Citation: Gill, R. (2008). Empowerment/sexism: Figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising. Feminism and Psychology, 18(1), pp. 35-60. doi: 10.1177/0959353507084950 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent Abstract Empowerment/sexism: figuring female sexual agency in advertisingThis paper argues that there has been a significant shift in advertising representations of women in recent years, such that rather than being presented as passive objects of the male gaze, young women in adverts are now frequently depicted as active, independent and sexually powerful. This analysis examines contemporary constructions of female sexual agency in advertisements examining three recognizable 'figures': the young, heterosexually desiring 'midriff', the vengeful woman set on punishing her partner or ex partner for his transgressions, and the 'hot lesbian', almost always entwined with her beautiful Other or double. Using recent examples of adverts the paper asks how this apparent 'agency' and 'empowerment' should be understood. Drawing on accounts of the incorporation or recuperation of feminist ideas in advertising the paper takes a critical approach to these representations, examining their exclusions, their constructions of gender relations and heteronormativity, and the way power is figured within them. A feminist poststructuralist approach is used to interrogate the way in which 'sexual agency' becomes a form of regulation in these adverts, that requires the re-moulding of feminine subjectivity to fit the current postfeminist, neoliberal moment in which young women should not only be beautiful but sexy, sexually knowledgeable/practised and always 'up for it'. The paper makes an original contribution to debates about representations of gender in advertising, to poststructuralist analyses about the contemporary operation of power, and to writing about female 'sexual agency' by suggesting that 'voice' or 'agency' may not be the solution to the 'missing discourse of female desire' but may in fact be a technology of discipline and regulation.

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This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ discussions of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered.

The notion of postfeminism has become one of the most important in the lexicon of feminist cultural analysis. Yet there is little agreement about what postfeminism is, and the term is used variously (and frequently contradictorily) to signal an epistemological break with (second wave) feminism, an historical shift (to a third wave), or a regressive political stance (backlash). The problem with these conceptualisations of postfeminism is the difficulty in specifying with any rigour what features constitute postfeminism. That is, they do not tell us what makes something (a media text, and audience reaction, a set of production values) postfeminist. The term is frequently invoked rhetorically, but lacks any analytic purchase. In order to fashion a concept that can be used analytically within cultural studies, this paper argues that postfeminism is best understood as a distinctive sensibility, made up of a number of interrelated themes. These include the notion that femininity is a bodily property; the shift from objectification to subjectification; an emphasis upon self surveillance, monitoring and self-discipline; a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a makeover paradigm; and a resurgence of ideas about natural sexual difference. Each of these is explored in some detail, with examples from contemporary Anglo-American media. It is precisely the patterned articulation of these ideas that constitutes a postfeminist sensibility. The paper then concludes with a discussion of the connection between this sensibility and the ideas and values of neoliberalism.

Rosalind Gill Cool, creative and egalitarian? : exploring gender in project-based new media work in Europe Originally published in Information, communication and society, 5 (1). Pp. 70-89 © 2002 Routledge. You may cite this version as: Gill, Rosalind (2002). Cool, creative and egalitarian? : exploring gender in project-based new media work in Europe [online]. London: LSE Research Online.