Nike Women's Stereotypes

Women athletes have been present in the media for many years and photos of sports-women in publications in the years 1928, 1956 and 1972 were examined by Poe (1976) who claimed that women appeared only in leisure activities rather than playing competitive sports such as basketball. This supports what Levin (1990) statement, that when women are represented in a competitive way, it is done in a way that is “publicly acceptable”, playing an individual sport such as tennis, rather than team sports. Additionally supporting the results from Cuneen & Sidwell, (1998)’s research, which found that in adverts featuring activities, men were represented in roles that stood out more often than women were. Women were shown playing individual sports such as swimming and leisure activities like Frisbee, small “roles” compared to men. These stereotypes were also very present in product advertising, such as adverts for sports gears, where men would be depicted in active roles playing football or rugby, while women would be represented as …show more content…
Nike Women is a feminist lifestyle brand prone to self-empowerment via fitness and consumers adopt this lifestyle when buying the brand. Nike’s establishment is done through its branding which is mainly created via its values and stories told in commercials. Usually, the first time most people are subject to a brand is via advertising, giving us an impression of the brand. With the Nike Women brand it consists of female empowerment via fitness and individual accomplishment. Banet-Weiser (2012) identified it as a form of commodity activism and refers to it as the attachment of feminist values like gender equality and empowerment to products as a selling