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Adolescence, Advertising, and the Ideology of Menstruation - Critical Essay - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June, 1999 by Debra Merskin

Every culture has myths about menstruation. In premodern times it was believed a menstruating woman could cause "meat to go bad, wine to turn, and bread dough to fall" (Thuren, 1994, p. 217-228). Mothers, aunts, storytellers, and community leaders passed down these myths from one generation to the next. Today, many young women continue to believe that they will lose their virginity by inserting a tampon. Advertisements for feminine hygiene products that target pre-adolescent and adolescent girls frequently employ headlines that reinforce this belief.

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The central argument of this paper is that modern advertisements for feminine hygiene products still reflect, in part, some of the centuries-old myths and taboos associated with women's bodies. Employing the concepts of ideology (Hall, 1973, 1982, 1986, 1989) and Condit's (1994) critique of concordance, this study presents the findings of a content analysis of advertisements for feminine hygiene products in Seventeen and Teen magazines. Previous studies have found that feminine hygiene ads in Seventeen presented menstruation as something to be feared as well as a hygienic crisis that encouraged guilt, diminished self-esteem, and focused on the importance of peer support over that of adults. The current study suggests that there has been a change in the content of these advertisements. Specifically, this study challenges the traditional concept of menarche as a strictly developmental event - a "pre-given object of biology" - and suggests that much of the lore surrounding menstruation is a historical and cultural construction built from the fundamental characteristics of taboo (Lovering, 1995, p. 14).

The Ideology of Menstruation

The information advertisers use to construct messages has behind it the weight of the dominant culture, i.e., its ideology. Hall (1986, p. 28) defines ideology as "the mental frameworks - the languages, concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation - which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out, and render intelligible the way society works." Becker (1984, p. 69) adds that ideology "governs the way we perceive our world and ourselves; it controls what we see as 'natural' or 'obvious.'" Claims about what is natural (and thereby inevitable) serve ideology well because they are seen as the outcome of nature rather than culture. Examples include distinctions made to support racism, such as alleged superiority of one group over another based on intelligence, or within sexism the assumption that males are inherently more rational than females. Therefore, what is thought of as normal and natural is a central part of the "terrain of hegemony" (Croteau & Hoynes, 1997, p. 171). Ideology, thereby, has to do with the tools of a social system (language, imagery, institutions) that influence thought and serve to stabilize beliefs among the masses and reinforce their subordinate place in the social system.

An important elaboration on the framework of traditional ideological criticism of media content is Condit's (1994) "critique of concordance" (p. 211). As is the case in dominant ideology criticism, this perspective is also politically motivated. However, Condit's model takes into consideration the conditions of late-capitalism, such as the nature of consumer society being one that has producers, advertisers, and consumers, all with particular interests in the production and outcome of a particular product. In addition, this perspective takes a judgmental (rather than oppositional) reading of the text under study, seeks to gain an understanding of how one or more positions of power gain relative dominance, and recognizes the "plurivocal set of interests" in modern life (Condit, 1995, p. 226). Therefore, controllers of information are those with power in modern society. This power is often articulated by the social construction of meaning through language.

Events and objects in life do not, inherently, have meaning. Rather, through social agreement, meaning is created. In modern society, the medium for signification is language. Through language, social practices are organized into symbolic products and meaning is made. Hall (1982, p. 64) argues that the media are among the principle locations for making meaning. Williamson (1978) posits that "modern advertising teaches us to consume not the product, but its sign." Therefore, what the product stands for is more important than what it is. Advertisements for feminine hygiene products can be considered "powerful weapons in an ideological battle for control of women's sexuality" (Kane, 1990, p. 82). Given that the ideology of freshness is crucial to this battle, the war is waged is through the construction of meaning.

Due to the physical constraints of the media in which they appear, advertisements are capable of rapidly defining a situation. In fact, it is critical to the success of an ad that it make an immediate connection to the intended audience by drawing upon shared meanings. By doing so, ads confer status, reinforce dominant belief systems, and, through signification, communicate fundamental information. The tools used to do so are called referent systems (Williamson, 1978, pp. 17-19). Referent systems are part of the body of knowledge from which advertisers and audiences draw their materials and turn these into messages that reflect the views of the dominant society (Jhally, 1990, p. 32). These frames of reference are particularly important in understanding the socialization of adolescents who are in the process of constructing meaning for the world around them.

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Adolescence, Advertising, and the Ideology of Menstruation - Critical Essay - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June, 1999 by Debra Merskin

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