View Item 
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

        Browse

        All of UU Student Theses RepositoryBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

        Real Beauty Equals Real Feminism? How Femvertising (Re-)Frames Women’s Empowerment

        Thumbnail
        View/Open
        Master Thesis - Shirui Huang 1166998.pdf (1.521Mb)
        Publication date
        2021
        Author
        Huang, S.
        Metadata
        Show full item record
        Summary
        Femvertising, referring to advertising that utilizes pro-women discourse and feminist values, is a marketing trend as well as a sociocultural phenomenon, which has received noticeable public popularity and academic attention in recent years. Through the theoretical lens of framing theory and commodity feminism, this thesis investigates how femvertising frames women’s empowerment and discusses the influences it might bring. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted on three Dove video ads: Evolution (2006), Real Beauty Sketches (2013), and Beauty on Your Own Terms (2016), encompassing the analyses of the content, Dove’s company role, the medium specialty of YouTube, and the audience response reflected in the YouTube comments. Findings indicate that femvertising offers a limited articulation of women’s empowerment, where the problem and solution are downsized to ‘beauty’ and ‘confidence boost’, and the representation of male participation is absent. Companies problematize the lack of confidence to sell their ‘empowering’ messages and eliminate products from femvertising to conceal the inherent contradiction. Additionally, YouTube serves as a vibrant online environment that facilitates discussions. As reflected in the audience response, although opinions towards femvertising vary, audiences have formed a close connection between the messages femvertising conveys with the ‘mainstream standard feminism’ in their perception. Lastly, I argue that, through accountability, internalization, and privatization, femvertising creates a neoliberal understanding of women’s empowerment and highlights an internalized psychological path to achieve it.
        URI
        https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/39737
        Collections
        • Theses
        Utrecht university logo