To use textual analysis (using feminist social constructionist lenses) to compare and contrast the representation of gender within the jewellery advertisements of De Beers and Tiffany & Co, as well as compare the two companies to other non-normative advertisements.
To ascertain how advertising, specifically the jewellery advertisements of De Beers and Tiffany & Co., perpetuate or undermine the continuous normative and historical forms of gender representation.
To observe if and in what manner the presentation of female roles in jewellery advertisements has changed from traditional feminine signifiers (mother, domestic) to that of the modern, heterosexual and independent woman empowered by her sexuality.
To explore to what extent recent feminist activist movements have influenced the representations of women within the advertising industry, specifically jewellery advertising.
To investigate in which way advertising adds to the construction of performing or ‘doing’ gender.
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2.2 Methodology
2.2.1 Introduction
Research methodology is the way in which the researcher goes about doing the research, the certain “framework associated with particular paradigmatic assumptions” (O’Leary, 2004: 85). In the case of this particular study, the paradigmatic assumption is that of a critical theory. This approach views the world as “a constructed lived experience that is mediated by power relations within social and historical contexts” (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000) and “acknowledges a reality shaped by ethnic, cultural, gender, social, and political values.” (Ponterotto, 2005: 130). Critical research involves a “disruption and challenge of the status quo” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994, 2000) and is often used as a form of research that involves cultural or social criticism. Critical theorists, across many disciplines, share the same assumptions about the world. According to Kincheloe and McLaren (2000) some of those assumptions,
“[are that] all thought is fundamentally mediated by power relations that are socially and historically constituted; [b] facts can never be isolated from the domain of values or removed from some form of ideological inscription; [c] language is central to the formation of subjectivity; [d] certain groups in society are privileged over others; [e] oppression has many faces and that focusing on one at the expense of others often elides the interconnections among them; and [f] mainstream research practices are generally implicated in the reproduction of systems of class, race, and gender oppression.” (139– 140)
Critical theory is thus an approach that sees inequality of social and historic systems and tries to challenge those systems in theoretically activist ways. Critical theory is concerned with power distribution and how that allocated power leads to the oppression of certain groups. It is an approach that is concerned with “empowering human beings to transcend the constraints placed on them by race, class, and gender.” (Creswell, 2013: 27) Critical theory is thus applied in this study to examine how femininity and womanhood are portrayed within a social system, in this case advertising, and how these portrayals relay images of power. As the lens of feminism is being used in the analysis, critical theory is applied in the analysis of the rise of feminism in not only activism but also in specific how the advertising industry has adopted its ideologies in the representation of women.
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2.2.2 Epistemological Framework
For this study in particular the approach of critical feminist theory is used. It can be seen as an approach that “examines the ways in which literature and other cultural productions reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Tyson, 2006: 83). Feminist theory thus challenges the status quo in relation to women in particular; how societal and historical power systems oppress women. Tyson (2006) provides a summary of feminist assumptions (across different types of feminisms) as follows:
1. Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so. 2. In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is objectified and marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values, defined by what she (allegedly) lacks and that men (allegedly) have
3. All of Western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology 4. While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine).
5. All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by promoting women’s equality. Thus, all feminist activity can be seen as a form of activism
6. Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not (92)
Feminist theories therefore provide an appropriate lens for this particular study through which to analyse the representation of gender, in specific femininity, in jewellery advertising. These aid in the analysis of how gender is constructed and maintained as “one of the central meaning structures of society” and will provide a “comprehensive analysis of the social meaning of gender that forms a fundamental aspect of contemporary critical theory.” (Wake & Malpas, 2006: 91) As critical feminist theory will be adopted as standing point, this study makes use of a qualitative research approach, which O’Leary defines as “a subjective…process that accepts multiple realities through the study of a small number of cases” (2004: 99). Multiple realties refer to the idea that one person’s truth might not be true for the next. The framework within which the study is conducted is that of textual analysis.
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