The Cultural Politics of Femvertising Selling Empowerment

This book addresses the merits and limitations of femvertising, explores the operations of advertising and commodity feminism in a global context, and presents case studies from Anglo-American, South American and East Asian national contexts. The range of topics include the femvertising of beauty products, contraception, lingerie, breast cancer awareness, financial services and corporate branding. Focusing on the ways in which neoliberalism and postfeminism interact with foundational issues of feminist politics, the chapters in this book situate global femvertising as a complex and exciting advertising strategy which holds the potential for social change amidst an uneasy cohabitation with capitalism and commercial culture.

1. Introduction.- Part I. East Asia.- 2. Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: The Failed Promise of Empowerment.- 3. “Beauty is Growing Up”: A Critical Case Study of Femvertising in Contemporary South Korea.- 4. Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights Postfeminist Rage in Modern China.- 5. Glocalization, Marketization and Politicisation: Femvertising at a Crossroad in China.- Part II. Anglo-America.- 6. What does it take to be ‘Savage’?: Diversity, Empowerment and Representation in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty Fashion Show.- 7. The Impact of Femvertising on Pink Breast Cancer Products in Australia.- 8. “Stay woke. Make moves” Branding for a Feminist Future Amidst Pandemic Precarity.- 9. “We Are What We Do”: Postfeminism and Nostalgia in Bank Femvertising.- Part III. South America.- 10. The Femvertising of Beauty: Rhinoplasty of the Negroid Nose in Brazil.- 11. Femvertising and Commodity Feminism: The Brazilian Context.