Chapter 29 Summary: "Sex, Lies, and Advertising"

  This chapter by Gloria Steinem described many different situations in which Ms. magazine faced road blocks in trying to get advertisements for the magazine that were supportive in their message. Advertising is very important to magazines and can make them profitable but when Ms. magazine were looking for advertisements, many companies were very sexist and only had certain products or advertisement types that they were willing to promote in a woman's magazine. Ms. magazine was very progressive, but the advertisements sometimes got in their way as illustrated through the 11 experiences Steinem had with sexist advertisements.
   Many different companies just didn't want to advertise to women like the car companies from Detroit. They eventually started to advertise to women but they were still uncomfortable in making adds that excluded no one. Foreign car companies had less issues with this, which goes to show how cars are such a part of masculinity in America. Other companies that were hesitant to advertise in Ms. magazine were toy companies. There was an issue with Lionel and their ads for their toy trains that were geared towards girls. They made a pink train for girls, but they don't sell and they don't want to advertise to both girls and boys because if trains are associated with girls "they will be devalued in the minds of boys" (273). This is a big factor in many of these companies decisions to advertise towards women and it is a shame that they even think about that. Even though Ms. magazine is read by many women with children, they do not advertise because many companies can't "believe feminists have or care for children" (273). This goes to show how sexist and man-driven advertisement companies are.
   Something else that was interesting was that many food companies refused to advertise with Ms. magazine because the magazine refused to show recipes in conjunction with the product. The magazine believed that associating work with the food had negative impacts on selling the food and also the reputation of the magazine. They made this decision to maintain their integrity in the eyes of their readers, but the companies did not respect this choice.
    The one story about advertising that stuck out to me the most was Steinem's dealings with Revlon. It was a short story but it had a huge impact. Ms. magazine got an interview with women from the Soviet Union that had produced feminist books and were exiled. The interview was a cover story that received very positive feedback and even a Front Page award. The problem was that this interview undid years of work to get ads from Revlon just "because the Soviet women on our cover are not wearing makeup" (275). It is terrible that a company would take such an important and positive thing that the magazine did and see it as a negative. It was appalling to see how much power companies have and that many are against the advancement of women.
    Eventually Ms. magazine was sold to an Australian company because they lost so much money due to issues with the ads. In Australia they also had issues with the same thing and had to be sold again. The next company that bought them was able to produce the magazine without ads, which proved to be beneficial. The magazine had complete editorial control and could convey their message without the negativity of advertisements.