Find me this book about portrayals of women in the media

March 10, 2008 9:15 AM

Could anyone tell me the name of this feminist book I read about 10 years ago?

My mother had a book about portrayals of women in the media. It was a small-sized paperback book, extensively illustrated with examples. The basic format of the book was to show a couple of examples of pictures from the media, explain what was sexist about them and maybe show another picture with a man taking the role of the woman in the picture. I remember a lot of interesting things from the book such as about how even ads for adult women played upon the Flashdance Fantasy -- of suddenly waking up and finding out that one is a princess or marrying one's boss and becoming rich. There was something about how very rarely do you see women in ads looking directly into the camera -- more often they're looking away somewhere into the distance. It was the perfect book for me to learn about these things as a 12 year old because of its almost picture book format. I enjoyed it immensely and must have read it several times. From what I remember of the pictures the book must have been published in the 70s or 80s. If anyone has any ideas about this book is called I'd really appreciate them.

posted by peacheater to writing & language (6 comments total)

I immediately thought of Jean Kilbourne whom I saw in college touring with her video documentaries in the Killing Us Softly series. She does the same kind of work. But her book, apparently, did not come out until 1999.
posted by Miko at 9:24 AM on March 10

I think that you might be thinking of Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements (published in 1979).
posted by iminurmefi at 10:19 AM on March 10

Could it be Decoding Advertisements by Judith Williamson?

The cover on Amazon looks updated from the older version, but if you click on the look inside, there is an older picture. The copy that I have is blue (this one looks red/orange).

It was first published in 1978.
posted by unsigned at 10:31 AM on March 10

Thanks for the responses so far. I had no idea there were so many books on this subject and I look forward to checking them out. None of them is quite what I was thinking about though.
posted by peacheater at 1:35 PM on March 10

Could it be The Medium is the Massage?
posted by bendy at 4:08 PM on March 10

No I don't think it is The Medium is the Massage, though the style seems very familiar. Am beginning to think I hallucinated this book.
posted by peacheater at 9:01 PM on March 10