Article Summary: Subordinated Stills (Preston)
The article studies the attitude to women working as lawyers by providing facts from advertisements. American advertising no longer views its primary objective as conveying information about the product but attaches cultural values to the goods and services, and that is why the persistent subordination of women in advertisements raises deep concerns about the continued ubiquity of negative gender attitudes.
Gender stereotypes, reinforced by images in advertising, may limit a woman's success in the law as they impact both her self-perception and the views of colleagues, supervisors, judges, and clients. Many ads have indicia of childishness, sexual naiveté, or bafflement because ads simply play upon universal emotional vulnerabilities, such as the envy of youth, the desire for sexual exploration, or confusion which the product then can solve or even create an enjoyable atmosphere conducive to the positive reception of the product.
The woman-child characteristics linked to females do not epitomize the ideal lawyer, because unconscious subscription to the woman-child expectation may short-circuit her credibility.
Works Cited
Preston, B. Cheryl. "Subordinated Stills: An Empirical Study of Sexist Print. Advertising and Its Implications for Law." Texas Journal of Women and the Law 15.229 (2006): 230-63. Web. 23 July …
