Edward B.

Williams Term Paper: Gender & Sport Advertising

KNES 437.001 Due: Monday, 19 November 2007

Sport Advertising, Mediated Femininity & the Exploitation of Feminist Values

Women have been subject to various forms of discrimination within the media for

years. This also remains true in sport media and, particularly, in sport advertising.

According to a study by Cuneen and Spencer (2003, 143), “sport ads appear to be

especially culpable in perpetuating gender stereotypes in that virtually every known

assessment of sport-related advertising shows that ad photos and visuals are, for the most

part, gender-biased and have been so since at least the 1930s.” Cuneen and Spencer

further describe sport advertisements to often portray women as “inactive, fragile, non-

athletic, traditionally feminine or even sexual, and engaged in leisure activities or

individual sports rather than in competitive or team sports” (2003, 143). What this means

is that women, most often unlike their male counterparts, are generally objectified,

sexualized, and displayed in manners, which portray a stereotypical femininity and that is

often unrealistic and unachievable for many women. Furthermore, the mise en scène of

many of these advertisements are designed to appeal heterosexually to men, at times even

when the advertisement is directed toward a female audience.

Such is the case, as Cuneen and Spencer (2003) argue, with the ever popular

“milk mustache” advertising campaign. To briefly describe the campaign, celebrities are

posed in various positions with a thick white “mustache” above their lips, which is

attempting to suggest that these celebrities had been drinking milk. Cuneen and

Spencer’s 2003 study focuses on thirty-four individual sport-related “milk mustache”

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advertisements. The analyses according to the Cuneen and Spencer study (2003, 146) are

as follows.

Eighty-eight percent of the advertisements representing team sports

displayed men, and about two thirds of those representing individual

sports displayed women. Four men and no women were featured in

advertisements representing “extreme” sports and motor sports. One

advertisement featured sportscasters and displayed three men, and no

women were represented in the role of sportscaster in any of the

advertisements. While most of the advertisements portrayed sporting

celebrities in gender-neutral roles (i.e. neither strong nor weak), “more

than twice as many males as females [were] connoted as strong”, but

while no men were portrayed as weak, three advertisements were said to

portray women as weak.

The findings from the above research are suggestive that the women in these

advertisements are portrayed in stereotypical gender-specific situations. Females were

most often portrayed as representatives from those sports that are more stereotypically

feminine (i.e. figure skating) or gender neutral (i.e. tennis, swimming), but seldom or

never as representatives of sports that are more often conceived as masculine (i.e.

football, basketball). Meanwhile, the opposite is true of men, who were most often

portrayed as representatives of sports that are more stereotypically masculine, seldom in

gender-neutral sports, and never in sports generally conceived as feminine. Furthermore,

men were portrayed in advertisements as representatives of the sport media and as

coaches, but no women were displayed in these roles.

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Cuneen and Spencer (2003) further explain that while few of these particular

advertisements displayed either gender in a sexually suggestive manner (three women

and one man), the one man who the authors suggest was displayed in such a way

(basketball player Dennis Rodman), is, according to the authors, “often portrayed as a

caricature of himself and frequently is not taken seriously as an athlete” (148). In

combating the ratio of women to men in sexually suggestive roles in these

advertisements, the authors imply that advertisers may hold an “assumption that men do

not need to be posed in sexually suggestive modes to be appealing to women” and that

“only women should be sexual in ads” (148).

Cuneen and Spencer (2003) suggest, “advertisers have long known that females

prefer to be pictured as skilled and independent [as opposed to ‘in silly, trivial, or sexual

roles’] in advertisements” (143). Furthermore, the authors suggest that advertisers “seem

willing to override their own economic self-interests (i.e. endangering sales to the

coveted female consumer market) by continuing to pose women in minor or even sexual

roles” (143). According to Shulberg, et al. (1998), “the milk mustache ads were

originally designed to target women exclusively to convince them that milk’s calcium

benefits would help build strong bones and counteract the effects of osteoporosis” (as

cited in Cuneen & Spencer, 2003, 143). Therefore, by designing the “milk mustache”

advertisements to appeal to men, and often in a way that would dispel women, advertisers

are working against their own interests.

Cole and Hribar (1995) suggest that Nike was guilty of a similar type of bad

advertising when the company first attempted to advertise its athletic shoes to female

consumers. The first Nike advertisement targeted specifically toward the “women’s

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fitness market” was released in 1987, and “featured triathlete Joanne Ernst moving

through a grueling workout and a voiceover continuously repeating the ‘just do it’

directive” (360). While the advertisement did not portray Ernst in a sexually suggestive

manner, and effectively portrayed her in a manner consistent with the sport that she was

representing, the advertisement concluded with an insulting tagline that the authors

suggest that Nike meant to be humorous, and which ultimately “failed to seduce women

consumers” (360). The tagline: “And it wouldn’t hurt if you stopped eating like a pig”

(360).

Nike’s solution was to hire women to produce a new advertising strategy targeted

toward women. Nike apparently found success in the new advertising campaign.

According to Cole and Hribar (1995), the new campaign went into effect in 1990, and

that year sales increased 25%; the following two years saw further increased sales of 25%

and 28% respectively (360).

Though Nike’s advertisements do not face as much scrutiny from Cole and Hribar

in terms of the portrayal of sporting women, as do the milk mustache advertisements

from the critiques of Cuneen and Spencer, Nike is critiqued in another way. Cole and

Hribar (1995, 365) state “the alliance between Nike and women is undoubtedly about the

commodification of feminism.” The authors then go on to describe Nike’s position in

popular feminist culture as a corporate “celebrity” (365). Nike acts and positions itself as

“pro women” and as “socially responsible” (366), but are meanwhile acting in a manner

consistent with the “expansionist politics and practices that are characteristic of

capitalism” (363). It could therefore be implied that Nike has exploited feminism as a

means to raise profits. Cole and Hribar suggest, “Nike rewrites feminist history, identity,

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community, and solidarity by promoting a popular knowledge of empowerment

embedded in bodily maintenance and the consumption of Nike products” (362).

Rinehart expands on many of the ideas that have been outlined in Cuneen and

Spencer’s analyses of milk mustache advertisements. Rinehart analyzed various

advertisements found in a number of in-line skating and skateboarding magazines, and

found results coincident with those of Cuneen and Spencer. Rinehart (2005) begins by

describing an advertisement for Giant Skateboards, which displays 18 male children in

various positions and engaged in various activities with no females in the advertisement.

This is followed by a description of an ad for a company called Pleasure Tools that makes

wheels for in-line skates. This ad is described as showing a cartoon featuring an “amply

endowed, sexualized, and prominently displayed redheaded woman [straddling] a

wrench” and various “caricatures of scantily clad women reminiscent of the art work on

World War II bombers” (245). Finally, a description of the copy in a third advertisement

for street hockey balls: “We’ve Got the Competition by the Balls” is examined. Rinehart

(2005) suggests, “dominant readings of [these] images reinforce the male domain of

sport, the constructed and naturalized maleness of sport and activity” (244).

Furthermore, Rinehart suggests in his analysis of the first advertisement, “the

assumptions are that only males will read the magazine, only males are skaters, only

males are interested in skating products—or, in this case, only males can aspire to be

professionally sponsored as professional skaters by a variety of corporate sponsors”

(245). Moreover, Rinehart suggests that the second advertisement both reaffirms “male

dominance within and through sport-related items” and objectifies women as “flesh-tools

for male use” (245). Objectification (245-248), sexualization (248-250), and

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infantilization (249) were prominent issues in advertisements found in these magazines as

well, according to Rinehart (2005).

While some sports advertisements objectify and sexualize women, and still others

exploit femininity for their own capital gains, Kilbourne (1999) says that women are

sometimes subjected to violence through advertising. She describes an advertisement for

Bitch Skateboards, which simply shows a cartoon man holding a gun to the head of a

cartoon woman, with the word bitch written above the image (277). Kilbourne’s

psychological approach suggests that these types of images in advertising affect people

viscerally (277), meaning that viewers often experience a degree of self-reflective shock

and anxiety when exposed to these types of advertisements. Kilbourne argues that

prolonged and repeated exposure to these types of images tends to “numb” viewers to the

psychological shock that is often experienced in viewing such an image, but further

implies that these images are an exploitation of violent events that take place throughout

the lives of women in all parts of the world. Referring to The Global Report on Women’s

Human Rights, which argues that “domestic violence is a leading cause of female injury

in almost every country” (as cited in Kilbourne, 1999, 277), Kilbourne notes, “throughout

the world the biggest problem for women is simply surviving at home” (277). Beyond

exploitation though, these powerful images are suggestive that women are vulnerable and

powerless over men. Kilbourne states “objectification and disconnection create a climate

in which there is widespread and increasing violence” (278), suggesting that these images

objectify women, and ultimately lead to abuse, harassment, rape and other violent acts.

Following is a brief analysis of the Nike television advertisement “I Feel Pretty”,

which features Maria Sharapova with a cameo appearance by John McEnroe. In this

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advertisement, Maria Sharapova is shown in fitness attire, while getting ready for and

traveling to a tennis match, in which she will be playing. All the while, various

bystanders sing the lyrics to the song “I Feel Pretty”, as the lyrics have appeared in the

Broadway musical West Side Story. These lyrics are sung until the final scene of the

advertisement in which Maria Sharapova, now shown in tennis attire on the tennis court,

aggressively returns and scores on, what appears to be, her opponents first serve with a

shrieking grunt. At which point, John McEnroe, who was seen in an earlier scene as an

announcer gleefully partaking in the song, says in a surprised tone “wow.” Finally,

Maria Sharapova is shown getting into a “ready” stance as the Nike “swoosh” symbol

and tagline “Just Do It” are displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen.

This advertisement counteracts the stereotypes of sport as a male-exclusive

domain and women as incapable of participation (and aggressive participation) in sport.

Furthermore, it shows the naïveté of those beliefs and that they do exist. However, after

viewing the song’s lyrics on the “Official West Side Story Web Site” (n.d.), I quickly

noted that the lyrics used in the advertisement were from the stage version of the musical

“West Side Story”, and not from the movie version, which uses the term gay – in

reference to happiness. In choosing to use the stage lyrics, thus replacing the ambiguous

term gay with the word bright, the advertisement reinforces that Maria Sharapova is a

heterosexual female. This downplays the idea that female athletes, especially those who

play aggressively, are lesbians, but contrastingly, helps to sexually objectify the female

athlete as someone who is available to men. Furthermore, this might suggest that while

sport holds a place for both men and women, the available space may be dependant on

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the athletes’ sexual preferences, and that sport can only accommodate those athletes who

are heterosexual.

Cole and Hribar (1995) described Nike’s relationship with women as being based

on “commodification of feminism” (365) and the exploitation of feminist ideologies to

produce advertising campaigns developed to sell Nike products to women. This

advertisement is similar to those described by Cole and Hribar, in that Maria Sharapova

is shown as a “pretty” example of femininity, and feminist notions of the relationship

between women and sport are exploited in an attempt to sell Nike products to women.

Therefore, this Nike advertisement, like other Nike advertisements as described

by Cole and Hribar, simultaneously attacks and embraces female stereotypes and displays

an object of ideal femininity, for the purpose of selling Nike products to women by

suggesting that their products will help women achieve femininity.

Sport advertisements, such as those described above, often portray women in

stereotyped gender-specific roles, including the overall exclusion of women from the

sporting realm. Furthermore, sport advertisements often objectify, sexualize and

infantilize women, and occasionally display women as vulnerable and as victims of

violence. Many sport advertisements display an ideal femininity, which suggests that all

women should strive for such. Moreover, sport advertisements often downplay

homosexuality. Some advertisers, such as those creating many of Nike’s ad campaigns

exploit feminist values for capital gains. These are some of the issues facing sport

advertising with regards to the use of women and targeting women.

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References

Cole, C. L. & Hribar, A. (1995). Celebrity feminism: Nike style, Post-Fordism,

transcendence, and consumer power. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 347-369.

Retrieved from Academic Search database October 2007 (AN 10012137).

Cuneen, J. & Spencer, N. (2003). Gender representations related to sport celebrity

portrayals in the Milk Mustache advertising campaign. Sport Marketing

Quarterly, 12(3), 140-150. Retrieved from SportDiscus database October 2007

(AN SPHS-908024).

Kilbourne, J. (1999). Can’t buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and

feel. Touchstone: New York.

Rinehart, R. (2005). “Babes” & boards: Opportunities in new millennium sport? Journal

of Sport & Social Issues, 29(3), 232-255. Retrieved from SportDiscus database

October 2007 (AN SPHS-1013465).

(n.d.) The Official West Side Story Web Site. Accessed 17 November 2007.

http://www.westsidestory.com/

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