"Sensual ... But not too far from Innocence":
A Critical Theory of Sexism in Advertising
Charlene Frenkel, Mark Orkin and Tessa Wolf
This article provides a theoretical framework with which to understand sexism in
adv~rtisinq.
Our examples are drawn mainly from magazines aimed at white South
Afr~can women, but the advertisements we describe will readily lie recognised as
tYPlcal of those on T.V. and in "women's magazines", or the "women's pages" of
news~apers, in any Western industrial society.
~any attempts have been made to
,examlne the depiction of women in advertising, but those we have encountered
(e.g. 'lcClintock, 1978; Goffman, 1979) tend to be merely descriptive.
For
genuine social change to be at all possible. which is what motivates our concern
wit~ this topic, it is not enough for people to realise that they are oppressed.
Thelr und~rected rebelliousness will soon be dissipated in the face of the
domlnant ldeology.
the oppressive mechanisms work as they do.
l~ attempting to meet this need. we shall proceed along the following lines.
Flrstly we shall interpret Parson's functionalist analysis of capitalist society
as a schema which in effect merely reflects its superficial features.
We shall
concentrate on his characterisation of the family, and particularly the female role.
Then we shall argue that this
and see how advertisenents seemingly corroborate it.
schema is ideological.
With the help of r~rcuse and other theorists we shall explain
the purpose and working of this ideology in relation to capitalism.
To substantiate
o~r argument
Flnally, we shall consider why this ideology is so pervasive.

we shall identify several conservative mechanisms in advertisements.

What is needed is an adequate understanding of how and why

* * *

453), within WhlCh distlnct patterns 0

38

Society was to be

On particular issues,:disagreements arising from

The starting point of Parsonian functionalism was, as the title of his first book
,made clear (Parsons. 1937), the structure of social action.
,~onceived as a vast network of ongoing interlocking unit acts. each of which
lnvolved an actor. limited by material conditions and guided by prevailing norms,
ev~luating competing available means to a chosen goal.
This conception obviously
ralses the question of how. in a plethora of individual deliberations. a coherent
society is possible.
Parson's answer was to assume a working consensus, supported
by appropriate sanctions and rewards, on the norms which guide evaluation.
Every-
one still decides freely on their goals and how to reach them. but each ego makes
particular judgments complementary to those of a~ter because both have made the '
'prevailing norms their own.
c?mpeting norms will of course occur, say between'manager and worker or husband and
Wlt'e: but society can function as a whole because-,there is substantial agreement
on higher values such as. respectively. capitalism or nuclear marriage.
The question that obviously arises next is how individuals' agreement on the central
value system is engendered and sustained.
Parson's answer. in The Social System
(1951), is that individuals are suitably socialised, i.e. the course ot thelr
upbrinqing involves their beinq brou~ht to internalise the prevailing norms and
e~pectations.
Characteristic clusters of norm and expectation are called roles,
and sets of complementary roles constitutesub~stems
of the s?cial system - e:g.
~usband-wife, parent-child, brother-sister in the nuclear famlly, teacher-pupll etc.
ln the school
"Once internalised.
behaviouralis~d version ~f the working of the Freudian Superego:
normative culture seems to have the status of a repertoire of behaviour~l com~ut~r
programmes, the appropriate one bein9 called up not by the self-reflectlve thln~lng
individual but by external stimuli in each situation" ('~nnell, 1974: 89).
If ltsll
constituent unit acts are interpreted in terms of stimulus and resP?nseilth~ ~ve~a
social system can be conceived in the abstract as.a syste~ of functlona fYil~ e~
n er
related variables (Parsons. 1951

Socialization into roles amounts, for Parsons, to a

and so on

Which parent will do which?

him to be the main bread-

relation evidence the existence of the various subsystems interacting in comple-
ways to sustain social equil ibrium through qradual change.
.ntary
Change may be
endogenous to the social system, or introduced exo~lenously from the other systems
up society as a whole, viz., the physical, cultural, and personality systems.
Nking
In each of these other systems, orerequisites of the functioning of society are met
in particular ways:
the need for adaptation in the physical system is met by the
fconon~; for goal attainment and integration in the cultural system by the policy
.nd church respectively; and - which brings us to our present purpose - for latency
in the personality system by the family.
less mysteriously expressed, latency is the problem of ensu,"ing that individuals
help mo~e society towards its ~oals by participating in the requisite activities in
.ppro~r1ate ways.
The solution to this problem is the prime task of the family, now
t~at 1t no longer plays a direct part in economic production or the political system.
SInce humans are not born with formed personalities, families are necessary as the
!'leanswhereby the values of the central value syster.1are internalised anew by each
f)eneration. They are "the factories which produce human personalities" (Parsons,
19~6p.l6) .
~ithin the family, as in society as a whole, the prerequisites of adaptation and goal
.ttainment (instrumental activity) and for integration and latency (expressive
actiVity) must be met.
The husband and father, it turns
out, plays the instrumental role, since society expects
winner of the family, and establishes the status of the whole family according to his
occuoation and income (!'arsons.p.1942:95; 1943p.l9l).
"The corollary" (Parsons
1943,14191)of this, given a "utilitarian'
division of labour", is that - at least in
alddle class urban faMilies - the fundamental status of the woman in the marriage
becomes "that of her husband's wife, the mother of his children, and traditionally
the person responsible for a complex of activities in connection with the management
of the household, care of children, etc." (Parsons, 1942p.95).
This arran!lement is said to be functional in that it "eliminates any competition for
status, especially as between husband and wife, which might be disruptive of the
,olidarity of the marriage" (Parsons, 1943p.192).
But it also gives rise to strains.
After all, the husband has married his wife because he loves her: she, no less than
~, has Na claim to a voice in decisions, to a'certain human dignity, to be 'taken
'eriously ..'. Yet, on the one hand, housework and childcare are comparatively men~a~
task~, from which the woman reasonably wants to dissociate herself:
"Thus advertlslng
cont1nually appeals to such desires as to have hands which one could never tell had
washed dishes
And on the other hand, she
"1s debarred from testing or demonstrating her fundamental equality with he~ hus~a~d
in competitive occupational achievement"
So Pa~sons ldentlfles
two POSSibilities other than acquiescing
One 1S for the woman
to become a "good companion";
to specialise in "'good taste', in personal appearance,
house furnishings, cultural things like literature and music" (Parsons, 1943p.194); or
.l,e to do .welfare work (Parsons, 194Zp.97).
The other possibility is for the woman to compete in a new realm of her own, :the
91al'lOurpattern, with the emphasis on a specifically feminine form of attractlveness
wtIichon occasion involves directly sexual patterns of appeal" (Parsons, 1942p.96).
JlItSepractices - Parsons mentions smoking cosll'etics,and SOI'lE!forms of dress -
In other words, since social arrangements deny you a
.ere previously not respectable.
c.nper, if you want to avoid household drudgery and don't want to 90 to ~ottery classe~
JOu can now leqitimately becOI'lE!a sex object instead.
On any of th~ optlonS! the
'.?reqation of sex roles allegedly functional to the social system 1S emphas1sed.
And
,II of them have strains in turn:
one ag~s out of, or
i, npver entirely approved in, the glamour pattern;
and good companionshlp poses
So "widespread manifestations (0'" security) are to be expected
~l)dering
'II the for'lllof neurotic behaviour" {Parsons, 1942 p.99}.
.s the image of women in advertising is concerned, Parsons seems at first blush
II "1"
to ofreI"a plausible account of the middle class urban situation.
~\ticity

Consider simple
A Stork margarine advertisement quotes a smiling mother saying,

or scrubbed floors" (Parsons, 1942p.95-6).

(Parsons, 1943p.193).
in simple domesticity.

domesticity has low prestige;

options.

first.

39

-

The text accompanie$

in anticipation.

Or take the advertisement for Knorr Gravy Hix:

"If you want to know how !loodnew Stork tastes, ask my Eddie".
Young Eddie is
meanwhile gleefully munching a piece of bread liberally smeared with new Stork.
And because
The job of carin9 for him is shown as the function of the mother alone.
arparently only she can do it, she is obliged to make a good job of it and it becomes
her full-time occupation.
"Does your
husband have a bit on the side? (If he does, do sometlingsaucy.)"
a photograph of a tasty-looking meal, with "the husband" twiddling his thumbs and
The important point is that the woman isn't even depicted:
smi11ng
She 1S present only through her implicit functions: to feed her hardworking husband,
and - at the level of the double entendre
to be sure to keep his sexual appetite
~hetted through the imaginative performance of her glamour role.
There Is an advert-
lsement for Dante perfume which prOVides an excellent illustration of the glamour role
It shows a suitably voluptous blonde with a come-and-get-me look, her hair
per se.
draped.strategically
over her bare breast, who evidently has no Qualms about being a
sex object.
In fact, the imp7ication is that "you too can be a man's woman" with the
ald of the product, "if you dare:"
With this as the proferred alternative,
The advertisement for a Westpoint dish-
dissociate themselves from household chores.
washer takes advantage of this, by showin9 that it will let the woman "hang up her
words, "have hands which one could never tell had
gloves for good", and so, in Parsons
She is then free to be a Parsonian "good companion" by showing "good
washed dishes".
for Constantia carpets suggests, the sort of people who buy
ta~te": as an advertisement
thlS furnishing know to own "a dress from Saint Laurent, a necklace from Tiffany's. and
a pair of shoes from Gucci".
(In what follows, we have concentrated our analysis on
the interplay between simple domesticity and the glamour role; but the thrust of a
comparable analysis of "good companionship" will be readily evident.)

it is no wonder that women will want to

I

* * *

(Cohen T968p.47 ff.).

But how adequate a theory do they offer?

urban life. at least as depicted in advertising.

So as a description of middle-class
Parsons' writings seem accurate enough.
There are several standard fundamental criticisms of the whoTe apparatus of functional-
for instance, that it is a trivial and laborious redescription of the obviOUS
ism:
(Bottomore, 1975p.34) that it over-emphasises
order and consensUS at the expense,of
structured social conflict (Atkinson, 1971); and that it is incapable of explai~1ng
real social change
But most important for our purpose~ lS a
further criticism, which in addition explains the above weaknesses: it contends that
functionalism is ideological.
We.are of COurse drawing here 00 Marx's account of ideology as a syste'!'?f beliefs
WhlCh help sustain an inequitable and exploitative social order by leg1t1mati~g or
rationalisin9 it, characteristically
by presenting what is historicall~ translent
~nd contingent as if it were universal, inevitable.•nd
desirable. I! 1S precisely
ln this sense that we believe that Parsons' functionalism is ideologlcal.
Gouldner
(1971p.331-7) has advanced the case in general.
We shall argue it with p~rticular
reference to Parsons' account of the role of the woman in the nuclear faml1y, and how
it is supposed to follow from the relations of the family to the occupational order
under capitalism.
let us reconsider simple domesticity
married woman to play.
Woman as mother.
It is thus associated with econo
that the wife does it while the husband earns.
dependence (Oakley, 1974p.2).
produce cOlll11oditiesof direct value in the economy.
"Her prlmary eco~omlc func~ 0
vicarious; by servicing others, she enables them to engage in product1ve economlC
activity" (Oakley, 1974p.3).
t~e husband.is (part~Yl r~~~~~
Seccombe (No. 53p.9) explains the situation further:
for his labour in the form of a salary
iently this salary has to be converted' into food, clean clothes, a relaxing h~~i t
environment, etc.
00

Its two basi~ components are the woman as housewife and the
Its most important feature, for parsons~i~s
This implies that the housewi~e does not ~erself i n is

The conversion is necessary because "collll1Oditiesdo not wa

the most natural roTe for the Parsonian

In order for hlm to contlnue worklng e

Take housework first.

40

So in r~arx's terms, the housewife reproduces her husband's labour power on
(And in South Africa, there is often a
Many housewives exploit the labour power of a servant

the household and convert themselves into the f~mily's subsistence of their own
accord". So, over and above the husband's labour at work "additional labour -
namely housework - is necessary in order to convert these commodities to regenerated
labour power" (Seccombe, No. 53p.9).
There are two reasons why it is expedient under capitalism that the wife do this
Firstly, if his wife cooks, shops and washes for him out of the kindness of her
~rk.
well-trained heart, the husband can be paid less than if he had to employ someone to
do that job.
Secondly, if he had to do it himself it would draw on his working energy
and use up valuable hours in which he could work, or recuperate in order to work
further.
• daily basis in the cheapest possible way.
further tier of exploitation.
to meet their husband's expectations of them).
A similar argument applies to the reproduction of labour on a generational basis, i.e.
to the woman as mother, bearing and raisin9 chi1dren.
families in industrial society were much larger than now.
family, the care of the young children was largely entrusted to a nanny, ,grand-parents
So the bio-
helped rear the older children, who in turn helped rear their juniors.
logical tasks of motherhood, viz., actual reporoduction and lactation - and in some
cases a wet-nurse would even relieve the mother of the latter - were a much larger
component of motherhood than the subsequent social tasks.
Nowadays, however, with the
advent of the nuclear family to meet the need of capitalism for a mobile breadwinner,
and with the tendency as more children survive for families to have fewer of them,
~therhood
has come to be understood much more in terms of bringing up the Children .
•Contemporary society is obsessed by the physical, moral, and sexual problems of
childhood and adolescence" (~itchell. 1972p.1l9), and the mother is charged with their
solution. For, by requiring her in this way to undertake the social as well 4S the
biological tasks, society is saved from having to provide expensive and unprofitable
~asures
of the extended family.
We can now see that the Knorr and Stork advertisements respectively spell out the
tlnperatives workin9 on the woman as house~lifeand mother, to reproduce 1abour power
On a daily and generational basis.
So Parsons may be correct that by her simple
domesticity the wife helps to meet particular needs of the system.
But why only she
has to do so is because such a sexual division of labour is not "utilitarian" but
economical, not natural but exploitative.
How is this arrangement legitimated?
under late capitalism has been persuasively analysed by r~arcuse (1964) in terms which
turn out to be especially telling when applied to sexism in particular.
before him, Marcuse regards technological advance as a necessary condition of
liberation. It decreases necessary labour time, giving individuals more opportunity
to fulfil creatively their diverse human potential.
t~chnol09ical advances made this century,
lIhy?
~~rcuse, here supplementing ~arx with Freud, argues that in previous times economic
lcorcity necessitated almost continual work, so that socia1isation had to achieve a
considerable amount of psycho-sexual repression in each individual, whereby he or she
lublimated the requisite libidinal energy into productive activity rather than
lplual gratification.
However, with the increasing rate of surplus extraction made
PDssible by capital intensive production and scientific expertise, less work and thus
l~ss individual repressio~ is actually required to achieve a given level of material
~ll-being.
So much of
It Is now surplus to the task of materially reproducing society, and is channelled
Instead into maintaining the existing order by various processes (Macintyre, 1970 p.46).

The form in which ideology in general works
Like Marx

Yet the preVlOUS levels of repression have been sustained.

to replace cheap servants or the free services

In the nineteenth century,

In the middle-class

Yet, despite the astounding

this human potential is not being realised.

41

It stood a;>artfrom reality and contra-
But nowadays literature, and

in his Brave New World:

This situation was forseen by Aldous
We've

the ideals of high culture have been devoured by everyday reality.

We have the feelies and the scent organ instead" (1932p.173).
Previously

r~ilrcuse'sunderstanding of the existing order hinges on the two concepts of "high
High culture draws on literature, philosophy and history of
culture" and "reality".
socia1 thought for an understanding of what the Greeks called "the good 1ife", i.e..
the vision of society in which humans socially fulfilled their intrinsic qualities.
Reality, by contrast, describes our present, everyday existence as it is generally
understood.
What history hitherto involved was successive transformations of reality
towards the attainment of high culture, enabled by improving technology.
But the
process has been stalled in that the ideals of high culture are now prematurely
beinG presented as having been already achieved.
Huxley
"That's the price we have to pay for stability.
You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art.
sacrificed the high art.
This, then, is what ~arcuse means when he claims that society has become one-dimen-
sional:
even thouryhhigh culture was restricted to an elite group, it had the important
f~nction of preserving "negative thinking".
dlcted it, thus keeping some minds open to the ideal.
philosophy, like everythinry else in the capatalist world, are judged by their
cOlTJmodityvalue rather than by their contribution to "highculture.
For example, in the case of literature, profitable publication demands that the
author write for a mass audience whose tastes are eefined by prevailing reality.
So,
as Horn (1979p.11) explains, when authors look for a publisher they will realise that
"the literary market is not controlled by literary but economic laws, and that their
work of art can reach the public only as a consumer product".
thus no more than "filled-in lines without which printed paper is difficult to sell"
(Horn, 1979 p.ll).
There are two basic processes whereby one-dimensionality is sustained.
The first is
"repressive desublimation", i.e. the pseudo-Clratification of libidinal desires in ways
which only strengthen the existing order.
Thus, one learns from Playboy and Penthouse
that sexuality "ideally" involves guiltless variety, as engaged fnliyeternally
twenty-three year old men and women accoutred - when not posin(lnaked in pictorial
foreplay - in expensive clothes and smart sports-cars.
from a position of strength on the part of society, which can afford to grant more
than before because its interests have become the innermost drives of its citizens,
and because the jobs which it grants promote social cohesion and "contentment"
(Harcuse, 1964p.69); and it is repressive in that it provides a subconscious consolatio
for the annihilation of the qenuine ideal.
material, quantitative sphere diverts attention from the poverty of existence in the
non-material qualitative sphere.
But there are limits as to how much people in their right minds can want.
second process involves the creation of "false needs '" those which are superimposed
on the individual by social interests in his repression" (Marcuse, 1964p.21).
Mindless acquisitiveness is encouraged through advertising: discard a workable product
in favour of a big~er and better version which differs from its predecessor only in
the shape of the knobs or the colour of the box.
So the individual iS,blinded by the
spurious gratification of continuous and conspicious consumption, from the insight that
capitalist mode of production cannot cater for, and indeed frustrates, his or her
the
wider non-material needs.
The result is what Marcuse calls a "euphoria in unhappiness.
(1964p.22).
it, "people are happy; they get what they want, and they
never want what they can't get" (1932p.193).
As far as women are concerned, in each of their married roles the images in everyday
reality persuade them that they will have achieved their lives' ideals by finding
gratification in suitable purchases.
As wife, sex is decorated with fantasy and
As housekeeper, the menial monotony of
fantasy fulfilled by clothes and cosmetics.
her actual chores is concealed behind a .choice" she must make from a vast range of
brands of largely identical goods; as t~rcuse says, giving a slave a number of

It is a desublimation produced

The lavish production of goods in the

So the

~!uchliterature is

Or as Huxley put

42

"'\'.\"1
l ~I:. I<
tl"loQ

to choose from l'1akesher no less of a slave.
tl, this or tha t indi spensab Ie product
cal and social

tasks.

And as mother,

she is shown that

can she meet what are presented

as her

this line of thoul)ht by analysing

several conservative
at women.
the
product
or~_uj_lt about the housewife's
for Skip wastllng powder, aImed at tne

The first involves
role with a suitable

it.
as achieving

creating
rugby vest, o~ the kitchen floor,
the housewife
rhe advertisement
at the very moment
a false need.

This kind of advertise-
extraordinaril)
thus induces guilt in
the mean!
it recommends
In its two aspects,
and expands

with seeming

importance

to satisfy
housework

is strengthened
of capitalist

by having the woman being
society,

the man, in trans-

his wife, hardly
figures
of .perpetual
know-how:
in kitchens,

from the degree of his authority

As .so many legal provisions
to take advantage

less than his children,

to reinforce

it).
puberty",
.You can't say anything
giants coming out of washing

at work,
and employ-
is his
of this fact (and,
Komisar
too fancy
mach-
So it is
her in the

on heads when a certain margarine
to the white-coated
And when she gets bored because

is used".
mentors who instruct
she can't help
tumble-drier.

to a twin-speed

situatlon
of rural, organic

is a second mechanism,

in which
society by an

Davidoff
in capitalist

(1976'1'153 ff.) has

idyll.
of women
in which the feudal lord's power over his
~ith
dirnished, as did

in pre-industrial
in turn, was absolute.

feudal authority

societies

and their power over their families

to the cities,

"technical-manager"
environment.

prOl]ralT1l1e","regular

The third level concerns

standi ng next to a
He is expounding
on
is increased
by the
In
tests".

advice
(1974p.3) has called the three
enough depicts the product.
in this case suggests
that the
the implicit
and
"to point at certain conflicts
a repressive
that
i.e. strains
to the elementary
(if
to the intricate
and
of labour denies her in
She feels resentful,
The
to let
and therefore
job,
than
and society were to do their
her

is offering
was inevitable,
herself
in contrast
division
society.

brought
up, feels guilty about her resentment.
proposes
technology,
the advertisement
in an intricate,
as a housewife.
be involved

is to do~esticate
technical
rewarding
This is so much more convenient
if her husband
of realising

and allow her the genuine

satisfaction

of his professional
we draw on what Langholz
The first obviously
proven.

of depiction,
which
which
is in general
Parsons contended
which
tries to reconcile
individual
role of being a housewife,
which
the "utilitarian"
and achievement-orientated

In this case the advertisement

shows

which

laboratory

a whi te-coated

this advertisement,

"Formula 2" "washing

For examr1e;t1ie
in a clinically

* * *
in advertisel'lents directed
advertlsement
clean

"'t' sha.ll now substantiate
"'.I','ni~IJIS at work
I,sudqinn of resentnent
~r)~2:.nology.
....)<'\Ina5liousewife,
washinl) machine
t~l'virtues of Skin, and the weight
t~chnical words he uses:
analysin~
I~Yels of "1eanfng o~ advertising.
The second concerns
the context
~Irtues of Skip are scientifically
lICaqing of the advertisement,
offer a solution
to them".
~eudo-solutionto
the problem
arise when an able female
and menial
t;~-consuming)
job opportunities
r~sponsible
advanced
tI,1' Hientifically
and if she has been well enough
~~eudo-solution
t~~ woman feel she is involved
her situation
wIthout forsaking
t~~ re-arrannements
that would
\~are of household
drudgery
in a career
aptitudes
~articular
exploits
further
r~e mechanism
.,~t - often in the versions
the product
~fore
and after using
hlq~ standards
of cleanliness
the More average,
real housewifely
a\\ua~in9 it;
it creates
t~erefore,
this mechanism
It into a ful1time
the force of this kind of advertisement
counselled
by a man.
In Parson's
'1 also the figure of authority
'~rrinq to his family
the status he derives
in the home.
IW'nt practices
in our society
dtpendent.
...shall see later in our analysis
(1972 ",312)
to them ...• conversations
,....s, crowns magically
readily
t~t
.enders of her technological
~Ing
why: then she can graduate
(onplementary
'~'ertisin!.'draws
toted to illuminate
.~lony
(_rope.
'.~tly and minions,
'~u\trialisatton

confirm,
Advertising
uses husbandly
quotes a bit of advertising

technology
on the ima'le of the country
the structural
with the stable hierarchy
These were patriarchal

of her choice.
guilt by actually
which show Johny's
- depicts
and efficiency.
performer

with doves
listens
toys.

the housewife
proficient.

to this use of consumer

and promises
embellishes

and the migration

occupation.

societies,

appearing

account

43

The text reads: "There is a
All three of Davidoff's rural

Thirdly, the sunset su~gests tranquillity

Secondly, the
and

the security one derived from knowing one's place in the great chain of being.
As is
suggested by the prover14 "Every man's home is his castle", the surburban household
substitutes for the rural estate, while the wife and children are subordinate to the
husband much as his vassals were subordinate to the lord.
Similarly, Davidoff argues,
the connotations of cleanliness, health and untroubled exir,tence previously attached
to rural life are now associated with the house, and with the woman who is responsible
for it.
How are these connotations used in advertising?
Packard (1957p.93) has described an
advertisement depicting "a small home with two feminine arms stretching out, seemingly
beckoning the troubled male reader to the bosom of her hearth".
An obvious comtemp-
orat~ example is the advertisement for Sunshine margarine.
A robust slice of homemade
wholewheat bread is spread with margarine, and lies next to the open Sunshine packet
on a breadboa rd set a!)ainst a golden country sunset.
goodness in Sunshine that comes from the country".
Firstly, cleanliness is suggested by the very
connotations are clearly at work here.
name of the product, in contrast with, say, city gloom and dirt.
5,' nat~ra)ly, ~unshine is best".
product is full of healthy countrv qoodness:
"Pure vegetable oils ...natural things.
~tSO - h1n lmplYlng the end of the day's activities - a return to the peace a~d secur-
1 yof
'We have argued earlier that depictions such as these are ideological, in that they
disguise the woman's unpaid economic function of converting her husband's,wage into
the means of subsistence via shopping and cooking.
More specifically, the country
idyll can also be seen as ideological in Marcusian terms, in that it is an alluring
form of repressive desublimation.
Repressive desublimation, we recall, provides consolation for the annihilation of the
ideal.
In this case the posited ideal is to have a wholesome. tranquil country exist-
ence, to escape from the pressures of busy, urban, industrial life.
This ideal, at
least to the extent that it incorporates all the middle-class comforts, could never
become generally available, because our present standard of living depends on a rate
of surplus extraction by capital which demands the destruction of large, self-subsis-
tent, rural communities.
So the family is provided with a substitute ideal, with the
woman playing a central role in the process.
In lieu of the benefits of country life,
she buys them a product which promises "Country goodness you can taste".
It is a short mental distance from the idyllic to the imaginary.
prising to find that advertising also harnesses the latter.
vative mechanism, the subsumption of fantasy by consumerism.
one's dreams were one's own, a resource wlth Whlc~tO
a realm to be explored in paintin" ~nd poetry.
essed "an inner dimension distinguished
exigincies - an individual consciousness and an individual unconscious apart
from public opinion and behaviour" (Marcuse. 1964p.25).
_
Today, however, this dimension too.has been broug~t.into line.
been invaded
culture" the presentation of visions.
the realm of the consumable. adve~ising
system can profitably claim to satlsfy.
Thus
head'pensivelyon
which she is being seduced by a stereotYPlcally lrrestlble male.
is romantic. with misty violet hues and soft contours.
and solution again applies.
socially prescribed role.
consumer products. as if ready to have her humdrum existence replaced by an exciting
affair.
Since the permissible range of contentment derives from the powers of the product, the

Our imaginati~ns have
By confining the range of depicted fantasy to
limits and directs one's wants to what the

This image i~ set i~to th: wider image of her fantasy, in
The whole atmosphere
Langholz's schema of problem

The problem is to relieve the tedium of the wife's

The solution is for her to make herself desirable with

So it is not sur-
This is a third conser-
Before late capitalism,
dlscover hopes and uncover fears,
As Marcuse puts it. people still poss-

from and even antagonistic to the external

in an advert for Badedas bath foam, a woman is shown in her bath, resting her

So the product provides both the fantasy and its pseudo-gratification.

44

Orne.

by technolo!)ical reallty. and advertlslng has taken over from "hlgh

her hand.

narrow:

(Slater, 1970~ 100), and

of such stereotypes

desublirnation.

the everyday

conveyor

frames showing

The problem

is, of course,

the product.

The glamour role makes sexuality

by inflating

the market.
also contributes

do directs our attention

invoked
sunerficial

one of humankind's
In thus persuading

"ideal", advertising

liberation.

An advertisement

for Tramp perfume

feted, but untouched

unless en route to a socially

acceptable

the well-worn

stereotype

of the lucky lady who

so perfect as to be
most accessible
people to
can ensure the

in this way do not always involve sex.

to a fourth mechanism

It conslsts
In each case she is being appreciately

of three photographic

freed from having to sublimate
and consumption.

in a way which even more successfully
it is made to conform

which
more acceptable
aloo
So
from sex into work,
channels
as closely to the accept-

its demands
So at the same time as sexuality'

for keeping women contented

But the fact that so
in
is a ~ood
the same woman in differer
eyed by men, while she smiles con-
here is simply how to score, how to succeed in

role; and the solution
to note that sexiness
So sex, although
to an eternally
of +alse needs for glamour products

r,~~p~ust be accordin~ly
~~!s all the guys.
The fantasies
~~y
l".ir olace:
~'3~~le.
eilieux.
tentedly at her success.
r~rsons' glamour
It is important
is defined by a stereotype
potentially
.most unattainable.
is made out to be one of the scarcest.
r~sources.
.tlach their desires
elusive
continuous
generation
thus help sustain capitalism
The construction
to the one-dimensionality
(osters repressive
than before, but only so far as it remains within the bounds of the stereotype:
.d~ired.
liaison.
the Id is supposedly
but such demands are first delimited
them into the domain of production
world,
working
~r~ades
.~lc patterns as is everything
else on the technological
~
identify
aspects
~~y. in retrospect,
our previous exarnp1es.
Skip detergent
tas~s. only so that she may engage
life conjured for her by a Badedas
IIlOrcblatant:
na~~ has connotations
But even at the level of fantasy
has the overtones
only to orovide ~n
evaluated
the men in the pictures
of the film strips reminds
tnpdia l'1en;and lastly, she is beinl] looked at by the emulative
thereby kept at three removes
vo~n
would expect to realise
tnterrelations.
The fifth mechanism
written
thl'concept by the word
th1ngs are no
aanner of functioning
other manners of functioning"
Time magazine,
ia]ective and repeated
printed on the readers' minds,
In advertisements,
the possible
with a particular product.
o~ which is then subsumed
Consider the concept of freedom.
(r~edom is the glorious
our natural inclination
Ihe "~dia tells us, in the advertisement
Is women's newly-won ability

belt.
of this theme of quasi-liberation
in some of
"frees" the woman from some of her houscho 1d
sex
the theme is
The very
control.
For the word also
and

(Marcuse 64p.69).
in-
in a ritualistic
manner.
no alternative
so that they can envision
are restricted
meanings
by the pairing of a concept
is rendered as a word or image, the meaning
The concept
by the product
to which it attaches.

In one-dirnensional writing,
The fusion of the two becomes

High culture tells us, in Rousseau and '-Iarx,that
of our present enslavement,
goal of
Df coercion or confOrMity.
pads, that freedom
fact of the sexual beinQ, i.e.

by Marcuse
the subsumption
of
"Ihe names of
but their (actual)
of the thino, excluding
coupled with a particular

as sex objects,

"liberate(
appraise her; the use
and
female reader, who is
in which
in active and constructive

of the photographer

desub1imation
to advertising:
their manner of functioning,
and closes the neaning

it will make you "independent",
of the tramp as carefree,
the liberation

in the fantasy substitute
bath.

In the Tramp advertisement,

of a "liberated"

is an aspect of repressive
lannuage. which can readily be extended

us of the intermediate
from the ~arcusian
their own identities

antithesis
to shaDe our own destiny in disdain

and "just a little wild".
a hobo, beyond society's
is not genuine.

judgements
ideal of true liberation,

or ima e). The mechanism ~/orks as follows:

a particular

noun is characteristically

of sexual

pleasure.

promiscuity,

of women literally

The woman wearing Tramp is passively

displayed

to conceal an essential

for New Freedom

sanitary

e.g. in

use of either

on y ln lca lve o
also defines

socially

identified

in

the defining

45

as an object

in three ways:

A butterfly perched on the packet gives us a clue:

that they have sexual organs which make their presence felt once a month.
And what kine
of freedom is this?
women have beer
freed to be frivolous, fragi le and decorati.ve; hardly conducive to the radical transfor
mation of their social situation.
Stayfree Pantypads are another such product, the name
which is meant to work in an identical way.
In both these advertisements, freedom also
implies an escape from something.
The advertisement for lilletts tampons makes this
c~ear!:r,prol~ising the woman that she will never be "caught out".
Evidently the sugges-
t10n 1S that in menstruatinQ the woman is committing some sort of offence, which the
products are helping her to obviate.
The implicit offence, we suggest, is to be unclean.
has argued that
the de")reeof differentiation between male and female on which sexism relies inheres in
the basic symbolic distinction between clean and dirty, which in turn - depending on one
anthropological alleoiances - either is the reason for or else derives from the male fea
at pollution from contact with female menstrual blood.
In drawin9 on this association
between menstruation and dirt, these advertisements rely on and encourage in women a dis
taste for their sexual organs.
The effect is, as Greer (71p.39) has put it, that "The
best thing a cunt can be is small and unobtrusive;
the anxiety about the bigness of the
penis is only equalled by the anxiety about the smallness of the cunt".
Interestingly, this is in striking contrast to the association on which advertising
relies when addressing itself to the woman's social rather than biological tasks. As WE
saw apropos the country idyll, the wo~n's
housework is identified with cleanliness and
purity.
So the woman is seen, on successive pages of advertisememnt, as both dirty and
clean.
The absurdity of the contradiction is the measure of the extent to which such
advertising is exploitative.
By representing cleaning as a virtue and bleeding as a
vice, it helps reconcile women to handling on their own, without help or due allowance,
the necessary physical burdens of social reproduction,
One of the central deficiencies
in Greer's work is that she underestimates
the extensive social rearrangements which
will be necessary if these tasks are to be equitably executed.
She rightly demaflds
that "the cunt must come into its own" (Greer 1971p.3l8), but is content to heave the
housework to an Italian peasant couple imported for the purpose.
changing and dish-washing must equally come into their own in the marital relationship,
less pleasurably, but no less importantly.
Individuality and femininity are two further concepts often subsumed in advertisements.
For example, in an advertisement for Wonderblush, individuality becomes a sheen you can
"It's a fun, no-colour stick that reacts to your own
conveniently apply to your face:
~ersonal skin and gives you your own personal blush '" you enjoy a deliciously
---
And an advertisement for Felina bras tells you how,
1ndividual glow" (our emphasis).
~hatever your personal qualities, you can Simply don femininity:
1S important, you choose Felina".
(One wonders what bra the advertisers would suggest
for when it is important to feel masculine).
In each instance, the concept is defined
by the image or description of a product, so dissolving its critical import and
,confining its connotation to what is presently available in consumable form ..

"When feeling feminine

Millet (1970~~05)

Rather, nappy

..

..

'*

In sum, our analysis so far has shown how advertising helps to conceal the exploitation
inherent in the Parsonian roles of simple domesticity and the glamour patte~n, by
presenting housework as a worthwhile and virtuous occupation which is fulltlme except
when the woman legitimately engages her cosmetic identity in fantasy interludes of
disembodied sex.
The problem now is to explain why people are so gullible, why this
pervasive ideology is so succeSSful •.
A fruitful approach to an answer is, we believe, to see advertising as a form of
As Langholz (1974 p3) suggests, "If no society exists without some
legitimating myth.
form of myth, then it is hardly surprising that a society based on the economy of mass
are conservative
consumption will evolve its main myth in a commercial form".
in that they reinforce prevailing activity by reviewing all the alternative solutions
and "proving that the one which predominates in any given society is, in the given
circumstances, the best" (Langho1z, 1974~ 4).
As we have seen, this is what advertiseme
try to achieve by presenting problems in ways that the prevailing pattern of consumerism
can neatly solve.

~ths

46

And this is precisely their point.

In Levi-Strauss,

We have seen that the stereotypes invoked in the consumerl~t cos-

housework is worth doing fulltin~, yet worth.beln~ free?
women are clean in their ability to reproduce the household but.d1rtY,ln the1r

:":eed, Langholz's analysis needs some sophistication, in that it takes to~ IllOliolithic
• view of myth.
onloqy are not consistent:
"om;
technology is the solution but the Idyll 1S the
.~ility to reproduce the species;
Even in "primitive" societies myths have too many facets to be
IdNI; and so on.
~~tly unified.
As Levi-Strauss has sh?wn, for
r.amo1e in his famous analysis of the Oedipus legend (1968p.430), the funct10n of ,
~/th is to make underlying contradictions in the social order tolerable by repet1t1ve1y
re-presenting them in transmuted mythical forms as juxtaposed dichotomies.
However, our allegations against advertising went further.
It not only reconciles women to the contradictions between their personal individuality
.~d their domestic servitude by juxtaposing symbolic representations of these aspects
of their situation, it does so as an ideology, i.e. by distorting the representations
to depict as natural and inevitable (as Parsons claimed) what are really historically
continqent social arrangements.
We capture this extra aspect by drawing on the work
of Roland Barthes (197J) who has applied Levi-Strauss' analysis to the cultural
p~enomena of contemporary soceity.
To understand Barthes' contribution, we need to
note how Levi-Strauss drew on the structural linguistics of de Saussure.
According
to d~ S~u~sure, a linguistic sign is a dyadic relation between a signifier and what
Is sIgnIfIed.
For example, in spoken language the signifier is the acoustic image,
e.g. the sound of the word "cat", and the signified is the concept in the mind of
the hearer, a conception of a purring, furry quadruped with whiskers.
fragments of legend are the signifiers, e.g. Oedipus murders his father and marries
the features of the cosmology they refer to are the signified, in this
his mother;
Case the underrating and overrating of blood relations;
and the interplay between
the ~wo.a~ a ~hile constitutes one huge sign.
What Barthes does is add another tier
For example, there is a photograph (the signifier) in the magazine
,Of slgnlf1cat1on.
rarfs-r~tch of (t~e signified) a black Algerian in French Army uniform saluting the
flag: .Ihe two in association form a first-order sign, which then constitutes the
slgn1f1er corresponding to a second-order signified, which is, say, the loyalty of
rrench imperial subjects.
According to Barthes, the phot09raph acquires its ideol-
ogical impact by an oscillation between the two orders in the mind of the reader,
whereby the first-order naturalness of the representation confers an equal naturalness
On what is an arbitrary, in fact a highly cont~ntious, second-order association.
By
~ay of an example in advertising, recall the advertisement for Badedas bath foam.
At the first order, the signifier is the pictorial image of the product and the
signified is the product itself.
The association between the two 1s then the first-
order sign, which is the signifier for the second-order signified, i.e. the gratifi-
,atlon in fantasy of stereotypfcally delimited relationships (what Greer calls the
'statistically ideal fuck").
10 the jargon of linguistics, the relations between signifier and signified is usually
arbitrary, 1n that a given concept could as well have been represented by a different
"oustic Combination; so the concept of a cat is conjured by the sound "chat" in French.
!ut when the signifier is causally related to the signified, e.g., if red is used to
'1901fy blood, the sign is said to be an index.
We may then say that, for Barthes,
l~ology works by indexffying signs, f.e., by representing as natural and causally
~termined what is actually convent;onal buy arbitrary.
"This process, by which
Ideological meaning attaches itself apparently naturally to an everyday object or
••ent, Barthes calls 'mythification'.
(It works) through a denial or repression of
t~e activity of the signifier, which becomes a transparent window on to the "real"
!l~lnq, 1975p96-97).
This is precisely what we found at work in advertisements.
The product is so depicted that the context will confer its naturalness on to the
'Id~en and contentious connotation of the advertisement;
the consumer is moved
ttrafght from the picture of the product to accept the pseudo-solution to the social
:roblem posited in terms of the product.
:'1eed, langholz's "three levels" of advertising can be more precisely expressed in
What she called the "first level", the product referred to by
t,~
". advertisement, is on our present analysis the first order signified;
her "second
her "problem" at the
'..el", the context of depiction, is our first-order signifier;

of this schema.

47

"third level" is now the first-order sign acting as the second-order signifier; and
her "solution" is now the second-order signified, i.e. thli'recommendiltion that the
reader achieve a pseudo-solution to her problem 5y Consumlng the prOduct.
of the advertisement as a second-order sign thus both draws on and strengthens the
w?man's place in the social structure as posited by the prevailing ideology.
The
sltuation is summarised diagramatically

in the figure below.

The working

first [

""Cl

second
order

signifier

signified
= advert isement
'"actual
= Langholz
= Langholz
- .leyel ;wo_ . .leyel_on~

sign

" SIGNIFIER
= implicit problem with
woman'S role
" Langholz level three
(problem)
-
-

-

-

-

-

,

I

SIGNIFIED

of product

. = pseudo-solution in tenns
. = lan'lho11 1eveI three
-. -

~olution)
-

-

.

-

-

,
S I G N

-

Barthes gaily refers to the readers who make
As

~here is one problem outstanding.
lnterpretations, but fails explicitly to incorporate them into his account.
Schutz (1967p.301) noticed, the sign - which he calls a "symbol" - should be
conceived as a triad rather than a dyad, as a relation between signifier, signified,
If the customary associations
and also, crucially, the mind of the interpreter.
uetween signifier and signified are made, it is because they have been learned.
The
success of the first-order, literal sign depends on our having learned to read
pictures and appreciate graphic conventions.
And the very material on which we
we are taught - beginning with picture books showing the dog Rover, the authoritative
father John and the glamorous and uncomplaining housewife and mother Jane - incorporat
the associations which help define the prevailing ideology and let the second- order,
figurative signs succeed.
Even more subtly, the available written and spoken words,
i.e. the existing structures of linguistic signification with which one learns to
think and speak at all, carve up the realm of possible conceptualisation in way which
by large reflect and help to secure the existin~ relations of dominance.
The child
g~zing at Paris-Match will as yet only see a black soldier saluting; but the scene
wlll be presented ln a stirring way which contributes to the well-socialised adult's
subsequent thrill at French imperial glory.
This conceptual manipulation is facilitated, es~ially
in the case of advertising,
by the way capitalism engenders "perpetual puberty•.
Reiche argues that although
children are freed from parental authority at a younger age than before. this does
not result in their achieving true independence earlier •. "In fact the individual's
dependence on his/her family is replaced by increasing dependence on other sources of
authority" (Reiche, 1968p.85).
Young people never finally achieve the goal of
adolescence, -i.e. the transition to adulthood, and remain in "perpetual puberty",
This occurs because technocratic rationality constitutes a very strong, and - through
the media - a very pervasive source of external authority which replaces parental
authority.
Yet it cannot be attached to persons against whom one can successfully
rebel, and is thus virtually impossible to resist.
According to Marcuse (1964~ 24) the emphasis on
There is thus a vicious circle.
At least as far as
consumerism leads to a seeming levelling of class distinctions.
material goods are concerned, everyone acquires similar goals:
"Worker'and boss.
enjoy the same TV programmes and visit the same resorts" (Marcuse. 1964 24).
ThlS
not only keeps production at a high level, but ensures that Conflict is at least
contained, even if not eliminated.

So the status quo is more readily maintained, and

48

For at least

Allen & Unwin, London

Heinemann, london

Orthodox Consensus and Radical Alternative.
Heineman, London
"The sociological theory of Talcott Parsons" in T. Parsons:

Conversely, sexism helps maintain capitalism, firstly
it incorporates sexism.
by legitimating the role of housewife and mother as unpaid reproducer of daily
and generational labour;
and secondly, through the mechanism of desub1imation,
by purveying a false sense of material and sexual well-being.
l:een1ymotivated though we are in the way described at the outset of this paper,
we are accordingly sceptical of the possibility of sexual emancipation on any
~ignifican scale without a concomitant social transformation.
until then, sexist mythification, sustained by the conservative mechanisms we
have outlined, is invaluable to the continued success of the capitalist order.
And what woman can reasonably be expected to demur when the media authoritatively
insist that she has attained liberation without struggle or bloodshed?
She has,
after all, individuality in her make up, monthly freedom with Li11ets, daily
sexuality in the foam of her bath, independence in her perfume, and a revolution
~owm onto the back pocket of her jeanS.
References
Atkinson, D. 1971:
Bottomore, T. 1975:
Sociology as Social Criticism.
Modern Social Theory.
Cohen, P.S. 1968:
"Landscape with figures:
llavidoff,L. 1976:
Society" in J. Mitchell and A. Oakley (eds.):
~armondsworth, Pelican Books
Goffman, I. 1979:
MacMillan, London
Gouldner. A.W. 1971: ,The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology.
Greer,G. 1971:
Horn, P. 1979:
Ilu)(ley, A. 1932:
Komisar, L. 1972:
In Sexist Society.
laing, D. 1975:
langholtz, V. 1974:
levi-Strauss, C. 196B:
MacIntyre, A. 1970:
Marcuse, H. 1964:
MlClintock, A. 1978:
~nnell,
S. 1974:
Millet, K. 1970:

Brave New World.
"The image of women in advertising" in G. Moran (ed.): ~
Basic Books, New York

Sociological Theory:
Sexual Politics.

Uses and Unities.
Pelican, Harmondsworth

The Female Eunuch.
London,.Paladin
"The writer in bourgeois society".

"The context is little girls, Speak, Vol.I, No.5, pp.I8-22

The Marxist Theory of Art.
"The mYth of marketing".

Marcuse.

Fontana-Collins, London

One Dimensional Man.

Beacon Press, Boston

Harvester Press, Sussex

New Society, May 2, pp.Z43-246

home and community in English
The Rights and Wrongs of Women.

'

Gender Advertisements.

Heinemann, London

Unpublished

Harmondsworth, Penguin

Structural Anthropology.

Penguin, london

Nelson, London

49

Pelican, Harmondsworth
Longmans, London

Woman's Estate.
The Hidden Persuaders.
The Structure of Social Action.
"Age and sex in the social structure of the United States" in

McGraw-Hill, New York

Essays in Sociological Theory, Free Press, New York, 1964

"The kinship system of the contemporary United States" in

Mitchell, J. 1971:
Packard, V. 1957:
Parsons, T. 1937:
Parsons, 1. 1942:
T. Parsons:
Parsons, T. 1943:
Parsons 1964 op. cit.
Parsons, T. 1951:
Parsons, T. 1956:
and Kegan Paul, London
Reiche, R. 1968:
Bristol.
Schutz, A. 1962:
-
Seccombe, W.
No.53
~,

The Social System.
Family, Socialization and Interaction Process.

Free Press, Glencoe

Routledge

Sexuality and the Class Struggle.

Western Printing Services,

Collected Papers Vol.I.
"The housewife and her labour under capitalism, New Left

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

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50