Question: Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance. How useful is this idea in understanding gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

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Response:

In this essay I am going to talk about understanding gender through the advertising campaigns Score and Maybelline and how identity is instituted through a stylized repetition of acts. Butler suggests that gender is not fixed and reinforced consistently through behaviour and performance. “An identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, (e.g. a man sitting in a certain way would make him a man/male) this is seen in the advertisement for Score as the male protagonist is asserted his male dominance by sitting with his legs crossed in a man-like posture, this was common for the time as it was set in 1967 which at the time the society was very patriarchal this is also linked with the “male gaze”, something that sexualises women by empowering men and objectifying women. In the “male gaze” the women is objectified to fit the wants of the heterosexual male which links to voyeurism. “What it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade” as stated by Judith Butler indicates that the general society’s ideas and expectations around women are constantly changing as time goes on. For example, a long time ago, women were generally expected to not leave the house very much and focus on cleaning up after the man, and not work very strenuous jobs. While this view is still relevant to some degree today, it is far less prevalent, with women having no general “expectations” and they are allowed and not confined to particular jobs and hobbies as seen with the Maybelline advertisement, with her expressing her freedom as a women. Butler also examines the work of Sigmund Freud, who similarly explains same-sex affection as a form of melancholia. This means that Sigmund Freud explained same-sex affection to be caused by a feeling of deep sadness. “In social structures in which tradition dominates, the notion of who we are is heavily determined by long-standing social forces” This means that we don’t get much choice as these long-standing social forces have been here for much longer and therefore the tradition dominates. However this is becoming far less of a reality as seen with Maybelline, the protagonist in it (Manny G) goes against all social traditions and is a complete counter type. You could also say that the advert creates a syntagm in the fact that all the objects in the video are gold which creates a ideology that gold luxury. Gender is not solely determined by primary experiences during childhood” This means that your gender is defined by your childhood experiences as also seen with Manny G, he states that his childhood was not great but he still did not let his childhood experiences define him. “Men are expected to assume stereotypically masculine identities, to adopt the role of the primary earner, while women are expected to look after the children and clean the family home.” These are all typical social ideals and beliefs of a patriarchal society.” Paul lazarsfeld started off by saying that audiences are active, they control the representations they want to engage with and can actively reject those that do not appeal.” This means that the consumer decides what pieces of media he wants to consume and what he doesn’t want to consume. Arial levy said ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’ Bell hooks work focuses upon the intersectionality of race, capitalism and gender. Intersectionality seeks to identify a system of oppression that moves beyond our traditional understanding of oppression. Intersectionality focuses upon how various biological, social, religious and cultural factors interact on multiple levels. This enables us to recognise the multidimensional basis of injustice within society. You cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’ This could have been the case with Shayla in Maybelline, as she is a woman and she is black, yet she still manages to feature in a advertisement. John Berger and his book “ways of seeing” says in it that women from their earliest childhood have always had to survey themselves constantly. She is told that is it crucial on how she appears to men as it determines how successful she is in life. This message is quite clear in the advert Score as the women are holding up the guy and looks into the game to say if you want to get him or be like him then you have to look like me. However, this is all a myth in today’s society as social traditions are changing all the time. As if someone were to see the Score advert today people would see it as radical whereas people at the time would give a reactionary view. This is quite similar with Maybelline the majority of people today would give a reactionary view; however, they would give a radical view with Score. Score was created at the start of second wave feminism where things like birth control, divorce and the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. Score was trying to oppose this second wave of feminism and try to direct women back to first wave feminism by having them hold up a man as to say his is the one and he is most important. First wave feminism explained by Virginia Woolf (1929) “A room of one’s own” was focused on women realising they wanted votes and freedom from the patriarchal society. Now third wave feminism is around emerging in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, was a big jump from the second wave feminism focused on seeing women’s lives as intersectional. In this essay I presented how gender is fluid and social ideals are not fixed and things are always changing by using Score made in 1967 as a demonstration of the 1960s and Maybelline made in 2018 as a demonstration of todays society. I also talked about feminism.