Raunch Culture: Are Women Empowered or Victims?

Raunch Culture – Are Women Empowered or Victims? Mélisande Ricou (549910), 2012

MKTG30007 Marketing and Society Essay Raunch Culture – Are Women Empowered or Victims? Does ‘raunch culture’ represent the new feminism, where women’s sexuality is celebrated in a healthy and empowering manner; or is it young women falling prey to marketing’s misogynistic and exploitative image of the good life laid out in various media forms, from billboards to hip hop music videos to Lad Mags? The early 1990s stands for a turning point in popular representations of sexuality in Western countries. Some theorists argue that a shift occurred in the iconography of women’s body image and sexual attitude: they were no longer portrayed by advertisers as docile housewives and passive sex objects, but as playful hot women aware of the power of their charms and sex appeals (Gill, 2007). While post-feminists advocate that such portrayals empower women, by freeing them from the patriarchal oppression and by entitling them to lead a liberated sex life, other feminist thinkers are concerned with the rise of Raunch culture (Bletsas, 2011). This term, pinned by Ariel Levy in her book Women Chauvinist Pigs (2005), refers to the proliferation of porn chic imagery in commercial media culture since the last two decades. By presenting provocative women who are knowingly playing with their sexual power, rather than being clearly depicted as submissive sexual objects, has advertising paved the way for more egalitarian gender relations? I doubt so. My opinion is that marketers have just elaborated a more pernicious discourse about sex that has made women internalize this objectification. In this essay, I will firstly contextualize this issue and uncover the reasons why marketers had a stake at engaging in the ‘pornification of pop culture’. Secondly, I will discuss marketers’

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Raunch Culture – Are Women Empowered or Victims? Mélisande Ricou (549910), 2012

ethical responsibilities regarding the...