-busting, pro-female messages and images into ads that target women and girls. The “new RITAS Spritz” advertisement that won the award in the Humour category goes as follows: Three women, The Rita’s, have been taste testing the new Fruit Frizzy RITAS Sprits. They say it tastes fruit forward and fizzy with subtle notes of alcohol. “We have been drinking since 1973, new Ritas sprits is pretty good.” (RITAS, 2019) (vid. 17) Personally, I would argue that the three women in the new Rita’s sprits advertisement are actually quite stereotypical women, who are promoting a stereotypical women’s drink and I don’t think women still need to be empowered to drink alcohol. Granted, the advertisement is funny, but it really makes one question if that was maybe the only funny female focused advertisement,they could find in 2019? It seems to prove more that feminism in fact isn’t supposed to be funny.

Apart from the Microsoft, “When everybody plays, we all win”, and the #DefyTheName campaign, it also seems to me that most of these ‘winners’ are being celebrated, again, for the bare minimum. Lifting on Serena William success to sell a dating app, using a national female soccer team to promote deodorant for women, showing dads that take their daughters, instead of their sons, to a baseball match and showing three middle age women to sell a fizzy fruity alcoholic drink. They all sound and look like things that have been done many times already, and may I add looking at some ads we discussed previously, much better. Now I am not saying that it isn’t nice to keep seeing these changes in media, and maybe it says more about my personal expectations when it comes to awards. But this looks like it is saying something about femvertisment, the industry of advertisement and SHE Media’s definition of feminism and femvertising. If these were the best of 2019, how bad was the rest of femvertisment in 2019?

POST-FEMINISM EMPOWERTISMENT

Another thing that bothers me about these winners is that, especially the advertisements that focus more on women and women products, turn out to be the ones that feel like they are missing the mark. The #Femvertising Awards showcase exactly what is wrong with femvertisment and the Marketplace feminism world it lives in. Andi Zeisler (2016) explains about these advertisements: “They’re a gateway toward learning more about specific issues that impact women and girls ... But celebrating the ads themselves simply celebrates advertisers’ skill at co-opting women’s movements and selling them back to us — and then rewards us for buying it.”

My problem especially with these #Femvertising Awards’ winners is that their selection of advertisements seems to lean heavily on the fact that anything could be empowering. Using Deodorant during your football match? Empowering! Taking your daughter, instead of your son, to a baseball game? Empowering! Drinking alcohol with your friends? Empowering! There are many other advertisements that use the same fake promise of empowerment: Shaving your legs because it makes you feel sexy? Empowering! Not shaving your legs because it makes you feel sexy. Empowering! Eating ice cream because it makes you feel nice? Empowering! Not eating ice cream because you love your body and you want to take care of it? Empowering! And other things that definitely have been empowering over the last decade according to society: Wearing high heels, wearing sneakers, not wearing a bra, wearing a bra, cosmetic surgery, aging, having children, choosing to not have children, embracing your body and weight, losing weight, learning self-defence, being femme, pole dancing classes, running, walking, growing your own food, getting sober, doing drugs, having casual sex, not having sex before marriage, and the list goes on forever. Women seem to be in a constant state of empowerment.

This idea of consumer empowerment originates also from a time of post-feminism. In this time, around the 1980s, many felt that feminism was no longer needed. Since women have got everything they wanted. Post-feminism believes that everything is possible, and it explains low statistic of for example women as CEO’s as the fact that women just more often choose to stay home. It believes that the differences are just because women make certain choices, not because the world is telling them they shouldn’t try and/ or not because they are underrepresented. They simply choose not to do them.

This idea of choice is still present in the realm of Marketplace feminism. It is celebrating more individuals that have accomplished a certain, unlikely, status in society. For example, Serena Williams in the winning advertisement in the Inspirational #Femvertisment Award category for Bumble: “The Ball Is in Her Court”.(vid. 13) The advertisement is showing Serena Williams telling us that the worlds tells you to wait and to be polite. But if she waited, she would’ve become who she is now: a role model, celebrity, tennis star and fashion designer. The ‘film’ shows Serena in these many professions she has, whist she is using the Bumble app. The one-minute film ends with the following words: “And most of all, don’t wait to be given power. Because here is what they won’t tell you: We already have it.” (MarketingActivo, 2019)

Williams claims that she chooses not to follow the rules and just went for what she wanted. However, just because she was successful, doesn’t mean other women aren’t because they didn’t choose to “use their power”. The victory of one, is not automatically the victory of the many. Or as Roxane Gay (2014) writes in her essay “The Politics of Respectability”: “We must stop pointing to the exceptions— these bright shining stars who transcend circumstance. We must look to how we can best support the least among us, not spend all our time blindly revering and trying to mimic the greatest without demanding systemic change.”

If anything, Serena Williams still is fighting against racism and sexism, despite her successes. For example, in 2018, during the US Open tennis final against Naomi Osaka, chair umpire Carlos Ramos alleged Williams of cheating. Ramos gave Williams a warning, and when Williams took offence and smashed a racket during her second set, Ramos imposed a point penalty for abuse of equipment. After this match Serena Williams endured an enormous backlash. People calling her arrogant, loud, angry, spoiled, etc. She even got fined $17,000 for not behaving like a lady should on a tennis court. Williams believed Carlos Ramos’s behaviour was sexist and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) supports her: “The WTA believes there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men vs women and is committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same… We do not believe that this was done last night.” (Alibhai-Brown, Y. 2018)

If you are into tennis and you still think that the way Serena Williams was punished is correct, and it should apply to all tennis players, man or female, you must agree that the catsuit incident that happened in 2017 during the annual Roland Garros French Open grand slam tennis tournament was strange and sexist. During a match Williams was wearing a black catsuit with a red belt from Nike. She was wearing it for medical reasons, the suit improved her blood flow and prevented blood cloths, which was necessary after she had some serious complications after giving birth. But also, because she said it made her feel like a superhero. Williams’ fashion choice received a lot of backlash. Bernard Giudicelli, the president of the French tennis association, went as far as saying that she was disrespecting traditions and the dress code with her choice. Because in tennis women ‘need to’ wear dresses or skirts. Williams disrespected those rules, with the consequence that Roland Garros introduced general dress rules, which banned catsuits.

You can definitely say that Serena Williams is changing the game and fighting her battles, these two controversies only prove that. Williams is what Sara Ahmed (2017) calls a diversity poster child. Ahmed, a feminist writer, scholar, professor and activist, herself often finds this to be used against herself when she talks about diversity. “How easily we can become poster children for diversity, how easily we can be held up as proof that women of color are not held up. Being a diversity poster child: it can make the world you come up against recede as if you bring it to an end; as if our arrival and progression makes whiteness disappear. Look at you: look, look! A diversity poster child. I am supposed to smile. I don’t smile. Your own body becomes used as evidence that the walls of which you speak are not there or are no longer there; as if you have eliminated the walls through your own progression. You got through, so they are not there.” (Ahmed, S. 2017 p.146,147) To put it in the words of the Bumble advertisement; Serena is not sitting politely waiting to be invited to play and is definitely using the power she has. But having that power and success is by no means as easy as downloading a (dating) app.9 9 However, I must admit because of this advertisement, that I find very annoying, I have learned a lot more about Serena Williams than I knew before. I have so much respect for the racism and sexism she endures, and I am shocked how certain issues do not enrage more people, including Williams herself.

REFUSE TO COMPROMISE:
AN ANALYSIS

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The SWOCC (2017) research states that because of its success #Femvertisment should be applied in all fields. This doesn’t mean it is always applied in the right way. As an example, I came across two different car advertisements that I would put under the category of femvertisment. I am sure there are many more, but I especially like these two because they perfectly illustrate the difference between good and bad advertisement, but especially the difference between really bad and good femvertising.

The first one is the “Refuse to Compromise” advertisement by Nissan for the new Nissan Sentra. (vid. 19) The advertisement starts with a man telling a woman that he is going to “hold on promoting her this quarter”. Next thing that happens is that actress Brie Larson pulls up in an orange Nissan Sentra shouting the following to the woman: “Drop the taco and get in the car”.10 10 Can someone please explain to me if this was meant as a reference to the 2004 movie “Mean Girls” featuring Rachel McAdams and Lindsay Lohan? Whilst they are, swiftly, driving through the city Brie Larson asks the woman, “Does this Sentra feel like a compromise to you?” To which to woman, probably at the same time as all of us, replies: “Wait, what?” The next few seconds Larson is showing off all the great features of the Sentra, and how they weren’t compromising on those features when putting them in the car. Larson ends with “So if this Nissan Sentra isn’t going to compromise, why should you?” Which the woman completely agrees with, and as she steps out of the orange car, she looks like she is going to tell that man that she will no longer compromise, from now on she will be more like the New orange Nissan Sentra. Or something like that?

The second car commercial is from Volvo and it is about their “E.V.A. Initiative”.(vid. 20) The advertisement starts by showing through an abstract video render three different car crashes, all involving women. Then they explain the following: “Women are more likely to get injured in a car crash. Partly because male crash test dummies are the standard.” They go on to explain that they have been collecting crash data for more than 40 years. Which have made their cars safer for everyone. They decided to share their research with the rest of the car industry. (Because we always put people first) With the E.V.A. Initiative, which stands for: “Equal Vehicles for All”.

The reason why I consider these car advertisements the difference between a good advertisement and a really bad form of femvertising, is because I consider the Nissan “Refuse to compromise” advertisement harmful for the image of feminism.
Nissan made a video explaining their idea behind their commercial in the form of an interview between the actress Brie Larson, who is the face of the commercial and Nissan Marketing Chief, Allyson Witherspoon. (vid. 21) Larson explains that on the surface the concept of the commercial is about Sisterhood, pumping each other up, community, and allowing each other the opportunity to believe in ourselves. “Because that really feels like the first step of with all of ‘this’. It is like you can’t be what you can’t see. And disbelieve into believe is a powerful image.” (Nissan USA, 2020) I must agree with Larson on this, it is difficult to imagine yourself in a situation if you have never seen someone like you in the situation. However, I have seen a white, beautiful blond actress in all kinds of situations. And this commercial does not show me disbelieve into believe. The commercial is showing me features of a car in a strange, dreamlike scenario. The fact that I cannot imagine what this woman is going to tell her boss next is exactly the problem Nissan was trying to address. Instead of showing me the solution, they cut away at the moment it actually became interesting. They pointed at an issue, whilst showing the cool features on their new car, but never gave me anything other than that.

Nissan saw the successes some brands have with femvertising and jumped on the trend without actually doing any research into what feminism actually is supposed to stand for. Also, the fact that you need a 3-minute explanation for a 30 second car commercial is really ironic. What makes it worse is that in the explanation it becomes clearer, that even though the intentions were on a basic level good. The horrible casting and writing of this commercial show that they really didn’t understand.

Then you have the Volvo E.V.A. Initiative. Where the Nissan, “Refuse to compromise” advertisement is a comedy, the Volvo commercial is a tragedy. It tells about a very real, very upsetting fact from the car industry; “Women are more likely to get injured in a car crash. Partly because male crash test dummies are the standard.” Something that affects us all. It is based on the idea that we use cars to transport not only ourselves but our loved ones.

In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir already wrote in her book the Second Sex that “Humanity is male, and man defines woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself; she is not considered an autonomous being.” (Beauvoir de, S. 1949 p.5-6) This idea is implemented in many aspects of our society,11 In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez is examining different elements of the modern world that appear to be designed with less consideration for women. Criado Perez uses this same observation as De Beauvoir that in humanity man is standard and woman is the exception, the other. From language to smartphones. (Criado Perez, C. 2019) and so also in the car industry.
When looking more into it, Volvo explains that they have been using female test dummies since 1995. They started with a frontal impact dummy of a small female, because that was, at the time, the only available dummy. Then in 2001 they started testing with a small side-impact dummy and “since the beginning of the century” they were the first car company that started using crash test dummies that had the body of an average woman and they developed a virtual model of a pregnant woman. Ten years later they expanded their ‘dummy family’ with a female dummy, with average measures, for evaluation of whiplashes on rear and side impact. “We did this as [the] only car brand on the market, in collaboration with EvaRID.” (Volvo cars, 2019)

When reading into the E.V.A. Initiative it becomes clear that it isn’t exactly true that they have been testing on female dummies for forty years, it is more something like twenty years.1212 Something they don’t claim either in their commercial, however they are suggesting it by stating: “But at Volvo Cars, we have collected crash data for more than 40 years to protect all people — regardless of size, gender, or body shape.” (Volvo Cars, 2019) By sharing the knowledge with other companies, they not only get more sympathy from the consumer, they also contribute to the research for cars and how women are affected by traffic accidents. The more companies that start testing this, the more data there will be collected, the more lives that can be saved. Volvo is not only hopping on a trend, they are actually actively trying to make the world safer, more equal. They are aware of the world and society they are presenting themselves in. For all we know other companies have been testing on female dummies for a long time as well.
However, when thinking about a safe car for you and whomever you travel with, after seeing these advertisements, you will think of Volvo as a safe choice. And when thinking about Nissan you will think of that weird commercial which told you that men are bad, and Brie Larson is ‘woke’.

HOW TO: FEMINISM

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One person I found during my ventures into femvertising is Katie Martell. Martell is a marketer, whom also stumbled upon femvertising. Like me, Martell was enthusiastic about the idea of better portrayal and less stereotypes in advertisement at first. But then she started looking critical at the notion of femvertisment. Quickly she realized that these brands weren’t practicing what they preach. Martell calls this notion of companies that use feminism but aren’t actually doing anything to contribute to feminism: Faux Feminism, the exploitation of feminism by advertising. On her website FauxFeminism.com she notes: “There is a real and present danger to feminism if we accept this trend of femvertising without holding companies accountable.” (Martell, K. [n.d.])
Katie Martell is inspired by Jean Kilbourne, a public speaker, writer, filmmaker and activist who has been asking for decades: “What is the impact of advertising on women?”.13Definitely recommend watching Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly” four-part documentary series and Kilbourne’s TEDx talk: The dangerous ways ads see women. (TEDx Talks, 2014)Kilbourne found that the effects of advertisements are subconscious. People at first might think they aren’t influenced by them, yet they are. In an interview for Martell’s documentary Pandermonium14Currently when writing this thesis, Pandermonium The Dangers of Rainbow-Washing, Femvertising, Woke Marketing and Virtue Hustling isn’t out yet. However, Katie Martell was so kind to send me the interview they conducted with Jean Kilbourne. For more information about this documentary visit Martell’s website Kilbourne explains how she noticed how other feminists were opposed to what she was doing. They felt like the portrayal of women in advertising was a trivial issue when you would compare it to for example violence against women. Kilbourne is arguing that they aren’t separate issues, but that they are related. There is violence against women because objectification of women is all around us. When you turn a human being into an object, you invite violence. “This is not a trivial issue; this is a core issue that’s related to all the work you’re doing. But that was a hard sell in those days.” (Kilbourne, J., 2020)

Katie Martell takes Kilbourne’s question of ‘what the impact of advertising on women?’ and started to ask: “What is the impact of advertising on feminism? What is the impact on the fight for women’s equality when companies use feminist messaging in their marketing – but don’t live up to these ideals?”
Her answer is in-line with what Debord was saying: “It redefines feminism in a dangerous way. It diminishes it to a tagline, it dumbs it down to a hashtag, it cheapens it.” Katie Martell explains that advertising is exploiting feminism with femvertising, to sell to women. And in line with Jean Kilbourne’s finding of its subconscious influencing us, Martell states that this type of advertising will, and is, tricking us into believing our society is more progressive than it truly is. It is creating a diversity blind spot.

Kate Martell proposes ten ways, for businesses, to (really) empower women: (Women in Digital, 2017)

One. Employ lots of them.
Two. Demand diversity in your agencies and suppliers, give them more opportunities.
Three. (In your campaigns) Celebrate women for their achievements, not their appearance.
Four. Mandate a diverse set of candidates when hiring.
Five. Demonstrate transparency in you pay structure. Prove equal pay for equal work.
Six. Support working parents so women aren’t forced to make a “family or work” decision.
Seven. Train your employees about bias.
Eight. Pay fair wages.
Nine. Don’t whitewash this issue, represent minorities.
Ten. Have respect for the real challenge and importance of women’s equality. Never reduce it to a tagline or a hashtag.

With these ten ways Martell gives handles for businesses to do better and start acting responsibly.1515 Or in her words: “TL; DR please don’t fuck this up for us. We don’t need feminist advertising. We need a business culture that is not perpetuating these problems. We need REAL steps taken by companies to ensure equality, not lip service in their marketing.” (Martell, K. [n.d.])
Martell also encourages consumers to do research themselves “vote with their wallets” and support only brands that champion equality. She created a Femvertising Litmus test, in which consumers and marketers can measure a femvertising campaign. The test consists of 8 questions. If these are mostly answered with no’s, the company is not contributing to feminism. It is or will be using “faux-feminism” to hop on a trend and should not be considered as an option for them. If it is mostly yeses Katie Martell gives you her blessing to use femvertising to celebrate their brand equity and awareness.

One. Are women represented on the C-suite, executive team and board of the company?
Two. Does the company transparently pay women equally to men?
Three. Does the company employ women throughout its organization?
Four. Does the company mandate supplier diversity?
Five. Is unconscious bias training made available to employees?
Six. Is there a strong family leave program in place at the company?
Seven. Does the company deploy inclusive hiring practices?
Eight. Have they stopped objectifying women in all marketing (other Bus or product lines?)

In the Pandermonium documentary, which will be accompanied with a book, Martell is working on. She is exploring the intersection of marketing and social movements. For this documentary Martell is looking at the dangers of Rainbow-Washing, Femvertising, Woke Marketing and Virtue Hustling. In this she will speak about how consumers no longer trust brands. They only hop on trends like environmental issues, LTBGQ+ issues, feminist issues, etc. for exposure and very bluntly put, money. This phenomenon is also called trust washing. Currently, because of the Corona virus pandemic the virus has also become part of a new strategy for brands. Martell however sees this pandemic also as an opportunity to really reflect on this strategy. She encourages brands to actually start thinking about what they are putting out in the world and start putting their money where their mouths are.1616 Some links Katie Martell provides for keeping up with businesses and what they are actually doing during the current pandemic, the good and the bad: Did they help? (2020) Monty, S. (2020) Ad Age Staff (2020) Katie Martell states that if this is the ‘new normal’, we need new rules of engagement. (Martell, K. 2020)

FEMINISM IN THE GRAPHIC DESIGN FIELD

Jean Kilbourne and Katie Martell both are making it their mission to creating more awareness and knowledge within the advertising industry about the dangerous of using feminism in advertising. This has made me curious about how feminism is portraited in the Graphic Design. How can my role as a designer add to the discourse of feminism and femvertising? How are other designers using their politics’ in their work?

In the book ‘Design{H}ers, A celebration of Women in Design Today’ (Hassell, L. and Cheung, V., 2019) I came across Jessica Walsh, the founder and creative director of &Walsh. Jessica Walsh talks about a collaborative project she did with Timothy Goodman: the “12 Kinds of Kindness” project. Walsh explains how during ‘Step 07: Kill Them With Kindness’1717 Read more about the project and this step on https://12kindsofkindness.com/ she learned that women sometimes are unsupportive and cruel towards one another. That they, subconsciously, don’t want other women to succeed. She states: “I think one reason for this is that our chances of success are much slimmer than our male counterparts. 70% of (design) schools are women. Only 12% of creative directors or CEOs of creative companies are women.” (Hassell, L. and Cheung, V., 2019)

Inspired by the experiment, Walsh goes on to create ‘Ladies, Wine & Design’ (link) a space where women could come together, help one another, and form more positive relationships with each other. (Hassell, L. and Cheung, V., 2019) ‘Ladies, Wine & Design’ started as a small non-profit initiative in New York, but the concept is now adapted into chapters in 280 cities worldwide.

In 2019 Jessica Walsh started her own creative agency: &Walsh. With this Walsh is joining the 0.1% of women who founded creative agencies. In an article on their website Walsh is writing about her choice to start her own creative agency and her personal experiences with feminism. Also questioning how it is possible that only 0.1% of the creative agencies is founded by women, when women drive around 80% of consumer purchasing and around 70% of design students are women, but only 5-11% of creative director positions are held by women. (Walsh, J. 2019)

In 2017 I had the opportunity to interview three of my teachers at the Royal Academy of Arts: Pauline Schep, Lauren Alexander and Roosje Klap. In these interviews we talked about the academy and how they, by teaching there, are shaping the program and students.
Roosje Klap who is currently, together with Niels Schrader, the head of the Graphic Design department, talked about why she chose to be in this position. She explains how on average at European academies around 70% of the students are female, however of that 70% only 30% of them will eventually work in the Graphic Design field. For the males studying at the academy those numbers are the exact opposite. “It has been one of the reasons to start teaching and also to become head of the department with Niels. We want to try to create change.Even if it is only for you, the students. More from my own point of view: I want to show you girls that IT IS POSSIBLE! To have a career, and kids, and to do cool things in your free time. It is all there for you!” (Janssen, M. 2017)

Through conducting these interviews with my teachers, I started to understand better how being in this specific academy is shaping me as a designer. But more importantly how the academy isn’t an abstract thing, it is formed by the people that work there, that shape it. I decided to publish these interviews online instead of in a book or publication. (link) Through this medium they are available for my fellow students and for future students of the KABK. To read them in their own time and maybe learn more about these voices shaping our academy.

Both Jessica Walsh and Roosje Klap are aware of the idea: you can’t be what you can’t see. And are both using their platform and personal experience to amplify their own and others’ voices and experiences. Their personal is their political. Advertising, Public Relations (PR), Propaganda, their language or goals might be different, in essence they are the same. Or as Jonas Staal (2018) defines it: propaganda = power + performance. By which he means that he defines propaganda as a performance of power with the aim to construct reality for its interests.

Advertising is doing this as well, as we have seen in the multiple examples of femvertising throughout the years. I look at Graphic Designers who are in their work taking an activist approach to design like for example the political campaign “Who Owns the City” initiated by Ruben Pater in collaboration with Yuri Veerman. (link)(Veerman, Y. 2018) A political campaign that is addressing the Amsterdam popularity problem through a collection of posters. Or the self-initiated “Ladies With an Attitude, Vote” project by Roosje Klap. (fig. 10) An apparel line containing screen printed sweaters with this slogan to remind people off the necessity of voting and to actively participate in the politics of our countries. (ARK, [n.d])

I notice that my personal preference as a designer. Is gravitating more towards works about feminism that are more ‘performative’ versus projects that are more ‘tangible’ design, like the “Who Owns the City” campaign. An example of a more performative project is the Calyes typeface I am using in my thesis. Calyes is a typeface created by Charlotte Rohde. Who has decided that if a person wants to create a project with feminist intentions they can have the typeface for free. By doing this Rohde feels like she is contributing and showing solidarity to causes she finds worthy. “I realised that design does not necessarily have to have a feminist concept to do feminist actions.” (Ong, J. 2019) This preference, for more performativity in design, directly relates to the idea that visual representation not the solution is, but often part of the problem. People have been trying to rebrand Feminism since the beginning of feminism. Advertising has been trying every way they can think of, of making feminism through femvertising appeal to their consumers. It is time for action.18;18 With this I am not saying creating awareness for all issues concerning intersectional feminism is bad. However, just pointing it out is no longer enough. Let’s pick up these things we have been pointing at, and let’s do something about them.

LET’S REDEFINE FEMVERTISING

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In 1929 the godfather of PR, Edward Bernays, was the first that connected feminism to a product in order to sell more of it to women. Many of Bernays ideas are still at the core of most advertising strategies. The amount of femvertisments are directly linked with the popularity of feminism. In times that feminism seems less urgent to people, femvertisment will also disappear. This is why sometimes it seems as if femvertisment is a concept of our current society. Feminism has been quite unpopular for a while but is now back on people’s minds.
Femvertising has also been through a change in the early 00’s since all advertising has. From the idea of branding as just a visual representation of quality and trust, the branding of certain brands has been shifting us towards a society in which we follow brands like we would follow our idols. We relate to as if they are part of our own identities. Our most powerful ideas in our society, like democracy, revolution and feminism, are now treated like brand content. By aligning themselves with feminism, brands are more likely to remove themselves from negative stereotypes. They will speak more to a demographic of female consumers, which means this demographic will recognize themselves in the branding of a company and will pay attention. By seeing themselves they are more likely to buy the products. Since women drive around 80% of consumer purchasing, this will very likely lead to more sales.

Looking at femvertising this way it will sound like the dream for most companies and media. And as a feminist it should excite me that there is a more diverse representation in media. Which definitely has been exciting, but the problem is that it is only a representation. The root issues that feminism is addressing and confronting like wage inequality, gendered divisions of labour, institutional racism and sexism, structural violence and, of course, bodily autonomy. They are fundamentally about resetting the balance of power and that should make the people that hold this power uncomfortable and it should not become a tool for them to become more powerful over ‘others’. Otherwise feminism will not work.

Companies should consider if they are willing to shift the power dynamic within their company before aligning themselves with feminism. Whether companies are willing hire a more diverse group of people, including black women, women of color and disabled women. Give them equal opportunities, hire them in higher positions, talk with and train their staff about diversity issues and have systems is place that will create equal opportunities for their staff like health care, childcare, etc. When companies are doing at least these things on a daily basis, then I couldn’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t align your company and brand with feminism. However, most companies that are already aligning themselves with feminism are definitely not doing these things. They aren’t practising what they preach, and this is dangerous. The danger of these representations lies in that people might subconsciously start to think that things have already improved. However, numbers are showing there is still a very long way to go. Consumers and employees will no longer feel the urge to fight something like the pay gap if they think their business is already addressing it for them. Which they aren’t.

This is why femvertisments are making me so frustrated and angry when I am confronted with them. Having this in mind and looking back on all the examples I have found, the only conclusion I can come to is that the definition given to Femvertising by SHE Media and Adweek is incorrect. By defining femvertising as a form of advertising that employs pro--female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls, (Powell, R. 2014) they are implying that femvertising is all about feminism. The goal of femvertising isn’t to empower women and girls, since that would completely ignore the goal of the advertising aspect. The goal of advertising is, or should be, to sell products by informing consumers about these products. The definition, written by advertisers, isn’t objective and could be perceived as another form of femvertising.
I would turn their definition around: Femvertising is a form of advertising that is taking advantage of feminist imagery and ideas, to sell products and change consumers’ brand perspective.

This doesn’t mean there is not such a thing as advertisements that are employing pro-female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls. These advertisements do exist; however, they are advertisements selling products that are empowering women and girls. An example could be “The Tampon Book” (Vid. 22): a book against tax discrimination because when you are buying a book, you are paying less tax money then when you are buying tampons. (The Female Company, 2019) Or the “Lessons in Herstory” (Vid. 23) app for Daughters of the Evolution. An app that is using augmented reality to celebrate stories of women typically hidden from history textbooks. (Daughters of the Evolution, 2019)
Both these campaigns are contributing towards equality and are disturbing the power. They are also the exception to the rule, however, using my definition, they would still categorize as femvertisments since they want us to buy these products that they are advertising.

By understanding what femvertisments are, I have not only resolved why they are so upsetting to me. It also helped me understand how I want to, as a designer and as a consumer, express my feminism. Just like with femvertisments, when taking a more hands-on design approach towards feminism this can result into an empty representation and stylistic images of feminism. I believe this is no longer adding anything towards feminism, I believe it is time for action. As a consumer this can mean no longer financially supporting brands that are taking advantage of feminist branding.1919 I understand that this as a consumer also means doing research before purchasing something. Which I also understand can be a lot of work and making suchAs a Graphic Designer I realized that, even when I am working on a project that has nothing to do with feminism. It will always be connected to intersectional feminism. It is part of my world view; part of my history and I align myself with its values. Past project that I have worked on, especially during my time at the academy. They all have aspects that I can link back to it.
As a reminder I added a short manifest with this Thesis. Inspired by the NOT Manifesto I made during the first year of my Graphic Design studies at KABK, (fig. 12) by the work of the Guerrilla Girls (fig. 13), by The Tread of Inspiration by Shamma Buhazza (link)(Bourton, L. 2020) and of course, inspired by the research and content of this thesis.

Before writing this thesis, I doubted if I should write about feminism. When reading the White Pube’s critique on ‘Girl’ art titled: “Are White Girls Capable of Making Art That’s Not About themselves??” (The White Pube, 2019), the part that especially stayed with me was the following: “In visual art, it’s like white men don’t constantly have to put themselves in their work, they GET to talk about other stuff - and I think deep down this text is coming from a place of jealousy, that white men have art subject privilege. They haven’t suffered the same structural inequality, so they don’t have to process those neuroses through their art in the same way other identities do and need to.” (The White Pube, 2019)
I now realizes that writing this thesis has made me understand better how I can apply my intersectional feminism in my work. It has helped me understand what kind of designer I am and how I can continue to use emotions like happiness, anger and sadness in my work. It has helped me come to terms with the fact that I will always talk about this. The only way I could ever stop consciously or subconsciously talk about it, is if it will no longer be an issue. When humanity is no longer standardly perceived as a (white) male and everything else as ‘other’. Until then, the feminine way I work and perceive the world will always have a certain value, this might be positive for some and negative for some, but it will always be ‘other’.

AS A (FRESHLY GRADUATED) KABK STUDENT

I WILL NEVER ADD TO THE EMPTY REPRESENTATION OF FEMINISM
INLCUDING EVERY FORM OF FEMVERTISING

I WILL ALWAYS BE OPEN TO UNDERSTAND AND LEARN MORE WHEN IT COMES TO THE TOPICS OF FEMINISM AND EVERY FORM OF OPPRESSION THAT INTERSECTS WITH IT.

I WILL ALWAYS CLAIM MY SPACE
AND SHARE IT WITH OTHERS

I WILL ALWAYS TAKE MY EMOTIONS AND GUT FEELING SERIOUS THEY WILL BE, TOGETHER WITH MY CURIOSITY AND STUBBORNNESS, THE WAY I WILL BEGIN EVERY FUTURE PROJECET

I WILL WORK WITH MY OWN BOUNDARIES AND ALWAYS TRY NOT
TO CROSS THEM

I WILL PUT MY MONEY
WHERE MY MOUTH IS