I am a person who does not typically purchase a lot of magazines, I am more of an Internet user. I get my news, gossip, and information from the World Wide Web, more than I do from anything else. If I ever were to flip through a magazine, I just glance at the photos and look for anything that peaks my interest, but this is normally done for 30 seconds as my groceries are being checked out.
I decided to go to the library, to see if they had any magazines I could flip through and use for my blog and to show my classmates. While I was a students at Iowa State I distinctly remember where all the top magazines were located, but when I went to Rod Library, it was not as easy. I was told I could find magazines downstairs, so I headed down and walked around and flipped through the different magazines they had. These were magazines such as Forbes, Money, The Economist, Time and Advertising Age. I could not find where US, Cosmopolitan, People, and Vogue were located, so I decided to look at the visuals of the magazines I typically would not pick up. I thought they would not have many of the degrading ads or depicting visuals throughout, but who knew. I think after watching the movie Killing Us Softly I was expecting to see proactive and degrading images throughout every magazine I picked up, but for the most part I didn't find any. I searched at least 10 different magazines and did not find the examples I was looking for. If I did find one I would possibly use in my blog, it was more centered towards gender stereotyping.
Although I did not find the exact images I was looking for, while I was flipping through the September 1st, 2014 addition of the Advertising Age I found something very useful for my visual literacy course. They had clips that talked about women in advertising, which showed the different timelines of the way women have been portrayed in advertising over the years.
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| Source: Advertising Age, September 1, 2014 |
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| Source: Advertising Age, September 1, 2014 |
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| Source: Advertising Age, September 1, 2014 |
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| Source: Advertising Age, September 1, 2014 |
I thought it was very interesting to look through and see how it has transitioned and moved through the media. I thought this last visual summed up what should be happening in the advertising world!
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| Source: Advertising Age, September 1, 2014 |
I am also not a big magazine reader, but I find your last posted image interesting, mostly for it's use of the word "pinkwashing." I've found that the desire to "feminize" words......actor/actress, steward/stewardess, whitewashing/pinkwashing....subtly continues the anti-feminism push. We are trying to change the way we speak and use words (think political correctness) but oftentimes that in itself creates an "other." That's how pinkwashing strikes me. A cute, feminized version of a true critique. Is any attempt to change not far enough? Are these ad campaigns being made fun of in a feminized manner simply because they don't go far enough? And if they DID go far enough to be culture-changing, would they be described in a way that isn't inherently derogatory? Hard to tell when "throws like a girl" still means a lousy throw rather than the opposite.
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