Deconstructing “real” women: Young women's readings of advertising images of “plus-size” models in the UK

Beale, Katie; Malson, Helen; Tischner, Irmgard

Abstract

© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016. Critical feminist researchers and others have amply elucidated the perniciousness of contemporary Western beauty ideals and, particularly, the near-ubiquitous idealisations of slenderness. In this context, the advent of media images featuring “plus-size” models has been rightly heralded as a welcome challenge to this hegemony. Yet, little attention has been given to women's interpretations of these images. In this brief report, we outline a preliminary exploration of young women's views about advertising images featuring “plus-size” models in the UK. We used a discourse analytic method to analyse 35 young women's responses to a qualitative questionnaire asking for their views and feelings about three adverts featuring “plus-size” models. Our analysis suggests that, while the models were positively construed, participants also drew on distinctly conservative notions of femininity such that romanticised constructions of a “plus-sized”, traditional and domestic femininity were contrasted with a highly pejorative framing of “stick thin” women as vain, vindictive and self-obsessed. Our analysis thus indicates how representations of women focusing on body weight and shape can, even when reclaiming “fat” or “plus-size” bodies, mobilise derogatory and constricting rather than empowering constructions of femininity.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 11, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2016
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 14, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 21, 2016
• Journal: Feminism and Psychology
• Print ISSN: 0959-3535
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-7161
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 378-386
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353516639616
• Keywords: plus-size models, media images, young women, discourse analysis, body image
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/908194
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959353516639616
• Contract Date: Feb 18, 2016