Significant Bits and Pieces: Learning from Fashion Magazines about Violence against Women

Abstract

Against the backdrop of high-profile advancements and expanded opportunities for women, Professor Cheryl Preston examines the implicit messages conveyed by prevalent and seemingly innocuous images in advertisements. Preston draws upon her five-year study of fashion magazines, exploring how advertisers use a variety of photography techniques (e.g. fragmentation; fungibility; gilded and contrived perfection; depiction as dolls, animals, or objects; contortion; and various plays on vulnerability) to depict as desirable women who are vulnerable, available, and insignificant. Preston asserts that these images contribute to a cultural climate that supports violence, proffering a normative view of women that in turn influences the negative treatment of women. Preston also argues that the assumptions underlying these advertising images serve as counteragents to the laws promulgated to provide greater gender equality. She concludes that legal proceedings and pro* Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. This article and a series of related articles are the results of years of concentrated study in advertising, gender, and image. I wish to thank all those who have assisted, including several students who have chosen to graduate and go on with their lives notwithstanding my continued need for their help. These include Sherrine Walker, Eric Hinton, Christopher Wall, Margaret Lindsay, and several years of students registered in my feminist legal theory seminars. I also thank my current students who have helped with research, Gunda Jarvis, Stephanie Wallace, Patty Muh, Nicole Thomas, Mathew D. McGhie, and E. Dean Stout. I am especially indebted to my colleagues in law and in media studies departments who have given suggestions on earlier drafts, Joanne Valenti, Brett G. Scharffs, James R. Rasband, J. Clifton Fleming, Jean W. Burns, Kif Augustine-Adams, and the participants in the faculty research brown-bag series at BYU. 2 UCLA WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 9:1 posed legislation should be refined in light of these powerful negative media images, programs that encourage the self-esteem and empowerment of girls and women should be supported, consumers should send the requisite message to manufacturers by resisting their products, and destructive images of women should be transformed.