From overt provider to invisible presence: discursive shifts in advertising portrayals of the father in Good Housekeeping, 1950–2010

Abstract

This article considers the link between fatherhood and masculinity and identifies some of the key discursive shifts around fatherhood based on an analysis of advertising material that appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine between 1950 and 2010. It provides a socio-historical perspective on fatherhood that reveals a discursive shift from the father as patriarchal family provider/protector to a more ambiguous and less obvious presence in the magazine advertisements. Our findings suggest that family-related advertising in women’s magazines does little to challenge the traditional models of paternal masculinity. Changes in the portrayal of fathers, when examined closely, seem to reinforce traditional gender hegemony. Yet, over time, a ‘multiplicity of possibilities’ of dominant paternal masculinities is emerging, broadening the original ‘breadwinner’ model and perhaps offering some transformative potential around how we view fathers.

Keywords:

• fatherhood
• hegemonic masculinity
• family consumption
• advertising
• discourse analysis
• historical shifts

Acknowledgements

The authors thank AB Electrolux for permission to reproduce the Frigidaire advertisement and the Whirlpool Corporation and Bauknecht for their assistance in trying to trace copyright for the Bauknecht advertisement. The two advertising images have been reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland and by permission of Hearst Magazines. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors.

Notes

¹ This study forms part of a longitudinal and comparative study of UK and Australian advertising in popular magazines in which we systematically analysed advertisements, editorials, advertorials, and advisory columns, focusing on family over the past 60 years, using discourse analysis (Hall, 1997; Rose, 1995). We examined the representations of family in one popular Australian magazine, The Australian Women’s Weekly, and the UK Good Housekeeping spanning the second half of the twentieth century. For this particular article, we have used all the ads we had identified with some form of ‘father figure’, that is 131 ads out of the total of 758 family ads from the UK Good Housekeeping (see Table 1). We deliberately chose to focus on one cultural context (the UK) for the discursive analysis of fathers, fathering and masculinity in this article rather than attempt a cross-cultural comparison of these issues (by using the Australian dataset as well). The project was funded under a Leverhulme International Network grant ‘Discursive families: a comparison of magazine advertising across two countries’ reference number F/00158/CS

² Good Housekeeping has a readership of just under 1.5 million, predominantly ABC1, and a combined print and digital circulation of 411,724 (NRS/Hearst magazines) The current editor is Lindsay Nicolson, and the magazine claims to offer expertise and independent testing that the consumer can trust with a core focus on family and home. http://www.hearst.co.uk/magazines/Good+Housekeeping/5-magazine.htm (accessed 15 February 2013).

³ This was not part of the original proposal but included during the data collection.

⁴ We did not have the resources, under the Leverhulme grant, to pursue the wider community which contributes to the creation of advertising and advertising/marketing campaigns. It would be valuable in follow up studies to elicit the views of marketing managers and advertising agencies about the briefs for the advertising campaigns around the family, including agency debates about the depiction of fatherhoods, fathers and masculinity.

⁵ A number of additional family categories were used including mother and child, siblings, husband and wife, grandparents, extended family, family including pets.

⁶ The following brands used father and child(ren) in their campaigns. 1950 – Weetabix, Deepsea mission, London’s pride soap, Yeastamin Daily Yeast x2, Horlicks; 1960 – Bronco toilet tissue, Cosywrap loft insulation; 1970 (0); 1980 – Myson water softener x3, Milk x2, English Cheese, Tabac aftershave, Jewellery advisory centre; 1990 – BHS, Vantage chemist, Bauknecht washing machine, Kiddicraft, Bauknecht cooker; 2000 – Bryant and May matches; 2010 – Wiltshire farm foods, Aquafresh mouthwash, Persil

⁷ During this period, the number of divorces in England and Wales increased from 58,239 in 1970 (the same level as the post war peak) to 148,301 in 1980. The number of divorces continued to rise and peaked at 160,300 in 1985 and again at 160,305 in 1992. The divorce rate per 1000 marriages peaks at the beginning of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000 and increased in 2010. (The Guardian, 2010, based on ONS data, available at http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/Jan/28/divorce-rates-marriage-ons).

⁸ Only 10 out of 70 or 14% of family-related advertisements featured fathers.

⁹ There are various references in the magazine to absent fathers with several articles looking at separation and divorce and the impact this has on the family unit. We also begin to see some reference to different types of family.

¹⁰ Shulmann (cited in Fejes (2000, p. 115)) suggests that there is a co-opting of the ‘gay masculinity’ by the main stream in television, in depictions that ‘facilitates a double marketing strategy’ (p. 115). She points out that these images sell products to gay consumers who feel ‘included’ while maintaining an ‘acceptable gay image’ for their heterosexual mainstream consumers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Marshall

David Marshall is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at the University of Edinburgh Business School. His primary research interests include research on food access and availability; consumer food choice and eating rituals; and children’s discretionary consumption in relation to food advertising and marketing. He edited Understanding Children as Consumers (2010) and Food Choice and the Consumer (1995) and has published in a number of academic journals including The Sociological Review, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children (Young Consumers), Appetite, Food Quality and Preference, International Journal of Epidemiology, and Journal of Human Nutrition.

Teresa Davis

Teresa Davis is an Associate Professor in the Marketing group within the Business School. Her research examines consumption and marketing from a sociological perspective. Her focus lies in examining ‘cultures of transition’ such as consumption of/in childhood and migrant groups. Related areas of research include the socio-historical analyses of culture and consumption. Her papers have been published in Sociology; and Consumption, Markets and Culture among others. She is the Co-Convenor of the Australian Food, Culture and Society. She also co-leads the University of Sydney Business School’s Health and Business Research Network.

Margaret K. Hogg

Margaret K. Hogg holds the Fulgoni Chair of Consumer Behaviour and Marketing in the Department of Marketing at Lancaster University Management School. Her work has appeared in refereed journals including the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Services Marketing, the European Journal of Marketing, and the International Journal of Advertising. She edited six volumes of papers on consumer behaviour in the Sage Major Works series (2005 and 2006), and, along with Michael Solomon, Gary Bamossy, and Soren Askegaard, she is one of the co-authors of the 5th European Edition of Consumer Behaviour (2013).

Tanja Schneider

Tanja Schneider is a Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies at the Saïd Business School and the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford. Her areas of expertise include social studies of markets and marketing, media and consumer culture as well as the politics and practices of food governance with a particular interest in food marketing. Tanja is also a Fellow at the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity and member of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford.

Alan Petersen

Alan Petersen is Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Monash University in Melbourne. His research spans the fields of the sociology of health and medicine, science and technology studies, and gender studies. He has published books and articles on health and risk, the body and society, the new public health, the sociology of bioscience and biotechnologies, constructions of sex/gender, and gender and emotion. His most recent book is Men, Masculinities and Modern Medicine (Routledge, 2013) (edited with Antje Kampf and Barbara Marshall).