Women in Advertising

This ad alone doesn’t necessarily represent the concept of an idealized feminine shape in its written message but its visual nature would be associated with every other jeans ad. This ad describes itself as understanding to the variations of a woman’s shape, but the varying shapes are represented by the typical tall, skinny model. Feminist scholars have analyzed the oppressive nature of ads and media representations that bombard women and girls with an ideal of beauty defined as thin, lean, tall, young, white and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair (see, e.g., Bordo 1993; Brumberg 1997; Hesse-Biber 1996; Kilbourne 1999; Martin 2007; Wolf 1991). (Kirk and Rey, p.208)

At first glance the one thing that appealed to me about this ad was its claim of “hotness coming in all shapes and sizes” and that everyone should be able to go into stores and find jeans that fit “us”, but then when I opened up the rest of the advertisement it showed basically three thin girls with maybe a slight variance in their curves. The mood that this ad is trying to set is one of female empowerment and body acceptance but most women would look at this ad and it would make them feel worse about their bodies especially with skinny size 25 written down the side of the model, most women today do not have a size 25 waist. Women today strive to achieve what Kim Chernin calls the “tyranny of slenderness”; we set ourselves up to reach a goal that isn’t really attainable. (Kirk and Rey, p.208) The aim is to promote insecurity, self-hatred, and distorted perceptions of size, appetite, and attractiveness, so that we will continue to consume the countless products, diet plans and cosmetic surgeries marketed to remedy our alleged deficiencies. (Kirk and Rey, p.208)

The ad is trying to sell jeans that are made to fit everybody. As it explicitly states in the written portion of the ad “Bring us your skinny tomboys, your curvy girls, and all girls in between.” However the ad does not show a skinny tomboy, a curvy girl or any girl in-between. The ad implies that it has jeans that fit all types of women but in actuality after looking at the Levi’s website they only go up to size 8. The ad is assuming that most women are a size 8 or smaller, but in actuality the average American woman is a size 14.

What this ad is telling me about how gender operates within culture is that men set the beauty ideal and that average does not sell. Ideal beauty standards are ableist, ageist, heterosexist, and racist, and many women and girls do their best to resist them (Kirk and Rey, p.208), however with ads like these it is very difficult to be average and feel ok about yourself. The ad wants us to believe that “All asses were not created equal” and that it’s ok to have curves, we have jeans that will fit you but only if you’re a size 8 or smaller.

Work Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa- Rey. Women's Lives Multicultural Perspective.

5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.

Service Learning Proposal

Title: Service Learning Proposal for Young Women Leaders Program

Partner: Young Women Leaders Program

Group Members: Marija S.

                         Valerie T.

                         Brit D.

Date: September 22, 2010

Community Partner Profile

Community partner: Young Women Leaders Program

Contact: Kathleen Oliver, Ph.D. P.O. Box 161994  411A Colbourn Hall 407.823.6502 Fax: 407.823.3603. (http://womensstudies.cah.ucf.edu/YWLP/Home.html)

Mission statement: Feeling Autonomous: Thinking Independently!

Feeling Connected: Caring About Each Other!

Feeling Competent: Getting Things Done!

The Young Women Leaders Program is a mentoring program sponsored by the UCF Women’s Studies Program. YWLP originated at the University of Virginia, and UCF launched the program in the Orlando community. YWLP promotes middle school girls’ leadership abilities, pairing collegiate women with middle school girls.  In mentoring pairs and small groups of Big and Little Sisters, participants focus on learning competence and autonomy, independent thinking, empowerment, self-esteem, and encouraging girls to think about their futures.

Social Basis for Organization:   Little sisters in the YWLP are middle school girls typically aged 12-13 years old. They are girls who are considered to be in the “middle,” as they are not incredibly disadvantaged. The program seeks to pair young girls with “collegiate women” in order to inspire them to begin to consider their futures and think independently. 

 Community Partner Needs:  The YWLP is always on the lookout for volunteers to be Big sisters; they are currently running two mentoring groups at local schools.  They also could always use a monetary donation which helps them get supplies for their groups to last the semester. There is also a list of supplies that can be donated. They basically just need to help and support of their community to make their program run.

The Proposal:

Memorandum

TO: Meredith L. Tweed

FROM: Valerie T.

DATE: September 22, 2010

RE: Proposal to Write a Feasibility Report for a Service Learning Project

The following is a proposal to outline the needs, rationale and feasibility for a service learning project to benefit Young Women Leaders Program. The following proposal contains background on the need for and benefits of this program, an outline of the work I plan to do, the rationale for its inclusion in WST 3015, and a scheduled timeline. This proposal may need to be revised after beginning the project and must be flexible to meet the needs of the both the Service Learning project and the community partner.

Proposal

The Problem

The girls benefited by YWLP are at a stage in their life most of us have blocked out of our memory. It’s that awkward and brutal time of a young girl’s life when her thoughts are consumed with questions and a dire need for acceptance. While this time is traumatic for most of us (especially those of us with Mothers who valued a dollar over a professional haircut) it is also incredibly formative. The bottom line is that while many of these girls aren’t lacking positive female role models, they are in need of that extra set of ears and an empathetic voice to open up to and build a relationship with.

Let’s be real, Middle School wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for the petty backstabbing and trash talking. Notes are passed and social hierarchies are established, all before lunch hour. It becomes easy for young girls to gain a cynical perspective on female relationships, something YWLP is combating with every Big and Little sister match. They realize that not every girl is competition or a threat, but a potential friend, a potential sister.

The Solution

One of the goals of YWLP is to inspire these young girls to consider a collegiate future as a real possibility. What better way to do that than to host them at the University of Central Florida for a day? It’s one thing to make them walk around in the heat and listen to old people (no offense!) talk about the important of continued education, but it’s an entirely different thing to visit your Big Sister’s university and see what a day in her life is like.

There’s another social norm we’re hoping to change during this little adventure, and that is the idea that there are feminine majors and masculine majors. We want to show the girls that they can be Engineers if they want to be, we want them to see that they can truly do whatever they set their minds to.

Rationale for Women’s Studies

The Young Women Leaders Program relates to our Women’s Studies class and women’s issues in general because it teaches young girls self-esteem and independent thinking, it also encourages girls to think about their futures. This could relate to chapter five in our book which discusses women’s bodies and women’s health. It also helps teach girls to find their own identities and to not give into stereotypes which relates to chapter three, Identities and Social Locations. I think it’s important for young girls to have positive female role models especially around the middle school age.

 Action

I will be getting in touch with some of the different colleges here at UCF to see if they would be interested in doing a presentation for some of the Little Sisters. My team discusses trying to contact someone from the Engineering program or Political Science program, as these are not typically female-oriented fields of study. We also discussed having a female sports team here on campus speak to the girls and maybe have lunch with them.

Timeline

9/22- Establish relationship and UCF Day event with YWLP

9/30-Establish event date

10/15-Make sure all Big/Little Sisters have been invited and Colleges in UCF that will be presenting have been contacted

10/29-Secure Colleges for the UCF Day and female sports team to eat Lunch with

11/10-E-mail Big/Little Sisters as a reminder about UCF Day

Various Dates- Attend Alumni events

TBD-UCF Day

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives. Fifth. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010

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