Dove for Public Health

Dove, commonly known for their soaps, also has become widely recognized as a company that campaigns for self esteem and claims the voice of "Real Women." The Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" is basically a social movement to promote that the women in ad campaigns, on TV and in magazines should not be idolized or admired because they are not the best representation of women in our society, hence the notion of "Real Women." Their idea of "Real Women" tends to exclude the fact that supermodels, skinny girls, and icons feel stress to be perfect as well and live up to societies standards. Their slogan, "Real Women with Real Bodies and Real Curves" ignores that their our people that cannot relate to this idea of health and well being. The images above illustrate their campaign for their Dove firming products and using them on "Real Women with Real Curves" however I find this advertising to also point at the notion that a "Real Women" needs to firm up those "Real Curves" to in order to appeal to our society. It seems that they are using this campaign to sell products to a wider range of people and influence them that this product will really work because it works on "Real Women."

Chapter 1: The new public health: a new morality and Chapter 2: Epidemiology: governing by numbers in The New Public Health and Self in the Age of Risk by Alan Petersen and Deborah Lupton had various keys points that reminded me of the Dove campaign and the concepts behind the "Real Women Campaign." The introduction to Chapter 1 illustrates how there is a growing consciousness and attention to the physical body and regiments to control the body, "there is also a new consciousness of risks that are believed to lie belong the individual's control but which are viewed as, ultimately, a result of human activity (Petersen & Lupton 1)." In relation to the Dove ad campaign their has definitely been a growing consciousness of the body and how it should be portrayed, however the individual has the control to view popular images how they want although it is depicted by human activity. For example Dove recognized the growing discontent with women not be able to relate to mainstream medias portrayal of the perfect women and saw the opportunity to lower the risk of low self-esteem. Thus, the concept that the consciousness of attention to "body shape, diet and exercise" is beyond an individual's control but within the confines of a result of human activity.

Petersen and Lupton argues that "A properly managed environment is therefore essential, not only to improve health but indeed to ensure human survival (16)." I think Dove has attempted to change the environment (United States society) to ensure that no women experiences low self esteem or questions their beauty to improve self image and therefore in a sense ensure human survival. However, the values of being perfect (i.e. using firming skin lotion) overtake what Dove's original mission was instead they are reinforcing ideals they claim to be breaking down.

The section on "Self-Regulation and Body Management" illuminated many correlations with Dove's campaign for real beauty. Petersen and Lupton present the consumer culture as a struggle for self-identity and separating self from social norms (23). The authors argue that the "attention to the 'healthy body' " is also "concerned with how we present our bodies to ourselves and to others (Petersen & Lupton 23)." This is ultimately how the Dove campaign was shaped, primarily because they recognized the idea of the perfect body and then related it to how women have a negative body image therefore they developed how women were presented to change where the attention to the "health body" is placed. As I have stated previously the image of the body presented by Dove is changed but the ideology behind achieving the perfect body has not. This is illustrated too in the readings, "the body is continually shaped by social, cultural and economic processes," the conception of the body is continually changing but it is not just about a change of physical body through advertisement--the words needs to match the image.

The idea of firming thighs that are more REAL perplexed me because of the way Dove approached the word real, like those that are skinny and don't have cellulite aren't real people with a different form of real beauty. In the reading we see how the body is shaped differently during different time periods, "all testaments to changing notions of what is considered both attractive and health (Petersen & Lupton 23)." Dove should take this to heart and celebrate beauty in all shapes and during all timelines. It seems that health promotion with dove really concentrates on the power of body image and the body as a force to be reckoned with, hence the firming cream or even anti-aging soaps. Petersen and Lupton illustrate this theme, "the strategy of health promotion...Adopts the conceptualization of the body as a writing surface, subject to visible changes wrought by bodily practices (23). For claiming to promote self esteem Dove is really reiterating the theme that "the new public health [is] arranged around aesthetics" and thus people avoid certain behaviors to be aesthetically pleasing (Petersen & Lupton 24).

Chapter 2 reiterates the problems I found with Doves ad campaign that they are generalizing real women to women who feel uncomfortable about themselves and don't appreciate the variety in body image we have in our culture. On various articles I read on Dove's ad campaigns for Real Women with Real Beauty I found that they focused on arbitrary numbers to prove that it is so rare for a women to feel comfortable with themselves after looking at mainstream media (which may be true but still). Epidemiology emerged as a way to classify characteristics of populations and as a way to define people in specific way to measure theories about people (Petersen and Lupton 28-29). In a way Dove is using the same structure to categorize real women against fake.

The authors identify that numbers are related to how culture changes through time and ignoring this will achieve little (Peterson & Lupton 34-35). This is relevant the view that the perfect body image has also been the same and isn't evolving. It is crucial to note that Dove is taking all perspectives with a grain a salt and influencing women to build their confidence through products that fit the type of individual they are, rather then the type of people we see in billboards or magazine. Peterson and Lupton argue in relation to epidemiology that "changes in perception are...Tied to broader social, cultural and political changes that shape what kinds of knowledges are considered to be important and which 'facts should be pursue and publicized (36)." Dove should recognize the variety of aspects that play into body image and self-esteem; rather then placing the blame on fake women we can also blame commodification of goods that are suppose to make us feel beautiful.

The Race Exhibit and Biomedicine

http://www.understandingrace.org/

“Understanding Race: Are We So Different” is a museum exhibit constructed by the American Anthropological Association based on the cultural conception of race and the biological relationship to human variation and differences in skin color. According to biologists, anthropologists, historians and many other academics involved in the project everybody shares a similar ancestry but the differences we see are formulated from “migration, marriage and adaption to different environments (Race: Are We So Different).” As the website for the exhibit presents race has been a part of our society for quite some time and only relatively recently has it being exposed as cultural rather than a biological difference adapted from different environments. Thus, racism had also been an infamous part of our society, for instance using race as a measure of social hierarchy. Unfortunately the concept of race had been embedded so deeply into our culture the exhibit put on by the American Anthropological Association still cannot eliminate the mainstream understanding that race makes us biologically and culturally different.

Points from “Tenacious Assumptions in Western Medicine” reminded me of some similar concepts with the fundamental idea of race, in terms of biology and society, in the exhibit “Understanding Race”. Biologically the variation in skin color comes from the variation in environment from the beginning of human evolution. Jablonski, contributing anthropologist on the race exhibit, states that “strong sun exposure damages the body…the solution was to evolve skin that was permanently dark so as to protect against the sun’s more damaging ways (Race: Are We So Different).” Furthermore, the difference in skin color also evolved to balance the body’s absorption of Vitamin D and promote folate based on proximity to the sun. Thus human variation in terms of skin color developed due to the idea of survival of the fittest: adapt or die (Race: Are We So Different). In turn, African Americans have the darkest skins because their ancestors were closest to the equator (i.e. Africa).

Socially though, according to geneticist Richard Lewontin “race was imported into biology…from social practice.” Society attempted to use race to understand biological differences. This was because we wanted to be able to explain skin color in terms of placing people in a hierarchy to use for white peoples advantage. As the exhibit explains, “Linking race to biology led to a “race science” that attempted to legitimize race as biological face and account for differences in peoples (The Race Exhibit Homepage).” Our society’s has attempted to apply various meanings to different skin colors in order to explain biological differences throughout history.

In Gordon’s article she argues that biomedicine measures and maps out the objective world; she categorizes it into naturalism and individualism. We can relate the basic interpretation she uses for biomedicine to race concepts. She states that, “Biomedicine speaks beyond its explicit reductionist reference through the implicit ways it teaches us to interpret ourselves, our world, and the relationships between humans, nature, self and society (Gordon 19).” We can compare this to how the American Anthropological Association interprets how race has been conceived culturally. Like biomedicine interprets how we see self, society and different relationships race has constructed how we view the people around us, different societies and relationships based on class, location, and of course the unavoidable color of our skin. In Gordon’s essay she presents that biomedicine “claim[s] neutrality and universality ,” however studies do reveal that it is ultimately a social contract (Gordon 20). Alike with human skin variation it is also upheld in a social contract that shape how we are perceived and even shapes how we choose to behave.

Gordon presents a fundamental concept of naturalism, a concept within biomedicine, which argues that “Nature is Separate from Culture (Gordon 27).” She argues that nature is “independent from culture but prior to it (Gordon 27).” This immediately sparked my attention in relation to the race exhibit because the human body should be independent from race and it was before it. Furthermore, she also argues in this same concept on page 27 that “Culture is a superficial, some-times thing” and also that “diversity is really only skin deep.” If we look at these two statements in relation to the race exhibit and the meaning of race versus human variation, I find that in naturalism culture is superficial however in terms of humans, culture is deeply rooted and how mainstream society looks at skin color is superficial.

The goal of the exhibit is to help us understand that race is a cultural construct that has been internalized through movements in the United States (i.e. slavery, the search for equality). Gordon argues that “From a healing model [biomedicine] is rapidly expanding into a moral and engineering one, increasingly ‘remaking’ humans not in natures image but in its own (Gordon 20).” To sum up this concept in comparison with my argument in relation to race; I find that the ultimate relationship between the exhibit and how Gordon explains biomedicine as continuously evolving through our culture. Although we say race is strictly culturally and human skin variation is biological it has shaped many movements in our history and continues to shape the language we use to describe or discriminate against various populations. Likewise, Gordon’s overarching argument is that biomedicine is actually argued as becoming cultural due to how it is used and who accepts it in Western medicine.