Written by Michael Bassick U1011473
Introduction.
This blog post will be looking at the catalogue advert
for the Mega push up bra featuring Andrej Pejic, An androgynous model, who is
biologically male but has a feminine look. I will be looking at this with a feminist
perspective and discussing gender theory in particular.
FIG. 1, Daan, W. (2011) Mega
push-up Bra [online] Available at: http://andrejpejicpage.tumblr.com/post/14159120248/andrej-pejic-for-hema-mega-push-up-bra
(Accessed: 1 March 2012).
The Image above FIG. 1
(Daan, 2011) shows the model Andrej Pejic posing for an advert to promote the
mega push up bra. The Advert caused some controversies as some people reacted
negatively.
One of the strongest
negative reactions came from a tabloid article titled ‘Fashion's
ultimate insult to women: The latest way of demeaning real women is a male
model dressed as a girl’ written by Amanda Platell. (Platell, 2011) The web
link below leads to the article.
Platell, A (2011) ‘Fashion's
ultimate insult to women: The latest way of demeaning real women is a male
model dressed as a girl’ mail online, 25 February [online] available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1360460/Andrej-Pejic-Fashions-ultimate-insult-women-man-dresses-woman.html
(accessed: 1 march 2012).
Platell argues points in a
way that feels like they have meaning to them but if you examining them closely
they read likes mindless, driveling hate speech espoused by the like of social
conservatives in America such as Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robinson who’s rhetoric consists of puritanical
moralism. The article was most likely
written to get people's attention and to sell more newspapers as the article's points
are invalidate and idiotic at best but the article does express sentiments that
are held within certain segments of society.
This concept of Gender performance, Gender play or Gender Change,
in this particular case to have a male represent a female role or feminine role,
has existed through out history. There were biological
males who were eunuchs; due to their status they occupied a unique position in
the gender spectrum not being male, female or androgynous. Their roles were
normally interchangeable from masculine to feminine. These individuals existed During the
Mesopotamia and also with ancient Mayan culture. Gender play can also clearly
be seen during the time of the ancient Greeks with their myths of gender
switching god and goddess. The Galli priests, in ancient Rome, who worshiped the
Goddess Cybele, would castrate and beautify themselves to look feminine as a
way to express their faith to their god. Moving forward to modern times towards
the late 20th century, gender
performance becomes more popular in media with such films like the Naked Civil
Servant (1975), where the main protagonist who is male takes on a more feminine
role for the film. Another film, that also deals with this is The Crying Game (1992), that featured a male
androgynous actor called Jaye Davidson who for the purpose of the film played
an individual pretending to be a female. This relates to the mega push up bra advert
(FIG, 1) as it’s a performance to illustrate the characters Gender role in the film.
All these examples show that gender isn’t entirely biologically mutable and
come into a wider variety of gender expression and social conformity. The study
of this is called Gender Theory.
The tenets of gender theory are
that gender is a social construction and is a performance by individuals that
are assigned male or female at birth by their biological genitalia. From that point they are also assigned gender roles,
which restricts their expression of their behavior to comfort to what society
deems acceptable for male and female roles e.g. girls playing with dolls and
boys playing with toy cars.
Judith Butler (1999), foremost
expert on gender theory, outlines some of the dynamics of Gender Theory in her
book Gender trouble (1999) when she wrote
The performance of drag plays upon the distinction between the
anatomy of the performer and the gender that is being performed. But we are
actually in the presence of three contingent dimensions of significant
corporeality: anatomical sex, gender identity, and gender performance. If the
anatomy of the performer is already distinct from the gender performer, and
both of those are distinct from the gender of the performance, then the
performance suggests a dissonance not only between sex and performance, but sex
and gender, and gender and performance. As much as drag creates a unified
picture of “woman” (what its critics often oppose), it also reveals the
distinctiveness of these aspects of gendered experience, which are falsely
naturalized as unity through the regulatory fiction of heterosexual coherence. In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals
the imitative structure of gender itself-as well as its contingency. (Butler,
1999, p.175)
What Butler is saying here and
how it applies to FIG. 1 (Daan, 2011) above is that there are 3 perspective of
gender at play, ones gender identity ones anatomical sex and ones gender
performance.This concept separates biological sex and gender. In the case of the advert
above the model ‘Andrej Pejic’ is genetically and anatomically male but Identifies
as an androgynous individual but for the purposes of this advert the model is
performing a role of a women to promote the product. This can be seen as gender
play similar to the Actor Jaye Davidson in the film the crying game (1992). Andrej Pejic is using his feminine features
in addition with the cosmetics and female clothing to create the achieved
feminine appearance for the advert.
One of the goals of this advert
is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the bra and in many ways it has achieved
this by simply using a male model over a female model it can show how a piece
of clothing has efficiently given the androgynous male model the figure of the
woman. So if it can make a male look as though he has breasts then for a woman
it should produce a better affect. Further more this may also attract a new
audience for the product with male transvestites from this advert.
The advert itself doesn’t
actually show the bra but only the effect it has under clothing, as the model
wouldn’t have the conventional body to advertise the bra in a traditional way.
This is shown in FIG. 2 (below) with model Andrej Pejic posing topless.
FIG. 2, Lohr, T (date unknown), i
– D [online], Available at: http://thomaslohr.com/site/?page_id=155
(accessed: 20th April 2012)
The image below (FIG, 3) illustrates a typical bra
advertisement from the clothing line George.
FIG.
3, George style (2010) Entice Glam spot padded bra [advertisement].
Available at: http://georgestyle.george.com/2010/11/28/a-lingerie-buying-guide-for-your-man
(Accessed: 20 April 2012)
The Differences in execution for the advertisements are very
apparent when compared. The product of the bra is presented more directly in FIG, 3 with the model wearing nothing
but the bra in the picture.
Chafetz, J. (1978) says “It should be clear that when the terms “masculine” and “feminine” are used, it is
assumed that the characteristics in question are socially prescribed and
individually learned, and hence changeable, phenomena; they are not innate to
the organism.” (Chafetz, J. 1978, p. 4). This quotes from Chafetz explains that
the concepts of masculinity and femininity are just societal constructions that
individual adopt as part of their gender role. This in forces the principles of
Genders theory and is also demonstrated in FIG. 1 with the pose the
model (Pejic) has chosen. The body language are timid yet inviting to the
viewer and the way the model has placed his arms forwards slightly inwards
towards his chest to amplify the effect of the bra. This shows a desire to
reach a feminine appearance for the Advert.
So it can be seen through out history in modern day cultures that the
traits of Gender theory are present and this idea of gender being a social
construction has some weight to it.
Now looking into the cracks of the theory and acknowledging them brings a
few issue to look at such as although the theory is based on studies a lot of
the theory chooses to ignore or overlook the possibility of biological roots in
the gender scheme of things.
Steven Pinker, an advocate of evolutionary psychology, speaks about free
will in a video from YouTube.com
(Bigthink, 2011). . He speaks
about how the brain is wired and controls our choices based on options
given. Pinker says, “ … Our behaviours
are the product of physical processes in the brains.” (Bigthink, 2011). With this quote you could argue that the way
we feel, act and think are down to our biology because at our most basic we are
chemical based creatures who react to the world through our senses and the processes
the brain makes. This could infer that
how someone chooses to act feminine or masculine or, in the case of transsexuals,
wanting to become the opposite sex isn’t always a part of social construction
but may be deeper rooted in our biology with the way your brain and body
chemicals are telling you how you feel you are or should be in terms of your
gender identity, gender role and anatomical sex.
Christina Hoff Sommers wrote In the book ‘The War Against boys’,
explaining the ideas of Dr Nancy Marshall, saying “According to Marshall, A
child’s sexual Identity is Learned by observing others.” (Sommers, 2000)
This Idea isn’t 100% fact that should be noted. Although an individual
who is born and grows up should be affected by their environment that they’re
raised in along with social and cultural principles that are embedded in that
environment. But placing a set of these conventions
of gender on the individual and saying that the individual will conform even if
the gender roles/ performance, gender identity and anatomical sex do not match
any innate biological gender behaviours of the subject is presumptuous to
degree.
Colapinto, J (2004), in his online article, outlines the Case of David
Reimer, an individual who was born a biological boy in 1965, with his twin
brother. But Reimer suffered a serious accident at the hand of the medical
practitioner during a circumcision at 8 months old, which mutilated his penis
beyond repair. His parents, who were distraught
over the matter and not sure what to do, were eventually referred to Dr John
Money, one of the worlds leading experts in gender Identity at the time. He put
the ideas forward that Reimer parents could raise David as a girl and to give
him a surgical sex change. Dr Money’s ideas were that this would solve the
issues as he grows up he would identify as girl and the rest would fall into
place.
Dr Money claimed that everything was a success and David now called
Brenda was happy as a girl. The
unfortunate truth is that Brenda suffered many problems with adapting to female
life as Colapinto (2004) explains
At age
2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and
would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns. In school, she was
relentlessly teased for her masculine gait, tastes, and behaviors. She
complained to her parents and teachers that she felt like a boy; the adults—on
Dr. Money's strict orders of secrecy—insisted that she was only going through a
phase. (Colapinto 2004)
It’s with this we can identify that the individual (David Reimer) wasn’t
accepting the social conventions place upon him. It was later at the age
of 14 that David was eventually told the truth about his biology from his
parents. Colapinto, J (2004) quotes David Reimer saying "Suddenly it all made sense why I
felt the way I did. I wasn't some sort of weirdo. I wasn't crazy." With
this quote we can gather that the individual had underlining feelings that he
belonged in another gender binary other then one he was placed in. This harkens back to the point raised earlier
about who or what we are could be deeper rooted in our
biology.
A quote from Bornstein, K (1995) from her book ‘Gender Outlaw’ expresses
her thoughts as a transsexual woman on gender identity. Bornstein writes
Gender Identity answers the
questions, “who am I?” Am I a man or a woman or a what? It’s a decision made by
nearly every individual, and it’s subject to any influence: peer pressure,
advertising, drugs, cultural definitions of gender, whatever. (Bornstein, 1995, p. 24)
With this quote the principle is established explaining what gender
identity is and how it is developed. Bornstien (1995, p. 24) goes on to explain
that, as a transsexual woman, she does not feel like a woman as she will never
know how a biological female truly feels to be a woman but she does explain
that she was certain she did not feel like a boy or man through the absence of
feeling connected to these gender groups and this convinced her to transition
from male to female.
What this demonstrates is the wider scale of gender. That Gender Identity
does not just fall into the two main categories of male and female but there
exist another alternative or alternatives to these. Andrej Pejic (model from FIG.
1) chooses to be recognised as androgynous for their Gender Identity. This
term of using androgyny as gender identifier is being used in many other places
for example a YouTube channel and Facebook, called Androgentics, operated by 5
individuals who all differ on their gender performance but also consider themselves
androgynous with their Gender Identities. The links below is to one of its
members individual channel videos.
TheMetallicSharpie (2011) True Life: I'm a Jeffree Star Wannabe. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrW9TlvSZkk&context=C41c42d3ADvjVQa1PpcFP3Qc8Cav4N5ceMllhubRfCe5ghEDrYcqE= (Accessed: 14th April 2012)
This just shows that the concepts
of a wider spectrum to gender is present and that gender can act more fluid
rather than conforming to one or the other (male or female).
In conclusion although gender theory is correct in
areas to state that certain behaviours by the sexes are indeed social
constructions. It is indeed however
wrong to assert the extreme, that all gender attributes and behaviours are
nothing but social constructions. It is thus made clear that the assertion by
proponents of gender theory such as Judith butler who argue that gender is
nothing but performativity and is based on socio-cultural constructions. This
is only a partial truth and it is shown in the case of David Reimer that
certain gender behaviours may have innate biologic roots that go deeper and
beyond socio-culture idioms. It can also be seen that there is a possibility to
more than just the socially accepted male and female gender binaries. With Gender
Theory it’s clear that the biological root notions can be incorporated into the
theory to better understand the individual over the generalized Groups.
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