Fashionable Feminism
By Morgan
Feminism has been a hot topic over the past couple of years, getting lots of attention (negative and positive) from celebrities and the media. There has been a push for companies to not conform to gender stereotypes and to stop trying to perpetuate the idea that there are only two genders and that men have to be aggressive and masculine while women have to be submissive and feminine. With this pressure, there has been an influx of ‘feminist’ advertising campaigns by numerous companies which, at first, seems to be a positive outcome for feminists everywhere. However, we have to ask ourselves how much do these campaigns actually represent feminism and to what extent are they just being used to sell more products?
Last year H&M were widely complimented for their advertisement for the autumn/winter collection. It was praised for including women of many different body types, ages and ethnicities, who were depicted picking food out from their teeth, in a boardroom and sitting with their legs spread (all done in a very glamorous way of course). If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here. In doing this, H&M gained buckets full of free publicity while people all over the internet praise them for their ‘masterpiece’, all the while raking in the money from the belief that they are empowering women. The thing is though, H&M aren’t empowering women. While their ads claim to support women their factories and shop floors tell a different story. H&M supplier factories often terminate a women’s employment during pregnancy[1]. A report stated that 11 out of 12 supplier factories in Cambodia witnessed employment termination during pregnancy. Furthermore, many H&M stores don’t stock a plus size range claiming there is no room for it and when they do it is extremely limited. I’m also sure you’ve read the hundreds of posts and articles calling out this company for their unrealistic clothing sizes with their size 14 clothes often being smaller than other retailers size 12. It seems like H&M want to be able to bring out an advert and brand themselves as a feminist organization, however, maybe they should start accommodating for the variety of women they featured in their advert before we start to praise them.
What about the ongoing #LikeAGirl always campaign? On the surface, it seems to be a positive campaign about breaking down gender stereotypes and telling young girls they can do anything. We’ve also seen other period product companies, like Bodyform, jump on the bandwagon of girls being able to do anything even on their period. While this is true, the only reason these companies are backing this is because it makes them seem like advocates for women’s empowerment and this is especially important to their market when selling sanitary products. Neither of these companies have tried to further any other positive messages after their initial campaigns were such a hit, they stuck with the same thing because it was successful. They could have used this initial publicity to put out other positive messages to further equality, such as; you don’t have to be born female to be a girl or that people who don’t identify as women may also have periods. The problem with this though is that it wouldn’t help these companies sell products and therefore they do not perceive these issues as being worth their while promoting. There hasn’t even been any attempt to combat the inequalities for women within the sanitary products market, relating to period taboos. Many sanitary product companies still use the blue liquid[2] to depict period blood in their adverts. No, they haven’t gone near these subjects because this is controversial and controversy, even in the name of equality, is too much of a risk to product sales.
Even, magazines are attempting to jump on the feminist trend. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain the hypocrisy of magazines, that spend the majority of their publishing space making women feel bad in an attempt to sell products, whilst simultaneously claiming to be champions of women’s rights. Vogue’s upcoming March addition is claiming to be celebrating women and in doing so has included a ‘diverse’ range of women on their cover. They have included a range of women of different ethnicities (that all coincidently have facial structure that we would associate with white beauty) and one ‘Plus size model’ (Ashley Graham who is a size 14). To add to this poor attempt at diversity the magazine was criticized as people noticed that their only plus size model was the only one to be wearing all black, with one of her hands over her thigh. It was claimed all of this was to make her try and appear smaller, in addition to the obvious photoshopping of another model’s arm in an attempt to also make Ashley’s waist seem smaller. Yet despite all of this the magazine was applauded for celebrating women and for including their first plus size model on their cover. Without a mention of the fact that it has been their choice not to put a plus size model on the cover until 2017, and that one plus size model amongst seven seems just to be a feeble way to claim diversity and to slap on the feminist badge.
While these campaigns can seem empowering and seem like a forward step for the corporate industry, we have to be careful when praising them. Ironically, the only reason they seem so great to us, is because the same people have been enforcing the opposite idea for generations that being a woman means you have to be feminine and that the default women is thin, white and straight. They are capitalizing on ‘breaking down’ social constructs that they built in the first place and being praised for it, without really doing anything to further the equality they claim to be supporting.
[1] http://asia.floorwage.org/workersvoices/reports/precarious-work-in-the-h-m-global-value-chain
[2] Although Bodyform did attempt to challenge this in their ‘Blood Campaign’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q1GVOYIcKc