blog 7 for chole005
Image 1 (‘what wives are for’)
This image represents the ideology of a woman as a housewife, who is responsible for all of the cooking in the household. The appeal seems to be that in buying this product the party will achieve what Naomi Wolf refers to as an old (perhaps then modern) idea of what it means to be female and the roles ascribed to being a women, as she says, ‘the happy housewife as the arbiter of successful womanhood’. The woman seems to be defined in terms of her ability to act out her role as housewife and please her husband. In addition, her adherence to concepts about what beauty is and how beautiful she is considered play into how ‘womanly’ she is considered.
Image 2 (‘Moschino’)
To me, this women looks like a prostitute, or that the image should bring to mind a prostitute. She is described as ‘cheap and chic’ and is risqué clothing. She is looked at as an object of pleasure, tied down to be an object of service rather than mutual gratification. Sirena J. Riley talks about differences between body images that are developed between African Americans and whites. Perhaps this is why she is tied down, to prevent any expression of the non-white body images, some of which are definitely more realistic, that African American culture has encouraged. Likewise, she is portrayed in an animal print; we talked about how women of color are often portrayed as animals in popular culture.