Despite the reconfiguration of gender roles experienced in the West over the last half century, advertising has remained anchored within a conservative and sexist frame. On the one hand, advertisers have attempted to devise campaigns addressing a self-sufficient and independent woman, while on the other they have repeatedly argued that society demands from them the display of nude women selling themselves through a pornographic lens.
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
A Revolutionary Political Campaign – Yet (Women’s) World Moves Slowly …
Injustice and discrimination were central to Vida Goldstein’s campaign, as in her statement:
‘We thought that we lived under a democracy, but it was a male-ocracy and the fact is that women want our political customs changed so that they can have a say in matters themselves.’
Captured by Germans – WWI Women Seafarers
German crew … wondered at the women’s calmness. ‘Aren’t you afraid of being shot?’ they asked. After all, Edith Cavell had been executed by firing squad just seven months earlier. ‘“We are Englishwomen” was considered sufficient reply,’ claimed the women’s company magazine …
Taking Flight – From Air Hostess, via ‘Trolley Dolly’, to Flight Attendant
We took it in turns to work the galleys. In First Class this included cooking a roast, which was carved at the seat, heating up the various main meals, the fish course and setting up elaborate carts for hors d’oevres, salad, cheese and desserts. For breakfast we cooked eggs to order. In Economy the meals were loaded in large pans and had to be served up on individual plates – breakfast being more of a challenge: scrambling the raw eggs for 120 passengers in a small oven, particularly in turbulence!
Who Are All These Friends? Denial & The Language of ‘Security’
… these bodies, their names, their stories, and the infinite preciousness of their lives, were dissolved not by the sea but by a deadly language of ‘national security’ that licenses both cruelty and indifference to them. This language removes the unnamed ‘asylum seekers’ into the category and name of ‘outlaws’, out of the protection of the law of the land or of the law of the sea. And this language removed them out of the category of friends to whom the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises we have a duty to act ‘in a spirit of brotherhood’. This language tells those who would follow them that they have no right to escape desperation, inequality or persecution, and that no security in law will be provided to them if they do attempt to escape.
The Reign of the Lingerie Dress
In lingerie dresses the design details, such as ribbons and lace insertions, segmented the body in a way that emphasised the desirable fashionable silhouette. Whereas earlier in the decade the body was divided into several horizontal planes – emphasising the shoulder, hip, cinched waistline and swirling skirt, in the later years … the placement of trimmings is used to elongate and slim the shape. In the second half of the decade the style of trimmings also changed. If at the beginning of the twentieth century fluffy ethereal ruffles, gathering, ruching and other dimensional decorations were used, from about 1907 fashion magazines show more and more afternoon dresses with flat trimmings such as embroidered ribbons, pin-tucking and lace.
Between the Pages – Women, Magazines & Historical Memory
Noliwe Rooks … gave a keynote address entitled ‘Black Women and “Real Beauty”: The Rise and Fall of the Dove Beauty Campaign’ analysing the way ‘black women’s bodies are used to market products to consumers who are not black, in a cultural moment, desperately seeking to evade race’. This sparked off extensive reflection, both in the session and outside it – in corridors, over coffee, lunch and dinner, and in other sessions – on magazine culture, advertising, beauty products and campaigns, and the place of women’s bodies and colour in promoting cultural sameness and difference.
Girl Space – History, Culture & the Right to Play
Kindergartens long pre-dated the 1970s Movement, and childcare was a part of government action during wartime … In the First World War and the Second World War, governments – local, regional/state and national – established centres for children who were below school age or who required after-school care … Children gained the right to play, even if the motive in establishing centres was primarily the war effort and the need to have women move into posts vacated by men joining up and going to the front.
The Tyranny of Numbers – Women & Political Power
Yet commitment and activism was not all that promoted Margaret Bondfield into posts where no woman had sat or stood before. It took tremendous will, a belief in herself and in the ideas and ideals she espoused, the courage to keep going when the going was tough – as it so often must have been – and the will to continue to affirm that politics, trade unionism and, indeed, engagement with the world of rights, power, influence and authority was right where women should be.