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Journal of Promotional Communications

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Published

2013-09-30

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Vol. 1 No. 1 (2013): Inaugural Issue

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Advertising in Post-Feminism: The Return of Sexism in Visual Culture?

Ana Blloshmi

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of ‘ironic sexism’ in advertising in the post-feminist period in UK and US culture. This study considers ‘ironic sexism’ in contemporary advertising, and the different ways ‘ironic sexism’ presently functions in advertisements aimed at men and advertisements aimed at women. Undertaking close semiotic analysis of examples of advertisements, mostly from the second decade of post-feminism (2010s), revealed that advertisements aimed at women communicated ‘ironic sexism’ by allocating a sense of ‘power’ to the women, albeit sometimes exaggerated and mockingly, in a way that advertisements aimed at men did not. The study asks whether such ‘ironic sexism’ in advertising, presented as simply ‘having a sense of humour about gender stereotypes’ is part of a wider and continuing backlash against feminism, which has now paved the way simply for the return of a patriarchal gaze in advertising; without the need, increasingly, to mask this with ‘knowing’ irony. 

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