This might be my favorite module so far. Does that make me a feminist? I really love the examples shown because it highlights a common narrative that has existed since I was a little girl and obviously long beforehand. I was able to relate to the examples shown whether it was one of my favorite movies, legally blonde or the examples of the newscasters being a former one myself. It reminded me of the challenges women in that field especially face. One of the most impactful ads I have ever seen is by Nike called "So Win." It debuted during the 2025 SuperBowl. I thought of the third wave of feminism and it's tie into using digital media and the internet for helping spread feminist ideas. This one happened to do it in a very clever way.
It serves as a contemporary example of challenging traditional gender rules that have been placed throughout history on women's bodies, behaviors and ambitions especially when it comes to the sports world. Through narrative storytelling, the one minute ad both highlights and challenges narratives surrounding being a woman as it ties to being an athlete and finding success. In the reading, Walsh says that patriarchal culture disciplines women's bodies through a narrow beauty standard and highlights appearance and sexualization over strength. Throughout history female athletes have been seen as masculine and aggressive. The ad challenges that concept by focusing on women's bodies as powerful and instead of apologizing for being strong, they lean into it. With phrases like, " you can't be demanding, you can't be relentless, you can't put yourself first - so put yourself first." It leans into many of the things we often hear as women in relationships, work, and daily interactions. As a woman, if you speak up in a meeting, you're seen as being difficult. If you're seen as being confident, that can be mistaken for arrogance. The ad tells the story visually to show the amount of effort and hard work that go into each of their focus areas versus highlighting them as sexual objects. The focus on their bodies is more about the athleticism versus the desire that some media narratives try to create.
In the reading from Sellnow, it talks about the importance of looking at how media texts expose and resist systems of gendered power. This ad ties into that thought because Nike makes a conscious effort to reframe traits that have been seen as masculine and make them into more of a female expression. It's something that the athletes lean into versus running away from. I can't help but wonder though - does the ad succeed in redefining how we see beauty as strong and sexy and replaces it with a new ideal rather than what we've traditionally been feed through media?
Even the thought of " winning" is a narrative that extends from being the smartest in a classroom to winning the affections or attention of a man in rom-coms. The concept of being a winner is tied to someone else's approval or value. In the ad, it challenges that to show that women across all different backgrounds, body types and standards can find a universal thread to win for themselves and define what that means for them. As stated in "Miss-representation" that the media is the message and the messenger and the responsibility that holds for delivering content that shapes our society, I am very happy to see a narrative like this out in the world.
This was an insightful post and mentioned a role that I considered writing about, as well--the role of societal expectations, body image and stereotypes in broadcast news. As a teen, I looked up to female journalists like Diane Sawyer, Jane Paulie and Cokie Roberts. They were poised, polished, professional. They asked impactful questions in respectful ways and modeled objectivity and class.
ReplyDeleteBy the time I had selected my college major, however, the expectations of female anchors and journalists had changed. The women sitting behind news desks and conducting interviews looked less like middle-class moms and more like 20-something models. News and the women reporting it had changed, with each channel boasting their own lineup of traditionally beautiful young women. Feeling like I didn't fit that mold, I abandoned my dream of being the next hard-hitting host of Meet the Press and turned to a career in writing.
Ads like the one you shared in your post help challenge those traditional beauty standards and make us question our own learned biases about what women should look like and how they should act. It is a prime example of what fourth wave feminism can accomplish through digital activism and might help a new generation of young women hold on to their dreams a little tighter than I did.
I LOVED this ad. I genuinely had tears in my eyes the first time I saw it. Growing up playing sports, I felt the heavy criticism on women's sports constantly. I used to never even look at a comment section on a post about women's sports because I knew there would be hateful comments like "go back to the kitchen" or "is that a man?" if the girl was strong looking. Media used to be a dangerous place for strong female athletes.
ReplyDeleteThis ad also reminded me of a commercial from a few years ago, the Always "Like a Girl" commercial. In the commercial they say "When did doing something 'like a girl' become an insult"? I think that is so powerful. I think both commercials do a great job at redefining how we see strength and beauty in women, but I also think they are just the tip of the iceberg. I think there is a lot more that can be done in media to break free of the traditional viewpoints surrounding women.
This was a well-thought out post that touches on areas that I too found myself pondering as I completed the reading this week. I too questioned how ideals have shifted and questioned how it played into the patriarchal culture. In a lot of ways, the change in ideals around being a strong, athlete demonstrates additional access to sports, strength, and training, which comes across as growth for women in a culture where they are often expected to fit within specific spaces. Yet, my mind kept coming back to the fact that women's bodies depicted as being strong, the ones that are most often celebrated tend to be more so feminine. This made me question if there are limits in progress. Women are welcome and even celebrated in more spaces than they had typically been; however, regardless of if cultural norms continue to change with time, women are still required to live within in the norms themselves. I definitely do believe that the ad in many ways is redefining ideals, yet I also believe that even so that is within limits. Women can be more powerful, stronger, etc. as long as they remain feminine. Great post! Well stated and thought out.
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