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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN (RE)PRESENTING GENDER
SERIES EDITOR: EMMA REES
The Cultural Politics

of Femvertising
Selling Empowerment
Edited by Joel Gwynne
Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender
Series Editor
Emma Rees
Institute of Gender Studies
University of Chester
Chester, UK
he focus of Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender is on gender and
T
representation. The ‘arts’ in their broadest sense – TV, music, film, dance,
and performance – and media re-present (where ‘to represent’ is taken in
its literal sense of ‘to present again’, or ‘to give back’) gender globally.
How this re-presentation might be understood is core to the series.
In re-presenting gendered bodies, the contributing authors can shift
the spotlight to focus on marginalised individuals’ negotiations of gender
and identity. In this way, minority genders, subcultural genders, and
gender inscribed on, in, and by queer bodies, take centre stage. When the
‘self’ must participate in and interact with the world through the body,
how that body’s gender is talked about – and side-lined or embraced by
hegemonic forces – becomes paramount. These processes of representa-
tion – how cultures ‘give back’ gender to the individual – are at the heart
of this series.
More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16541
Joel Gwynne
Editor
The Cultural Politics

of Femvertising
Selling Empowerment
Editor
Joel Gwynne
National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore, Singapore
ISSN 2662-9364 ISSN 2662-9372 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender
ISBN 978-3-030-99153-1 ISBN 978-3-030-99154-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99154-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
Joel Gwynne and Crescencia Chay
Part I East Asia 15
2 Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising and the

Failed Promise of Empowerment 17
Xintong Jia
3 “Beauty Is Growing Up”: A Critical Case Study of

Femvertising in Contemporary South Korea 39
Hyejin Jo
4 Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights and

Postfeminist Rage in Modern China 57
Runchao Liu
5 Glocalization, Marketization and Politicisation:

Femvertising at a Crossroad in China 75
Yan Wu
v
vi Contents
Part II Anglo-America 97
6 What Does It Take to Be ‘Savage’?: Diversity,

Empowerment and Representation in Rihanna’s Savage ×
Fenty Fashion Show 99
Jane Lian and Joel Gwynne
7 The Impact of Femvertising on Pink Breast Cancer

Products in Australia115
Catarina Agostino and Renee Middlemost
8 “Stay Woke. Make Moves” Branding for a Feminist

Future Amidst Pandemic Precarity141
Hannah Curran-Troop, Rosalind Gill, and Jo Littler
9 “We Are What We Do”: Postfeminism and Nostalgia in

Bank Femvertising163
Jessica Martin
Part III South America 191
10 The Femvertising of Beauty: Rhinoplasty of the Negroid

Nose in Brazil193
Carole Myers
11 Femvertising and Commodity Feminism: The Brazilian

Context215
Soraya Barreto Januário
Index235
Notes on Contributors
Catarina Agostino is a doctoral candidate at the University of

Wollongong. Her research interests are in the disciplines feminism and
celebrity studies, with a particular focus on breast cancer representation in
the media.
Crescencia Chay is a graduate of the Teaching Scholars Programme at
the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her research interests lie
in the fields of feminism and gender studies, and her work has been pub-
lished in Film International.
Hannah Curran-Troop is a doctoral candidate in the Department of
Sociology at City, University of London and she also works at the Gender
and Sexualities Research Centre. Her PhD researches feminist creative and
cultural enterprises in London, with particular interests in affective labour,
contemporary feminism, precarity, and neoliberalism in London’s creative
industries. Jo Littler and Rosalind Gill are joint supervisors to this project.
Rosalind Gill is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director
of the Gender & Sexualities Research Centre at City, University of London.
Some of her books include Gender and Creative Labour (Wiley, 2015),
Aesthetic Labour: Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism (Palgrave, 2017),
Creative Hubs in Question: Place, Space and Work in the Creative
Economy (Palgrave, 2019) and The Confidence Cult(ure) (Duke UP,
forthcoming).
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Joel Gwynne is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of

Education, Singapore, where he teaches cultural studies and literature. His
edited books include Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood
Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Ageing, Popular Culture and
Contemporary Feminism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and his research
has been published in Feminist Theory, Feminist Media Studies, Journal
of Contemporary Asia and Journal of Gender Studies.
Soraya Barreto Januário is an Adjunct Professor at the Federal University
of Pernambuco, Brazil, where she teaches advertising and gender studies.
Her books include Masculinity in (re)construction: gender, body and
advertising (Labcom, 2016), and Women in field: the ethos of women soc-
cer fã from Pernambuco (Fontanelle, 2019). Xintong Jia is a doctoral can-
didate in Sociology at City, University of London. Her research interests
center around media and gender, Foucauldian theory, (post)feminism in
China, and consumer culture.
Xintong Jia is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at City, University of
London. Her project examines reality dating shows to explore female sub-
jectivity and the changing gender relations in contemporary China, shifts
in the way that intimacy is practised, and the dynamics of (post)feminism.
Her research interests centre around media and gender, (post)feminism in
China, consumer culture, and qualitative research methods. Prior to com-
ing to City, Xintong received an MA in Media and Cultural Studies, a BA
in Media and Communication Studies, and worked as a journalist and a
micro filmmaker.
Hyejin Jo is a doctoral candidate in the School of Communication at
Simon Fraser University, Canada. Her research interests are broadly popu-
lar culture, feminism, and ICT.
Jane Lian is an English Language and Literature teacher in Singapore.
She graduated from the Teaching Scholars Programme at National
Institute of Education, and she was the recipient of the British
Council Book Prize in 2021. Her research interests lie in the fields of
feminism and gender studies.
Jo Littler is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of
the Gender & Sexualities Research Centre at City, University of London.
Her books include Radical Consumption? Shopping for Change in
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix
Contemporary Culture (Open UP, 2008) Against Meritocracy (2018) and

the co-written Care Manifesto (Verso, 2020).
Runchao Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Film,
and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver and a visiting scholar
at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University. Liu
specializes in critical cultural studies with a primary focus on the
intersectional politics of subcultural media and alternative activisms.
Liu also serves as a co-editor of Teaching Media Quarterly. You may
find her/their published and forthcoming academic writings in
Cinéma & Cie, Critical Asian Studies, M/C: A Journal of Media and
Culture and edited collections Critical Race Media Literacy and Sound
Affects: A User’s Guide.
Jessica Martin is a Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the
University of Leeds, UK. She is assistant editor for the European Journal
of Cultural Studies and her research include gender and inequality, nostal-
gia and politicised mediations of feminism in popular culture.
Renee Middlemost is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at the
University of Wollongong, Australia. Her research focuses on fan partici-
pation, celebrity, and popular culture, and has been featured in collections
The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema; Intercultural Communication,
Identity, and Social Movements in the Digital Age; Crank It Up: Jason
Statham - Star!; Aussie Fans: Uniquely Placed in Global Popular Culture;
and Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture. Her recent work has been
published in journals including Celebrity Studies, M/C Journal, and the
Australasian Journal of Popular Culture. She is the co-founder of the
Fan Studies Network Australasia, and a co-editor of Participations:
Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Her monograph on The
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is forthcoming with McGill
Queens University Press.
Carole Myers is a doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester
where she researches Latin American cultural studies. Her main research
interests include beauty, race, class and gender in Brazil, with a specific
focus on the practice, media representation and consumption of
rhinoplasty.
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Yan Wu is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies,

Swansea University. Her research interests centre on the social
impacts of media and communication in China with a focus on digital
media and communication technologies. Her publications appear in jour-
nals such as New Media and Society; Global Media and China; International
Journal of Digital Television, Modern Communication (现代传播) and as
book chapters in Media and Public Sphere (Palgrave Macmillan 2007),
Climate Change and Mass Media (Peter Lang 2008), Migration and the
Media (Peter Lang 2012), and Public Diplomacy and the Politics of
Uncertainty (Palgrave Macmillan 2021).
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Chinese model He Sui (third on the right) at VS show, 2018 25
Fig. 2.2 Elsa Hosk is wrapped in a dragon at VS show, 2016 28
Fig. 6.1 The runway is constructed with flora and fauna as a female
utopia104
Fig. 9.1 NatWest Processions promotional poster 177
Fig. 10.1 Look like a star article. Plástica e Beleza (issue 134, 2013) 200
Fig. 10.2 Double-page spread from cover story featuring Luiza
Valdetaro. (Plástica e Beleza, issue 136, 2013) 201
Fig. 10.3 Cover of Raça magazine edition 186 (Alcântara, Fernanda.
“A Bela Da Bahia.” Raça, ed. 186. 2014, 36–41) 205
Fig. 10.4 Header image from Facebook group “Rinoplastia Nariz
Negroide” (https://www.facebook.com/groups/
1274432482580750/permalink/3229610923729553)
(currently offline) 206
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Joel Gwynne and Crescencia Chay
Neoliberalism can be broadly defined as a political and economic rational-

ity that privileges free market enterprise, privatisation and deregulation,
resulting in the shifting of social responsibility away from the state and
onto the individual. Yet beyond this economic paradigm, societal attitudes
have also transformed to reflect the values of individualism, exceptional-
ism, autonomy, and self-empowerment needed to sustain the economic
model. Today, neoliberalism has largely eclipsed its original associations
with American and British conservatism – typified by Reagan and
Thatcher’s policies in the 1980s – and has become romanticised in the
public imagination as a cultural disposition necessary to achieve selfhood,
liberation, and empowerment. Despite these promises, neoliberalism and
consumer culture prove to be oppressive in their exclusion of social groups
that cannot meet the standards of individual responsibility and autonomy.
J. Gwynne (*)
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: joel.gwynne@nie.edu.sg
C. Chay
Independent Scholar, Singapore, Singapore
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Gwynne (ed.), The Cultural Politics of Femvertising, Palgrave
Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99154-8_1
2 J. GWYNNE AND C. CHAY
On the level of the individual, neoliberalism is also problematic for con-

sumers who strive towards both an arbitrary goal of self-empowerment
and an upward mobility that cannot be fully reached; indeed, for it is the
very nature of consumer capitalism to create new demand and new aspira-
tions to ensure that consumers remain perpetually unfulfilled and striving
for new social and economic goals.
In this cultural and political milieu, feminism occupies a fraught, uneasy
space in public and political discourse. Catherine Redfern and Kristin
Aune argue that in contemporary cultures that promote neoliberal, late
capitalist sensibilities of individualism and meritocracy, women have been
implicitly and sometimes explicitly encouraged to distance themselves
from feminism in order to present themselves as ‘empowered’, agentic
individuals.1 This postfeminist rhetoric depoliticises the ideas and ideolo-
gies of feminism and its collective goals and distils it into a commodity
value which therefore ‘fetishizes feminism’.2 The commodification of fem-
inism is further manifest in the appropriation of feminist ideologies to
market female empowerment in the form of beauty, fashion, and house-
hold products. Indeed, the ‘visibility’ of women in media and popular
culture does not translate into equality for the sexes, nor does it prove that
women are free from (implicit and overt) oppression and violence.3 Since
meaning production operates within social and historical contexts, media
representation is not exempt from the considerations of the marketplace.4
In consumer society, the objectification of women is continually repack-
aged and reinvented to take on associations of empowerment and self-
actualisation through advertising. The female body becomes a
‘battleground’ curated and policed by patriarchal forces and institutions
that sell and market these products.5 Redfern and Aune argue that this
‘body fascism’ is the result of the ‘profound cultural devaluation’ of wom-
en’s bodies’ perpetuated by advertising.6 The body becomes an object to
be shaped and controlled in order to ‘validate’ oneself as an ‘autonomous
being’.7 These notions of empowerment are divorced from the collective
gains that first and second-wave feminism were working towards, instead
focusing on reinforcing a neoliberal culture of individualism and choice
that continuously reproduces these cultural attitudes.
The societal construct of attractiveness which is so central to advertis-
ing is also indicative of other social inequalities such as ageism, racism, and
ableism that proliferate media representation. In neoliberal, late capitalist
economies, physical attractiveness or ‘beauty’ is commodified into a ‘cur-
rency system’,8 and the beauty myth seeks to dictate the behaviour of
1 INTRODUCTION 3
women, more so than just their appearance.9 As such, by ‘assigning value

to women in a vertical hierarchy’ through a ‘culturally imposed physical
standard’, the unequal power relations between the sexes are reaffirmed
through consumer culture.10 And yet, at the same time, fashion and
makeup industries claim to offer consumers a ‘democratic space’ for the
creation and enaction of ‘individual identities’ which appeal to the neolib-
eral imperative.11 The drive to aestheticise feminism through commodity
narratives and media representation has fostered a culture of inadequacy
amongst women made all the more visceral in the context of today’s tech-
nological and scientific advancements in cosmetology and cosmetic sur-
gery. This puts women in the precarious position of being bombarded
with messaging dictating their consumption of goods and services and
therefore their identities and self-esteem.
In the context of advertising, the politics of neoliberalism have infused
new complexities within a medium that has historically been problematic.
Indeed, the history of advertising has been characterised by the prolifera-
tion of stereotypes pertaining to gender, social class, nationality and eth-
nicity, and the dominance of such stereotypes can be explained through
their operation as expedient ways for producers to sell ideas to consumers
in a simplified manner.12 The vast body of scholarship concerning gender
stereotypes specifically is concerned with the ways in which social attri-
butes are assigned differentially to men and women in ways that may pro-
mote sexism and misogyny, particularly with regard to physical
characteristics and occupation status.13 More problematically, it remains
clear that the vast majority of advertising has remained committed to rein-
forcing rather than challenging such stereotypes,14 thus even in social con-
texts where women may have some kind of employment outside of the
home, adverts are more likely to represent women within the domestic
space. As Martin Eisend has argued, such representations may become
harmful when they lead to expectations and judgements from social actors
which may restrict life opportunities,15 thus eliminating gender stereo-
types has become a priority for gender and social policy in many nations
around the world.16
Advertisements are ‘vehicles for commodity narratives’ which are inex-
tricably intertwined with the neoliberal values of the marketplace.17 These
commodity narratives perpetuate ideologies that control the behaviour of
consumers through (1) engendering lack and desire and (2) promising the
fulfilment of such desires through the marketed product. Advertisements
themselves operate on the basis of interpellation, identification and
misrecognition, totemism, and differentiation. The advertisements inter-

pellate the spectator-consumer by carving out an imaginary subject in the
ad (through composition and linguistic choices such as ‘you’) that the
consumer exchanges places with. Through the construction of a mirror
image through the juxtaposition of disparate signifiers, the consumer
identifies themselves as whole and experiences a sense of (illusory) unity
that can only be achieved through the purchase of the product adver-
tised.18 Through totemism and differentiation, both the product and the
image become the stand-in for ideologies and values. Particular emphasis
is placed on highlighting sexual difference, where femininity is signified
and constructed by the accentuation of specific parts of the female body.
This is manifest in the ‘visual dissection of the female body into zones of
consumption’, with advertisers manipulating frame and composition to
accentuate parts of the female body that bring the spectator-consumer’s
attention to these signifiers of sexual difference.19 As such, representations
of womanhood and femininity tend toward the hypersexualised or hyper-
performative, privileging the feminine and other notions of sexual differ-
ence. Encoded in this system of signs are ideologies related both directly
and implicitly to the political, sexual, and cultural subservience of women.
Over the last twenty years, ‘femvertising’ has emerged as a primary
challenge to stereotypes within advertising. While the existence of feminist
messages within advertising predates the term – which debuted on the
lifestyle website SheKnows in 2014 during a panel discussion on contem-
porary advertising,20 – the years which followed witnessed an explosion of
campaigns such as P&G/Always’ Like a Girl’, Pantene’s ‘Labels Against
Women’, and Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’. These campaigns have
proven both popular and effective,21 as evidenced by the ‘Like a Girl’ cam-
paign in particular which has over 70 million views on YouTube as of
October 2021. While a number of factors may account for the popularity
of femvertising – not least the uplifting messages of positivity and empow-
erment encoded in the campaigns – research has established that consum-
ers are particularly drawn to the ways in which femvertising is proactive in
challenging stereotypes that are specifically created by the advertising
industry, a strategy which is oppositional to conventional reactive
advertising.22
The positive reception to femvertising by consumers is, of course, a
boon for brand sales, and it is within the context of the commodification
of feminism where much of the criticism of femvertising lies. Brands which
align themselves with femvertising strategies have been positioned as
1 INTRODUCTION 5
self-serving, as having no real desire to enact structural change and are

instead motivated solely by profit accumulation.23 Moreover, these brands
compromise on the ethical sourcing of labour to keep production costs
low despite priding themselves on upholding social corporate responsibil-
ity and the upliftment of marginalised social groups.24 Brands outsource
their supply chains to the developing world where labour is much cheaper,
exploitative, and abundant.25 An example of such a brand are the popular
“This is What a Feminist Looks Like” merchandise which utilises under-
paid and exploited female migrant factory workers.26 By presenting the
consumption of products as a solution to the real world problems which
women face, scholars have highlighted the uncomfortable cohabitation of
feminist values and corporate capitalism.27 While advertising delineates
femininity through the curve of the female body and other signifiers of
sexual difference, commodified feminism in advertising and the mass
media has been depicted through neoliberal values such as ‘independence,
participation in the work force, individual freedom, and self-control’,28
and is therefore a gendered reimagining of the ‘Western male ethic of pos-
sessive individualism’.29 In catering to today’s markets, advertisers conflate
these signs of femininity and feminism to ‘bridge the ideological distance’
between the two.30 As such, women’s choices in the marketplace are posi-
tioned from the perspective of choice, even though this may not be entirely
so. As such, the coalescing of commodified feminism and hypersexual-
ised/hyper-performative femininity results in a postfeminist subject con-
structed through the phallogocentricism of neoliberal values.
Brands utilising femvertising espouse ideologies that seem innocuous
but continue to reproduce insidious and damaging messages that perpetu-
ate systemic structures of oppression and a culture of rampant consumer-
ism. ‘Woke’ corporate aesthetic strategies package neoliberal, post-racial,
and post-feminist ideologies in a manner which highlight the brand’s cor-
porate identity as a potential ally of disenfranchised social groups (such as
people-of-colour, women, and the LGBTQ community, and/or individu-
als whose identities overlap amongst these categories). Yet such companies
still privilege capitalism and the free market, thus widening profit margins
and expanding privatisation at the cost of the earth’s ecosystem, disenfran-
chised social groups and the labour of the people.31 Critics have focused
on the appropriation of social justice and politics in the femvertising and
branding efforts of ‘woke’ companies, especially those whose consumer
base comprise of middle-class working women. This is particularly preva-
lent amongst masstige brands like Glossier and Fenty Beauty which are
deemed more prestigious than mass-market drugstore makeup/skincare

products but are still sold at price points considerably lower than luxury/
designer items.32 These brands are particularly popular amongst middle to
upper middle class working women who are have the desire and means to
access neoliberal goals of upward mobility.33 Glossier describes itself as a
‘people-powered beauty eco-system’,34 espousing an ethos rife with con-
notations of empowerment that promise to put the consumer at the centre
of its operations, with pithy slogans such as “skin-first, makeup second”,35
“[y]ou look good” and “democratize beauty”.36 It is clear that the brand
utilises targeted language that seeks to instil confidence in the brand as
one invested in the self-empowerment of the individual consumer – mes-
sages that align with a postfeminist, neoliberal imperative. With its sleek,
understated pink aesthetic, the brand has quickly amassed a cult following
amongst Gen Z and millennial consumers which has allowed Glossier’s
femvertising and branding efforts to be primarily facilitated through word-
of-mouth and beauty influencers on social media platforms like Instagram
and TikTok.
Yet, the apparently progressive values of such brands are often undercut
by controversy, such as accusations of insufficient support provided to
employees-of-colour who have experienced microaggressions and aggres-
sive racism in their affluent New York and Los Angeles stores.37 This is
despite Glossier’s celebration of inclusivity as one of its core values, in
addition to a one million dollar pledge to support anti-Black racism causes
in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and the funding support to
Black-owned businesses through the Glossier Grant Initiative.38 Sceptics
may suggest that this funding drive has been a response to the criticism the
brand has received regarding its lack of diversity in its product range with
regards to skin tone shades for people-of-colour.39 Fenty Beauty – another
masstige brand which prides itself on its inclusivity by leveraging on the
use of social media to showcase its products for varied ethnicities, body
types, and gender identities – was accused of appropriating Japanese cul-
ture when they launched the sale of ‘Geisha Chic’ highlighters. Evidently,
as with traditional advertising, ethical capitalism and the femvertising
involved in such transactions of product and intersectional politics also
hinge on a ‘racialized and gendered difference’.40
Brands have also been criticised for reaffirming the postfeminist, neo-
liberal notion that ‘achievement, social change and overcoming inequality’
can be achieved through ‘individual ambition and consumption’ instead
of actual structural changes and improvements.41 Such femvertising and
1 INTRODUCTION 7
branding operate within the domains of ‘neoliberal feminist privilege’,42

and these postfeminist conceptualisations of ideal womanhood neglect to
give voice to the disenfranchised in question or only privilege ‘select’
groups of women.43 Brand such as THINX who have engaged in political
engagement in the era of Trumpism have been accused of ‘“trying to capi-
talise on a wave of Trump-induced feminist outrage”’.44 Lisa A. Daily uti-
lises Teju Cole’s assessment of ‘The White-[Saviour] Industrial Complex’
in explaining the phenomenon: ‘[it] is not about justice. It is about having
a big emotional experience that validates privilege’45 and affirms the
spectator-consumer and her consumption of goods. As such, the mediated
ethics of commodity feminism and intersectionality uphold these paternal-
istic and Anglocentric ideals of neoliberalism that ensure the continued
success and reproduction of consumer capitalism.
And yet, despite the clear problems, the effects of femvertising are not
entirely harmful, and the strategies such adverts adopt possess much
potential for transformative change in gender and social relations. Studies
have shown that there are indeed positive effects on the self-esteem of
adolescents who view femvertising in a controlled setting.46 Utilising the
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Neema Varghese and Navin Kumar con-
clude that in highly patriarchal and socially caste societies such as India,
exposure to femvertising that includes women portrayed in roles outside
of the home, and men taking up caregiver duties such as ‘home making
and child or elderly care’, has a positive effect on adolescents regardless of
gender.47
It is this spirit of attempting to identify the transformative potential of
femvertising that drives many of the chapters in this book, particularly
those which focus on geographical locales and cultures that have been
largely neglected in existing scholarship which primarily focuses on fem-
vertising in the global North, particularly in dominantly English-speaking
Anglo-American contexts. Indeed, in attempting to redress this scholarly
imbalance, the first section of this book explores the operations of femver-
tising in East Asia. Xintong Jia’s chapter opens this section by exploring
how the Victoria’s Secret brand adopts femvertising strategies to sell com-
mercialised forms of sexiness, inclusiveness and diversity to consumers in
mainland China, and the extent to which these strategies are successful in
appealing to Chinese consumers. Jia asks the following important ques-
tions: How does the brand appropriate the Chinese aesthetic of female
beauty? What kind of female gendered subjectivity does the brand endeav-
our to promote? How should power relations within the context of
femvertising be viewed in the era of globalisation? By examining the rep-

resentation of Chinese models in advertising campaigns, in addition to the
use of traditional Chinese cultural symbols in fashion shows, Jia brings a
critical race perspective to the analysis and argues that Victoria’s Secret
employs highly restricted ideas of Chineseness despite claiming to be cul-
turally inclusive.
Moving away from the representation of fashion models yet remaining
within the fashion industry, Hyejin Jo analyses Sulwhasoo’s ‘Beauty is
Growing Up’ campaign in South Korea. The chapter addresses the follow-
ing question: How does female empowerment, as projected in this par-
ticular example of femvertising, reinforce the traditional normative
feminine values embedded in contemporary Korean society? Through an
analysis of the ways in which four female celebrities discuss important
milestones and experiences in their lives, Jo demonstrates how femininity
is connected to the concept of agelessness and represents a limited under-
standing of empowerment expressed in terms of stereotypical beauty stan-
dards. The chapter argues that the message of the campaign fails to
explicitly address the gap between the traditional gender roles that older
sectors of Korean society value most and the shifting attitudes towards
gender embraced by younger generations.
While the first two chapters in the section on East Asia focus on differ-
ing aspects of the fashion industry, Runchao Liu continues this section by
exploring reproductive rights in China with reference to the marketing of
the oral contraceptive Yasmin, and the problems inherent in the marketing
of a transformation narrative on the basis of the self-governance of one’s
ovary and hormones. Liu examines a ranges of television commercials –
those received positively and those received negatively by audiences in
mainland China –and argues that despite the changing messages and audi-
ence reception to Yasmin’s femvertisements from 2016 to the present,
these commercials and promotional materials have consistently propa-
gated a neoliberal rhetoric that oral contraception affords both material
and immaterial benefits. The chapter additionally analyses social media
responses to the television commercials, identifying an echo chamber of
‘postfeminist rage’ and neoliberal ethics for a modern Chinese audience,
further objectifying women’s sexual agency and making this kind of fem-
vertising manoeuvre a challenging problem to deconstruct. It concludes
that the Yasmin campaigns exemplify a cultural politic of femvertising with
Chinese characteristics, grafting feminist rhetoric onto the state project of
postfeminism.
1 INTRODUCTION 9
Complementing the chapters by Jia, Jo and Liu, the next chapter in the
section analyses several advertisements from mainland China within a
range of genres, rather than focusing on one specifically. Yan Wu analyses
the marketing of sports, skincare, sanitary and financial services products,
in order to investigate how feminism is employed to serve the global mar-
ket and local political culture. She asks the following questions: What is
the typology of feminist subjectivity as represented in these advertise-
ments? In what ways have local political and cultural values shaped the
global brands’ femversiting campaigns? The chapter argues that the ideo-
logical mechanics of China’s state feminism provide endorsement for
female empowerment through marketing certain aspects of gender equal-
ity in civic life, yet without fundamentally challenging the patriarchal
political and cultural system. Wu demonstrates how femvertising practices
in China focus on a set of codes surrounding relational female liberation,
which in turn represent a compromised effort of individual empowerment
mediated by local political and cultural traditions. In doing so, the chapter
highlights how the global influence of feminist ideas is shown to be in
negotiation with local political culture via state endorsement of traditional
cultural values such as familial harmony, filial piety, self-cultivation, dili-
gence, and perseverance.
Moving away from East Asia, the next section in the book focuses on
femvertising in Anglo-American contexts, and begins with Jane Lian and
Joel Gwynne’s chapter on the fashion and cosmetics brand Fenty. Sharing
Xintong Jia’s interest in the purported inclusive politics invoked by global
brands, Lian and Gwynne appraise the successes and failures of Fenty’s
‘femvertising’ strategy and the authenticity of the brand by analysing the
performance of the Savage x Fenty fashion show. Lian and Gwynne argue
that the choreography of the show is in concert with feminist ideals of
female solidarity, and that the diverse cast of models and the aesthetics of
performance function to minimize – even if they cannot entirely negate –
the objectification that is typified in more conventional fashion shows.
Ultimately, the chapter concludes that in its operation within a heteronor-
mative media landscape, the Savage x Fenty show represents a bold diver-
sion in its portrayal of a diversified female empowerment that is not
contingent upon the presentation of a svelte, white femininity and com-
pulsory sexiness.
The next chapter in the section investigates the femvertising of breast
cancer awareness in Australia, and is the first chapter in the book to con-
sider how feminist ideology is infused into a non-fashion/beauty context:
healthcare promotion. Considering that the primary target audience for

breast cancer awareness campaigns are women, one would expect such
campaigns to employ feminism in highly meaningful and productive ways.
And yet, Catarina Agostino and Renee Middlemost argue that many cam-
paigns are highly problematic when they are co-opted by corporations to
meet their social responsibility obligations. Agostino and Middlemost
assert that through ‘pinkwashing’ – the promotion of goods and services
using the breast cancer ribbon – corporations are ostensibly showcasing
their concern for women’s health, while at the same time advertising their
products and services via messaging that is often harmful and
infantilising.
This next chapter in the section is the first chapter to focus on the cor-
porate world of entrepreneurship, and examines bold feminist creative
enterprises which aim to influence brand strategies. The chapter focuses in
particular on Goalgirls, which styles itself as a team of ‘co-rebelles’ and
‘disruptors’ seeking to challenge sexist advertising and develop ‘experien-
tial marketing, digital campaigns, brand building and activism for a con-
scious generation’, and to promote a different form of creative agency for
clients wishing to profit from ‘woke’ consumers. Curran-Troop, Gill and
Littler argue that while Goalgirls departs from the strategies of mainstream
agencies which are cynically reinventing their branding – as we have seen
elsewhere in this book – there are nevertheless tensions within which
Goalgirls operates, between a ‘commitment to radical social transforma-
tion and an investment in capitalist models; tensions between a critique of
‘toxic’ productivity cultures and a need to work endlessly to stand out in a
crowded market; and tensions between a desire for flat, collective forms of
organisation, and the reality of operating in a commercial context charac-
terised by endemic precarity, intensified by the pandemic’.
Continuing the exploration of femvertising in a corporate context, the
next chapter in the book examines the ways in which financial institutions
capitalize on enacting a feminist identity, in spite of their own chequered
histories in perpetuating gendered inequalities. Jessica Martin draws on
critical and visual discourse analysis of the NatWest “We are what we do”
and “Processions” campaigns to illustrate how aspects of postfeminism are
deployed within femvertising. Through setting the context of the intensi-
fication of mumpreneurial, gendered narratives of resilience during auster-
ity, Martin argues that recontextualising the nostalgic image of the
suffragettes functions in strategic ways that enables NatWest to position
themselves as a feminist institution, while crucially escaping the scrutiny
1 INTRODUCTION 11
and structural organisational change that this entails. In so doing, the

chapter demonstrates how postfeminism is able to adapt its discourses to
retain its hegemonic hold on popular culture even in climates such as aus-
terity in the UK, by incorporating notions of nostalgia and British history
alongside discourses of women’s empowerment and independence.
The final section of the book moves our attention away from Anglo-
American national contexts, towards South America. Just as the section on
East Asia began with an exploration of ethnocentric fashion norms, so too
does Carole Myers’ opening chapter on the femvertising of cosmetic sur-
gery in Brazil. The chapter examines femvertising through social media
and dissects the practice of aesthetic rhinoplasty in women with a ‘negroid
nose’, commonly seen in those with African heritage. In a country where
over 50% of the population identifies as non-white, beauty ideals are linked
to white privilege and black inferiority, leaving black women at the bottom
of society. While beauty standards have frequently embodied a fair-skin,
European aesthetic, the chapter demonstrates how rhinoplasty became
more accessible to many black women in the early 2000s when a new black
middle-class emerged. And yet, Myers showcases how racialised marginali-
sation has persisted and is evident in rhinoplasty femvertising which con-
tinues to target Caucasian consumers.
And finally, taking a sweeping look at femvertising across multiple con-
texts in Brazil, the final chapter in the book carries out content analysis of
123 advertisements across broad categories such as beauty and financial
independence, and asks the following question: What feminist narratives
appear in Brazilian advertising, and do some genres have stronger feminist
messaging than others? Soraya Barreto Januário concludes that feminist
agendas are most evident in the discourses surrounding the ideas of entre-
preneurship and independence, while comparatively lacking in the beauty
and fashion industries.
Notes
1. Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune, Reclaiming the F Word: Feminism
Today. (London: Zed Books, 2013), p. 176.
2. Robert Goldman, Deborah Heath, and Sharon L. Smith ‘Commodity
Feminism’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8 (1991), p. 336.
3. Redfern and Aune, p. 8.
4. Annette Kuhn, The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and
Sexuality. (Abingdon: Routledge, 1985), p. 8.

6. Ibid, p. 24.
7. Goldman, Heath, and Smith, p. 338.
8. Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, (London: Vintage, 1991), p. 12
9. Ibid, p. 14.
10. Ibid, p. 12.
12. Johnson, G. D., & Grier, S. A. (2012). ‘What about the Intended
Consequences?’ Journal of Advertising 41(3), 91–106.
13. Knoll, S., Eisend, M., & Steinhagen, J. (2011). ‘Gender roles in advertis-
ing: Measuring and comparing gender stereotyping on public and private
TV channels in Germany’. International Journal of Advertising, 30(5),
867–888.
14. Eisend, M. (2010). ‘A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising’. Journal
of the Academy of Marketing Science. 38(4), 418–440.
15. Ibid.
16. Bissell, K., & Rask, A. (2010). ‘Real women on real beauty: Self-
discrepancy, internalisation of the thin ideal, and perceptions of attractive-
ness and thinness in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty’. International
Journal of Advertising 29(4), 643–668.
17. Robert Goldman, Deborah Heath, and Sharon L. Smith (1991),
‘Commodity Feminism’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication,
8(1991), p. 337.
18. Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in
Advertising, (London: Marion Boyars, 1978).
20. Ciambrello, R. (2014). ‘How ads that empower women are boosting sales
and bettering the industry’. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.
com/news/advertising-branding/how-ads-empower-women-are-
boostingsales-and-bettering-industry-160539.
21. Schultz, E. J. (2014). ‘Ad age’s 2014 advertiser of the year: Under armour’.
Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/news/marketer-year-armour/
296088/
22. Eisend, 2010.
23. Akestam, N., Rosengren S. and Dahlen, M. (2017). ‘Advertising ‘like a
girl’: Toward a better understanding of ‘femvertising’ and its effects,’
Psychology & Marketing 34: 795–806.
24. Matt Beard. (2020). ‘The dilemma of ethical consumption: how much are
your ethics worth to you?’ The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/the-d ilemma-o f-
ethical-consumption-how-much-are-your-ethics-worth-to-you
1 INTRODUCTION 13
26. Lisa A. Daily. (2019). ‘“We bleed for female empowerment”: mediated
ethics, commodity feminism, and the contradictions of feminist politics’.
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 16(2), p. 144, https://
doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2019.1634276
27. Kate Hoad-Reddick, 2017. ‘Pitching the Feminist Voice: A Critique of
Contemporary Consumer Feminism’. (PhD Thesis, University of Western
Ontario) https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/5093
28. Goldman, Heath, and Smith, 1991, p. 337
29. Ibid, p. 336.
31. Daily, p. 142.
32. Fei Qiao & Ye Wang (2019): ‘The myths of beauty, age, and marriage:
femvertising by masstige cosmetic brands in the Chinese market’. Social
Semiotics, p. 2. 10.1080/10350330.2019.1682279
33. Ibid.
34. Glossier [@glossier]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Retrieved November
18, 2020 from https://www.instagram.com/glossier/?hl=en
35. Ibid.
36. Glossier. “What Is Glossier – about us.” Glossier. Accessed November 14,
2021. https://www.glossier.com/about
37. Emma Hinchcliffe (2020), ‘Exclusive: Ex–Glossier employees describe a
company that failed to support Black workers—even as it donated $1 mil-
lion to racial justice causes’, Fortune, Accessed November 14, 2021,
https://fortune.com/2020/08/18/glossier-black-workers-donation-
support-black-lives-ceo-emily-weiss/
38. Ibid.
39. Christine Jean-Baptiste, (n.d), ‘Glossier Brown’s Instagram community
pushes for true diversity in beauty’, Nylon, Accessed November 22, 2021,
https://www.nylon.com/beauty/glossier-brown-instagram
40. Daily, p. 147.
41. Francesca Sobande (2020), ‘Woke-washing: “intersectional” femvertising
and branding “woke” bravery’, European Journal of Marketing, 54(11),
2723–2745. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-02-2019-0134
42. Daily, p. 148.
43. Ibid, p. 150.
44. Ibid, p. 152.
45. Ibid, p. 150.
46. Neema Varghese and Navin Kumar (2020), ‘Femvertising as a media strat-
egy to increase self-esteem of adolescents: An experiment in India’,
Children and Youth Services Review, 113 (2020).
47. Ibid, p. 5.
PART I
East Asia
CHAPTER 2
Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising

and the Failed Promise of Empowerment
Xintong Jia
As the largest US lingerie retailer, Victoria’s Secret is known for promot-

ing a version of ‘sexy’ hyper-femininity. Victoria’s Secret was founded by
Roy Raymond in 1977, galvanised by the idea to set up a store where men
felt comfortable shopping for lingerie for women.1 The brand was sold to
Leslie Herbert Wexner in 1982 and then VS became a lingerie power-
house. VS’s success did not last. The company’s stock price has dropped
sharply since 2015 and the annual fashion show was suspended in 2019.2
Reacting to recessionary pressures, Victoria’s Secret started to craft a new,
confident and globalised version of femininity by expanding its criteria for
lingerie model recruitment, especially in relation to race and ethnicity,
sexuality and age. Models who are not in line with the previous tyranny of
ideal beauty and those with more racial and cultural particularities have
been employed on stage, reflecting Victoria’s Secret’s utilisation of fem-
vertising to appeal to an equally wide range of consumers. Since 2016,
there has also been a proliferation of traditional Chinese cultural symbols,
X. Jia (*)
City, University of London, London, UK
e-mail: xintong.jia@city.ac.uk
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Gwynne (ed.), The Cultural Politics of Femvertising, Palgrave
Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99154-8_2
18 X. JIA
such as Peking Opera costume, applied by VS, and increasing numbers of

Chinese models walking for the brand, generating a discordant response
in nationalists while also being accused of cultural appropriation in the
Chinese media sphere.
In recent years, a growing body of feminist and advertising scholar-
ship is concerned with femvertising, understood as a practice combining
female empowerment with advertising that strategically appropriates
feminist values and utilises positive and pro-female messages, questions
stereotypical views of women and sells anger about sexism.3 Targeting
exclusively women, femvertising effectively builds and maintains a
quasi-friendship relationship with its female customers, for example by
enacting empathy with their insecurities. Femvertising accentuates
empowering messages and encourages women to confidently believe in
themselves and take positive control of their bodies and lives. In this
chapter, femvertising thus refers to a manipulative advertising practice,
primarily employed by international brands. They appropriate the buzz
of feminism and utilise the insecurities of certain groups, and merchan-
dise inspirational and affirmative messages to potential customers to sell
products.
Discourses of ‘porno chic’ and ‘striptease’ culture have made the sexu-
alisation of culture influential and normalised.4 Women are sexually dis-
played in mass media – women’s magazines, chick lit and commercial
advertising. To some extent, they are sexualised by men and by them-
selves, simultaneously. Femvertising has updated the sexualisation of cul-
ture from the critique of objectification to a sanguine celebration of female
sexiness. Following the transnational #MeToo movement popularised in
2017, feminism has flourished and become popular and more accessible in
different areas, ranging from celebrities’ speech and digital activism to
commodities. Feminism is enjoying increased ‘economies of visibility’ via
corporate-friendly and media-friendly expressions in a context of capitalist
marketability.5 In these circumstances, femvertising has come to promi-
nence as brands desire to get in on some of the energy and cultural buzz
of feminism. Femvertising reflects an epistemological transformation in
the construction of gender and femininity in postfeminist media culture.
Femvertising exercises an intersectional and decentralised approach while
representing the ‘otherness’ by incorporating contemporary activism into
neoliberal consumer culture.
In this chapter, the Victoria’s Secret brand is used to examine the fem-
vertising strategy adopted by advertisers concerning commercialised forms
2 VICTORIA’S SECRET GOES TO CHINA: FEMVERTISING AND THE FAILED… 19
of sexiness, inclusiveness, and diversity, and its current strategy of appeal-

ing to Chinese customers. Research questions are:
1. How does Victoria’s Secret femvertising appropriate feminist values

and female empowerment rhetoric to encourage brand consumption?
2. What are the implications of femvertising for racial and cultural issues
when traversing Anglo-American contexts to China?
To address above questions, media output of VS which contain female

empowerment messages mainly targeted the younger generation of
Chinese female customers from 2016 to 2020 were collected. These
include images of Chinese models and traditional Chinese cultural sym-
bols in VS fashion shows in 2016, 2017, and 2018;6 commercials showing
‘plus-size’ models from VS-related websites; and VS This is sexy campaign
showing Chinese models and celebrities redefined female sexiness.
These samples, all of which explicitly focus on femvertising, are the data
corpus. I adopted discourse analysis, focusing on the constructions of fem-
ininities and sexiness in the texts, and visual analysis, focusing on the visual
images of models and related cultural symbolism. I adopt a critical lens
that pays attention to gender, race, and commodification processes and
explore how Chinese-related items were selected and organised by VS to
craft a version of Chineseness and to further enhance the brand’s popular-
ity in China. How does VS appropriate the Chinese aesthetic of female
beauty in a West-dominated stage? What kind of female gendered subjec-
tivity does VS want to promote via femvertising? How should the power
relations pursued within the field of femvertising associated with gender
and race be viewed?
Examining the case study of Victoria’s Secret’s entry to the Chinese
market amid a construction of gendered, racialised and nationally-located
femininity, this chapter shows not only how a particular type of sexually-
empowered female subject is constructed or appropriated by the brand,
but also brings a critical race perspective to understand the marketing
strategy. I seek to contribute to literature about how femvertising is impli-
cated in international circulation and trafficking of images of women and
the feminist movement in order – strategically – to appeal to customers
outside Anglo-American contexts. I look specifically at three tropes – the
use of hyper-white yet visibly Chinese models, the selective appropriation
of Chinese imagery, and the distinctive tone of the Chinese This Is Sexy
campaign.
20 X. JIA
Postfeminism Within and Outside China

Since the early 1980s,7 postfeminism has gradually become the buzzword
for describing the social and cultural climate in the English-speaking world
within which young women no longer call themselves ‘feminist’ since they
have been the beneficiaries of the old battles that the previous generation
fought.8 Feminist activism is deemed unnecessary and thus negated.
Postfeminism captures something that is going on beyond the terms of
pro-feminist versus anti-feminist – combining attitudes towards femi-
nism’s past with the transformation of sex-positive femininity into popular
culture – than ‘the more familiar framing concept of “backlash”’ of
second-wave feminism.9 Postfeminist culture is based on the rejection and
neglect of gender inequality and notions asserting that efforts to promote
gender equality have become ‘a spent force’.10 Under the banner of
empowerment, women are encouraged to believe that they are now
‘empowered’ and hence are positively incited to embrace the commer-
cialised forms of femininity and celebrate seemingly autonomous pleasure
through consumer engagement.11 The commercialised forms of sexuality
and assertions of ‘girl power’ or ‘grrrl style’ are central to postfeminist
narratives.12
The ostensible empowerment is based on consumer behaviour and life-
style choice.13 Changing attitudes around the sexualisation of women in
the second wave and the postfeminist era demonstrate the dynamics of
sexuality and gender relations. In 1968, women organised the Miss
America Protest to respond to the ‘beauty’ pageant and the antiquated
and misogynistic attitudes towards women. Protesters discarded bras,
makeup, and girdles to a ‘freedom trash can’ to show their refusal to being
doubly victimised through their construction as sexual objects and as com-
pulsorily heterosexual ones. In postfeminist media culture, contemporary
women self-identify as powerful agents and are invited to be represented
in a seemingly objectified manner indicating that they can ‘play with power
taking it on and off at will’.14 As a quote from the film Crazy, Stupid, Love
suggests, ‘The war between the sexes is over. We won – okay? We won the
second women started doing pole dancing for exercise’.15
Rosalind Gill’s notion of ‘postfeminist sensibility’ opens up a heuristic
approach to construe the commercialised femininity in media representa-
tion.16 Understanding postfeminism as a sensibility highlights postfemi-
nism as ‘a circulating set of ideas, images and meanings’ and provides a
more open psychologic approach to explore affect and psychological
construction in popular culture.17 It also shows that the sentiment of post-

feminism has the potential to break through the constraint of geographi-
cal specific locations and is not exclusive to the ‘white and middle class by
default’.18 Likewise, Joel Gwynne suggests that postfeminism as a cultural
sensibility operates more commonly in economically prosperous neolib-
eral countries.19 Simidele Dosekun understands post-feminism as ‘a trans-
national circulating culture’ so that exploring post-feminism in the global
South is seen as ‘making a deliberate and theoretically grounded assertion
about globalisation, neoliberalism, and their cultural contradictions’.20
This perspective has enormous cultural resonance and reflects popular sen-
timents about gender and femininity across borders. It offers a rationale
and a theoretical basis for exploring the sexually empowered version of
femininity in a transnational context as the international brand Victoria’s
Secret travels from America to China.
In China, feminism has not gone through the same stages as those
documented in Western feminist literature. Within the global traffic of
postfeminism with its common issues but different contexts, China repre-
sents a complex battlefield where the amalgam of feminism and anti-
feminism, ‘pseudo-feminism’, and the stigma of feminism are battling it
out with competing voices. Feminism in China has followed a distinct
pathway from socialist state feminism to a hyper-femininity, consumer-
driven, and empowered version of post state feminism.21
In Maoist China (1949–1976), women’s liberation was associated with
a top-down movement promulgated by the socialist state, rather than
autonomous and participatory grassroots activism.22 Drawing on the key
message that ‘times have changed – men and women are equal’, state
feminism championed the idea of gender parity and coined a neologism
‘half the sky’ referring to women and women’s contribution to nation
building23 (i.e. feudal oppression was in the past and women were now
able to ‘hold up half the sky’). State feminism’s emphasis on women’s
participation in productive labour also allowed women not to be restricted
to the domestic realm. The androgynous ‘iron girl’ working in tradition-
ally masculine fields such as heavy machinery was the representative female
image back then.24 In the post-socialist era, the move from a centrally
planned economy to a market transition is proved indispensable in refash-
ioning concepts of femininity through ‘a strategic use of the essentialism
of the gender binary’.25 Post-socialist China has managed to combine neo-
liberal governmentality with the state-manipulated market economy in
order to cooperate in tandem with the influx of global capital.
22 X. JIA
Post-socialist China emphasises consumerism, individualism, and cosmo-

politan subjectivities, implying a disjuncture with the highly politicised
and collectivistic socialist era.26 Femininity is then characterised as wom-
anly, beautiful, sexual, and hedonist. The emerging middle-class young
women who own the consumerist agency and value personal gratification
and aspirations become subjects of the globalised, glamorous, sexy, and
empowered post state feminism. Implicitly they are also the targets of VS
femvertising campaigns.
Unpacking Modelling in Femvertising:

Docile Bodies?
One of the main characteristics of femvertising is the reconfiguration of
female bodies. Brands now have access to a range of depictions of what is
attractive. Femvertising echoes the body positivity movement in social
media, which involves divergence from the restrictive body ideals and
encourages more representations of women with diverse body sizes, ages,
and ethnicities. The origin of the body positivity movement can be traced
back to second-wave feminism’s resistance to the discrimination against fat
bodies.27
In postfeminist media culture, women’s experience with sexualisation
has been bound up with self-pleasing autonomy. Femvertising advertise-
ments propagate the notion of ‘me-first’ and self-empowerment by recruit-
ing female models who do not fit in to the narrow standards of sexual
appeal by positioning them in sanguine forms of bodily exhibition. This
happens gradually in underwear advertisements. For example, the Chinese
lingerie brand NEIWAI launches ‘No body is nobody’ campaign, inviting
a group of ordinary women to share their changing ideas of physical scars,
body shaming, skin tone, and aging. The campaign highlights not only
women’s self-acceptance and self-affirmation, but also the solidarity and
sisterhood among women – all of which a contemporary woman should
possess. Femvertising has transformed the advertising ideology from
implying women as ‘raw material’ for men’s sexual imagery to underlining
women’s self-consciousness as independent individuals whose power and
pleasure are stitched with confidently bodily display and sexual explicit-
ness.28 Femvertising is eager to define femininity in a more contemporary
sense that centres the female body, affect, and women’s psychological
construction.
Invoking a Foucauldian term, models in neoliberal capitalism can be

seen as possessing a ‘docile body’.29 Awareness of the permanent visibility
of the docile body assures the automatic functioning of power. Referring
power operates not in terms of coercion but through constructing and
normalising a certain kind of subjectivity. ‘The body is docile that may be
subjected, used, transformed, and improved’.30 Lingerie models’ gender
performance reflects ways of ‘doing gender’ with imperatives of the femi-
nine ideal although the ideal is constantly evolving.31 The way power acts
has shifted from depicting women as docile bodies through the external
male gaze to constructing women as autonomous individuals who are
capable of making the right choice through an internalised narcissistic
gaze.32 In femvertising, can the representation of hyper-femininity be seen
as ‘women’s success’ or as retro-sexism in the era of postfeminism?
Regarding models as ‘docile bodies’ is neither to deny their agency or
autonomy as independent beings nor simplifying their subjectivities asso-
ciated largely with their bodies. There is always a dichotomy of oppres-
sion/empowerment when describing the relationship between beauty
norms and the female body. Toni Ingram suggests that beauty and the
feminine body are ‘separate entities where beauty norms work to con-
strain, objectify or empower the feminine subject’.33 To understand the
ways in which femvertising positions and represents female bodies, we
need to consider both its content and the process or logic behind such
commodification.
Nowadays brands promoting body appreciation and acceptance are
more likely to be favoured by female customers. However, the celebration
of female sexual agency with a distorted idea of freedom is problematic in
femvertising. According to Hirshman, the concept of freedom is based on
an individual level whereas ‘oppression acts across classes of people in ways
that uniformly limit the possibilities of choice and action for individuals
within the class’.34 Women’s decisions to embrace the commodity-driven
femininity as individual and free choices cannot be accepted in isolation
without considering the whole landscape of gender relations or women’s
economic conditions. Ideals of empowerment and freedom are carefully
wrapped up in sex-positive postfeminist rhetoric. For lingerie models,
women’s value and career success are relentlessly bound up with how
much they are seen as sexually alluring or confidently empowered. As
Banet-Weiser points out, the main distinction between postfeminism and
second wave feminist politics is the ‘focus on female individualism and
individual empowerment’.35
24 X. JIA
Femvertising falls into a trap of quasi-progress especially when it meets

the intersectionality of class, sexuality, race and ethnicity even when it per-
mits more inclusiveness than previously. The question is who is capable of
being empowered and who has been made invisible. The role of a model
is to prioritise women’s sexual attractiveness and encourage a self-
determining confident mindset. The sexualisation of models is deemed to
be a path to their empowerment. Provided with few choices, there is no
space for women but to fall into line. The very notion of individualism
should take into account individual’s preferences and allow greater diver-
sity. To make it broader, as Butler suggests, ‘the point was not to prescribe
a new gendered way of life that might then serve as a model for readers.
Rather, the aim was to open up the field of possibilities for gender without
dictating which kinds of possibilities ought to be realised’.36 In the next
section, lingerie models of Chinese heritage in VS will be analysed.
Chinese Models and Whiteness Debates

Since a postfeminist sensibility incorporates consumerism with the com-
modification of difference, how does femvertising advertisements selec-
tively use racial and cultural diversity when they are promoting a sexually
empowered version of femininity? Some have argued that postfeminism
reinforces existing power relations and reproduces inequality as postfemi-
nist discourses function as mechanisms of power and exclusion.37
Researchers who have examined the racialised character of contemporary
media and popular culture claim that postfeminism works to reproduce
racial inequality by reinstituting (Western) whiteness as the dominant
norm.38 In this section, I explicate how femvertising marks a racialised
modernisation of femininity that re-centres whiteness by describing repre-
sentations of Chinese models in Victoria’s Secret.
Liu Wen and He Sui are the first two models of Chinese ethnicity walk-
ing for VS. Liu Wen is characterised by her Asian appearance – beige skin
and slender eyes. He Sui’s features fit with an idealised whiteness as seen
by her pale, flawless skin, as well as deep-set eyes with double-fold eyelids
(see Fig. 2.1). On the runway of VS, He Sui was decorated in very femi-
nine ways – an innocent fairy seemingly unaware of the sexual cue she
conveys and a luscious lady commanding the postfeminist ‘girl power’.
Chinese media gave He Sui an approving sobriquet ‘Xiangu’ meaning
‘fairy’ being in favour of her idealised whiteness and slender female body
which are key elements of her celebrity persona. They in turn bring her
Fig. 2.1 Chinese model He Sui (third on the right) at VS show, 2018
many lucrative opportunities. Nevertheless, He Sui’s idealised whiteness is

relatively unattainable for the majority of the Chinese public. To obtain
and maintain such pale and immaculate skin demands ‘aesthetic labour’
which is a costly undertaking.39 It not only requires time, consumer spend-
ing, painful injections and constant scrutiny, but also the hard graft
involved should be invisible.40
Whiteness or the pale skin tone in China is an embodiment of the social,
cultural and economic process, with an explicit connection with feminin-
ity. In Maoist era, the ‘iron girl’ is identifiable by her bronze skin tone,
associated with being working-class, a prominent and valued association
within conventional socialist ideology. During the transformation of
Chinese socialism, China pursues an alternative path towards modernity
which cannot be achieved without a corresponding shift in class rela-
tions.41 In post-socialist China, the preference for the pale skin tone inter-
sects with the long-standing preferable aesthetic of female beauty,42 the
increasing influence of Western commodity capitalism, and expectations
26 X. JIA
for women to be skilled make-up and technical masters. In addition, in the

Chinese language, there is a dichotomy between expressions of whiteness
and beige skin tone, where ‘whiteness’ refers to the pale skin tone while
‘black’ describes the beige tone. There is no appropriate or widely
used word to describe beige skin tone. Whilst there has been a trend in
Chinese social media promulgating the tanned skin, the preference for
whiteness remains mainstream and dominant. This is illustrated by the
popularity of whitening cosmetics and surgery in East Asian countries.
Sun-tanned skin in the West is a symbol of fitness and beauty evoking
images of holiday, while in East Asia dark skin largely implies working-class
identity involved in excessive physical work.43
The representation of He Sui partly manifests the ‘post-feminist mas-
querade’44 and a ‘nostalgia for whiteness’ in Western media.45 The post-
feminist masquerade refers to ‘a mask of feminine submissiveness’.46 It
works as a knowing and self-chosen strategy for women to return to tradi-
tional modes of patriarchal authority. Thereby, women, and models in
particular, find their reasons for wearing spindly stilettos which no longer
means an oppressive force to them since it has been wrapped in a ‘choice’
rhetoric rather than an obligation and femininity has become a substitute
authority.47 The post-feminist masquerade is highly visible across the com-
mercial media field and gives the green light to ‘a nostalgic and light-
hearted refrain of femininity’. McRobbie also argues that the resumption
of whiteness is a de-ethnicised process since ‘dominant feminine-whiteness
becomes an invisible means of rolling back on anti-racism’.48 In recent
years, representations of whiteness as well as white models dominate
Chinese shopping websites. In her writing about global chick lit and
Chinese young urban women, Eva Chen argues that what the global chick
lit propagates is not limited to ‘Western-defined and locally endorsed val-
ues of beauty and femininity’, but the idea of neoliberal and empowered
women who feel pleasure and freedom through ‘consumption and prog-
ress in following Western commodities and values’.49 To some extent, the
de-ethnicised mechanism of the nostalgia for whiteness chimes with the
de-politicised process of postfeminist media culture as racial and sexual
discrimination have both been silenced and made invisible.
Apart from the social and cultural understanding of whiteness in China,
and the nostalgia for whiteness in Western media culture, whiteness is also
related to the mode of ‘glossiness’ in the visual media industry. Mehita
Iqani uses the concept of ‘glossiness’ to refer to a variety of communica-
tion practices in which ‘smooth, shiny, seamless textures’ are applied in the
construction of meanings of flawlessness.50 ‘The presence of glossiness in

commercial imagery indicates a realm of fantasised perfection’. In the
media industry, the glossiness mode co-exists with the discourse of con-
sumerism, and the former contributes to the power of the latter.51 With
the help of airbrushing techniques, the glossiness mode has become a
routine in the visual industry. Meanwhile, the amount of work required to
create ideal images is also invisible to consumers. Representations of He
Sui personify the mechanics of glossiness in terms of her idealised white-
ness and thus encourage a form of active engagement with the viewers.
Hyperreal images of He Sui signify a sense of perfection to which custom-
ers (mainly Chinese females) are invited to aspire and secure access to. In
this sense, women who fall into the trap are still fearful subjects, driven by
the consumption and pursuit of ‘complete perfection’.52
The Visibility of Chineseness

and Cultural Appropriation
In post-socialist China, the representation of gender is partly guided by a

combination of ‘Western modernity and Chinese “traditionality”’.53 After
the 2016 VS lingerie show, the brand was accused of cultural appropria-
tion by Chinese media as a result of the segment ‘Road Ahead’ that drew
inspiration from Chinese culture. The accusation of cultural appropriation
illustrates a divergence in tastes and judgements across cultures. Besides,
audiences tend to find cultural products with high cultural specificity less
appealing and difficult to identify with because of the lack of contextual
and background knowledge.54 Modifying dragon and Peking Opera cos-
tume imagery to skimpy lingerie looks manifests the collision and fusion
of traditional Chinese culture with the sexualisation of culture in the West
(see Fig. 2.2). Lingerie cannot be considered a fitting tribute to the more
reserved and conservative context of traditional Chinese culture. Notions
of individualism and self-empowerment in the postfeminist media culture
conflict with the collective values emphasised and promoted in Peking
Opera. Furthermore, 2016 was the first year that four Chinese models
walked at VS fashion show. VS opened the first lingerie store in Shanghai
in February 2017 and held the annual fashion show in Shanghai at the end
of the same year. Victoria’s Secret’s strategies indicate an emergent trend
that the Eurocentric fashion industry is bending to the tastes and rhythms
of Chinese culture.
28 X. JIA
Fig. 2.2 Elsa Hosk is

wrapped in a dragon at
VS show, 2016
The global cultural economy is inundated with ambiguities, ironies,

and tension when cultural commodities travel to distinct contexts outside
their origins. In VS fashion show, the visibility of Chineseness reflects VS’s
tactic of making its products more attractive to its key audiences. Appadurai
argues that in the late capitalism, ‘pastiche and nostalgia are central modes’
in the globalised image production and reception process.55 VS represents
an imagined visual world which is constituted by ‘the historically situated
imaginations of persons and groups spread around the world’.56 The
boundary between the real world – the global order and landscape – and
the imagined landscape is blurred. The highly stereotyped interpretation
of Chinese culture by VS helps viewers to construct their fantasies of
China. In VS, racial unity becomes ‘a purely aesthetic category’.57 Models
from diverse racial and national backgrounds are all positioned in ‘a for-
mation of homogenous individuality’ and are attached to identical aspira-
tions and dreams – being confident and sexy.58 It might be argued that this
is simply what fashion shows do – creating a fantasy of femininity. But it is
the racialised and ethno-nationalist specificities that VS offers that are so
striking.
Representations of race and gender function as a form of ‘cultural capi-
tal’ as well as a mode of consumption aligning with the twofold ‘postrace’
and postfeminist media culture.59 Banet-Weiser delineates that in the con-
temporary American media culture where there is a trend to incorporate
non-white narratives in advertising and merchandise, since representations
of race and ethnicity are marketed by media industries as ‘cool, authentic,
and urban’.60 Race and gender have similarly been crafted as commodities.
More importantly, lingerie models in VS, with diverse racial and cultural
backgrounds, are all simultaneously constrained by the femvertising mar-
ket constraints and benefited from the ‘postfeminist sexual contract’.61
Here we ask: has the sexually empowered female subjectivity become a
globalised identity? Whether the commodification of female sexiness has
been globalised? Within the discourse of ‘commodification of otherness’,
authentic national culture becomes a spice used to liven up the dull dish
that is mainstream white culture.62 Regardless of whether its lingerie
design inspiration is Eastern or Western in origin, the commodification of
difference is becoming globalised and consistent. More seriously, inspired
by Gill and Kanai,63 the inclusiveness of racial and cultural difference in
femvertising moves the critique beyond simple notions of visibility/invis-
ibility, since difference has been depoliticised to be represented.
Femvertising: From Bodily Property

to Psychological Regulation
Since 2019, VS marketing demonstrates a shift towards using more down-

to-earth and close-to-reality representations of models, reflected by the
newer femvertising strategy of recruiting models who do not fit the tradi-
tional moulds and letting women redefine sexiness. In one VS advertise-
ment entitled ‘find the size for your perfect teddy’, a ‘plus-size’ model
Candice Huffine advises that most of VS teddies range in size from XXS to
XXL. This shows that the era for exclusively slim models has gone and
more inclusiveness and normalisation are welcomed.
30 X. JIA
The brand also launched a series of femvertising advertisement named

This Is Sexy. They invited Chinese actresses and celebrities to redefine sexi-
ness under the slogan of ‘Break the norms and stereotype of sexiness. You
can define sexiness’. Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu featured with her
child-like face and slim body. In the commercial, she stated:
I like myself and all my parents give me – my personality and my body. I

think sexiness is a wonderful thing. I am not sexy in a traditional-defined
way – not like the “S” [she lifts her hand to gesture an “S” in the air]. From
my perspective, being sexy is feeling comfortable and not catering to the
norm. Sexiness is naturally released. Now I feel I’m quite sexy. It’s for us to
define sexiness, rather than it defines us…Be the most comfortable self and
be confident – this is sexiness.
Likewise, Chinese model He Sui also shared her opinion about sexiness:
Sexiness is more like an attitude. Sexiness is what real life looks like. Why
should I be perfect? It’s good not to be perfect. I’m getting used to accept-
ing my imperfections – this attitude is sexy. Of course, I don’t want wrinkles.
But when I have wrinkles, they are the trace of time – that’s sexy.
These femvertising texts demonstrate progress in the way that the pres-
sure to be beautiful is challenged by women and the ‘realm of fantasised
perfection’ is abandoned.64 However, femvertising images demonstrate
little change from the cult of perfection era. If the audio track is removed
from the video, the visual track can be applied to any advertising pro-
moting the old-fashioned ideals of female beauty. Besides, postfeminist
contradictions are also reflected in the femvertising strategy. Within a
postfeminist sensibility, appeal to feminist politics has been muted and
then transmuted into a more individual and sex-positive version. Female
empowerment has been depoliticised and then closely connected to
women’s personal choices and the ability to consume, not to social or
cultural structures. Femvertising has updated the notion of women’s
self-surveillance from the physical level to psychological regulation.
Femvertising narratives offer women and girls a postfeminist mantra of
how to think, feel, and live, with a particular focus on the issue of ethi-
cal standard. In an advertisement about diet and shape control, being
on diet is tied to discourses of self-discipline and positively controlling
one’s life, while refusal to lose weight is encoded with self-abandon-
ment and degradation.
Femvertising does not represent a straightforward departure from out-

dated, restrictive standards of female beauty. The femvertising narratives
described above deliver ideas that being sexy is not restricted to the physi-
cal level and updates the definition of female sexiness to a new terrain of
mental power, an ideology, and an attitude modification. Female sexiness
is positioned and transfigured, by femvertising, as a commodity, a limited
edition that is accessible only to those who can consume it. In Gill and
Elias’s words, ‘no longer is it enough to work on and discipline the body,
but in today’s society the beautiful body must be accompanied by a beau-
tiful mind, with suitably upgraded and modernised postfeminist attitudes
to the self’.65 In femvertising, being sexy is to feel you are sexy; is to parade
your imperfections with a sense of ‘realness’; is to be confident and believe
you are irreplaceable. A female’s sexiness is signalled by the display of her
body with a positive and self-assured attitude. If this attitude is adopted,
body sizes, ages, ethnic and class background are no longer obstacles on
the road to individual sexiness. Women are required to work on and
remake their subjectivities to stay positive and confident as femininity is
not merely a physical property. Patriarchal and neoliberal governmentality
has extended the territory from women’s bodies to women’s minds.
Conclusion
In this chapter, Victoria’s Secret’s most recent femvertising strategies have
been examined while capturing the Chinese market via a specific construc-
tion of gendered, racialised, and nationally located femininity. Models of
Chinese ethnicity and traditional Chinese cultural symbols were applied to
contribute to apparent racial and cultural diversity. Victoria’s Secret used
relatively restricted ideas of Chineseness to be inclusive and compatible.
This in turn was criticised as Orientalist interpretation and cultural appro-
priation deficient in contextual and historical knowledge. Besides, the shift
towards hyper-white imagery marks a racialised modernisation of feminin-
ity. More recently, Victoria’s Secret enlarges the potential scope of female
sexiness and redefines sexiness as a form of positive, confident, and self-
assured attitude. Femvertising by Victoria’s Secret has transformed female
sexiness into a commodity that is available only to those able to consume
it. This shift has updated the neoliberal governmentality from disciplining
women’s bodies to regulating women’s psychological life.
Situating femvertising into the postfeminist media culture, I have
argued that discourses of women’s empowerment and liberation are
32 X. JIA
closely linked to their rates of consumption, psychological strength, and

individual attitude. Women are invited to positively believe that they are
empowered, thus it is their free will to choose what time to be feminine
and what time to be ambitious. Concepts of individualism, self-
empowerment, and personal choice – all in a depoliticised rhetoric – imply
the retreat of gender politics from the political and collective endeavour.
On the stage of Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, models with racial and
cultural particularities are celebrating the same – yet different – version of
femininity and are attached to identical aspirations. Femvertising has been
found to reinforce existing power relations and reproduce inequalities by
commodifying racial and cultural difference and making it shallow and
depoliticised.
Where is the dividing line separating the empowered from the power-
ful? Contemporary women are endowed with consumer agency thus they
are incited to empower themselves via consuming. A plethora of female
agency discourses in femvertising has distorted the real meaning of agency,
which lies with the producer and associated elements that constitute pro-
duction, rather than the consumer.66 For Chinese women, if embracing a
Western version of hyper-femininity signifies an imperative path towards
modernisation, cosmopolitan, and female emancipation, where should
Chinese female gendered subjectivity be located within the collision and
fusion of cultures? More media reception studies on the emerging and
distinctive Chinese postfeminist sensibilities are required to answer this
question.
Finally, in femvertising, not only have structural differences been
attached to aesthetic meaning, the potential threat to women has also
been made invisible. We are witnessing a popular culture of commercial
femininity, wondering how empowering it is for young women to ‘flash’
their breasts on the runway.67 Returning to the question raised at the
beginning of this chapter – Can the representation of hyper-femininity be
seen as ‘women’s success’ or as retro-sexism in the era of postfeminism, in
February 2020, a report entitled ‘Angels in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny
Inside Victoria’s Secret’ in The New York Times revealed the entrenched
culture of misogyny, bullying and harassment of models and employees in
Victoria’s Secret. Witnesses to the sexual harassment advised that ‘the
abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like
brainwashing’.68 Victoria’s Secret annual lingerie show used to be a cul-
tural spectacle and a big hit, whereas it has been suspended since 2019. Is
hyper-femininity along with the stereotypical male fantasy being anachro-

nistic? Thus, a more ‘authentic’ and normalised display of femininity is
gaining global popularity. I conclude that actions of femvertising are used
to construct a carefully packaged form of commercialised sexiness, as
Victoria’s Secret enters China.
Notes
1. Althea A. Fung, ‘The Untold Truth of Victoria’s Secret’, The List (April
18, 2017). Accessed October 16, 2020, https://www.thelist.com/38724/
untold-truth-victorias-secret/
2. Silver-Greenberg Jessica, Rosman Katherine, Maheshwari Sapna, and
Stewart James, ‘“Angels” in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside
Victoria’s Secret’, New York Times. (February 1, 2020). Accessed October
16, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/business/victorias-
secret-razek-harassment.html
3. Nina Åkestam, Sara Rosengren, and Micael Dahlen, ‘Advertising “Like a
Girl”: Towards a Better Understanding of ‘Femvertising’ and Its Effects’,
Psychology and Marketing 34, no.8 (2017): 795–806.
Sara Champlin, Yvette Sterbenk, Kasey Windels, and Maddison Poteet,
‘How brand-cause fit shapes real world advertising messages: a qualitative
exploration of “femvertising”’, International Journal of Advertising 38,
no. 8 (2019): 1240–1263.
Yang Feng, Huan Chen, and Li He, ‘Consumer Responses to
Femvertising: A Data-mining Case of Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’
on YouTube’, Journal of Advertising 48 (2019): 292–301.
Rosalind Gill and Ana Sofia Elias, ‘“Awaken your incredible”: Love your
body discourses and postfeminist contradictions’, International Journal of
Media and Cultural Politics 10, no.2 (2014): 179–188.
Fei Qiao and Ye Wang, ‘The myths of beauty, age, and marriage: femver-
tising by masstige cosmetic brands in the Chinese market’, Social Semiotics
(2019): 1–23.
4. Rosalind Gill, “From sexual objectification to sexual subjectification,”
Feminist Media Studies 3, no.1 (2003).
Brian McNair, Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratisation of
Desire (London: Routledge, 2002).
Brian McNair, Porno? Chic! How pornography changed the world and
made it a better place (London and New York: Routledge, 2013).
5. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2018): 21.
6. No VS fashion shows have taken place since 2019, so there is no available
data after 2018.
34 X. JIA
7. The term ‘postfeminism’ was first used in Susan Bolotin’s article ‘Voices
from the Post-feminist Generation’ in New York Times on 17th October
1982. Postfeminism was used to refer to a new kind of politics which was
about feminism but repudiating the anger and resentment associated with
feminism.
8. Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism (London: Sage, 2009).
Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra (eds.) Interrogating Postfeminism:
Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2007).
9. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women (Vintage:
London, 1992).
Tasker&Negra, Interrogating Postfeminism, 1.
10. McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism, 12.
11. Rosalind Gill, ‘Postfeminist Media Culture’, European Journal of Cultural
Studies 10, no.2 (2007): 147–66.
Michelle M. Lazar. ‘Entitled to consume: postfeminist femininity and a
culture of post-critique’, Discourse and Communication 3, no.4 (2009):
371–400.
McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism.
12. Ednie Kaeh Garrison, ‘U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures
and the Technologics of the Third Wave’, Feminist Studies 26, no.1
(Spring, 2000).
13. Anderson, Modern Misogyny.
14. Zaslow, Feminism, Inc, 3.
15. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, Crazy, Stupid, Love (US: Warner Bros.
Picture, 2011), film.
16. Gill, ‘Postfeminist Media Culture’, 147.
17. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg,
‘Postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism? Sarah Banet-
Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg in conversation’, Feminist
Theory, 21, no.1 (2020): 5.
18. Tasker&Negra, Interrogating Postfeminism, 3.
19. Joel Gwynne, ‘Japan, postfeminism and the consumption of sexual(ised)
schoolgirls in male-authored contemporary manga’, Feminist Theory 14,
no.3 (2013): 325–343.
20. Simidele Dosekun, ‘For Western Girls Only? Post-feminism as transna-
tional culture’, Feminist Media Studies 15, no.6 (2015): 960, 972.
21. State feminism was initially a Scandinavian creation used for explaining the
cases of state socialism. See Helga M. Hernes, Welfare State and Woman
Power: Essays in State Feminism (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1987).
In this chapter, socialist state feminism refers to the ‘institutionalisation of
feminism in state agencies’ which was promoted by socialist state’s gender
policies. See Zheng Wang, Finding Women in the State (Oakland: University
of California Press), 7.
22. Jie Yang, ‘“Re-employment Stars”: Language, Gender and Neoliberal
Re-structuring in China’, in Words and Material Girls: Language, Gender
and Global Economies, ed. Bonnie, S. McElhinny (Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter, 2007), 72–103.
23. ‘Times have changed – men and women are equal’ is from Mao Zedong’s
speech with the youth in the Ming Tombs Reservoir in June 1964. See
Long Live the Victory of Mao Zedong Thought (Beijing: Nanjing Military
Command, 1969), 243.
24. Dai Jinhua argues that from a male perspective, the Maoist era was a de-
sexualised era while from a female perspective, it was a masculinised pro-
cess. See Dai Jinhua, Gendering China (Taipei: Erya Press Ltd., 2008), 78.
I use ‘androgynous’ to describe ‘iron girls’ because ‘iron girls’ shared
almost same figures as men on posters. Also, the notion of ‘androgynous’
offers more possibilities for decoding the ‘iron girl’ images.
25. Mayfair Yang, ‘From gender erasure to gender difference: State feminism,
consumer sexuality, and women’s public sphere in China’, in Space of Their
Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China, ed. Mayfair Yang
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999): 47.
26. Lisa Rofel, Desiring China. Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and
Public Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007).
27. Alicia Stevens and Scott Griffiths, ‘Body Positivity in Everyday Life’, Body
Image 35 (2020): 181–191.
28. Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen 16, no.3
(1975), 17.
29. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan
Sheridan (London: Allen Lane, 1977), 11.
30. Ibid., 136.
31. Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman, ‘Doing Gender’, Gender and
Society 1, no.2 (June 1, 1987): 125–51.
32. Robert Goldman, Reading Ads Socially (London: Routledge, 1992).
33. Toni Ingram, ‘“I feel pretty”: Beauty as an affective-material process’,
Feminist Theory 0, no.0 (2021), 2.
34. Nancy J. Hirshman, ‘Choosing Betrayal’, Perspectives on Politics 8, no.1
(2010), 274.
35. Banet-Weiser, ‘What is your flava?’, 208.
36. Butler, Gender Trouble, viii.
37. Tasker&Negra, Interrogating Postfeminism.
Sarah Projansky, Watching Rape (New York: New York University
Press, 2001).
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"I hope not," he said, brightening. "She is a good woman, an excellent woman.
I know she will watch over Pollie like a mother."
The words struck me as significant, and I could not help thinking that Miss
Cottrell would have liked to hear them. As I turned from the house Dr. Poole's
carriage came in sight driving rapidly towards it, so I had no more of Mr.
Dicks's company at that time.
The morrow brought me a delightful letter from mother. She had been very
sorry, she wrote, to learn of the outbreak of illness at "Gay Bowers." She had
much sympathy for aunt and Mr. Dicks, and still more for the sufferer herself. It
was perhaps wise of aunt to turn me out of the house for a while, but she was
convinced that I had run little risk of taking the malady, and I was not to allow
myself to think of such a thing. So sure was mother of my immunity from
danger, that she told me I might come up to town on Monday and spend a
couple of days at home, thus completing my week of quarantine.
"We all want to see you badly," she said, "and we have surprising news for
you. I cannot do justice to it in a letter, and besides, I believe that Olive would
like to tell you all about it herself."
I was delighted at the thought of going home, and mother's mysterious hint
filled me with the liveliest curiosity. What could this surprising news be?
Evidently it was something in which Olive was greatly interested; but although
I made many surmises, I did not hit upon the truth. But when I spoke of it to
Aunt Patty, she said quietly:
"I expect it means that Olive is engaged."
"Oh, auntie," I exclaimed, and the colour flew into my face, "what can make
you say so? That is a most unlikely thing."
"Is it?" aunt asked with a smile. "You are paying Olive a nice compliment. It
seems to me likely enough."
"But Olive!" I gasped. "Olive! Oh, I don't think it can be that!"
The idea was more startling than agreeable. How could we do without Olive?
She seemed as truly a pillar of the house as either father or mother. Certainly I
had never supposed that she would remain single all her days, but that within
the near future she would marry and leave us was a prospect which appalled
me, and I tried to persuade myself that it could not be as Aunt Patty imagined.
I could see that my aunt thought it rather rash of mother to have me home at
this time, but I troubled little about that. When Jack heard that I was going up
to town on Monday, he insisted that we must travel together; so it was under
his escort that I arrived at Liverpool Street that afternoon, and found Peggy
awaiting me on the platform.
Peggy looked lively as ever. She never was shy—art students seldom are, I
think—and she was soon chattering away to Jack. She appeared shorter than
usual as she stood looking up at him, and she complained to me afterwards
that conversing with him had given her a pain at the back of her neck. He was
in no hurry to reach his destination, and insisted on accompanying us to
Moorgate Street, and seeing us into the train for Clapham.
All this while I was longing to put a certain question to Peggy, but not till we
had reached Clapham and were walking home from the station was I able to
do so.
"Peggy," I said as we reached the edge of the common, and stepped within
the welcome shade of trees, "Olive is not engaged to be married, is she?"
Peggy glanced quickly at me.
"Why, who told you, Nan?" she asked in surprise. "I mean what made you
think of such a thing?"
"Then it is true?" I groaned. "Tell me who he is, Peggy?"
"I was told not to say a word about it," Peggy replied. "Olive was going to tell
you herself, but since you know so much already—"
"Yes, yes," I broke in impatiently, "you must tell me about him. I can hear
Olive's story later. Is he good enough for her?"
"She thinks so," said Peggy significantly. "She puts him on so high a pedestal
that I tell her he must topple off some day. His name is Percival Smythe."
"What!" I exclaimed. "Mrs. Smythe's nephew! Olive wrote me that he had

come back from India, and was staying there. She said they had been cycling
together, but I never thought— He must be a great deal older than she is."
"And why, pray?" Peggy asked with a smile.
"Oh, I see," she added. "Olive probably omitted to explain that he was Mrs.
Smythe's grand-nephew. The old lady always speaks of him as her nephew.
As a matter-of-fact, he is twenty-nine."
"Oh!" I said disconsolately. "And is Olive very fond of him?"
Peggy laughed.
"I shall leave you to find that out for yourself," she said. "You won't have much
difficulty."
"Do you like him, Peggy?" I asked anxiously.
"Oh, yes, we all like him," she said cheerfully, "and not least Master Fred. He
has been making a good deal of Fred. He proposed taking him to the Zoo on
Saturday week, and then with serpentine cunning suggested that Olive and I
should go too. I fell into the snare, like the dear little innocent I am. Soon after
entering the gardens, Mr. Smythe provided Fred with a big bag of buns, and
led us to the bears' den. Fred was soon engaged in exciting endeavours to
induce the big bear to climb his pole, and I was watching lest he should
precipitate himself into the pit, when I became aware that the other two had
vanished. If you will believe it, we saw nothing more of them till it was almost
time to go home, and I had all of taking Fred from house to house, and
helping him to spend the half-crown Mr. Smythe had given him, in rides on
every animal that could possibly be mounted."
"Poor Peggy! They did treat you badly!" I said, unable to keep from laughing,
though I did not feel exactly merry. "I hope they duly apologised."
"They told me they were sorry, but they certainly disguised their feelings well,"
she said, with twinkling eyes, "for I never saw two mortals look so supremely
happy. The hours in which I had been growing hot and weary had passed like
a blissful dream with them, and they could not believe it was so late. Of
course, I guessed what it meant, and the next day he came to see father, and
the thing was settled."
The news did not please me at all. It was selfish of me; but I could not
welcome the shadow of approaching change. I should have liked to find
everything at home going on as usual. Before I could question Peggy further
we were in the old familiar road, and in another minute mother was giving me
her cheery greeting.
Olive had not yet returned from Mrs. Smythe's, so I had a little quiet chat with
mother first. She told me that she and father were satisfied that Olive would
have a good husband and were glad that this happiness had come to her. But
though she spoke so bravely, I could see that mother shrank sorely from the
thought of parting with her eldest child. While we talked Olive came in,
accompanied by her fiancé. I had made up my mind to dislike Percival
Smythe; but his appearance disarmed my prejudice. I saw at once he was a
gentleman, and I soon knew that Olive had not given her heart to one
unworthy of the gift.
As I looked at my sister I marvelled at the change I saw in her. Always bright

and winsome, her face was now radiant with happiness. Olive had always
been remarkable for her unselfishness, and now she loved with the strong,
pure, whole-souled devotion which forgets self in loving.
I shared her room, and we had a long, long talk ere we slept that night.
As I listened to the glowing words in which she described the man she loved, I
found it hard to believe that he was quite the heroic being she painted him; but
I felt that he was a happy man to have won such love and trust, and that he
must be the better for it. I tried to be glad for Olive's sake, but I am afraid that I
still cherished a grudge against him.
"Of course you will not be married for some time yet," I said.
"Not till next year," she said softly, "he has to return to India in the spring."
"To India!" I cried sharply. "Oh, Olive, you don't mean to say that he is going to
take you to India?"
"Why, naturally," she said with a smile, "since he has a post there and is only
home on furlough. What are you thinking of, Nan?"
"I had not thought of that," I said. "Oh, Olive, I cannot bear to think of your
going right away to India."
"Oh, nonsense, Nan," she said smilingly. "India is not such a very great way
off; at any rate people can easily get back."
How lightly she said it! It struck me as strange that Olive, who had always
seemed to be so fond of mother and home and all of us, should now be so
willing to leave us and go to the other side of the world with a man of whom
she had known nothing when I left home.
"So, Olive," I said in a tone of mournful conviction, "he is more to you than any
of us?"
A grave, sweet look came to Olive's face.
"Why, yes, he certainly is," she made reply, "but you must not suppose, dear
old Nan, that I care less for any one because of this new and precious love. It
is quite otherwise. My heart goes out to every one of you, as it never did
before, just because I am so glad—so glad and so thankful to God for this rich
gift of love."
"Yet you are ready to go away with him to the ends of the earth!" I said.
"Yes," she said quietly, and I cannot describe her expression as she said it, "I
am ready to go with him wherever he goes. We belong to each other
henceforth. Ah, Nan, you cannot understand it now; but you will some day."
But it seemed to me that I was beginning to understand it already.
CHAPTER XIV
A PICNIC
"NAN, who do you think I saw in Regent Street?" exclaimed my sister Dora,
more eagerly than grammatically as she came into the little back garden—a
typical London "garden"—consisting of a hawthorn, a rockery, and a grass-plot
hardly bigger than a tablecloth, where mother, Peggy, and I were sitting to
enjoy the cool of the evening. Dora had been with a party of her school-
fellows under the care of their form-mistress to visit a certain interesting
exhibition at the West End.
"I am sure I do not know, and I am not going to guess," I responded lazily, "so
you may as well tell me at once."
"Well, then, it was Cousin Agneta," Dora said.
"You don't mean it?" I said, sitting up with sudden briskness.

"But I do," said Dora. "I tell you I saw her!"
"Was she alone?" I asked.
"No, she was walking with a gentleman—and such a masher too."
"Dora," mother broke in, "I wish you would not use those horrid slang
expressions!"
"Oh, mother, what harm is there in masher? Would you rather I said swell?"
"No, I do not like either word," mother replied. "Cannot you simply say that he
was a smart-looking man! Did you speak to your cousin?"
"No, I was going to; but she took hold of the man's arm and made him turn
sharp round with her into one of the side streets. Yet I feel sure that she saw
me," Dora said.
"Are you sure that you saw her?" Peggy asked. "I mean, did you not mistake
some one else for Cousin Agneta?"
"As if I should!" Dora said with an injured air. "Surely I may be supposed to
know my own cousin, when she was staying here only a few weeks ago."
"How was she dressed?" I asked.
"I don't know what her dress was like," Dora replied, "but she had on a grey
hat with pink roses under the brim."
"Agneta does not possess a grey hat," I said, with a sense of relief, "so you
must have made a mistake."
"If you had said a red hat, now!" suggested Peggy.
"I don't care what you like to say," Dora protested, "I know it was Cousin
Agneta. She may have bought a new hat."
"Since yesterday?" I said.
"Why not?" demanded Dora.
"There I that will do," said mother decisively. "It is not in the least likely that
your cousin would come up to town without letting us know, or that she would
be walking in Regent Street with a gentleman."
"All the same, it was Agneta," Dora muttered perversely under her breath.
I heard her with some uneasiness. More than once I had longed to speak to
mother about Agneta's unhappy love affair; but I had promised her that I
would say nothing about it, unless she gave me permission, and I felt bound
to keep silence.
On the following day I returned to "Gay Bowers," having much enjoyed my

brief sojourn at home. I was touched by the welcome I received from every
one. They said so much about how they had missed me that I was in danger
of fancying myself a very important person. With much satisfaction I learned
that Paulina was going on as well as possible, and was already considered to
have passed the worst stage of her illness. Mr. Dicks appeared to have
recovered his usual equanimity. The least happy looking of the party was
Agneta. It struck me that she had a worn and restless air which marred her
prettiness. When I mentioned it to aunt, she said:
"Agneta is tired; she had a fatiguing day in town yesterday."
"In town!" I exclaimed in surprise. "We saw nothing of her."
"No, she thought she would not have time to get to Clapham," Aunt Patty said.
"She meant to come back by an early train; but she missed it after all. I did not
like her going alone after what Mrs. Redmayne said; but she wanted to get a
new hat to wear at the Canfields' garden party, and she said she was going to
meet an old school-fellow. Really, I did not know what to do, for I could not go
with her myself."
"And she got a new hat?" I said.
"Two new hats, the extravagant girl!" said aunt. "She wore one home, leaving
the old one to be sent back by post."
"Then she appeared in a grey hat with pink roses," I said.
"You are right," said aunt; "but how do you know that?"
Then I told her how Dora had declared that she had seen Agneta in Regent
Street and how we had all tried in vain to convince her that she was mistaken;
but I said not a word about the man Dora had described to us. I was anxious
to avoid the least risk of breaking my word to Agneta, yet I wished that I had
not pledged myself so impulsively, for my discovery of the dissimulation
Agneta was practising made me profoundly uncomfortable.
Agneta had welcomed me with professions of delight which I afterwards
judged to be insincere, since she seemed desirous to avoid being alone with
me. She gave me no opportunity of having a quiet word with her till we went
upstairs for the night, and then she hurried into bed, declaring that she was
very sleepy. But I made her listen to me before she slept. She could not deny
that Dora had seen her in Regent Street.
"Don't be hard on me, Nan," she said. "When Ralph wrote that he would be in
London on Tuesday, and asked me to meet him, I felt that I must go. I had not
seen him for so long, and you know all things are fair in love."
"I don't know it," I said. "It seems to me that all things should be beautiful and
honourable that have to do with love. If this man truly loved you, he would not
tempt you to act in a way that is beneath your dignity. He must know that your
parents have forbidden you to meet him, or even write to him."
"Why, of course he knows," Agneta said impatiently.
"Surely you would not have me submit to such tyranny!"
"I think your parents have a right to some consideration, Agneta," I replied.
"You are their child; you owe everything to them. I know it is very trying for
you, but if you will only wait—"
"Wait, wait! I hate that word!" broke in Agneta, angrily. "I will not wait, so
there!"
"But what can you do?" I asked.
"Do?" said Agneta, with a toss of the head. "Oh, we know what to do! Mother
will find that I have a will of my own, and am not the weak creature she
imagines."
"Oh, Agneta!" I exclaimed, startled by her words. "You would not think of
getting married without your parents' consent?"
Her face flushed.
"Oh, no, of course not," she said hurriedly. "I did not mean that."
But her manner did not convince me of the truth of her words. I knew
instinctively that some such idea was in her mind.
"It would be a most foolish act, and would bring certain misery," I said. "Don't
listen to him, Agneta, if he tries to persuade you to do anything so wrong."
"Of course I shall not," she returned. "But, oh, how you talk, Nan! It is clear
that you know nothing whatever about love."
I was silent, but I said to myself that I could never have loved Ralph
Marshman, or any man who tried to lead me into crooked ways. The man
must be nobler and wiser and better than myself into whose keeping I gave
my life.
I began to talk to Agneta about Olive and her great happiness, but she
showed little interest in the subject. Thoroughly absorbed in herself, she had
no sympathy to spare for another's joy. Paulina would have listened to the
story with lively interest, and Miss Cottrell would have been ready to discuss it
from every possible point of view; but Agneta heard me with a bored air which
quickly reduced me to silence.
The next morning dawned beautifully bright, and when I came downstairs the
hall door was wide open, and Alan Faulkner stood sunning himself on the step
with Sweep beside him.
"Good-morning, Miss Nan," he said cheerily. "Is not this ever so much better
than Clapham Common?"
I could not but admit that it was, for the garden was now in the perfection of its
beauty. The breeze, which ruffled my hair as I advanced to the door, was
sweet with the breath of flowers. The rose-tree trained against the wall of the
house was full of blossoms, and bees were buzzing noisily as they flitted from
rose to rose. A fine hydrangea growing by the door was a marvel of changeful
colour, and close by a cluster of tall, graceful Madonna lilies, of purest
whiteness, attracted the bees by their heavy perfume. It was a morning to
make one sing for joy. I was feeling happy enough at that moment, and I was
therefore astonished when Mr. Faulkner said, after observing me for a
moment:
"What is the trouble, Miss Nan?"
"The trouble!" I repeated. "What do you mean?"
"There was a shadow on your face last evening, and I fancy that I can still
detect its influence," he said. "You found nothing wrong at home, I trust?"
"Oh, no! They were all well, and things were going happily," I replied. "There
was nothing there to worry me."
"But something did worry you," he said. "Can't you tell me what it is? I might
be able to set it right."
"Oh, no!" I answered, colouring hotly in my confusion and surprise. "You could
not help, and I could not tell you indeed."
His eyes studied me for a moment with a questioning air; then he said quietly:
"Excuse me, Miss Nan, I must seem to you a curious, meddlesome fellow."
"Not at all," I faltered. "It was kind of you to ask; but I cannot tell you about it."
A moment's silence followed; then he said:
"Do you know that Miss Cottrell was working in this garden at seven o'clock?"
"Was she really?" I said. "I cannot see her part of the garden from my window.
How very energetic of her!"
"Was it not? But, of course, she needs fresh air and exercise. I suppose she
does not have to do a great deal of nursing."
"Why, no! There is a trained nurse who takes charge of Paulina at night, and
who is available also for part of the day," I explained. "I was thinking that Miss
Cottrell would feel anxious about her flowers. You did not speak to her, I
suppose?"
"No; I only saw her from my window," he replied. "She was applying the hoe
with much vigour. She is one to do very thoroughly whatever she undertakes."
"That is true," I said. "It is splendid the way she has devoted herself to
Paulina. Mr. Dicks has good cause to feel grateful to her."
The breakfast gong sounded, and we obeyed its summons. Mr. Dicks had
already taken his place at the table, and was talking eagerly to Aunt Patty
when we entered the room.
"Come, Miss Nan," he cried as he saw me, "what do you say to our
celebrating your return, by having a picnic?"
"A splendid idea!" I cried. "By all means let us have it."
"And so say I," said Mr. Faulkner.
"Can you spare the time?" I asked.
"I will spare the time," was his reply.
"We should not go till after luncheon," said my aunt. "Mr. Dicks proposes
taking us all to have tea at the Warren—in proper gipsy fashion, of course. We
will take a kettle and all the necessary paraphernalia, and make a fire on the
common to boil the kettle. We can get milk and water at the farm."
It sounded charming to me. The Warren was a beautiful, high common, about
seven miles away, the haunt of innumerable rabbits, and yielding a rich
harvest of blackberries in their season. Olive and I had loved going there as
children, for its wild, broken ground and clumps of Scotch firs had made a
delightful playground. A full, deep stream ran on one side of it, and,
descending to the valley below, turned the wheel of a picturesque mill which
stood there, and was the delight of artists.
Colonel Hyde had expressed his willingness to join the excursion, and Alan
Faulkner and I had just decided that we would go on our bicycles, when
Agneta entered the room. She apologised for her lateness as she listlessly
took her seat. Mr. Dicks made haste to tell her of his grand project, but her
face evinced no pleasure as she heard of it.
"I will ask you to excuse me," she said, "I am not fond of picnics."
"Oh, but you must go," said Mr. Dicks. "We cannot leave you at home by
yourself. You shall have Paulina's bicycle if you would like to ride."
"Thank you, but I would rather not," she said. "I do not feel at all inclined to
ride in this heat."
"Then you can drive with us elderly people in the sociable—there will be
plenty of room," he said.
"You are very kind," she said coldly; "but I would rather stay at home."
"You shall not go unless you like, Agneta," Aunt Patty said kindly. "If you stay
at home, I will stay too. It will be better for me—I hardly know how to spare the
time."
But Mr. Dicks, the Colonel, and Alan Faulkner protested against this. They
knew that Aunt Patty seldom allowed herself any recreation, and they had set
their hearts on having her company to-day.
Agneta's face flushed as she heard them, and she said in an injured tone:
"There is not the least need for you to remain at home because I do, Mrs.
Lucas. I am not a baby; I think you may trust me to take care of myself."
"Of course you can, dear—I do not doubt it for a moment," aunt said
soothingly. "Still, I should not like to leave you quite alone."
In the end Agneta consented to accompany us, but she did it with a bad
grace, and rather spoiled the enjoyment of some of us by her obstinate
determination not to appear to be enjoying herself. She was cross with me
because, by simple accident, I appeared in a frock remarkably like her own.
My suit of shepherd's plaid had seen two summers' wear, and I wore it simply
because it was light and cool, and so short in the skirt as to be suitable for
cycling and rambling over the common. Hers was a smart, tailor-made
costume, which I should have considered too good for such a day's outing.
The material showed a rather larger check than mine, but they were
sufficiently alike to appear similar at a little distance. If either of us had cause
to feel annoyance it was I, since her dress made mine look poor. I was
considerably annoyed by the disagreeable remarks she choose to make about
the resemblance.
Still, I must confess that I enjoyed that picnic very much, though it was marked
by no adventures, nor any particular excitement. Alan Faulkner and I on our
bicycles reached the Warren long before the party who came in the
wagonette. Resting on the slope of a knoll planted with firs, we awaited the
arrival of the others without impatience. I found myself telling him about my
sister Olive's engagement. He listened with interest, and I learned that he
knew the part of India in which Percival Smythe was stationed, and could tell
me much that I wanted to hear.
When the others arrived I was astonished to see that Miss Cottrell was one of
the party. It was Mr. Dicks's kind thought that the fresh air on the common
would be very good for her. He had consulted the doctor, who had assured
him that if Miss Cottrell observed certain precautions there would not be the
least fear of her conveying infection to any of us. She seemed delighted to be
with us once more, and talked more than ever.
When the time came for us to return home, Alan Faulkner and I soon
distanced aunt's sober horse. It was growing late as we approached "Gay
Bowers." We were spinning down the road at the back of the house, when a
man suddenly dropped from the boundary wall of the kitchen garden into the
lane just in front of my machine, and startled me so that I almost fell off. Trees
overhung the road at that point, and the light was so dim that I could perceive
only that the man wore a white straw hat ere he disappeared, running rapidly
beneath the trees.
"Whoever is he?" I asked, turning to Mr. Faulkner. "What can it mean?"
"That I will soon find out," he said. "You will not mind my leaving you, Miss
Nan, as we are just at home."
And, scarce waiting for my permission, he was off at such speed that there
was little doubt of his overtaking the stranger, however fast he might run.
When the wagonette party drove up they found me standing alone within the
garden.
"Only think, auntie," I said. "We saw a man jump down from your garden wall,
and run off in the most suspicious way. Mr. Faulkner is chasing him under the
idea that he was there for no lawful purpose. Do you think he can be a
burglar?"
"A burglar in this peaceful countryside! Impossible, Miss Nan!" exclaimed the
Colonel; "but I hope Mr. Faulkner will catch him, for, depend on it, he was up
to no good."
"Most likely he was after my fruit," said aunt.
As she spoke my eyes fell on Agneta, and I was startled to see how pale and
fearful she looked. Aunt's eyes had followed the direction of mine, and she
was equally struck by Agneta's look.
"Don't talk so lightly of burglars, Nan," she said. "You have quite frightened
your cousin. Do not be alarmed, dear; you need fear no such visitation at 'Gay
Bowers.'"
"I am not in the least afraid of burglars," she said almost pettishly, but I could
see that her hands were trembling as they toyed with her parasol. I knew that
she spoke the truth, for instinctively I guessed who the man was.
"Here comes Mr. Faulkner!" cried Miss Cottrell eagerly. "Now we shall hear all
about it."
But Alan Faulkner's brief statement hardly sufficed to satisfy her curiosity.
"Oh, no, he is not a burglar," he said. "I believe he considers himself a
gentleman, but he certainly took a most unwarrantable liberty."
I had never heard Alan Faulkner speak in such an angry, scornful tone, nor
seen such a fire in his eyes. What did it all mean? I felt sick of these
mysterious, underhand ways, and quite angry with my cousin, who
disappeared as soon as she had heard what Alan had to say.
CHAPTER XV
AN ACT OF INDISCRETION
WHEN we all met at breakfast the next morning there was a good deal of
laughing and joking about the burglar, as we congratulated each other that he
had not disturbed our rest. Agneta took no part in it. She feigned not to hear
what was going on as she studied the envelopes of the letters which lay
beside her plate; but I saw that her colour had risen, and felt sure that she
was not so indifferent as she appeared.
There was another person at the table who took no part in the talk. Alan
Faulkner was unusually grave that morning. Suddenly glancing up, I became
aware that his eyes were upon me, studying me with an earnest, questioning
glance I could not understand. My eyes fell beneath it and my colour rose. I
fancied there was something reproachful in his look; but, as I had done
nothing to deserve this, I tried to persuade myself that my imagination was
wholly at fault. Yet the mere fancy had a lowering effect upon my spirits. It was
with a sense of flatness and depression that I set about my daily duties.
Ere long Agneta claimed my attention. She had risen with a headache, which
increased in violence as the day wore on. In vain she struggled against it with
all the power of her strong will; she had to succumb at last, and spent the
afternoon lying on her bed, while I kept applying cold bandages to her
forehead. At last she said that she was better and felt inclined to sleep, so I
darkened the room and left her.
When I went downstairs there was no one about. I passed into the garden and
found that, too, deserted. As I walked round to the back of the house I
wondered where the others were. Aunt Patty, I knew, had driven into
Chelmsford to do some shopping, and I believed that Mr. Dicks had
accompanied her. The Colonel probably was at the Vicarage. "Gay Bowers"
wore the quiet, drowsy appearance that had marked it in the days when
paying guests were unknown there.
Somewhat discontentedly I wandered down the long lawns, past the tennis
nets and the croquet hoops, till I reached the part of the garden devoted to
vegetables and fruit. To the right lay the strawberry bed, and, seeing some
ripe berries, I paused to regale myself with them. I was wearing the check skirt
I had worn on the previous day. It was foolish of me, but I liked it the better
because Alan Faulkner had said a word in approval of It. It seemed that he
was particularly fond of that admixture of black and white.
I lingered for some minutes by the strawberry bed, and was still hunting amid
the green leaves when I saw a lad, who sometimes assisted Hobbes in the
garden, coming towards me. Touching his cap awkwardly, he handed me a
folded slip of paper, and as he did so I saw that a shilling lay in the palm of his
hand.
"The gentleman told me to give you this, miss," he said.
"What gentleman?" I asked.
"Don't know," said the boy; "none of them as is here, miss."
I looked at the paper. It appeared to be a leaf torn from a pocket-book and

folded with a corner turned down. There was no address on it. Turning from
the boy's curious gaze, I strolled on, opening the missive as I went. I was
amazed as I read the following words:
"My Darling, I have been waiting so impatiently in the wood

and wondering what had kept you, till at last I was daring
enough to approach the house, and from the one place where
it is possible to look over the garden wall caught a glimpse of
your frock, flitting to and fro amid the bushes. Dearest, why do
you waste the time, when we might be together? I have got
our plans laid now, and I must tell you about them. Let me
assure you that the way is clear. There in not another soul
about the place. Your puritanical cousin seems to have kindly
taken herself off. I am tempted to scale the wall and join you
where you are; but I dare not risk being caught again, as I was
last night. I will tell you about it when we meet, so make haste
and join me in the wood beyond the common."
"Your devoted"
"RALPH."
I read this extraordinary note in utter bewilderment until I came to the allusion
to the "puritanical cousin," when the truth suddenly flashed on me. Why such
an epithet was applied to myself I could not quite see, but I took it home, and
leaped to the conclusion that the writer was Agneta's unworthy lover, who had
mistaken me for her, owing to the fact of our dresses being similar. How he
came to be in the neighbourhood I could not tell, but the idea that the
supposed "burglar" was none other than he had struck me on the previous
evening. I smiled to think how annoyed he would be, if he knew how his note
had miscarried. Then I made a sudden resolve. He should know what had
happened. I would go to the wood and confront him. I would tell him what I
thought of his conduct, and warn him that if he continued to haunt the place I
would let my aunt know of the discovery I had made. I was self-confident
enough to believe that I could reason with him and persuade him to abandon
a course of action which was so unworthy a true lover and gentleman.
I acted far too impulsively, as I learned to my sorrow. Waiting only to snatch

my sailor hat from the peg in the back lobby where it hung, I hastened off to
the common, and found my way into the wood at the nearest point to "Gay
Bowers." It was the same wood, which ran down to the Wood End Oaks.
Scarcely had I reached the shadow of the trees ere I perceived the young
man I came to meet. He was standing with his back to me, looking down the
green glade which led to the road by which apparently he expected Agneta to
come. No sooner did I see him than I experienced a sense of shame at my
temerity. I might have abandoned my purpose and turned back, but the
cracking of the twigs beneath my feet as I scrambled through the hedge had
reached his ears. He swung round in a moment, and at the first glimpse of me
a cry of delight escaped him; but the expression of his face changed almost
instantly. Had I been less nervous I could have laughed at the unflattering look
of annoyance which darkened his face when he perceived that I was not the
one he expected.
"You did not expect to see me, Mr. Marshman," I said hastily in my
embarrassment.
He lifted his hat with a grace that was Continental. I learned later that he had
passed some years in a German school. He was of tall, lithe form, and bore
himself with grace. His features were so handsome that I did not wonder at
Agneta's infatuation, yet there was something in his face that repelled me.
"I beg your pardon," he said suavely in response to my greeting—"you have

the advantage of me."
"I think not," I said. "I am Agneta's cousin—" it was with difficulty that I kept
back the word "puritanical" which trembled on my tongue—"and I have come
instead of her."
"Oh, really! Miss Darracott then, I presume." He lifted his hat again as he
spoke. "May I ask why you have come?"
"I came to give you this," I said, holding out the slip of paper, "which I am sure
you did not intend for me. You mistook my identity, I suppose."
He looked bewildered for a moment, then flushed as he took the paper.
"That being the case, you, of course, refrained from reading it, Miss
Darracott?" he said in cool, quiet tones that had an edge of irony.
"Excuse me," I said, "you forget that your note bore no address. Your
messenger told me that a gentleman had instructed him to give it to me. Not
till I had read it could I know that it was meant for my cousin."
"Ah," he said, kicking savagely at a clump of nettles, "what an imbecile I was!

But at least you must have known that there was a mistake."
"Oh, certainly," I stammered, growing scarlet as I remembered the tender

epithet with which the note had begun.
"Then may I ask," he continued, "why you did not give it to your cousin when
you found it was intended for her?"
"Because I prefer to return it to you," I said boldly, "and to ask you not to send
such notes to Agneta, nor try to see her, when you know it is her parents' wish
that you should not meet, and no good can come of such underhand ways."
"Agneta did not tell you to say that to me," he replied defiantly.
"She did not," I answered. "Agneta is far from well this afternoon, and she is
lying down in her room at the present moment. She was quite otherwise
occupied, as it happened, but this I could not know. I do not know how you
come to be here," I added, "but I should advise you to leave this
neighbourhood, and be content to wait till you can see Agneta with her
parents' consent."
As I spoke I attempted to pass him, and go on my way; but, with an ironical

laugh, he turned on his heel and walked beside me.
"Excuse my laughing, Miss Darracott; your words struck me as deliciously

naive!" he said. "Don't you know that I might wait till doomsday before I should
win that consent, since I have the misfortune to be poor, and the Redmaynes
love money above all things—a characteristic that by no means renders them
singular."
"You cannot be sure that their minds would not change," I said, "and I am sure
it must be right for you to wait at present. It seems to me that you are bound in
honour to seek no pledge from Agneta until she comes of age. You forget how
young she is."
"Are you so much older, Miss Darracott?" he asked with a disagreeable smile,
as he bent towards me, his dark eyes seeking mine with insolent raillery in
their glance. "'Oh, wise young judge! How much more elder art thou than thy
looks!'"
The blood rushed into my face. The sense of shame and humiliation which I
experienced well-nigh brought the tears to my eyes. I saw how foolish it was
of me to imagine that I could influence such a man as this.
He glanced away for a moment, then drew nearer to me with something so

familiar and repulsive in his air that instinctively I shrank as far from him as the
narrow path would permit. Without heeding the way I took, I had passed into
the track that led to the stile giving access to the road. As I hastily moved
away from Ralph Marshman, I was aware that Alan Faulkner stood on the
other side of the stile, and was looking towards us with an indescribable
expression on his face. I only saw him, and he was gone. Like a blow there
fell on me the conviction that he had utterly misunderstood the state of affairs.
What could he think, indeed, on seeing me wandering along a secluded

woodland path with this man beside me? How could I have been so mad as to
place myself in such a position! For a moment I did not hear the words which
Ralph Marshman was saying. Then he laughed in a way which made me turn
my eyes on him. He was regarding me with a bold, amused glance that was in
itself an insult. It seemed to me that he could read my thoughts, and knew the
pain I was enduring.
"That is the learned and exemplary Professor Faulkner," he said in a mocking

tone. "Do you think he was shocked to see us wandering in this wood alone?
But if he is human at all he would understand—at least the apparent meaning
of it, eh, Miss Darracott? He might not guess how recent is our acquaintance."
"Don't speak so, if you please!" I responded angrily. "You know I only came
here to protest against the way in which you are acting! I warn you that I shall
tell my aunt all that I know!"
"You don't mean that," he said with an impudent laugh. "You say it because
you are angry. Well, I forgive your wrath since it is so becoming. But let me
warn you that if you tell tales I can tell them too. I could tell a pretty story of
how you opened another person's letter, and how you came uninvited to meet
me in the wood. I advise you to keep your own counsel, Miss Darracott. Will
you convey my regrets to Agneta, and tell her that, but for the pleasure of
making your acquaintance, I should have been inconsolable when I heard of
her indisposition? I fear we shall not meet again for a while, Miss Darracott, as
I am about to leave this neighbourhood."
I made no reply as I hurried along the path and climbed the stile. I could feel
that he watched me for a few moments, but when I looked back from the road
I saw that he had turned in the opposite direction, and was pursuing the path
that led towards Chelmsford. I hurried homewards, my cheeks burning, my
pulses throbbing. I could hardly have felt much worse had I been guilty of the
indiscretion which I believed Alan Faulkner had imputed to me.
"Gay Bowers" was close at hand when round a bend of the road I came
suddenly upon Agneta. The colour flew into her face as she saw me. It was
clear that her professed desire to sleep was merely a ruse to get rid of me,
and she was now hurrying to keep her appointment with Ralph Marshman.
"It is too late, Agneta!" I said. "He is gone."
"What do you mean?" she asked nervously, and the flush faded from her face
as quickly as it had risen, till she looked ready to drop. "Where have you
been?"
"In the wood talking with Mr. Ralph Marshman," I replied. "And I wish enough I
had never gone near him. He is a horrid man, Agneta!"
A scene ensued which was to the credit of neither of us. In my sore
mortification I lost control of my temper, and said words that were better
unsaid. I reproached my cousin with deceitful and even unmaidenly conduct. I
told her that the man for whose sake she seemed ready to risk the priceless
pearl of her good name was no gentleman, and that he was not worthy of a
girl's respect, still less her love. I told her that although I had promised to say
nothing to Aunt Patty about the love story she had confided to me, things had
now come to such a pass that I felt I had a right to claim release from that
promise. A higher obligation compelled me to inform aunt of what was going
on, and I gave her warning that I meant to lay the whole matter before Aunt
Patty at the earliest opportunity.
Agneta did not receive my rebukes with meekness. She reproached me in her
turn with considerable bitterness. Very hard were the words she hurled at me.
I was a prude, a mischief-maker, a Pharisee, and a sneak. The last epithet
made me wince. I did so hate all meanness in word or deed, that the injustice
of this last judgment stung me. But I held my ground in spite of it. The issue
was too grave for me lightly to give way. I felt it as incumbent on me to save
Agneta from herself as if I had seen her in a fit of madness about to throw
herself over a precipice. When at last she saw that I would not yield, Agneta,
wholly exhausted by her passionate outburst, sank on a bank by the roadside
and began to cry. I felt very uneasy as I watched her. My attempts to soothe
her met with little success.
"You are so unkind, Nan," she sobbed. "You want to make me miserable, and
it is so horrid of you, just when I was looking forward to the garden party to-
morrow. You might wait till that is over before you tell Mrs. Lucas. You will
upset her as well as me, and spoil everything."
I was amazed to hear Agneta speak so. What a child she was, to be sure!
How could I take her love trouble seriously, when I found her in the midst of
her distress giving a thought to this garden party, to which we were all invited
for the morrow? I knew that Aunt Patty was looking forward to going to the
Canfields' entertainment accompanied by most of her paying guests; but I had
no idea that Agneta was counting on it so much, although I knew she had
bought a new hat for the occasion. While I mused on it, Agneta spoke again.
"Oh, do, Nan!" she said pleadingly, looking up at me with tears in her blue
eyes. "Do promise me that you will say nothing to Mrs. Lucas till the party is
over!"
For a moment I hesitated. Surely the delay could do no harm, since I believed
that Ralph Marshman was leaving Chelmsford this evening. The sound of

The Cultural Politics of Femvertising Selling Empowerment Joel Gwynne Full Chapter

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The Cultural Politics of Femvertising:

Selling Empowerment Joel Gwynne

The Cultural Politics

More information about this series at

The Cultural Politics

ISSN 2662-9364 ISSN 2662-9372 (electronic)

Cover illustration: GeorgePeter / Getty Images

Part I East Asia 15

2 Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising and the

3 “Beauty Is Growing Up”: A Critical Case Study of

4 Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights and

5 Glocalization, Marketization and Politicisation:

6 What Does It Take to Be ‘Savage’?: Diversity,

7 The Impact of Femvertising on Pink Breast Cancer

8 “Stay Woke. Make Moves” Branding for a Feminist

9 “We Are What We Do”: Postfeminism and Nostalgia in

Part III South America 191

10 The Femvertising of Beauty: Rhinoplasty of the Negroid

11 Femvertising and Commodity Feminism: The Brazilian

Catarina Agostino is a doctoral candidate at the University of

Joel Gwynne is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of

Contemporary Culture (Open UP, 2008) Against Meritocracy (2018) and

Yan Wu is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies,

Joel Gwynne and Crescencia Chay

Neoliberalism can be broadly defined as a political and economic rational-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

On the level of the individual, neoliberalism is also problematic for con-

women, more so than just their appearance.9 As such, by ‘assigning value

misrecognition, totemism, and differentiation. The advertisements inter-

self-­serving, as having no real desire to enact structural change and are

deemed more prestigious than mass-market drugstore makeup/skincare

branding operate within the domains of ‘neoliberal feminist privilege’,42

femvertising be viewed in the era of globalisation? By examining the rep-

healthcare promotion. Considering that the primary target audience for

and structural organisational change that this entails. In so doing, the

5. Redfern and Aune, p. 18.

Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising

As the largest US lingerie retailer, Victoria’s Secret is known for promot-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17

such as Peking Opera costume, applied by VS, and increasing numbers of

of sexiness, inclusiveness, and diversity, and its current strategy of appeal-

1. How does Victoria’s Secret femvertising appropriate feminist values

To address above questions, media output of VS which contain female

Postfeminism Within and Outside China

construction in popular culture.17 It also shows that the sentiment of post-

Post-socialist China emphasises consumerism, individualism, and cosmo-

Unpacking Modelling in Femvertising:

Invoking a Foucauldian term, models in neoliberal capitalism can be

Femvertising falls into a trap of quasi-progress especially when it meets

Chinese Models and Whiteness Debates

many lucrative opportunities. Nevertheless, He Sui’s idealised whiteness is

for women to be skilled make-up and technical masters. In addition, in the

construction of meanings of flawlessness.50 ‘The presence of glossiness in

The Visibility of Chineseness

In post-socialist China, the representation of gender is partly guided by a

Fig. 2.2 Elsa Hosk is

The global cultural economy is inundated with ambiguities, ironies,

Femvertising: From Bodily Property

Since 2019, VS marketing demonstrates a shift towards using more down-­

The brand also launched a series of femvertising advertisement named

I like myself and all my parents give me – my personality and my body. I

Femvertising does not represent a straightforward departure from out-

closely linked to their rates of consumption, psychological strength, and

Part I East Asia 15

2 Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising and the

3 “Beauty Is Growing Up”: A Critical Case Study of

4 Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights and

5 Glocalization, Marketization and Politicisation:

6 What Does It Take to Be ‘Savage’?: Diversity,

7 The Impact of Femvertising on Pink Breast Cancer

8 “Stay Woke. Make Moves” Branding for a Feminist

9 “We Are What We Do”: Postfeminism and Nostalgia in

Part III South America 191

10 The Femvertising of Beauty: Rhinoplasty of the Negroid

11 Femvertising and Commodity Feminism: The Brazilian

self-serving, as having no real desire to enact structural change and are

Since 2019, VS marketing demonstrates a shift towards using more down-