Social Problem Research Project: Introduction For the research project, which will span the last few modules, you will choose a problem in society that you feel needs a solution or improvement. Then, you will research the problem, including its causes and effects, and propose a practical solution (or two) to the issue. You will argue your problem in a researched, academic essay. This assignment has four major parts: Part 1: A memorandum where you will acknowledge your purpose and goals in a formal writing format (100 points due in Module 6) Part 2: Annotated Bibliography in which you list and detail your sources (100 points due in Module 6) Part 3: A digitial presentation, where you will organize and detail your intended essay’s research via PowerPoint or similar program. (100 points due in Module 7) Part 4: An argumentative research essay for the academic community, where you will detail the problem and its potential solution(s) persuasively with credible research for evidence and backing (200 points due in Module 8) Topic Selection It’s important for you to choose a topic that you are passionate about so that you are more invested in its research. I will not choose a topic for you, but I do have some guidelines: Off-Limit Topics: If the major backing for a topic roots itself in opinion, morality, or religious belief, then it is not an effective topic for an academic inquiry. For those reasons, please avoid the following topics: abortion, religious preference, death penalty, marijuana use, assisted suicide, and gay marriage. Overly General Topics: Your essay will be about 5 pages long; you are not writing a book. Therefore, you need to choose a topic that is manageable. Topics that are too broad include gun control, child abuse, global warming, obesity, sex trafficking, violent media, teen pregnancy, bullying, or drug abuse. Nevertheless, these topics aren’t completely unavailable to you; if you’re interested in one of these ideas, you need to narrow it to a smaller central argument. (See below.) Narrowed, Manageable Topics: Avoid choosing a broad, complex issue that cannot be easily solved. Since you only have a few weeks to work on this paper and to propose effective solutions, you should narrow your topic down into a feasible focus. For example, instead of “gun control,” you could narrow the focus to “A problem in society is that many guns are bought and sold without proper background checks and training.” With this topic, you can research more effectively. As you narrow your topic, make sure you can state it as a problem (e.g. “A problem in society is _________.). Moreover, you should begin to imagine a practical solution for the problem. For example, a solution for your problem would not be that “guns must be eliminated everywhere”; this is too broad and too problematic. A Word of Caution: It’s important that you narrow your topic effectively, but be sure not to narrow too much. For this assignment, you should choose.

1. Social Problem Research Project:
Introduction
For the research project, which will span the last few modules,
you will choose a problem in society that you feel needs a
solution or improvement. Then, you will research the problem,
including its causes and effects, and propose a practical solution
(or two) to the issue. You will argue your problem in a
researched, academic essay.
This assignment has four major parts:
Part 1: A memorandum where you will acknowledge your
purpose and goals in a formal writing format (100 points due in
Module 6)
Part 2: Annotated Bibliography in which you list and detail your
sources (100 points due in Module 6)
Part 3: A digitial presentation, where you will organize and
detail your intended essay’s research via PowerPoint or similar
program. (100 points due in Module 7)
Part 4: An argumentative research essay for the academic
community, where you will detail the problem and its potential
solution(s) persuasively with credible research for evidence and
backing (200 points due in Module 8)
Topic Selection
It’s important for you to choose a topic that you are passionate

2. about so that you are more invested in its research. I will not
choose a topic for you, but I do have some guidelines:
Off-Limit Topics: If the major backing for a topic roots itself in
opinion, morality, or religious belief, then it is not an effective
topic for an academic inquiry. For those reasons, please avoid
the following topics: abortion, religious preference, death
penalty, marijuana use, assisted suicide, and gay marriage.
Overly General Topics: Your essay will be about 5 pages long;
you are not writing a book. Therefore, you need to choose a
topic that is manageable. Topics that are too broad include gun
control, child abuse, global warming, obesity, sex trafficking,
violent media, teen pregnancy, bullying, or drug abuse.
Nevertheless, these topics aren’t completely unavailable to you;
if you’re interested in one of these ideas, you need to narrow it
to a smaller central argument. (See below.)
Narrowed, Manageable Topics: Avoid choosing a broad,
complex issue that cannot be easily solved. Since you only have
a few weeks to work on this paper and to propose effective
solutions, you should narrow your topic down into a feasible
focus. For example, instead of “gun control,” you could narrow
the focus to “A problem in society is that many guns are bought
and sold without proper background checks and training.” With
this topic, you can research more effectively. As you narrow
your topic, make sure you can state it as a problem (e.g. “A
problem in society is _________.). Moreover, you should begin
to imagine a practical solution for the problem. For example, a
solution for your problem would not be that “guns must be
eliminated everywhere”; this is too broad and too problematic.
A Word of Caution: It’s important that you narrow your topic
effectively, but be sure not to narrow too much. For this
assignment, you should choose a topic that others have debated
and discussed in research. Therefore, you shouldn’t narrow to

3. “guns are too rampant in Fayetteville, NC”; this would be too
hard to research on general, academic databases.
Topic Challenge: All of the aforementioned topics are overdone.
As a teacher, I’ve read many essays about these topics, and in
society, they are often beaten into the ground. Therefore, I
challenge you to select a narrowed, nuanced topic that’s
engaging for you, for me, and for your academic audience.
Spend some time reading major, credible news outlets (like Fox
News or the New York Times); see what society’s engaged in
right now and then engage yourself, too.
As you begin to think of problems, spend some time thinking
not only of the problem, but of solutions, too, in order to make
sure your topic as a whole has lots of potential! For example, if
I chose “the rising costs of college make it difficult for adults to
return to college” as my problem, I could consider offering tax
breaks for students, increasing grants, revising the federal
budget, educating adults on ways to save for educational
expense, and so forth.
Also, keep in mind that you’re not arguing if something is good
or bad. No one will protest that sex trafficking is a problem.
Instead, zero in on the real problem and a concrete argument.
You could argue that regulation and security at the borders are
ineffective at managing and stopping the trafficking of both
children and women from third-world countries. Then, you
could spend time proposing improvements and alternative
solutions.
Part One: The Memo
100 points; 10% of Course Grade
A memo is a formal document that often justifies a decision or
proposes an idea. In this assignment, you’ll do both.

4. Your memo should follow the typical structure for professional
memos. Review the sample in the module for additional
guidance.
Your memo should do the following in four paragraphs:
First paragraph: State—in detail--your topic choice.
Second paragraph: Justify your interest in the topic and explain
why this topic would matter to both the academic and general
community.
Third paragraph: Discuss what causes this problem and how it
affects society (in brief).
Fourth paragraph: Propose (in brief) ideas for how to solve (or
at least improve) this problem effectively
You do not need to include research in this memo.
Your memo should be single-spaced with four paragraphs as
well as the typical memo heading. Your memo should not
exceed one page in length.
Keep in mind: memos are typically concise and formal. This is
not your actual essay, so you only need to scratch the surface of
your causes, effects, and solutions. Your goal is to convince me
– as the reader of your memo and your instructor – that this is a
worthy problem and that you can contribute to the conversation
surrounding your social problem with practical ideas.
Review the Sample Memo for additional help.
Submission: Please use the link in Blackboard to submit your
memo.
Use the following template to name your work:
LastName_FirstName_CourseSection_Memo
(e.g. Brown_Laura_ENG.111.0021_Memo)

5. Part Two: The Annotated Bibliography
100 points (20 points per entry); 10% of Course Grade
An annotated bibliography is a document that lists and details
sources, including a citation and paragraphs concerning the
source. Annotated bibliographies allow students to do the
following: (1) Organize collected research before writing; (2)
Create proper academic citations before writing; (3) Review and
critique research to ensure credibility and usefulness; (4)
Demonstrate a deep, varied knowledge of a subject.
For this assignment, you should find three credible, academic
sources (see the Research Reliability Meter handout). Each
source will be one entry for your Annotated Bibliography. Each
entry should include the following:
1. MLA Citation
2. Summary Paragraph of the Article. Use at least one quote
(using the OREO method and an in-text citation) in your
summary.
3. Analysis and Application Paragraph. In one paragraph,
discuss how this source contributes to the general conversation
for your topic and how this source will affect the development
of your own essay.
Use the following tips for your research:
Make sure you have at least two academic, peer-reviewed
journal articles, which you will access using the library’s online
databases.
Your other sources may be books, reliable websites, or news
articles (from unbiased, credible sources).
You may use at least four sources for your essay; however, you

6. should only detail the first three for this assignment.
As you select your sources, make sure you have a variety. For
example, you should not have multiple sources by the same
author or multiple sources published by the same magazine or
journal.
Nevertheless, they must all be credible for the academic
community, so you should NOT use personal websites (like
blogs), Wikipedia (NEVER use this in the academic setting), or
sources that show clear bias.
If you use a website, take time to vet it carefully. It should be
recent, updated, and reliable. If in doubt, email me.
For all of your sources, avoid using dated material. A good rule
of thumb is to use materials written in the past five years (avoid
anything over ten). The more recent, the better, though,
especially in terms of statistics and data.
Please review the Sample Annotated Bibliography for additional
guidance.
Submission:You should put all entries in alphabetical order in a
document in proper MLA format. Please submit this document
via SafeAssign
Use the following template to name your work:
LastName_FirstName_CourseSection_AnnotatedBib
Part Three: The Digital Presentation
100 points (20 points per entry); 10% of Course Grade
Requirements: 6-8 slides of content to include:
--your thesis
--the main points: causes, effects, and solutions of your problem
--direct references from ALL THREE sources to support causes,
effects, and solutions to your problem
--include only the most insightful ideas from sources for
support
--in-text citations where necessary

7. --concluding thoughts
2 additional slides to include:
--title slide
--Works Cited slide with ALL THREE
sources in MLA format
Expectations: Make sure all slides are legible without any
distracting fonts or pictures. Do not copy whole paragraphs
from your paper to place on a slide and read to the class. You
will need to reformat the information into short, bulleted,
talking points.
Your slides should be visually appealing and appropriate. You
may include pictures, but they need to be purposeful.
All slides should be carefully edited for grammar and
spelling mistakes.
Use the sample presentation as a guide to help you develop
yours.
Use the following tips for your research:
Make sure you have at least two academic, peer-reviewed
journal articles, which you will access using the library’s online
databases.
Your other sources may be books, reliable websites, or news
articles (from unbiased, credible sources).
You may use at least four sources for your essay; however, you
should only detail the first three for this assignment.
As you select your sources, make sure you have a variety. For
example, you should not have multiple sources by the same
author or multiple sources published by the same magazine or
journal.
Nevertheless, they must all be credible for the academic
community, so you should NOT use personal websites (like
blogs), Wikipedia (NEVER use this in the academic setting), or
sources that show clear bias.
If you use a website, take time to vet it carefully. It should be
recent, updated, and reliable. If in doubt, email me.
For all of your sources, avoid using dated material. A good rule

8. of thumb is to use materials written in the past five years (avoid
anything over ten). The more recent, the better, though,
especially in terms of statistics and data.
Part Four: The Research Essay
200 points; 20% of Course Grade
This assignment requires you to compose a focused, organized,
and supported academic argument about a social problem and its
potential solution(s). To support your assertions, you will
integrate at least five credible, academic sources as evidence,
and you will analyze how those sources support your thesis.
To strengthen your argument, you should not only integrate
credible sources, but you must acknowledge possible
counterarguments and obstacles. For example, if you’re arguing
that gun shows should be regulated more (and how), then you’ll
need to address those who oppose your entire premise (those
who argue for less or the same regulation) and the obstacles that
arise with your solutions (e.g. If you think an agency should
monitor the shows, that would involve more man power and
thus more money for government employees. One obstacle
would be finding funding, so you have to justify why/how to do
that in spite of potential opposition.)
Your essay should:
1. Employ a strong organizational structure, which includes an
effective intro and conclusion as well as a detailed thesis
statement with corresponding topic sentences.
2. Use sound, logical reasoning to argue a problem’s presence
and its solution.
3. Utilize ethos (credibility), logos (logic), and pathos
(emotion) in order to appeal to the reader.
4. Be approximately 4 pages long (1200 words).
5. Adhere to proper MLA format.

9. 6. Employ at least four credible, varied, and academic sources.
Two must be journal articles from the library’s online
databases. You may use the three sources from the previous
assignment.
7. Demonstrate the MEAL plan strategy for all paragraphs
(Main idea [topic sentence], Evidence, Analysis, and Link).
8. Connect all ideas with strong transitions between paragraphs
and transitional phrases to link ideas within paragraphs.
9. Integrate all quoted material smoothly and ethically.
10.Cite all summarized, paraphrased, and quoted material with
in-text citations and a Works Cited page. All citations should be
in proper MLA format.
Submission:
Use the following template to name your work:
LastName_FirstName_CourseSection_ResearchPaper
(e.g. Brown_Laura_ENG.111.0021_ResearchPaper)
Please do not hesitate to email me if you have any questions
about this paper’s requirements or if you have questions as you
draft your work. This paper is worth 200 points (20%), which
makes the most important assignment this semester.
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002

10. Sex Roles, Vol. 50, Nos. 1/2, January 2004 ( C© 2004)
Race and Beauty: A Comparison of Asian and Western
Models in Women’s Magazine Advertisements
Katherine Toland Frith,1, 4 Hong Cheng,2 and Ping Shaw3
Over the past 30 years, the literature on how women are
depicted in advertising has been
strongly influenced by studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe
and may not fully describe
the ways in which women are depicted in advertising across
cultures. In this study we analyzed
advertisements collected from women’s fashion and beauty
magazines in Singapore, Taiwan,
and the United States to compare the ways in which Western
and Asian models were portrayed
in print advertisements. We found that although demure dress
was used most often for both
races, Western models were shown more frequently than Asian
models in seductive dress.
Western models were also posed more often than Asian models
as the Seductive beauty type.
Product categories also differed. Asian models were used more
frequently in advertisements
for hair and skin beauty products, whereas Western models
dominated the clothing category.
The findings suggest that Western models are used more than
Asian models in advertisements
which are “body” oriented, and that Western models are used in
advertisements in Asia when
the underlying marketing strategy is that “sex sells.”
KEY WORDS: advertising; women; gender; beauty; Asia.
An extensive literature has evolved over the

11. past 30 years that describes how gender portrayals
in advertisements mirror gender roles in society. Re-
searchers in communication, marketing, psychology,
and gender studies have addressed this topic and pro-
duced a body of work in this area. Nonetheless, much
of this research has been conducted in the United
States and Europe and thus may not fully describe
the way in which female models are used in adver-
tisements across cultures.
The majority of research in the area of gender
portrayals in international advertising builds on the
three theoretical frameworks: feminist theory, global-
ization theory, and marketing theory. Feminist schol-
arship has been at the forefront of studying how
1School of Communication and Information, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore.
2Department of Communication, Bradley University.
3Institute of Communications Management, National Sun Yat-
Sen
University, Taiwan.
4To whom correspondence should be addressed at School
of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore 637718; e-mail: [email protected]
women are portrayed in advertising in the US, yet
there has been very little research on how Western
women are portrayed in advertising in other cul-
tures. In addition, the assumptions that have guided
Western feminist scholarship are based on Western
liberalism and Western concepts of human rights. For
example, in Western cultures women have acquired
certain rights in relation to their bodies. Among these
are the right to display their bodies in public with-

12. out fear of retribution or punishment and the right to
take pleasure in their bodies. These are not univer-
sal rights for women in all countries: how women can
display themselves differs from culture to culture. In
the Middle East and in many parts of Asia women
traditionally have been expected to dress modestly
and demurely (Cheng, 1997). Thus, one of the aims of
this research is to examine how Western women are
displayed in Asian advertising as well as to see how
Asian women are displayed in Asia and in the West.
Globalization theory holds that increased trade
and improved communication technologies are bring-
ing about increasing levels of global integration be-
tween cultures (Giddens, 1990; Tomlinson, 1997). As
53 0360-0025/04/0100-0053/0 C© 2004 Plenum Publishing
Corporation
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
54 Frith, Cheng, and Shaw
a sociological institution, the global media play an im-
portant role in socializing audiences. The media act
as agents of socialization, perpetuating certain global
beauty standards such as thinness and institutional-
izing such conventions as photographic poses. With
the rise of international media corporations and the
spread of international editions of women’s maga-
zines, these conventions are being spread quite rapidly

13. around the globe (Shaw, 1999).
Advertisers and marketers have long been en-
amored with globalization. Current advertising theo-
ries hold that to be resonant with a target audience,
message designers must match the models, the cloth-
ing, the accessories, as well as headlines and body
copy with the values and needs of the target audi-
ence (Belch & Belch, 2003). Cultural values are the
core of advertising messages, and Holbrook (1987)
has suggested that in order to convince potential cus-
tomers to purchase a client’s product or service, the
advertiser must comply with a public’s value system
rather than run against it. Empirical research has sup-
ported that advertisements that reflect local cultural
values are indeed more persuasive than those that ig-
nore them (Gregory & Munch, 1997; Han & Shavitt,
1994; Taylor, Miracle, & Wilson, 1997). Yet, there
is a paucity of literature on how advertisers portray
women globally and, in particular, how women of dif-
ferent races and ethnicity are displayed in women’s
magazines across cultures.
Given the increased interest in Asia and the cur-
rent global expansion of the beauty industries across
borders, it is surprising that there has not been more
research on how women are depicted in fashion and
beauty advertising across different regions. The pur-
pose of this research was to analyze advertisements
collected from women’s fashion and beauty maga-
zines in Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States to
see if there are differences in the ways in which West-
ern and Asian models are used in advertising.
GENDER PORTRAYALS

14. Much of the past research on the representation
of women in advertising has analyzed the roles in
which advertisers have shown women. In one of the
earliest studies, Courtney and Lockeretz (1971) noted
that advertisers tended to show women as mothers
and housewives. Dominick and Rauch (1972) exam-
ined the settings in which women were placed in tele-
vision commercials and noted that women were most
often presented in at-home settings and for household
products.
Sociologist Erving Goffman (1976) described
how the positioning of female models in advertise-
ments mirrored women’s roles in society. He was the
first researcher to identify gaze as being important.
He suggested that women were often presented as
a “sight” to be gazed upon, and he identified cer-
tain stereotypical poses such as “licensed withdrawal”
where the model appears to be drifting off (gazing
away from the camera). He also described “the engag-
ing gaze” where the model makes eye contact with the
camera, engaging the viewer with seductive eye con-
tact or a sexually seductive look. Later, researchers
who compared advertisements in six US magazines
(Newsweek, Time, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Playboy,
and Esquire) between 1964 and 1984 found that fe-
male models were more likely than male models to be
the object of another person’s gaze (Soley & Kurzbad,
1986).
Shields (1990) noted that the predominant
“gaze” in Western art and advertising has historically
been the male gaze. She argued that when women
pose for the camera, they often assume or are asked to
assume a submissive or passive stance with “lowered
eyes, head down.” Both Shields and Goffman used

15. U.S. advertisements as their data sources, and the use
of an engaging gaze may not hold true across cultures:
intercultural communication researchers have noted
that in many Asian cultures direct eye contact is con-
sidered aggressive and unfeminine (Samovar, Porter,
& Jain, 2001). In addition, communication researchers
studying images of women in Indian advertising have
noted that the gaze differs across culture and gender
(Griffin, Viswanath, & Schwartz, 1994).
BEAUTY AND THE BODY
Research focused on advertising and women’s
beauty includes studies related to two main areas:
overall beauty and body image. Lakoff and Scherr
(1984) noted that advertisers were able to create
a “cult of unrealizable beauty” (p. 290) by using
techniques such as retouching to enhance women’s
beauty. To understand the beauty types used in US ad-
vertising, Solomon, Ashmore, and Longo (1992) con-
ducted an experiment. They assembled a set of pho-
tographs of models employed by major U.S. fashion
agencies and presented them to a sample of U.S. fash-
ion magazine editors who were then instructed to sort
the models into piles based on similarity of looks. The
results yielded relatively distinct beauty types: Classic,
Feminine, Sensual, Exotic, Cute, Girl-Next-Door,
Sex Kitten, and Trendy. Englis, Solomon, and
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002

16. Race and Beauty 55
Ashmore (1994) condensed these eight beauty types
and examined advertisements collected from major
U.S. magazines. They found that the Classic/Feminine,
Exotic/Sensual, and Trendy types were the three most
prevalent.
Other studies have focused primarily on the
use of women’s bodies in advertising. Walsh-Childers
(1996) noted that regardless of the product cate-
gory, advertising photographers often focused the
reader’s eye on certain body parts, such as a woman’s
breasts. Other researchers have examined the sexual
representations of women in advertising. Soley and
Kurzbad (1986) compared “sex appeals” in magazine
advertisements in the United States between 1964 and
1984. They found that over time, sexual elements be-
came more visual and more overt. They concluded
that female nudity and erotic content had become
quite commonplace in contemporary U.S. advertising
by the mid-1980s. During the next decade, Reichert
and her collaborators (1999) found that:
An analysis of Clio award-winning TV spots revealed
that 29 percent contained a seductively dressed
model, and 27 percent contained at least a hint of
sexual suggestion. (p. 7)
GENDER AND PRODUCT CATEGORIES
O’Donnell and O’Donnell (1978) were among
the first researchers in the United States to show that
there were gender differences in relation to product
type; women were most commonly found in advertise-
ments for domestic products and most often shown in

17. at-home settings. The most recent and comprehensive
review of existing research on women in advertise-
ments was by Furnham and Mak (1999), in which they
addressed the major variables of gender portrayal re-
search and provided a useful summary of findings over
time. They confirmed that available evidence shows
that women are usually depicted at home, and they
most commonly appeared in commercials for domes-
tic products.
WOMEN IN ADVERTISING
ACROSS CULTURES
There have been a number of studies on the
portrayal of women in advertising across media and
across cultures (Arima, 2003; Biswas, Olsen, & Carlet,
1992; Cooper-Chen, 1995; Sengupta, 1995; Wiles &
Tjernlund, 1991). In comparing Swedish portrayals
of women in advertising with those of women in
the United States, Wiles and Tjernlund (1991) found
that women were more frequently portrayed as pro-
fessionals in Sweden than in the United States and
that U.S. advertisements used women in “decorative”
poses more frequently than did the Swedish adver-
tisements. After comparing print advertisements from
the United States and France, Biswas et al. (1992) re-
ported that sex appeal was used more often in French
than in U.S. advertisements.
In studies of how Asian women are represented
in advertising, Sengupta (1995) compared U.S. women
and Japanese women and noted that U.S. women
were more likely to be shown “relaxing” at home,
whereas Japanese women were more likely to be
shown “cooking, cleaning and doing other household

18. chores” (p. 329). Similarly, Cooper-Chen (1995) re-
ported that in Japanese advertisements when women
were portrayed in professional or working roles, it was
most often as entertainers or actresses. In a study of
images of young girls in the Japanese version of Seven-
teen, the researchers reported that the Japanese mod-
els were posed as “cute” and “girlish” (smiling and
giggling), whereas the Western models were posed
with more serious expressions, looking more defiant
and independent (Maynard & Taylor, 1999).
In a comparative study of women’s portrayals in
Chinese and U.S. advertising, Cheng (1997) reported
that women in Chinese television commercials
wore more “demure” and less sexually suggestive
clothing than did women in U.S. advertisements.
In a comparative study of images of women in
weekly U.S. news magazines (Time and Life) and
weekly Indian magazines (India Today and Illustrated
Weekly of India) Griffin et al. (1994) found that many
of the Western advertising conventions and poses
for women were being transferred across cultures.
They reported that female models in India were
adopting poses and displays that conformed closely
to gender portrayals in the advertising of the indus-
trialized Western nations. Davis (1999) found that
South Korean advertisers regularly used images of
Western fashion models in conventionally Western
fashion poses to advertise products considered erotic
or risqué (such as lingerie), whereas East Asian
models were used to advertise household or domestic
products.
To summarize, there is a rich literature on the vi-
sual presentation of women in advertising. However,
with few exceptions, the variables common to most

19. of these studies are related to the roles or settings
in which women appear, the types of products with
which women are shown, the poses (including the use
of sexual cues), the type of dress, and the beauty types
represented in advertisements.
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
56 Frith, Cheng, and Shaw
There has been very little research on how these
variables are used across cultures, and even less on
how women of different races are portrayed in ad-
vertising across cultures. The rationale for the selec-
tion of Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States for
this study is two-fold. All three societies are market
democracies. In terms of economic development, lit-
eracy, educational rates, and per capita income, these
three societies are comparable. However, in terms of
cultural values, there are great differences. Accord-
ing to Hofstede (1997) Singapore and Taiwan are both
traditionally under the influence of Confucianism and
thus strongly collectivist and “feminine,” whereas the
U.S. culture is individualistic and “masculine.” There-
fore, a comparison of the way women are represented
in advertisements in popular local women’s maga-
zines from these three societies should be of inter-
est and should shed light on how women are used by
advertisers in different societies.
HYPOTHESES

20. Based on the extensive literature on the portray-
als of women in advertising, the following hypothe-
ses were formulated for this study. These hypotheses
are predicated on the theory that advertisers in each
country will attempt to display women in ways that
are socially and culturally resonant with local fashion
and beauty norms.
H1: Asian models would be used more frequently in
Asian magazines, and Western models would be
used more frequently in U.S. magazine advertise-
ments.
H2: The beauty types for models used in Asian maga-
zines would differ from those used in Western mag-
azine advertisements.
H3: Asian models would tend to gaze away from the
camera more frequently than Western models.
H4: Western models would be displayed in more
seductive dress than Asian models.
H5: The product categories used in Western women’s
magazine advertisements would differ from those
used in Asian women’s magazine advertising.
METHOD
Materials
For advertising messages to be resonant with a
target audience, they need to reflect the social and
cultural norms practiced in a given society. In a per-
fect world, advertisements would be created by mem-

21. bers of a particular society and consumed by mem-
bers of the same society. However, as Bagdikian
(1992) argued, in the new global system that inte-
grates worldwide mass media with worldwide mass
advertising, the large publishing groups have consol-
idated their control over magazine markets. Many
women’s magazines sold in Asia are now part of larger
media conglomerates such as Time Warner, Hearst,
and Condé Nast. There are now national editions
of magazines such as Vogue, Elle, and Cosmopoli-
tan in most major world markets. The international
versions of these magazines differ from locally pro-
duced women’s magazines in that the international
ones tend to carry a preponderance of advertise-
ments for transnational products and primarily fea-
ture Western models (Shaw, 1999). Although the pop-
ularity of these magazines is growing in most of Asia,
they still have lower circulation rates than the more
popular locally produced women’s magazines (Shaw,
1999). In the present study, the main selection cri-
terion for the women’s magazines chosen from each
country was high local readership, based on circula-
tion figures from that country over a period of 2 years.
Because this research focused on images of beauty
and beauty types, fashion magazines were chosen
that targeted women readers aged 20–30.
The women’s magazines selected from
Singapore were Her World, Female, and Cleo. Female
is the second best-selling magazine in Singapore, after
Her World; Cleo is in the third place. The latest circula-
tion figures (2002) were obtained from the respective
magazine companies through telephone interviews.
The circulation figures for Her World, Female, and
Cleo are 95,000, 92,500, and 77,000, respectively.

22. Glamour, Vogue, and Elle, are three of the most
popular and influential women’s magazines in the
United States aimed at women in their 20s and 30s.
These magazines were selected as the reference for a
comparison with the magazines from Singapore and
Taiwan. The latest circulation figures gained from
the U.S. publishers for the second half of 2001 were:
2,201,279 (Glamour), 1,192,949 (Vogue), and 981,117
(Elle), respectively.
Three of the most popular local Taiwanese
women’s magazines were chosen for this study: Citta
Bella, Jasmine, and Vivi. The circulation figure of
each of these three magazines is about 60,000. These
figures were also obtained from the magazine
publishers through telephone interviews.
For the purpose of this study, three issues of each
magazine were chosen at random from within the
12-month period from March 2001 to March 2002. The
main reason for this random assignment of 3 months
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
Race and Beauty 57
to each magazine was an attempt to counterbalance
any possible seasonal influences. The unit of analy-
sis was restricted to advertisements of one or more
full pages. All advertisements that appeared in these

23. magazines and that contained at least one woman
were selected for the sample. In advertisements where
more than one woman was present, the largest or
most dominant woman was coded. Identical adver-
tisements were included in the coding process because
repetition is a strategy frequently used in advertising
campaigns. A total of 1,130 advertisements from the
above-mentioned nine women’s fashion and beauty
magazines were used in this study.
Coding Categories
All models were coded by race: they were ei-
ther Western or Asian. Western models included
White, Hispanic, and Black. Asian models included
all the models of Asian race/ethnicity. In addition,
models were coded for beauty type. Englis et al.
(1994) identified eight distinct content categories as
the most prevalent beauty types in the United States.
These were: Classic, Feminine, Sensual, Exotic, Cute,
Girl-Next-Door, Sex Kitten, and Trendy. A pretest of
these eight categories was carried out to check the
viability of these content categories within an Asian
context. During the pretest, we found that the U.S.
categories contained certain assumptions irrelevant
to the present study. For example, “exotic” was de-
fined by Solomon et al. (1992) as “non-Caucasian”
(p. 23), therefore, this category was excluded for
the present study. Two other categories (Classic and
Feminine) shared many characteristics and were thus
combined. Also, Cute and Girl-Next-Door had over-
lapping characteristics, so they too were combined
for the present study. In addition, Sensual and Sex
Kitten also overlapped and were thus combined into
one category, Sensual/Sexy. As a result, the coding
categories for this research included: Classic, Sen-

24. sual/Sexy, Cute/Girl-Next-Door, Trendy, and Other.
In addition to beauty types, the content of these
advertisements was analyzed for product type, gaze
of model, and dress (see Appendix for operational
definitions).
Coding
Two Singaporean graduate students carried out
the coding independently. They were bilingual (fluent
in both English and Mandarin) and had been given
a written description of the categories and the cod-
ing criteria to be followed (see Appendix). They were
given a randomly selected preliminary set of adver-
tisements to code and differences were resolved by
consensus. Intercoder reliabilities were then calcu-
lated on a subset of 220 advertisements (nearly 20%
of the sample). A percentage of agreement was cal-
culated item by item for each of the categories. The
intercoder reliabilities for various items ranged from
86% to 99%; all were above the minimum interjudge
reliability of 85% suggested by Kassarjian (1977).
RESULTS
Results of this study are presented in Tables I–V,
and they support three of the five hypotheses formu-
lated for this project. As can be seen in Table I, the
U.S. advertisements featured, as expected, Western
models (99.0%) far more often than Asian models
(1.0%). However, Western models were found more
often in the two Asian societies as well; they appeared
more frequently in Singaporean women’s magazine
advertisements (73.3%) than in Taiwanese women’s

25. magazine advertisements (50.4%). H1 predicted that
Asian models would be portrayed more frequently
than Western models in Singaporean and Taiwanese
women’s magazine advertisements, and therefore was
not supported.
Advertisements carried in the women’s mag-
azines from all three societies tended to portray
women in the Classic beauty type more frequently
than other beauty types, but there were significant
differences in the beauty types for each race (see
Table II). The Sensual/Sexy type was used more often
(27.1%) with Western models than with Asian mod-
els (10.8%), whereas the Cute/Girl-Next-Door type
appeared more frequently with Asian (25.0%) than
with Western models (15.7%). The Trendy type was
used more frequently with Western models (8.6%)
than with Asian models (6.5%). These differences
are statistically significant, χ2 = 243.09, d f = 2, p <
.001. Therefore, H2, that beauty types would be used
differently for Asian and Western models in women’s
magazine advertisements, was confirmed.
It was hypothesized (H3) that due to cultural dif-
ferences, Western models would tend to look directly
Table I. Comparison of Asian and Western Models Used in
Women’s Magazine Advertisements
Singapore (n = 415) Taiwan (n = 234) U.S. (n = 481)
Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %
Asian 111 26.7 116 49.6 5 1.0
Western 304 73.3 118 50.4 476 99.0
χ2 = 243.09, d f = 2, p < .001.

26. P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
58 Frith, Cheng, and Shaw
Table II. Comparison of Beauty Types for Asian and Western
Models
Asian (n = 232) Western (n = 898)
Freq. % Freq. %
Classic 133 57.3 426 47.4
Sensual/Sexy 25 10.8 243 27.1
Cute/Girl-Next-Door 58 25.0 141 15.7
Trendy 15 6.5 77 8.6
Other 1 .4 11 1.2
at the camera and Asian models would tend to avoid
direct eye contact with the camera. Contrary to ex-
pectations, we found that both Western and Asian
models tended to look at the camera (see Table III).
Furthermore, Asian models (68.5%) tended to look
at the camera more frequently than Western models
(57.0%). Although there was a significant difference
in gaze between the two groups, χ2 = 10.14, d f = 1,
p < .001, H3 was not supported.
Although, overall, demure dress was the choice
most often used across cultures, the results show that
Western models (23.7%) were posed more frequently
in sexy dress than were Asian models (15.5%). Asian

27. models (84.5%) were dressed demurely more of-
ten than Western models (76.3%), and the differ-
ences are statistically significant, χ2 = 7.22, d f = 1,
p < .01. Therefore, H4, which predicted Western
models would tend to be clothed in seductive dress
more often than Asian models, was supported.
To see if the representations of women might
be related to the types of products advertised in
women’s magazines across cultures, the product cate-
gories were content analyzed. It was found that there
is a significant difference in the product types ad-
vertised, χ2 = 115.96, d f = 2, p < .001. As shown in
Table V, Asian models (55.2%) appeared more of-
ten in advertisements for beauty products (including
skin and hair care products), whereas Western models
appeared more frequently in clothing advertisements
(46.8%). Hence, H5, which predicted that Western
models in women’s magazine advertisements would
be used in different product categories than Asian
models, was confirmed.
Table III. Comparison of Gaze for Asian and Western Models
Asian (n = 232) Western (n = 898)
Freq. % Freq. %
Looks at camera 159 68.5 512 57.0
Looks away 73 31.5 386 43.0
Table IV. Comparison of Dress Types for Asian and Western
Models
Asian (n = 232) Western (n = 898)
Freq. % Freq. %

28. Demure 196 84.5 685 76.3
Seductive 36 15.5 213 23.7
DISCUSSION
As stated at the outset, this study was designed to
examine the similarities and differences between the
ways Asian and Western models were used in beauty
advertisements, by examining popular women’s mag-
azines from the U.S.A., Singapore, and Taiwan. Over-
all, we found some similarities as well as differences
between them. The tendency to portray women across
cultures in the Classic beauty type with “demure”
dress indicates that certain aspects of beauty are more
or less universal and shared by Eastern and Western
cultures. However, there was a noticeable difference
between the portrayals of women in the Sensual/Sexy
beauty type category. This beauty type was used more
often with Western than Asian models. This find-
ing suggests that advertisers, across cultures, present
Western models as more sexually liberal than Asians.
This is in line with O’Barr’s finding (O’Barr, 1994) that
American women in Japanese print advertisements
are often portrayed in sexy ways that Japanese women
could not be shown and Davis’ findings (Davis, 1999)
that South Korean advertisers regularly used West-
ern fashion models to advertise products considered
erotic or risqué. This finding might also bring into
question one of the recurring themes in the literature
on women in advertising: that women are depicted as
sex objects in advertising. Based on the present study,
we might conclude that Western women are used
as sex objects in advertising across cultures, whereas
Asian women are generally not, as yet, presented in
this way.

29. The higher percentage of advertisements for the
Cute/Girl-Next-Door beauty type among Asian mod-
els probably implies that Singapore and Taiwan may
Table V. Comparison of Product Categories for Asian and
Western
Models
Asian (n = 232) Western (n = 898)
Freq. % Freq. %
Beauty 128 55.2 276 30.7
Clothing 19 8.2 420 46.8
Other 85 36.6 202 22.5
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
Race and Beauty 59
share a similarity in women’s portrayal with Japan,
where cute “girlish” images have been documented
as being popular in women’s magazines (Maynard &
Taylor, 1999). This similarity in women’s portrayal
could be attributed to the cultural similarity among
these East Asian societies. On the other hand, one
outcome of depicting women in childish ways is to di-
minish their standing in society as full-fledged adults.
Depictions of women as strong, professional, and in-
dependent may be more threatening to men and thus
this type of portrayal may be avoided by advertisers
in certain countries.

30. The shared similarity in advertisements from
Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States in terms
of gaze suggests that women models across cultures
tend to look directly at the camera. This finding has
at least two implications. For one thing, it may sup-
port the findings of Griffin et al. (1994) who noted
that the proliferation of branded advertising in the
increasingly open markets of nations such as India
and China has provided standardized images of gen-
der (and what it means to appear “attractive”). Or,
it may suggest photographic conventions, perhaps led
by the women’s liberation movement in Western in-
dustrialized societies and now shared by other in-
dustrialized societies, to depict women as confident
and expressing themselves with direct eye contact.
Again, because Singapore, Taiwan, and the United
States are all industrialized societies with highly ed-
ucated populations, it may be interesting for future
researchers to examine this variable in more tradi-
tional societies such as India or mainland China to
see if the results hold true across developed and de-
veloping countries. If significant differences were to
be found, this would give weight to the argument
that as countries develop, Western conventions em-
bedded in advertising production are affecting cul-
tural change as a perhaps unintended outcome of
globalization.
In terms of the types of models used in the vari-
ous countries, the widespread use of Western models
in local magazines in Singapore (73.3%) and Taiwan
(50.4%) suggests an openness in these societies to
foreign models and beauty trends, as well as an in-
terest in embracing globalization. It might also be
related to an interest in Western products. The low

31. percentage of Asian models in the U.S. advertise-
ments (1%) may be related to the fact that Asians
make up only a small portion of the population,
and thus are not yet a sizable market for advertis-
ers. This paucity is in line with the findings of Taylor,
Lee, and Stern (1995) who compared the portrayals
of African, Hispanic, and Asian Americans in mag-
azine advertisements and found that Asian women
were used in less than 1% of all advertisements they
sampled.
In terms of types of product advertisements
in which Western and Asian models appeared we
found that hair and facial beauty products occupied
the greatest proportion for Asian models (55.2%),
whereas clothing occupied the largest proportion of
advertisements for Western models (46.8%). This
finding suggests that Western women are constructed
in terms of “the body” and fits with the higher pro-
portion of Sensual/Sexual beauty types found in the
U.S. advertisements. Clothing is related to the body.
As Wood (1999) noted:
Consistent with a view of women as decorative ob-
jects whose value depends on appearance, clothing is
designed to call attention to women’s bodies and to
make them attractive to viewers. Formfitting skirts,
materials that cling to the body and details in design
contribute to making women decorative. (p. 145)
In fact, the high proportion of clothing
advertisements, coupled with the higher proportion
of Sensual/Sexy beauty types (27.1%) among Western
models, suggests that the objectification of women’s
bodies, may be racially or culturally based, as Western

32. models are more often featured in advertisements
for body-related products—even in Asian magazines,
whereas Asian models are used more often in ad-
vertisements for facial beauty. This finding is also
in line with statistics on cosmetic surgery in the
U.S. Kaw (1993) noted that “the types of cosmetic
surgery sought by women in the United States are
racially specific” (p. 75). European American women
choose body-sculpting surgery such as liposuction
and breast augmentation, whereas Asian American
women most often request “double-eyelid surgery,”
which is related to the face.
As the world shrinks, studies such as this one are
useful in that they allow us to see ourselves as other
see us. In this case, the findings suggest that Western
women are viewed by advertisers (and by their Asian
audiences) as being different from Asian women.
Western models are dressed differently, posed differ-
ently, and featured with different types of products.
The weakness of the content analysis method how-
ever, is its inability to show underlying reasons for the
differences (Arima, 2003). Future research is required
to help us to understand the underlying motives of
advertising agencies in their depictions of women of
differing races.
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
60 Frith, Cheng, and Shaw

33. APPENDIX
Operationalizations of beauty types
Classic Slightly older than average, the model has an elegant
feminine look. With fair skin and a
glamorous and sophisticated look, she usually wears soft,
feminine but not heavily
accessorized apparel.
Sensual/Sexy The model is posed in a sexual way. She usually
wears sexy attire or tight-fitting, revealing
clothes.
Cute/Girl-Next-Door With casual attire, the model has a cute
and youthful appearance. She can also be
outdoorsy, in a casual, active manner.
Trendy The model usually wears faddish clothes and displays
oversized accessories. Her hair
is tousled. There is a slight sense of chaos to this type. She can
also have an
“I-don’t-give-a-damn” attitude.
Operationalizations of racial types
Asian This racial type includes all Asian models from
Singapore, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
the United States. Japanese are also coded into this category as
their looks are similar.
Western This racial type includes all races except Asians.
Product categories
Beauty This category includes all cosmetics, hair care products,
and skin care products.
Clothing This category includes all clothing designers and

34. manufacturers.
Models’ dress
Demure The model is tastefully dressed.
Seductive The model is dressed in a sexy way.
Types of gaze
Look at camera Model’s eyes look directly at the camera.
Look away from camera Model’s eyes look away from the
camera.
REFERENCES
Arima, A. N. (2003). Gender stereotypes in Japanese television
advertisements. Sex Roles, 49, 81–90.
Bagdikian, B. H. (1992). The media monopoly. Boston, MA:
Beacon.
Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2003). Advertising and promotion: An
integrated marketing communications perspective (6th ed.).
Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
Biswas, A., Olsen, J. E., & Carlet, V. (1992). A comparison of
print
advertisements from the U.S. and France. Journal of Advertis-
ing, 21, 73–81.
Cheng, H . (1997). Holding up half the sky: A sociocultural
compar-
ison of gender role portrayals in Asian and U.S. advertising.
International Journal of Advertising, 16, 295–319.
Cooper–Chen, A. (1995). The second giant: Portrayals of
women in
Japanese advertising. Paper presented at the annual conven-
tion of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass

35. Communication, Washington, DC.
Courtney, A., & Lockeretz, S. (1971). A woman’s place: An
analysis
of the roles portrayed by women in magazine advertisements.
Journal of Marketing, 8, 92–95.
Davis, S. (1999). Representation of Caucasians in Korean print
advertisements. Paper presented at the annual confer-
ence of the International Communication Association, San
Francisco.
Dominick, J. R., & Rauch, G. E. (1972). The image of women in
network TV commercials. Journal of Broadcasting, 16, 259–
265.
Englis, B., Solomon, M., & Ashmore, R. (1994). Beauty before
the
eyes of beholders: The cultural encoding of beauty types in
magazine advertising and music television. Journal of Adver-
tising, 23, 49–63.
Furnham, A., & Mak, T. (1999). Sex–role stereotyping in televi-
sion commercials: A review and comparison of fourteen stud-
ies done on five continents over 25 years. Sex Roles, 14, 413–
0437.
Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity.
Cambridge,
UK: Polity.
Goffman, E. (1976). Gender advertisements. New York: Harper
&
Row.
Gregory, G. D., & Munch, J. (1997). Cultural values in

36. international
advertising: An examination of familial norms and roles in
Mexico. Psychology and Marketing, 14(2), 99–119.
Griffin, M., Viswanath, K., & Schwartz, D. (1994). Gender
adver-
tising in the U.S. and India: Exporting cultural stereotypes.
Media, Culture and Society, 16, 487–507.
Han, S. P., & Shavitt, S. (1994). Persuasion and culture: Adver-
tising appeals in individualistic and collectivistic societies.
Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, 30, 326–
350.
Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of
the
mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Holbrook, M. B. (1987). Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s
unfair
in the reflections on advertising? Journal of Marketing, 51, 95–
103.
Kassarjian, H. H. (1977). Content analysis and consumer
research,
Journal of Consumer Research, 4, 8–18.
Kaw, E. (1993). Medicalization of racial features: Asian
American
women and cosmetic surgery. Medical Anthropology Quar-
terly, New Series, 7(1), 74–89.
Lakoff, R., & Scherr, R. (1984). Face value: The politics of
beauty.
Boston: Routledge & Keegan Paul.

37. Maynard, M., & Taylor, C. (1999). Girlish images across
cultures:
Analyzing Japanese versus U.S. Seventeen magazine ads. Jour-
nal of Advertising, 28, 39–48.
P1: JLS
Sex Roles [sers] pp1075-sers-477811 December 17, 2003 12:3
Style file version June 3rd, 2002
Race and Beauty 61
O’Barr, W. (1994). Culture and the ad: Exploring otherness in
the
world of advertising. Boulder, CO: Westview.
O’Donnell, W., & O’Donnell, K.J. (1978). Update: Sex–role
mes-
sages in TV commercials. Journal of Communication, 28, 156–
158.
Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., & Jain, N. (2001).
Communication
between cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Sengupta, S. (1995). The influence of culture on portrayals of
women in television commercials: A comparison between the
United States and Japan. International Journal of Advertising,
14, 314–333.
Shaw, P. (1999). Internationalization of the women’s magazine
in-
dustry in Taiwan: Context, process and influence. Asian Jour-
nal of Communication, 9, 17–38.

38. Shields, V. R. (1990). Advertising visual images: Gendered
ways
of seeing and looking. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 14,
25–39.
Soley, L., & Kurzbad, G. (1986). Sex in advertising: A
comparison
of 1964 and 1984 magazine advertisements. Journal of Adver-
tising, 15, 46–54, 64.
Solomon, M. R., Ashmore, R. A., & Longo, L. C. (1992). The
beauty
match–up hypothesis: Congruence between types of beauty
and product images in advertising. Journal of Advertising, 21,
23–34.
Taylor, C. R., Lee, J. Y., & Stern, B. B. (1995). Portrayals of
African, Hispanic, and Asian Americans in magazine adver-
tising. American Behavioral Scientist, 38, 608.
Taylor, C. R., Miracle, G., & Wilson, R. D. (1997). The impact
of
information level on the effectiveness of U.S. and Korean Tele-
vision communication. Journal of Advertising, 20, 1–15.
Tomlinson, J. (1997). Internationalism, globalization and
cultural
imperialism. In K. Thompson (Ed.), Media and cultural regu-
lation. London: Sage.
Walsh–Childers, K. (1996). Women as sex partners. In P. M.,
Lester,
(Ed.),Images that injure: Pictorial stereotypes in the media
(pp. 81–85). Westport, CT: Praeger.

39. Wiles, C., & Tjernlund, A. (1991). A comparison of role
portray-
als of men and women in magazine advertising in the U.S.A.
and Sweden.International Journal of Advertising, 10, 259–
267.
Wood, J. (1999). Communication, gender and culture (3rd ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Brigman Award Winner: Slim Cognito:
Spanx and Shaping the Female Body
MAGGIE UNVERZAGT GODDARD
“W
E ALL WEAR THEM WITH PRIDE,” SAID FIRST LADY
Michelle Obama during the White House’s Fashion
Education Workshop, a day of seminars for students
featuring assorted design professionals (“Remarks by the First
Lady”).
Highlighting the accomplishments of billionaire Spanx founder
Sara
Blakely in her address, Michelle Obama thus identified herself
as
another woman who wears Spanx. An American hosiery
company
founded in 2000, Spanx markets undergarments that shape and
smooth the female body.
1 Following the Fashion Education Work-
shop, articles immediately emerged proclaiming that Michelle

40. Obama
“admits she wears Spanx” (Walano). This confession of body
binding
—by a health icon celebrated for her toned body—evokes Fou-
cauldian frameworks of sexuality, visuality, and discipline. By
wear-
ing Spanx, women confine their curves in order to achieve an
idealized thin female body. The practice of wearing Spanx
operates as
a constitutive act of gender performativity and reveals the
inherent
construction of naturalized gender categories. The implications
of this
process highlight the importance of critically examining how
contem-
porary body-binding practices shape the female body and invite
an
intersectional lens to view practices of bodily discipline. As a
case
study in the efficacy of marketing through personal connection,
Spanx
reveals how female celebrities shape themselves while
negotiating the
performance of gender conformity—both upholding and
unraveling
the semiotics of the seamless.
Through the donning of Spanx, women seek to conceal their
bod-
ies, including minimizing deviant fatness and shaping their
flesh to
The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2017
© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
184

41. conform to expectations of ideal thinness. Wearing Spanx can
function as a tactic in cultivating bodily invisibility. According
to
sociologist Catherine Connell, fashion can operate as both a
mode of
entrenching race, class, gender, and sexual hierarchies—or as a
site of
resistance to hegemonic discourses. In her article on the fashion
blog
Fa(t)shion February, Connell explores how the blog users
explicitly
privilege fat bodies and make a political statement through their
own
visualization, thus rejecting the tactics of bodily invisibility
promul-
gated through Spanx advertisements. According to one blogger,
“I
look back on myself a year ago, and remember a time when I
was ter-
rified of my own visibility. . . I remember shoving myself into
spanx
[sic], adhering to a wardrobe of ‘slimming colors,’ and raging
against
my own image in the mirror. . . Now I say fuck that. I’ve found
my
happiness, and I’m not about to hide it” (Connell 213, emphasis
orig-
inal). When this user resisted her own corporeality, Spanx
operated as
a way of concealing and minimizing visibility. As Fa(t)shion
February
demonstrates, however, fashion also offers a mode of
communication

42. that challenges hegemonic structures of power that devalue fat
bodies
and instead affirm the physicality and reality of the body.
While “shoving myself into spanx” suggests an active effort to
conform to gender expectations, the undergarment also operates
as a
way of obscuring the construction of gender norms. Spanx
originated
to conceal “unflattering” lumps and is currently marketed as a
way to
“eliminate visible panty lines” (“Shaping Shorts”). The Spanx
aes-
thetic emphasizes the categories of smoothness and
seamlessness, both
as a description of the garment’s confining effects on actual
bodies
and as a mode of rendering gender differentiation a naturalized,
seam-
less process. The terminology of shaping is reminiscent of
Roland
Barthes’s 1957 review of the Citro€en DS, in which he
emphasizes the
smoothness of the car. As he writes, “Smoothness is always an
attri-
bute of perfection because its opposite reveals a technical and
typi-
cally human operation of assembling: Christ’s robe was
seamless, just
as the airships of science-fiction are made of unbroken metal”
(qtd. in
O’Mahony 482). In The Handbook of Fashion Studies, Marie
O’Mahony
quotes Barthes in order to position seamlessness as a futuristic
aesthetic. Barthes also describes “the old mystical dream of the
‘seamless’” in The Fashion System (Barthes 137).

43. Simultaneously exem-
plified in Christ’s robe and spaceships, the seamless is both
mystical
and futuristic—a traditional religious belief and a high-tech,
modern
Spanx and Shaping the Female Body 185
innovation. As a product ensuring gender conformity through
bodily
binding, Spanx operates on a traditional level while leveraging
inno-
vations in manufacturing materials. Spanx also seeks to rebrand
the
history of body restriction as a feminist development by
constructing
a progressive and personal narrative about its female founder.
Spanx emerged from a long history of body restriction products
that use technological innovation to emphasize smoothness.
These
foundation garments work to conceal mechanisms of body
sculpting
so that they do not show through outerwear. The history of such
gar-
ments reveals how relations of power and gender differentiation
have
mapped onto bodies via women’s vestments. The corset, worn
by
women since the late Renaissance, for example, “was an
essential ele-
ment of fashionable dress for about 400 years” (Steele 1).
However,
the corset has also been widely reviled as an “instrument of

44. torture,”
whose users often experienced organ compression and
limitations in
lung capacity (Steele 1). In the 1920s, the girdle and bra largely
replaced the corset, but shaped silhouettes never ceased. In
February
1947, French fashion designer Christian Dior debuted the New
Look,
which emphasized rounded shoulders, a long and full skirt, and
a
cinched waist—thus generating “the revival of fashionable
corsetry”
(Fields 257). Along with Dior’s New Look, the Merry Widow
corset,
introduced in 1952, signaled “the widespread interest in corsets
as
sexual fashion objects after the war” (Fields 267). As Jill Fields
notes
in An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and Sexuality, the
Merry
Widow corset “was both a nostalgic throwback and an up-to-
date
means of eroticizing the female body via restriction” (Fields
267).
Much like Spanx, the corset thus emblematized the polysemy of
the
seamless—a combination of tradition and innovation that
conceals
the construction of gender differentiation while rendering the
body
smooth and seemingly seamless.
Like other foundation garments, Spanx has benefited from the
technological innovation of synthetic materials that variously
ensure
comfort, support, and durability. In October 1938, DuPont

45. announced the discovery of a new synthetic yarn called nylon,
and
later, in 1958, also developed Lycra, which they put into
production
in 1960 (Fontanel 110). Spanx primarily makes their shapewear
using
synthetic fibers while occasionally adding cotton gussets. Most
prod-
ucts include a combination of nylon and spandex, Lycra, or
elastane.
The materials ensure the shaping effect while also allegedly
allowing
186 Maggie Unverzagt Goddard
a fit that provides stretch and comfort. In addition to assuming
the
historic legacy of bodily binding, Spanx must also respond to
claims
for comfort emblematic of the current athleisure trend, which
incorporates athletic apparel-like leggings and yoga pants into
casual
leisurewear. In 2014, the women’s activewear market grew 8
percent
to $15.9 billion, compared to the market for women’s
shapewear,
which fell 3 percent to $678 million (Tabuchi). Shapewear is
clearly
still a profitable industry, yet its comparative decline illustrates
the
impetus for Spanx to paradoxically position its product as a way
for
women to empower themselves. By emphasizing its founder’s
narrative as a female success story that potentially elevates

46. other
women within a capitalist economy, Spanx frames its product as
feminist. The company couples this narrative with
“empowering”
slogans that seemingly celebrate women’s bodies while still
selling a
product based on the assumption of their inherent failures.
Historically, companies marketing foundation garments have
prof-
ited from women hoping to mold their bodies into an ideal form
to
fit gender norms. While Spanx continues this tradition, the
company
also uses “feminist” slogans to conflate commercialism with
female
empowerment, often by emphasizing the upward trajectory of its
founder, Sara Blakely. By filtering empowerment through
market
logics, Spanx demonstrates the complexity of commodifying
and con-
suming allegedly feminist ideologies. The intimacies of Spanx
depend
on a paradox: that a product reliant on women’s insecurities
allegedly
empowers women. Such tensions appear in the relationship
between
celebrities and Spanx, which celebrities use as a tool to engage
with
audiences. Celebrities, icons of an idealized female form,
invoke
Spanx to simultaneously disrupt and perpetuate practices of
bodily
pleasure and discipline, thus revealing how ideologies immanent
in
objects of popular culture interpellate the body.

47. Recognizing consumer demand for comfort and increased
discus-
sion on fat-shaming, Spanx began inserting message cards into
their
packaging with “feminist inspiration”—including phrases like
“Don’t
take yourself or the ‘rules’ too seriously” and “Re-shape the
way you
get dressed, so you can shape the world!” (Tabuchi). Through
these
slogans, Spanx frames their products as simultaneously self-
effacing
and empowering, yet they ignore how their marketing depends
on
women subscribing to a particular aesthetic that values thin over
fat
bodies. While circulating these allegedly feminist phrases, their
Web
Spanx and Shaping the Female Body 187
site also sold swimwear with the tagline, “Make a splash
without
making waves!” An advertisement for bodysuits proclaimed,
“Hide 5
pounds in 5 minutes!” (“SPANX by Sara Blakely,” 27 Apr.
2015).
While Spanx leverages language that seemingly celebrates
women’s
bodies, the company instructs consumers about their bodily
flaws in
order to sell their products. Within this framework, body
acceptance

48. is conditional on the purchase of Spanx.
Spanx combines its allegedly feminist messaging with a
carefully
produced narrative about their founder, Sara Blakely, to again
posi-
tion the purchase of their product as an act of female solidarity
and
feminist success. Its Web site contains a link on the homepage
that
invites users to click and learn more about their founder. Spanx
prominently displays her narrative, “Sara’s Story,” in order to
craft its
product as a form of female empowerment cleverly coupled with
a
sense of play. The Spanx Web site has featured a personalized
section
on its founder since its initial launch in September 2002
(“SPANX
by Sara Blakely,” 23 Sep. 2002). The origin story highlights
Bla-
kely’s ascent to becoming “the world’s youngest self-made
female bil-
lionaire” (“Sara Blakely Bio”). Frustrated by the way her butt
looked
in white pants, Blakely cut the feet out of a control top
pantyhose
and developed an idea for a product that would not roll up her
leg.
As the current story goes, “With $5000 she saved from selling
fax
machines door-to-door, she wrote her own patent, begged
manufac-
turers to make a prototype (everyone thought she was crazy),
and
cold-called buyers” (“Sara Blakely Bio”). The narrative engages

49. read-
ers through its materiality—her white pants, her perfected
prototype,
and her lucky red backpack, which she wore to her first meeting
with
Neiman Marcus. Her story invites consumers to identify with
her
through shared insecurities, self-deprecating humor, and sheer
temerity.
As the face of Spanx, Sara Blakely solidifies the constructed
con-
nection between capitalism and female empowerment. In 2010,
she
established the Leg Up program. Recognizing the “big break”
that
Oprah Winfrey facilitated for Blakely by naming Spanx a
“Favorite
Thing,” according to the program Web site, “We at Spanx want
to
pay it forward and give other amazing women entrepreneurs
their leg
up!” (“Giving Women a Leg Up”). The Leg Up prize package
includes features in the Spanx catalogue, on the Web site, and
via
social media, as well as a “Lucky Red Backpack (the same kind
Sara
188 Maggie Unverzagt Goddard
used to start Spanx) [and the] opportunity to have a private chat
with
Sara” (“Giving Women a Leg Up”). As Blakely described the
pro-

50. gram, “Our goal is to provide women connections and support
in
order to unleash more of the world’s greatest untapped resource
. . .
women” (“Sara Shines the Light”). While Leg Up effectively
supports
women-owned businesses and provides exposure to female
entrepre-
neurs, the program also filters empowerment through market
logics,
thus reducing liberation to participation in capitalist systems.
The efficacy of marketing through personal connections also
char-
acterizes the ways that celebrities use Spanx to craft their own
per-
sonal brands. As a text for self-fashioning, Spanx allows
popular
figures to adhere to aesthetic feminine expectations while still
negoti-
ating such ideologies. Numerous celebrities have publicly
shared
about their use of Spanx, including Oprah, Kim Kardashian,
Katy
Perry, and Tyra Banks. Each presents a compelling case study in
the
ways that individuals relate to their audiences while shaping
both a
public persona and their physical figure. The relationship
between
Spanx and humor, as suggested by Sara Blakely, is particularly
strik-
ing. By revealing the hidden mechanisms that perpetuate the
promise
of perfection, celebrities like Tina Fey and Wanda Sykes make
visible

51. the labor behind the performance of the thin female figure
through
comedy, thus upholding bodily binding while bonding over its
con-
structed nature.
On May 7, 2015, on her final appearance on the Late Show with
David Letterman, Tina Fey walked on stage in a tight blue and
black
dress. In the clip, she tells Letterman, “I realized that when you
retire, this is it. Like, I’m never gonna wear a fancy dress on a
talk
show again. First of all, it’s very hard work. I don’t know if
you’re
aware of the contraptions under here. It’s almost medical”
(“Tina Fey
Strips Down”). In addition to explaining the intense labor and
seem-
ingly medical technologies that enable Fey to appear
appropriately
feminine for a late night talk show, she says that she dresses up
“out
of respect for [Letterman].” Her remarks evoke notions of
gender per-
formativity, as articulated by Judith Butler, who defines gender
iden-
tity as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated
acts
within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to
pro-
duce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being”
(45). Fey
names the cultural demand for female celebrities to repeatedly
per-
form a specific set of acts, including wearing a formfitting dress
and

52. Spanx and Shaping the Female Body 189
Spanx on a nationally televised late night talk show, which
coheres to
create the constructed notion of gender.
In addition to articulating the performance of gender, Fey also
visu-
ally embodies its production. As Fey says, “Because this is my
last time
wearing a fancy dress on a talk show and conforming to gender
norms
out of respect for you, my gift to you is I want to give you the
dress.”
She proceeds to remove her dress and make visible the labor
behind
the performance of the thin female figure. She strips down to
her nude
bra, thigh-shaper, and black slimming bodysuit, which has
“BYE
DAVE!” printed across the crotch and “#LastDressEver”
covering her
buttocks. Fey’s comedy emphasizes the performative energies
demanded from female celebrities for public appearances with
particu-
lar male figures, namely David Letterman. Although her
sincerity in
demonstrating respect is debatable, her embodiment of female
perfor-
mance flags entrenched gender inequalities in aesthetic labor.
Fey uses Spanx as a tool to engage with audiences by
negotiating

53. the semiological order of fashion. As Roland Barthes writes in
The
Fashion System, “Fashion thus appears essentially. . . as a
system of sig-
nifiers” (Barthes 280). Fey displays her Spanx ensemble to
signal the
constructed nature of female aesthetic labor, yet she
simultaneously
upholds standards of normative beauty, including the thin ideal.
As
an intervention in the predominant invisibility of the
construction of
femininity, Fey acts against the logics of the desire to conceal
shaping
mechanisms yet simultaneously reinforces an investment in
appearing
thin. The polysemic Spanx reflects the communicative
possibilities of
culture and fashion, as described by sociologist Dick Hebdige.
In
Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Hebdige offers a robust
account of
culture “as systems of communication, forms of expression and
repre-
sentation. . . [and] ‘coded exchanges of reciprocal messages’”
(129). As
a form of communication, the multivalent Spanx operates as the
material site of exchanged meanings over the (in)visibility of
con-
structed feminine identity. Spanx seeks to erase its own
construction,
yet by literally revealing the mechanisms of female
performance, Tina
Fey disrupts its seamlessness.
Like Tina Fey, Wanda Sykes couples comedic critique with

54. acknowledging the expectations of feminine aesthetics, but she
also
highlights the intersectionality of identity in order to critically
exam-
ine how the specter of whiteness shapes the idealized female
body.
She addresses Spanx in a routine from I’ma Be Me, her HBO
comedy
190 Maggie Unverzagt Goddard
special that premiered in October 2009, which she also used as
mate-
rial on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Sykes approaches the
subject by
acknowledging the effects of age on the female body and
disclosing
that she wears Spanx when on camera. She tells DeGeneres,
“I’m not
going to lie with you, Ellen, it’s Spanx.” In connecting with her
audience, Sykes uses Spanx to demonstrate her down-to-earth
honesty
and her own bodily flaws. She constructs her relatable persona
through a humorous anecdote about the fat in her stomach area,
which she named Esther. “Esther is a beast,” she says in I’ma
Be Me.
“Loves bread and alcohol.” After describing—and bodily
enacting—
when Esther took the wheel and attempted to drive Sykes to The
Cheesecake Factory, Sykes then recounts when she put Esther in
Spanx for her appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
and her
stomach rolled out. By naming and impersonating an
“unflattering”

55. body part, Sykes uses the concerns that Spanx elicits for
comedic
effect.
Sykes’s performance in I’ma Be Me and her appearance on
Ellen dif-
fer in their endings, which reveal how her black identity
informs her
performance of gender and respectability. Film and media
studies
scholar Bambi Haggins explores how black comedians negotiate
the
skewing and reinforcing of racial stereotypes, including Sykes’s
own
adopted identity as “BBF, or Black Best Friend” on shows like
Curb
Your Enthusiasm (Haggins). At the beginning of I’ma Be Me,
Sykes
interrogates the internalization of racial stereotypes, especially
through “the politics of respectability, the black middle-class
reaction
to the stereotype of the Jezebel and myths about primitive black
sex-
uality” (Mizejewski 157). In her performance, she recalls,
“When I
was growing up, my mother wouldn’t even let us dance in the
car.
We were sitting in the car, and a good song would come on the
radio. She would stop the car.” According to Sykes, her mother
would
ask, “Do you want to dance or do you want a ride? Because you
aren’t
dancing in my car. White people are looking at you!” Although
ini-
tially incredulous, Sykes realized that “she was right” and
recognized

56. the realities of white surveillance and the demand for bodily
com-
portment in respectability politics.
Sykes extends the notion of the white gaze into her comedy
about
her unruly body and Spanx. When she performs her routine on
Spanx
in I’ma Be Me, Sykes describes looking down and realizing that
“Esther is climbing out of the Spanx on national TV. I look
down,
Spanx and Shaping the Female Body 191
and there’s Esther: ‘Hey, Jay!’ Fuck you, Esther. White people
are
looking at you!” When recounting the same story on Ellen,
Sykes
refrains from the final comment of naming the white gaze—yet
the
camera pans to DeGeneres’s white audience and effectively
illustrates
the point. Spanx therefore functions as a form of bodily
restraint that
shapes race and gender, in addition to other intersecting identity
cat-
egories. Emerging from the Spanx, Esther repudiates
respectability
politics and ignores the white gaze, as Sykes details how
whiteness
functions as a restrictive force. As feminist film theorist Linda
Mize-
jewski writes, “The punch line exposes whiteness as the
appraising

57. gaze that disciplines bodies into restrictive shapewear for them
to be
acceptable. . . And it confirms the white nature of prettiness in
the
comedy of women who find the conventions of attractiveness
funny”
(189). Sykes uses Spanx as a tool for crafting her own relatable
per-
sona but also for detailing the practices of white surveillance
that seek
to control the black female body.
Both Tina Fey and Wanda Sykes invoke Spanx to disrupt
practices
of bodily discipline while still engaging in the performance of
gender
differentiation. Their public discussions of Spanx render visible
the
construction of the idealized female body and recognize the
labor
behind aesthetics. While Spanx positions its products as
“essentials”
for women, Fey and Sykes demonstrate how current fashion
necessi-
tates hidden mechanisms of bodily restriction in order for
“deviant”
fat to adhere to thin expectations. Spanx continues its shift
toward
emphasizing comfort, yet their Web site still features
predominantly
thin white or light skinned models. While allegedly shifting
away
from fat shaming, Spanx maintains connections with other
intersect-
ing hegemonic discourses that mediate its multivalent messages.
While providing connections and public exposure to women-

58. owned
businesses is one approach to creating more opportunities for
certain
women to enter capitalist enterprises, the appropriation of
feminist
messaging falls far short of female empowerment without
interrogat-
ing broader connections to forms of oppression.
Note
1. Although Spanx has been manufacturing products for men
since 2010, including shirts and
underwear, the company primarily targets a female
demographic, which is the project of this
paper.
192 Maggie Unverzagt Goddard
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. Translated by Matthew
Ward
and Richard Howard, U of California P, 1990.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1990.
Connell, Catherine. “Fashionable Resistance: Queer ‘Fa(t)shion’
Blogging as Counterdiscourse.” Women’s Studies Quarterly,
vol. 41,
nos. 1 and 2, 2013, pp. 209–24.

59. Entertainment Tonight. “Tina Fey Strips Down to Her Spanx in
Honor of David Letterman.” YouTube, 7 May 2015.
Fields, Jill. An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and
Sexuality. U of
California P, 2007.
Fontanel, B�eatrice. Support and Seduction: The History of
Corsets and
Bras. Translated by Willard Wood, Abradale Press, 1992.
“Giving Women a Leg Up.” Spanx, Dec. 2015,
www.spanx.com/leg-
up.
Haggins, Bambi. “Black Laughter Matters: Black Comedy and
The
Dreams Deferred in the Age of Obama.” Television, Race, and
Re-
Visioning the American Dream Symposium, Brown U, 4 Dec.
2015.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Routledge,
1979.
Mizejewski, Linda. Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body
Politics.
U of Texas P, 2014.
O’Mahony, Marie. “Advanced Textiles for Fashion in Science,
Litera-
ture, and Film.” The Handbook of Fashion Studies, edited by
Sandy
Black, Amy de la Haye, Joanne Entwistle, and Agn�es
Rocamora.
Bloomsbury: Regina A. Root and Helen Thomas, 2013. pp.

60. 476–93.
“Remarks by the First Lady at the Fashion Education
Workshop.”
The White House, 8 Oct. 2014, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2014/10/08/remarks-first-lady-fashion-education-
workshop.
“Sara Blakely Bio.” Spanx, Dec. 2015,
www.thespanxblog.com/sara-
blakely-bio/.
“Sara Shines the Light.” Spanx, Dec. 2015,
www.thespanxblog.com/
sara-shines-the-light/.
“Shaping Shorts.” Spanx, Dec. 2015, www.spanx.com/shorts.
Smith, Kyrsta. “Wanda Sykes Spanx.” The Ellen DeGeneres
Show, 3
Nov. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwe3XaJYfnA.
“SPANX by Sara Blakely.” Spanx, Internet Archive, 23 Sep.
2002,
web.archive.org/web/20020923135331/http://spanx.com/.
“SPANX by Sara Blakely.” Spanx, Internet Archive, 27 Apr.
2015e,
web.archive.org/web/20150427014056/http://www.spanx.com/.
Steele, Valerie. The Corset: A Cultural History. Yale UP, 2001.
Spanx and Shaping the Female Body 193
http://www.spanx.com/leg-up
http://www.spanx.com/leg-up
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

61. office/2014/10/08/remarks-first-lady-fashion-education-
workshop
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2014/10/08/remarks-first-lady-fashion-education-
workshop
http://www.thespanxblog.com/sara-blakely-bio/
http://www.thespanxblog.com/sara-blakely-bio/
http://www.thespanxblog.com/sara-shines-the-light/
http://www.thespanxblog.com/sara-shines-the-light/
http://www.spanx.com/shorts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwe3XaJYfnA
http://spanx.com/
http://spanx.com/
http://www.spanx.com/
Sykes, Wanda. I’ma Be Me. HBO, 10 Oct. 2009.
Tabuchi, Hiroko. “Spanx Tries to Loosen Up Its Image.” New
York
Times, 24 Apr. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/
spanx-tries-to-loosen-up-its-image.html.
Walano, Rose. “Michelle Obama Admits She Wears Spanx
‘With
Pride’ During Fashion Education Workshop at the White
House.” US Weekly, 10 Oct. 2014, www.usmagazine.com/celeb-
rity-style/news/michelle-obama-loves-spanx-hosts-fashion-
work-
shop-at-white-house-pictures-20141010.
Maggie Unverzagt Goddard is a PhD student in American
Studies and
Public Humanities at Brown University.
194 Maggie Unverzagt Goddard

62. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/spanx-tries-to-
loosen-up-its-image.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/spanx-tries-to-
loosen-up-its-image.html
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-style/news/michelle-
obama-loves-spanx-hosts-fashion-workshop-at-white-house-
pictures-20141010
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-style/news/michelle-
obama-loves-spanx-hosts-fashion-workshop-at-white-house-
pictures-20141010
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-style/news/michelle-
obama-loves-spanx-hosts-fashion-workshop-at-white-house-
pictures-20141010