Ok, as promised I went into a local store and did this
research:
http://instagr.am/p/KK-RXOwWyt/ I
have to say I genuinely expected that I might have to admit to
being wrong. I'm pleasantly surprised the say I don't think I
was!
But first, just to say, I felt like a bit of an idiot taking
a photo and then jotting down notes in the shop. Which turned
into feeling like a right prat when one of the shop assisstants
asked what I was doing ;)
Anyway.
It's immediately obvious from the photo (which cuts off a
portion either side of the stand, sorry) that there are a LOT of
women on these covers. However things break down in an
interesting way. The vast majority of covers featuring a woman,
clustered to the right hand side halfway up, are female interest
magazine (fashion, gossip, etc.). Targetted at women they almost
exclusively feature a photo of a woman - but they are fully
clothed, it is often a headshot and the focus is fashion/style
(or a celebrity). I don't think these are sexist.
Below them are another set of female interest mags - home and
hearth. None of these feature a woman on the cover (though some
have a person as a wider part of the image).
Opposite these are two male-targetted types of magazine. On
the middle shelf cars etc. and on the lower shelf computers.
These almost entirely feature no people at all - with the
exception of one PC mag which features a tasteful headshot of a
computer generated woman (I'm willing for this to be included in
the next set of figures, if you like) and a few with men on the
covers.
Which leaves us the top shelf - a total of 10 magazines, 5
each targetted at men and women. Of the 5 targetted at men you
can see that 4 are obviously feature an amount of nudity
sexualisation (although there is no actual bits on show). The
fifth male targetted mag features a woman as well, dressed, but
with a bared shoulder and a sexualised pose.
Of the female-oriented magazines three of them feature a man
with his top off. One doesn't feature a person on the cover. And
one (ironically going back to the blog post linked last night)
features a man with his top button undone... and water spilling
down his chin and onto his chest.
I make that 5:4, or 6:4 if you want to include the other
image.
My conclusions?
Sex sells to men and women, somewhat equally. Tasteful
pictures of women sell to women. Cars and digital imagery sell
to men.
Tom
On 2 May 2012 22:52, Ryan Kaldari
<rkaldari@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
On 5/2/12 2:38 PM, Thomas Morton wrote:
On 2 May 2012 22:36, Ryan
Kaldari
<rkaldari@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Seriously though, it doesn't seem that
controversial to say that mainstream
advertising heavily skews to female nudity.
Next time you pass a magazine stand, count the
number of covers with female nudity and male
nudity. I'll bet you a wiki-beer it's greater
than 2 to 1. Judging by the last time I was in
Paris, I would guess 10 to 1.
Ryan Kaldari
On the principle of genuine interest I will
take you up on that challenge :) and will report
back tomorrow.
Tom
I'll be very happy to be proven wrong. I'm certainly
subject to perception bias, but perception isn't always
wrong. Don't forget to take a cell-phone photo if you want
to collect your wiki-beer :)
Ryan Kaldari
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