Studio brief1: Book summaries

The Beauty Myth: Naomi Wolf (2002)

Over the years as women have gained power within society, the standards of physical beauty have also grown. The myth of beauty spreads the belief that an objective measurement of beauty exists such as thinness, youthfulness, intelligence etc. The media and other meanings of presenting messages have essentially made women feel as though they should embody these objective measurements to be seen as attractive to men, as they are lead to believe that this is the only form of beauty. 

The book discusses how the cultural conspiracy of maintaining youthfulness to be beautiful is a common feature in adverts and it has allowed a lot of money to be made from this insecurity that has been created. The associations with youthfulness and being beautiful have lead to insecurities of many people. Big brands have targeted the consumers feeling this insecurity and put out massive advertisement campaigns which make you feel as though you need to purchase the best creams and serums in the attempt to remain youthful and wrinkle free. This cultural conspiracy is not only applicable to females, men are also being encouraged to buy an extensive range of ‘beauty’ products. 

The natural human processes such as ageing are being labelled as undesirable and the defined idea of physical attraction is leaving many people to feel unattractive as a result of powerful media images and self comparisons that are being made. 

The way that dieting has become a ‘normative obsession’ is an area which is important to consider as this is very much displayed in media. “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience.” The role of a graphic designers to create visually powerful pieces of work, but to also consider the power of the content that is being designed and published to a wide audience. 

Media, Gender and Identity (2nd edition): David Gauntlett

The book is split into sections of topics, of which I will focus my research on those exploring gender representation.

The analysis representations of gender in the past firstly focused on women and how in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, only 20-35% of characters were female in tv shows. The most common role for women to play was the housewife and never the breadwinner. All of the advertisements of this time era involving women focused on showing them to have the dream of impressing their husbands by their interest in household products, cleanliness and beauty. Women were not encouraged to focus on their own potential, only the happiness of their families. The ideal woman was seen to be passive, feminine, sexually interested and young. The male on the other hand was portrayed as having to be active, looked after by female, heroic, adventurous and the breadwinner for the family. 

The representation of gender today shows a sense of equality as both men and women are shown to be working side by side. The image of women as housewives now holds an element of mockery and humour, the focus has been diverted to the sexualisation women in the work place e.g. sexy secretary. The equality in the workplace seems to have been made better, but the open sexualisation of women is causing comparisons to be made and women can easily be left to feel undesirable.