Consuming Women: How the Creative Industry Can Feed Feminism without Cannibalising It

From serving shame to eating up empowerment, it is fair to say the industry has come a long way but in the age of femvertising we must ensure we are contributing to positive change not just getting fat on feminism tropes.

Ever since the marketing world got wise to the fact women hold the power of the purse strings, we have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to speak to them.

First, women were served sexist stereotypes with a dollop of domestic servitude.

Then we were served up shame and embarrassment around our bodily functions. Typified by the pervasiveness of the ‘70s Femfresh ads intertwining sexuality and shame by suggesting our stinky vaginas were a turn off.

Then the world changed, more women entered the workforce and we started to see a new stereotype and with it a new type of pressure. The ‘Superwoman’ a glamazon whose sexy power suits were as unrealistic as the ideals she sold.

Fast forward and the 2010s ushered in the era of femvertising, spreading messages of female empowerment with campaigns including Always’ ‘Like a Girl’ and Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’.

For millions of women (including me) this marked a much-needed step change. Who doesn’t want to see real women and girls in all their glorious diversity getting sweaty to Missy Elliot’s ‘Get Your Freak On’? But let’s be real for a second because positive real-world change is what we want to achieve and ‘This Girl Can’ did that in abundance — encouraging 2.8 million women and girls into exercise.

And yet whilst femvertising is preferable to selling sex, shame, or superwomen the now widespread shilling of sisterly solidarity began to leave a bad taste in the mouths of many with cries of Stop Trying to Empower Me from social commentators. The criticism? The commodification of feminism.

On average an ad has two seconds to capture attention so understandably messages are reduced to soundbites, slogans and shareable hashtags. The reductive nature of the beast has led to it being bashed.

So how can we continue to evolve?

It is never enough to drape yourself in the iconography of female empowerment. Ok so your client hasn’t closed the gender pay gap and wants to tap into International Women’s Day. That’s ok if they are honest about it and you push them to make a commitment to significant change beyond the story. For a campaign not to be self-serving the message must be supported by a meaningful commitment to women and girls by the brand and through partner initiatives. Lego is a great example of this, consistently leading the charge with its campaigns, supported by the wider business.

Our clients don’t have to have all their shit together (we are all a work in progress), but they have to make a start and they must always be honest because if they aren’t people like Faux Feminism are watching and will call them (and us) on it.

The creative industry has the power to shape how the world sees us and how we see ourselves. This power has harmed women but it has also brought us together, raised money for those in need and shifted culture and that’s the brand of girl power we can and should all get behind.

Onwards and upwards.