Women in the Media: Food Roles

Garcia 1

WOMEN IN THE MEDIA: FOOD ROLES

JOHANNA GARCIA

CO 300

SARAH RYAN

MARCH 22 2010

Women in the society have been seen as certain stereotypes in the eye of media. Woman has been looked at in subordinate, passive and sexual roles.Advertisement places women in the domesticated role where their duties are to prepare the food for the family’s satisfaction, dieting to stay fit and small, as well as the eroticism during the consumption of food. This domestic role has been put on women because the way that food has been gendered. Parkin discussed in her article “The Sex of Food and Ernest Dichter” that:

“Food advertisements and Ernest Dichter's writings contain a surprising history of concocted and encouraged associations between food and sex roles. In the second half of the 20th century, motivational researchers like Ernest Dichter encouraged advertisers to portray food as gendered and sexual. Dichter believed that by convincing Americans of a food's sex and its resultant gendered identity, as well as its sensuality, advertisers could suggest their foods to meet consumers' need to fulfill their gender roles.”[1]

It makes sense because looking at certain roles and foods in the advertisements they target one gender or that product becomes a feminine/masculine product. These three topics and will be discussed and the ideas each holds.

Advertisements both print and visual have placed women in the house as cleaners and cookers. There are many examples of this representation being shown on television every day for example laundry commercials women are happily putting loads to wash as they continue to have a smile on their face while folding and smelling the clothing. There are also commercials about washing the dishes, cleaning the floors, and cleaning the furniture.Women are put into specific “domestic tasks and concerned with physical attractiveness,and are placed in predictable environments such as household settings”.[2] Women are also put into passive roles making sure the family is content with the meal as she stands backs to watch. In the book “Food and Gender, Identity and Power” the author explains that

“One that is a potential source of influence on husbands and children though the ability to give them a valued substance food, but one that also is linked with female subordination through women’s need to serve satisfy and defer to others particularly husbands or boyfriends”[3]

The female must prepare the meals whether it is late in the day or not. An example of food portrayaltowards women can be seen in soup commercials.This specific Campbell’s soup commercial starts off with the children running inside from playing and their food is prepared nicely on the table with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, the mom continues to look at the children as she is also eating making sure they are satisfied. The song that goes along with this commercial says “add what they like, applause applause, possibilities”, this is a connection to the family because they are expected to besatisfied with their meals.[4] This commercial acts out the conservative family role because the whole family is happy and eating together.

There is an exception to the food connection to women and that would be meat, beef, chicken, sausage, etcetera, this is only seen with men. Women will not be seen preparing anything in regards to meant like grilling in advertisements. Allen and Sachs authors’ from the article “Women and Food Chains” suggests that “Although women rarely work as chefs and head cooks in restaurants, they almost always hold the position of head cook in their homes. Regardless of culture, class, or ethnicity, the majorities of women cook and serve food for their families.” [5]From all the media in the past century it still has not changed where the majority of household roles are done by both genders.

Women have to please their family but they must also stay fit by not taking too much space in society.While observing commercials on the television yogurt was oddly a food category that targets women to lose weight. Parkin had a similar perception she said “Diet foods were the most likely to emphasize the triad between food, health, and sexiness. For example, yogurt ads used attractive, vivacious young women to sell their yogurt.”[6]Yoplait commercials emphasize this point to women by having the actresses looking happy and becoming thin, in a recent commercial by Yoplait the commercial starts off by a women walking in to a seamstress shop and asks for her clothing to be hemmed in because she has been eating “Boston crème pie, apple turnovers and the white chocolate strawberry and the key lime pies” the lady never says she is talking about yogurt and leaves the seamstress confused because she thinks she needs her clothing let out not in. This commercial has the hidden message and then at the end it is revealed to be a yogurt commercial.[7] This targets women in all culture and sizes because all these commercial are diverse and so that’s what makes them effective and continuing to be shown on television and magazines. In Marchiselli’s lecture on “Hunger as Ideology” she discussed the way women have been seen not to take space in the public sphere this has been said to be founded in the Victorian age. The Victorian Age refers to the late 1800’s to the beginning of the 1900’s mainly in Europe.[8] During this Victorian age women had to be thin and also not take part in society’s events or anything public. Women would eat tapeworms because it was a way to lose weight and in those advertisements during this Victorian age they actually showed “bigger” women to target those who where bigger. The men were the privileged ones that couldbe big and run the way the society was run.[9] Since the Victorian age is no longer in existence, times have changed. Women are now seen in the public sphere in positions of power and impact for example in the United States government positions. So since this ideologyis longer seen in the Victorian age way, it is now seen in a different light by the advertising companies and society. Women are shown different ways on how to stay thin and how you can look like “her” is just a few days. The body must be disciplined to look a certain way. They are shown in everyday life situations like the advertisements of women in the park, working out, or in work out clothing. Parkin says that “Food advertisers had always tried to convince consumers that their foods would help them to be good looking and healthy.” [10]This is refereeing to women as the consumers.Women have become obsessed on the path to become thin, that marketers and researchers see this demand.

Not only do women have to be thin but to contradict this matter they must also be seen eating deserts in a sexualized way. Allen and Sachs suggest that “At the same time that fashion advertising tells women to be thin, food advertising advocates indulgence, including eating junk food.”[11]They are seen eating ice cream and chocolates or any desert. Example of this would be the Dove chocolate commercials where awoman eats the piece of chocolate nice and slow while closing her eyes giving it a sexual look and sexual music of course. Ice cream commercials almost always had women being sexualized. One specific commercial was a Crème d’Orice cream commercial, theres a women in a beautiful garden sitting next a statue on a naked man lying while eating ice cream, she continues to eat the entire box and spills a bit on the statue;well since it seems so amazing, she proceeds to lick the ice cream off him, creating a sexual picture and positionof oral sex. A man is watching her as she licks the ice cream off and gets a laugh out of it giving the male gaze and the caption at the end of the commercial said “Crème d’Or,worth a sin.”[12] This is very specific to the eroticism of eating. The woman was only eating ice cream, yet it had to be in a sensual mode. Apart from desert, something that is becoming popular in television commercials is women eating burgers. Although it is a simple American food it is still put into the erotic way of eating. A recent commercial by Carl’s Jr. shows a women talking about how she can’t eat anything if she wants to keep her body looking good and thin, but that there’s one thing that she can’t live without, Carl’s Jr. Teriyaki burger. She takes the burger out and takes a bite slow and sexual while lying on the beach with her tight bikini on.[13]This makes the women seem over sexualized and fragile.Although women can now be seen eating burgers they may not eat this burger like a “man” by eating sloppy because that is not what society considers appealing. Take for example shows on television where you see men taking on challenges to eat a whole lot of food in a certain amount of time. These men are sloppy and eat with their mouths open while explaining the torture that they brought upon themselves. For women not being able to appear in media this way it gives the idea that women can’t have power,by being put into a sexualized position in advertisement women are perceived to be vulnerable and weak . By having advertisements allow this representation of women it gives society the sense to think that women are this way and that all they want is to be wanted in is a sexualized way.

Given many perceptions on the way women look in the scope of the media it is certain to say that there will always be representation that are looked at in a negative way. Women have came a very long way from being able to vote and be a part of the workforce in the society that we live in today. Unfortunately media continues to make women appear in domestic roles, dieting rampages, and over sexualized eating habits. There will not be a change in this subject if the public and other women speak out on this topic. It will continue to be in shown in magazines and television because people don’t see anything wrong with the picture, or there may be people that are so use to seeing women in these roles that it doesn’t really phase them. As long as in the future there are men washing dishes in commercials, will there be a drastic change in the way media sends out messages.

References

Allen,Patricia and Sachs,Carolyn. “Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food.” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 15, no.1:0798 -1759 (April, 2007),

Carl’s Jr., Teriyaki Burger at Carl’s Jr, online video, posted June 22,2009, (accessed March 1, 2009)

Caroline, Yogurt Commercial Seamstress, online video, posted June 3, 2008 March 1, 2010).

Counihan,Carole M., Food and Gender, Identity and Power, ( Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers,1998), er&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Java Jolt, World’s Best Ice Cream Commercial, online video, posted September 13, 2008, (accessed March 1, 2010).

JSabrina19, “Campbell’s Soup Commercial, online video, posted December 12, 2008, (accessed March 1, 2010).

Marchiselli, Chani. "Hunger asideology"(lecture Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, February 22, 2010).

Parkin, Katherine. 2004. "The Sex ofFood and Ernest Dichter: The Illusion ofInevitability"Advertising and Society Review, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2004. muse.jhu.edu.catalog.library.colostate.edu/journals/advertising_and_society_review/v00 /5.2parkin.html

Plakoyiannaki, Emmanuella, and Yorgos Zotos. 2009. "Female role stereotypes in printadvertising." European Journal of Marketing 43, no. 11/12: 1411-1434. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 1, 2010).

[1] Katherine Parkin, “The Sex of Food and Ernest Dichter”

[2]Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki and Zotos Yorgos, “Female Role Stereotypes in Print Advertisements”

[3]Carole M. Counihan “Food and Gender, Identity and Power”

[4] JSabrina19, Campbell’s Soup Commercial

[5] Patricia Allen and Carolyn Sachs, “Women in Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food”

[6]Katherine Parkin, “The Sex of Food and Ernest Dichter”

[7]Caroline, Yogurt Commercial Seamstress

[8]Chani Marchiselli, “Hunger as Ideology”

[9]Chani Marchiselli, “Hunger as Ideology”

[10]Katherine Parkin, “The Sex of Food and Ernest Dichter”

[11]Patricia Allen and Carolyn Sachs, “Women in Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food”

[12] Java Jolt “The Best Ice Cream Commercial”

[13] Carl’s Jr., Teriyaki Burger at Carl’s Jr.