#LikeAGirl

feminisminindia.com

 The economic principle I’m exploring is “People generally respond to incentives in predictable ways/Institutions are the ‘rule of the game’ that influence choices”

My research question to help me study the economic principle is “How do companies incentivise men and women differently thru advertising?” The article published in CNN titled “Femvertising: Ads targeting women do plenty for brands” demonstrates this economic principle because it shows how women are influenced now to buy things that are more targeted to feminism and bettering sexual equality.

First, it brings up the advertisement of “#LikeAGirl” where girls of different ages act out what it’s like to do things like a girl. This ad is all about girls going through puberty and how it changes women and their perceptions of themselves changing because of ads and them worrying about what people think of them. Girls under the age of ten tended to act strong and be willing to put their all into things such as “running like a girl”, while women older than that acted very pretty and weak while running. This is because of how society judges a women and puts them in a weaker category than a man and when they act strong, them are perceived as too masculine. This ad showed women that this wrong and unrealistic because women are equal to men and should be perceived as that. This also started a huge feminist riot in the sense that women began to become more empowered and also started to look for products more targeted to women and their equality.

Second, this article discusses the stats behind how women are portrayed well in advertisements led to women supporting a brand. It also discusses how women believe brands should be responsible for how they portray women, good or bad. In a survey conducted nationally by SheKnows where the results sayed 52% of more than 600 women said they bought a product because the ad portrayed women in the way they should be seen nationally rather then how they are usually are shown. Along with that, 71% of the women surveyed discussed how they believe brands should be responsible when they promote women in a positive light.

Third, it uses the example of how Dove had a campaign called “Campaign for Real Beauty”, this did have some backlash, but it had way more support happen than hate occurring. The sales for Dove went from $2.5 million to $4 billion is the ten years after the campaign. They also did an update on how women felt about themselves. First, when the women were interviewed, they said the definition of beauty was “young, blonde, and skinny”. After ten years, the women changed their definition too “confident, articulate, and intelligent” This movement of femvertising has changed women and how they believe in themselves and how they perceive other women, it has gained backlash from women however. Some women come off as putting men down, just how men had put women down for years, making feminism come off as a bad things and these ads in the males minds had done this. Feminism isn’t the idea of women are better than men, rather, it is the idea that women are equal to men and shouldn’t be portrayed any less than men and men shouldn’t be portrayed any less than women. Femvertising didn’t start the idea that men are terrible because they had put women lower than them for years like some women have said. It is rather the idea that women are equal and should have equal opportunities and are strong enough to fight and get them just like men have them.

In my next blog post I will write about: my final synthesis