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Onslaught: Commercial Speech And Gender Inequality, Tamara R. Piety

Tamara R. Piety

Utilizing Dove's infamous "Onslaught" viral ad, this Article explores the ways in which commercial speech constructs images of and attitudes toward women that interfere with full equality for women. Advertising and marketing contribute to creating a social reality in which it is taken for granted that women must spend a great deal of time on appearance and that appearance is of critical importance to life success. As is typical for much advertising, it does this by stimulating anxiety. Such anxiety contributes to low self- esteem, lowered ambitions and stereotype threat reactions, as well as to biased reactions on the part …