Although
“Sex, Lies & Advertising” by Gloria Steinem, appears here in the book Our
Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism, this text originally
appeared as an exposé
in Ms. Magazine. This piece was featured in the book edited by McChesney and Scott
to exemplify the stranglehold that advertising, the key aspect in the current
financial structure of print media, has on both the consumer and the production
companies themselves. While easy to take each word as it is written, it is
important to reflect on why the article was written and who is the author and
what experiences form her identity.
Gloria Steinem, although perhaps
most widely known for her feminist activism, was a renown journalist prior to
her acts to reform equality. She, in addition to co-founding Ms. Magazine,
co-founded the New York Magazine and wrote a variety of best selling books
including Revolution from Within, Moving Beyond Words and Marilyn:
Norma Jean, among others. For her work as an author and journalist, Steinem
has also received a multitude of honors including the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, National Magazine awards,
an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, and the Lifetime
Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
With credentials as decorated as these, it is clear that Steinem is an
accomplished journalist and therefore is ethically sound as well as a
professional in the craft of creating arguments and reporting opinionated pieces.
This being noted, although the article is based off of real experiences, there
is obviously a huge bias behind every word, as she is striving to not report
facts but to make a point. Steinem has a reputation for standing behind causes
she believes in 100%, as she once pointed out “If I were not a feminist I’d be
a masculinist”. Through this all or nothing attitude, it is easy to interpret
her writing with a certain skeptism, knowing that one side will be completely
left out.
Steinem
felt that often, magazines were overrun by the advertising that detracted or
completely contradicted the little journalism that remained in the printed
product. Also, in a time period when women were still fighting to obtain the
rights that were now legally theirs, Steinem noticed, and therefore intended to
fix, a system in which women were limited to the simple consumption of
magazines. As a result, Steinem worked to co-found Ms. Magazine, produced by
women, for women, without the help and consequently journalistic burden of nonsensical
advertising. This proved to be harder than expected, and in the article “Sex,
Lies & Advertising” she details the battles she faced. Because it is a
personal account of a career of financial and social hardships, the article may
read as a plea for readership for Ms. Magazine.
Keeping
all of this in mind however, it is important to take away what Steinem is
trying to say about the corruptness of an industry financially controlled by a
force other than consumers, while realizing that this is not a verification
piece but more a first hand exposé.
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