Women in the Traditional Gender System Through Sexualized and Inappropriate Performances in the Modern Advertisements

This study examined the body and gender identity performances and narratives of women in different Chinese advertisements, and deconstructed the motivation and representation of humiliation, sexual harassment, and gender offside toward women in public spaces. The study takes feminism, patriarchal capitalism, and rhetorical criticism to analyze the situation of Chinese women’s identity and gender in the traditional gender system, as well as the status of women’s situations with patriarchy and capitalism discourses. Through the analysis of the advertisements, the study criticized the gender (mis)representation of women’s gender identity and bodies among women's identities, bodies, and patriarchy, and deconstructs the gender system’s unfriendly attitude toward women’s identity and bodies and its connection to patriarchy. These analyses pointed out the dilemmas posed to women by the macro-power structures and controls of binary gender systems, patriarchy, and capitalism.