At The Business of Beauty, we are always exploring ways in which female-geared companies in Western culture can promote a healthy perspective of beauty to empower women. We are analyzing effective and poor attempts at advertising products alongside women’s empowerment. 

 

We argue that, in order to empower women, female-geared companies should promote a healthy perspective of beauty by relaying that beauty is not the biggest achievement for women and advocating that everyone is beautiful. And that is what we will explore on our website!  

 

Our purpose in examining these marketing strategies is so that we can deconstruct beauty standards, disconnect looks from worth, emphasize the other powerful parts of what makes you your best self, and create a healthier perspective of beauty. 

 

What does women’s empowerment look like in advertising?

Women’s empowerment in advertising is known as “femvertising” as termed by SheKnows Media in 2016 (Bue and Harrison 629). Researchers Bue and Harrison found that these commercials “share a focus on employing female talent and messages that intend to inspire and encourage female consumers” (629).

 

Companies and brands will include commentary about hot topics such as "body positivity" and "gender discrimination" (Bue and Harrison 629). 

 

Understandably, people are weary at seeing women’s empowerment in advertising especially when “companies which have historically been criticized for their objectification of women” suddenly want to empower them (Bue and Harrison 629). 

 

Is this movement being used just to manipulate viewers into buying products? Possibly! We’re not denying that. 

 

In her article “How ‘Empowerment’ Became Something for Women to Buy”, Jia Tolentino from The New York Times comments on how the feeling of women’s empowerment in ads is limited: 

 

This version of empowerment can be actively disempowering: It’s a series of objects and experiences you can purchase while the conditions determining who can access and accumulate power stay the same. The ready partici­pation of well-off women in this strat­egy also points to a deep truth about the word ‘empowerment’: that it has never been defined by the people who actually need it. People who talk empowerment are, by definition, already there. (Tolentino)

 

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While we are not going to deny that these ads are trying to sell a product, we are also not going to deny that companies and brands are powerful because their advertisements influence beauty standards and perceptions of WHO is beautiful. 

 

So, since greed isn’t going anywhere soon, what if we could curate ads that promote a healthier perspective of beauty? 

 

What if female-geared commercials would show girls that are extremely intelligent, athletic, resilient, funny and many other things so that other traits would be seen as valuable, so that beauty wouldn’t be seen as the pinnacle of women’s worth? 

 

What if female-geared commercials would represent every single shade, size, race, ethnicity, ability, and other characteristics so that all women would see themselves represented and recognized as beautiful? 

 

What if female-geared commercials were the catalyst for true women’s empowerment? 

 

 

Of course, people have many opinions on exactly how to empower women.

 

Dr. Lindsay Kite from the Beauty Redefined website wrote about these opinions in her article “Empowering or Objectifying: The Clashing Camps of Body Positivity”.

 

This information is greatly relevant to The Business of Beauty and our mission.

 

You’ll see why. Let’s get into the article!

 

While both groups support body positivity and women’s empowerment, they have two separate approaches.

 

One group critiques the idea that subscribing to society’s beauty standards “offers women fake, fleeting ‘power’ for having a body deemed worthy of consumption” (Kite). This group seeks to “to teach women to see and value themselves and others as more than just bodies” (Kite). 

 

Sound familiar? This is a part of our mission statement! We want women to view themselves as more than just their beauty because women are more than their appearance. Women have hobbies and passions and complex personalities!

 

Okay, let’s look at the opposing group.

 

The ideas of the second group originate from notions that “many women’s bodies have been erased or made to seem abnormal and shameful” (Kite). Because of this lack of representation and absence of positivity around these bodies, this group wants ALL women to feel beautiful and fights for advertising that does just that (Kite). 

 

Sound familiar? This is another part of our mission statement! We believe that all women are beautiful and should be portrayed as such. 

 

You might be asking yourself how can our mission statement incorporate sentiments from two opposing groups? Here’s our answer:

 

By not putting female beauty on a pedestal, all women will value their other traits and see themselves as more than their beauty. Even so, when thinking about their looks, they will know they are beautiful because advertisements have affirmed that everyone is gorgeous in their own ways. 

 

We can’t deny the existence of our bodies just like we can’t brush aside the other parts of what makes us unique. So, while we will know we are beautiful, we will place no higher worth on that trait. In this way, we will have a healthier perspective of beauty and view ourselves holistically. 

 

Why should we care about advertising women’s empowerment?

We care about these advertisements because they influence our perspectives on beauty. This is represented in the objectification theory. 

 

In their article, researchers Bue and Harrison talk about objectification theory and its harmful effects.

 

Objectification theory says that “women’s lived experiences are largely affected by cultural representations of the body,'' such as advertising (Bue and Harrison 628).

 

Therefore, women’s bodies are seen as objects only “existing for the evaluation, pleasure, and consumption by others” (Bue and Harrison 628). Becoming accustomed to their bodies being gawked at in this way, women begin to objectify themselves (Bue and Harrison 628). 

 

This self-objectification has been known to cause decreased physical and mental self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and a perception of oneself as “less competent” (Bue and Harrison 628). 

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Imagine viewing advertisements that promote women in many aspects of their lives while also reminding them of their beauty. This self-objectification and objectification by others would begin to shift. 

 

Now, that we’ve discussed what women’s empowerment looks like in advertising and why ads are influential, let’s discuss what companies and brands are doing (effectively or not) to promote women’s empowerment.

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