Body Image : Gender Subtexts in the Popular Print Media Available in South Africa at the beginning of the 21st Century
type: CreativeWork
description: In this dissertation, I present the results of an analysis of the role of female body image in the promotion of commercial products in magazines that are available in South Africa at the beginning of the 21st century. The South African legislation is progressive towards promoting gender equality. But the central problem is that there are still gaps between the progressive legislation and the attitudes and beliefs of South Africans towards gender equality, particularly in the use of female body images in magazine adverts by the advertising industry. This gap between de jure and de facto is due to gender differences and stereotypes that have been entrenched in every aspect of our lives (for example, in language, culture, religion, and so on). According to Deacon (1997:376-410) and Pease and Pease (2000:60-61), because of the gendered social environment in the ancestral world, our brains (as females and males) evolved differently within the continuing gendered social environment. So, our fore brain, which is responsible for thinking, reasoning and planning processes, has helped us to reconstruct our gendered social environment by the formulation of legislation that promote human rights including the right to equality. However, the legislation on equality is not sufficient to reconstruct our environment. The evidence is that within the good legislation that has been made in South Africa, the advertising industry is continuing with the biased portrayal of female and male body images in the magazine adverts, in particular. Besides, the female body image is still portrayed in stereotypical roles. For example, the female is presented in passive roles and as objects as well as sex objects. However, the consumers do not adequately challenge the advertising industry about this gendered portrayal of the female body images in magazine adverts because the consumers themselves have a gendered view of the world. Therefore, other social programmes (in schools and communities) should…
abstract: In this dissertation, I present the results of an analysis of the role of female body image in the promotion of commercial products in magazines that are available in South Africa at the beginning of the 21st century. The South African legislation is progressive towards promoting gender equality. But the central problem is that there are still gaps between the progressive legislation and the attitudes and beliefs of South Africans towards gender equality, particularly in the use of female body images in magazine adverts by the advertising industry. This gap between de jure and de facto is due to gender differences and stereotypes that have been entrenched in every aspect of our lives (for example, in language, culture, religion, and so on). According to Deacon (1997:376-410) and Pease and Pease (2000:60-61), because of the gendered social environment in the ancestral world, our brains (as females and males) evolved differently within the continuing gendered social environment. So, our fore brain, which is responsible for thinking, reasoning and planning processes, has helped us to reconstruct our gendered social environment by the formulation of legislation that promote human rights including the right to equality. However, the legislation on equality is not sufficient to reconstruct our environment. The evidence is that within the good legislation that has been made in South Africa, the advertising industry is continuing with the biased portrayal of female and male body images in the magazine adverts, in particular. Besides, the female body image is still portrayed in stereotypical roles. For example, the female is presented in passive roles and as objects as well as sex objects. However, the consumers do not adequately challenge the advertising industry about this gendered portrayal of the female body images in magazine adverts because the consumers themselves have a gendered view of the world. Therefore, other social programmes (in schools and communities) should…
author: Buthelezi, Thabisile M.
keywords: Gender identity, Sex role, Communication--Sex differences, Mass media and women--South Africa.
license: https://devspace.unizulu.ac.za/bitstreams/f4de2ad3-7f31-4192-bb79-cb55d3b78632/download
date published: 2001
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:16:55Z
provider: University of Zululand
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Zululand