Gender stereotyping and retro-sexism in advertising discourse from a postfeminist perspective

Abstract

Negative female stereotypes and the portrayal of women in traditional and non-agentive social roles prevail in advertising. Advertisers believe that it is an effective advertising strategy to misuse postfeminist standpoints, stressing liberated womanhood and constructing a universe where women have gained it all and men have to reconquer their lost ground. This article analyses the appropriation of postfeminist discourse with the aim of showing how negative and even demeaning female stereotypes and clichés are represented, and by doing so, how a retro-sexist imagery is constructed within the advertising discourse. Undertaking a case study analysis of an advertising campaign of the brand IWC, a luxury brand for watches, and applying a feminist critical discourse perspective (Lazar, 2005, 2007), which shows the gender asymmetries in discourse, it is argued that advertising perpetuates misbeliefs about women’s roles in society and reinforces demeaning female stereotypes in the collective imaginary about the understanding of gender equality.