An analysis of "feminist" advertising (femvertising) as a corporate social responsibility practice in the context of postfeminism and commodity feminism and its effects on female consumers

The theoretical framework of this study consists of femvertising as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice in the context of postfeminism and commodity feminism. A background discussion on the status of women in the labor market is held to explain the effect of shareholders in CSR practices thoroughly. The main research questions are how femvertising's mission of empowering women performs in femvertising examples and how this mission has an effect on the target consumers of femvertising. Six femvertising campaigns are chosen with purposive sampling. Structural semiotic analysis by Saussure is employed along with Barthes' concepts of denotation, connotation, discourse, and myth. As a result of semiotic analysis, it is concluded that the representations of women in femvertising are limited in terms of diversity. The analyzed advertisements do not deem gender inequality a systematic problem. Another prominent conclusion is that they revive sexist discourses that are not as popular as before while endeavoring to criticize them. Qualitative method is used from a feminist perspective to assess femvertising's effects on target consumers. The data obtained through in-depth interviews with 19 participants that are chosen by purposive and snowball sampling are analyzed with descriptive and systematic analysis. One of the most notable findings is that participants think femvertising can contribute to gender equality even though it still has certain aspects to improve. It has been concluded that participants tend to consume based on their other beliefs and values rather than being affected by femvertising. It has been aimed to contribute from a feminist perspective to the topic of femvertising on which there are limited studies. Keywords: femvertising, postfeminism, commodity feminism, corporate social responsibility, qualitative method, semiotic analysis.