The struggle for women to embrace their appearance has been ongoing for years; however, we now see that companies such as Dove are escaping the “skinny is beautiful” mentality through their use of plus sized models in their advertisements. Although women everywhere are relieved to see an ad that uses “real” models, is Dove’s marketing strategy not just as flawed by only using plus-sized women?
Neither company was successful in finding a happy medium between skinny and plus sized. Matthew Levesque of JRW Beauty states that “using only plus-sized women is somewhat of a double standard“. “There are naturally thin women out there and by only advertising bigger women Dove is being somewhat hypocritical”.
As bigger women look at the Victoria’s Secret advertisements they might think “am I not beautiful enough to buy this product because I am bigger?”; however, when thinner women look at the Dove campaign “it has the same result”.
Levesque brought up an interesting point in his article: instead of these companies using women from the extreme ends of the spectrum, why not create a medley of women of all shapes and sizes? Health isn’t determined by a woman’s size, which is a common misconception in today’s society due to the standard of what women “should” look like. The “thin” portrayal by media has oppressed women for so long that they are now rebutting by saying that in fact, bigger is more beautiful, but is that a just statement or is society simply shifting into the other extreme?
Sources:
http://www.shespeaks.com/Victoria-s-Secret-vs-Dove-Ad-Campaign-Photos-Ignite-Body-Image-Debate
http://jrwbeauty.com/2012/08/08/the-debate-women-in-victoria-secret-ads-vs-dove-ads/