Caster Semenya as a “can-do” hero for “at-risk” girls: analyzing Nike’s neoliberal postfeminist advertisements

ABSTRACT

To solidify itself as a socially progressive global brand, the U.S.-based sports apparel corporation Nike produces and distributes advertisements featuring women from around the world as empowered, independently motivated athletes, capable of transcending all boundaries through their pursuit of athletic excellence. Some advertisements feature celebrity non-Western athletes such as South African track and field star Caster Semenya as part of an overall marketing message founded on the purportedly universal ideal of “girl power.” This article argues that Nike’s global pro-women advertising can be understood as a Western-centric, neoliberal, postfeminist branding strategy that reinforces existing social inequalities and reproduces the economic exploitation endemic to contemporary capitalism. The article analyzes three of Nike’s advertisements from 2018 featuring Caster Semenya, focusing on how each universalize and normalize particularly Western, neoliberal, postfeminist ideals. Attention is given to the advertisements’ reliance on the specific neoliberal postfeminist themes of individual empowerment and Western-centered gender norms.

KEYWORDS:

• Nike
• media analysis
• neoliberalism
• postfeminism
• Caster Semenya
• the girl effect

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers and editors for strengthening this article through their constructive and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In using the terms “Global North/South,” we echo Koffman and Gill (2013) in that these binary characterizations “serve only to attempt to speak of a world characterised by massive geographically patterned injustice and inequality,” rather than as a reductive description (p. 85).

2 For a more robust explanation of our theory of colonialism and power, see Posbergh & Clevenger, 2022.

3 1:54:25 is Semenya’s personal best in the 800-meter run.