Study Task 3 - Essay Plan

I was supposed to do this task before our first major crit, but I was struggling with the direction I wanted to head in and how I would construct all the ideas I had into a coherent essay.

However, after the crit I had a lot more insight and ideas for direction, and came up with this plan:

STUDY TASK 3 – PLANNING & STRUCTURING AN ESSAY

Suggested Research Question. This can be a topic or theme, but please try to be as precise as possible.

'To what extent does advertising construct our idea of gender?' ·         'to what extent' basically means 'do you agree?' ·         Look at traditional gender stereotypes and how adverts portray (or don't) them. ·         Sex and sexualisation/objectification of people (women in particular)

Which Academic Sources will you reference? Include a Harvard Referenced bibliography of at least 5 sources.

·         Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books ·         Crewe, B. (2003) Representing Men: Cultural Production and Producers in the Men's Magazine Market, London: Berg ·         Jackson, P., Stevenson, N. and Brooks, K. 2005 Making Sense of Men's Magazines, Cambridge: Polity Press ·         Macdonald, M. (2003) Representing Women: Myths of Femininity in the Popular Media, New York: Oxford University Press ·         Rogers, M. F. (1999) Barbie Culture, London: SAGE Publications ·         Sivulka, J. (2012) Soap, Sex and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising, Boston: Wadsworth Publishing ·         Wolf, N. 1991 The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women, London: Vintage

What Images Illustrations will you analyse? Include at least one piece of Graphic Design to analyse in depth (but no more than three)

The first one is an American Apparel advert. They have numerous misogynistic adverts to choose from but I chose this one because of the similarity of the woman's body position to the second one (an advert for organ donation from P Magazine, a Belgian men's magazine) as well as the viewpoint (male). The last one is Dolce and Gabbana, and from a quick skim through of The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (which I had already had a skim through when I chose it for the book cover brief in Visual Skills), she claims that rape is the current advertising metaphor, which I think is prominently portrayed in this image!

Essay Map Using the Study Task Handout, construct an essay map outlining the FOUR main points of your argument. This essay map should include a sentence which states your thesis, and how it will be addressed. It should also include FOUR sentences, each outlining a different element of your central argument. You should also refer to how this essay map links to the key sources that you have highlighted and the example(s) of Illustration practice.  My essay will focus primarily on the sexualisation and objectification of women in advertising. My main points will be that advertising continues to advocate the following myths in terms of constructing our ideas of gender: 1.     Women are sexual objects - their only purpose is to please men sexually and be visually appealing. 2.     Men must be traditionally masculine; unfeeling, strong, muscular etc., and in control of women. 3.     Men are dominant and women are submissive, in all areas of life. 4.     'Sex sells' and sometimes rape too. Violence against women is okay. I will analyse each image based on things like their audience, context, history, aesthetic qualities etc. and then based on brief analyses start to incorporate quotes I find in my sources. I find, from having studied a lot of essay subjects at school, that I work best by keeping things separate at the beginning and then bringing it all together coherently. For example, here I'll analyse the images, then gather quotes from sources that I think could be useful for my arguments (since I know the themes I'm looking at in the essay), and then bring them together to form paragraphs. My conclusion is basically going to be my own opinion (in third person!!) on how advertising continues to advocate traditional gender stereotypes, but things are beginning to change. Some adverts don't portray traditional gender roles or even subvert them, and although a lot of them do use sex (naked women) to sell products, there's been a lot of backlash for this in recent years. I actually find that writing my introduction and conclusion first really helps. Writing the end first may seem a bit weird, but from my research I kind of know what I'm working towards and where I stand. I write a basic conclusion and then add in specifics relating to my essay body once I've finished it. Quite a few of my initial sources relate to magazines, where adverts often appear, and there are a couple on advertising specifically, but also feminist books on beauty and body image, which I've found useful quotes relating to general portrayal of women in the media or in real life.