REAL BEAUTY WITH REAL BODIES: THE BODY POSITIVITY MOVEMENT AND INCREASED CYNICISM TOWARD DOVE’S COMMODIFICATION OF FEMINISM

Abstract

Beauty standards have perpetuated ideas of how women should look forever resulting in low self-esteem of women. Media have played a key role in these standards through advertising and modeling; however, Dove launched their Real Beauty Campaign to combat these standards and promote the inclusion of “real women” when it came to marketing and beauty standards. In 2018, Dove shifted the purpose of this campaign to include young girls, The Self-Esteem Project. I conducted an inductive and qualitative content analysis of 1000 comments left on Dove’s Real Beauty and Self-Esteem campaign videos to measure how the public’s perception of body image and this campaign as well as Dove changed over time, specifically throughout this shift in campaign messaging. Guided by a critical feminist theory lens, this study finds that as Dove’s videos became more focused on young girls there was an increased cynicism towards corporations. This cynicism was directed towards Dove with consumers questioning the motives behind the campaign. Additionally, there was an increased cynicism directed towards social media companies often blamed for perpetuation of beauty standards among girls. There was also an increased discussion around intersectionality and the effects that all aspects of a person’s identity can have on their experience with body image. This study found that the fourth wave of feminism that increased conversations around intersectionality and growing public knowledge of corporate social responsibility were responsible for the changes in public perceptions regarding the Dove Self-Esteem Project.