Femininity in olympic cyclist shampoo ad.

[MMMarmite]

I noticed this Pantene pro-v advert in the glossy section of the Guardian today - I find it a really weird image which I think says a lot about the beauty standards thrown at us by advertisers. It's of Victoria Pendleton MBE, who's a track cycling world and olympic champion. In the magazine the image was cropped much narrower, so her it was more emphasized her face more, and said "Hours and Hours of Training and I'm Staying Ahead of Frizz".

They've put her in the 'passive beautiful woman pose': glossy hair fanned and flicked to one side, mouth slightly open, eyes looking up and and away to one side, but posed on a (stationary) bicycle. (I found a video showing clips of them doing the photoshoot.) For me it really highlights how unnatural that pose is: no-one's hair would go like that ever on a bike, and her facial expression is completely alien to what you'd normally see on an athlete. Also, as far as I can see, her left leg has been photoshopped to make her thigh thinner.

I think it illustrates how opposite to each other femininity (at least the sort found in magazines) and athleticism seem to be.

I am torn, because there is a whole army of young women out there who don't do sport "because it would mess up my hair" or similar reasons, and an ad like this might help to make sport more acceptable to the women who buy into this type of femininity.

On the other hand it dminishes a female athlete by suggesting she should still be abide by socially accepted beauty standards. Backwards and in high heels indeed.

Agree with you OP.

It works for me as an anti advert. I'll never consider Pantene now.

She is a perfectionist. Her bf said that she constantly rubbished her performance in training, but he could tell by her expression whether she was serious or not. I assume - not being a world-class athlete myself - that the self-deprecation is part of what drives her on to be so utterly dominant in such a tough sport.

I didn't see her as an emotional mess. I saw a young woman fall in love and this lead to problems within the coaching team, which were ultimately overcome. She isn't a robot, she has everyday issues like the rest of us. Her training seemed to consist mostly of flying round the track, then analysis of her metrics on laptops, which probably isn't the most exciting of subjects.

I don't know if it's just cyclists, but a lot of the British team after Beijing seemed to have an 'is that it?' attitude after the games. Rebecca Romero was in the Sunday Times, and Bradley Wiggins and Chris Boardman have said the same things recently. Perhaps the relentless training and lifestyle does grind you down after so many years of it.

VP seemed to be looking forward to life with her bf post-Olympics, so I thought it ended on a positive note.

namechangeguy, she said time and time again that she didn't do the sport for her, but for other people. I found this quite upsetting. She was crying pretty much throughout the documentary. Her boyfriend was interviewed - even though the relationship harmed his career a lot more than it did her's, he didn't do any bursting into tears on camera.

The narrative was very much focussed on her as a woman rather than her as an athlete. The focus was her beauty, her emotions, her relationship. There was very little about how she trains, what she goes through, the physicality of the sport she's involved in.

I enjoyed it as a documentary about a person, but I very much doubt there'd be a documentary about a male athlete that was so focussed on his emotions.

Yellow, I agree I'd like to have seen more about her performances and metrics, but I think you and I would be in the minority on this. Much of TV these days is about more 'human' aspects - reality TV is noting with tears, anger and soul-bearing.

Back to the OP though and the advertising angle. If I see Beckham advertising football boots, he will look sweaty and muddy. If he is advertising perfume of undies, he is spreadeagled, buffed, tanned, shaved of body hair and photoshopped to perfection, staring out steely-eyed into the distance. Advertising is selling an image of physical perfection. Is it okay for Becks to do it, but not VP? Or do we agree that all advertising is laughable shite?

It presented her as a woman doing lots of stereotypically female things including crying, being in love, having nice hair and wanting to please her dad. If you don't see any sort of problem with that, well, I don't really get why you're on a feminist thread.

The problem with the Pantene advert. You compare it to Beckham. Beckham advertising football boots = sweaty and muddy. Victoria Pendleton on a bike = lovely flowing hair, no helmet, legs made skinnier.

Of course that's problematic.

Interesting thread. In the documentary yesterday VP did say that she liked to look girly even while training so I don't think it's like they were forcing her to represent something she was uncomfortable with. Sge seemed very natural on photoshoots as well.

A real shame though - this amazing shot of one of the US Olympic sailors shows what a female athlete's body really looks like!

TwelveLeggedWalk I have no problem with Victoria Pendleton being represented however she likes. I present as quite girly as well.

What I am sick of is advertising/the media showing the same old narrative over and over again.

IMO, the difference between male and female athletes comes from the disconnect between how they actually look doing their sport and how the media requires them to look in order to sell... stuff.

After an hour playing football, a male footballer may look muddy, sweaty and generally exhausted but this will not detract fom his masculinity, in fact it will enhance it. For a woman however, such sweaty disarray detracts from her femininity and she needs to be unrealistically glamourised in order to be acceptable to the advert-peddling media.

It's just a twst on the age old narrative: action matters for men, whilst beauty matters for women.

Of course it's just one or two ads, but it is part of a mountain. And of course it has consequences, else the advertisers wouldn't spend so much money and research on re-iterating the same ole message.

At the end of the day, all beauty-ad-hating feminists are asking for is that women be appreciated for what they do, rather than how they look. It's not a big ask.

I do agree Yellow, but I suspect a bit of it is self-perpetuating as well - the athletes who are most singleminded, don't want to court the press etc are unlikely to participate in a documentary like this. The ones who, like VP freely admitted, are motivated by seeking approval, do.

I remember watching the Tom Daley documentary last year and a lot of htat was about how he was motivated by wanting to make his father proud - obviously he is much younger, but it's not an exclusively female 'story'.

I also would love to watch a documentary following athletes who are more 'selfish' in doing it for themselves, to find out more about what drives them through their training schedule etc, but tbh I suspect for the vast majority of viewers that would be quite boring - it is bound to be a fairly monotonous life to some extent.

I missed a bit off my last post. What I meant to say was that if VP was advertising a bike, or cycling shoes or helmets, we could see the sweaty, grunting VP. Similarly, Becks and the boots is the sweaty, grunting Becks. When it comes to BEAUTY products, they are expected to look beautiful. Does anyone remember Ginola and the shampoo adverts? No mud or sweat there!

"If he is advertising perfume of undies, he is spreadeagled, buffed, tanned, shaved of body hair and photoshopped to perfection, staring out steely-eyed into the distance."

NCG, I think the difference is in the scale. I read a while ago that an EU survey found for every 1 such ad of men, there were 9 of women. I'd be happy to get rid of all, but as it stands the effect is disproportionate.

Is the 9 to 1 ratio possibly in proportion to the number of women's lifestyle magazines vs. men's? I don't know, just asking.

You'll love the images that accompany this article. (I'm being sarcastic)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175783/The-raunchiest-Olympics-Record-150-000-condoms-handed-athletes-London-Games--thats-15-EACH.html

The thing is even when she's advertising bikes the big cardboard advert in halfords of her is all glamorous. I recently started cycling and it would have been nice if she had put her name to a range of road cycles for women rather than the retro fashionable bikes to be ridden wearing a dress. What is this the 1900s?

FrillyMilly yes, just seen those.

It is impossible to ride a bike in a dress unless you are in a park going about very ladylike.

A. Your skirt will inevitably blow up exposing your arse and pants (by blow up, I mean be blown up by the wind, not that it will explode) B. You are at serious risk of the fucking thing getting tangled in your spokes C. If you fall off, you will skin your knees

I know, because I once decided to cycle the 10 miles to work in a dress with nothing but knickers on underneath. Had to stop every two seconds to pull the fucking thing down and my legs got all scratched by brambles.

I watched the documentary about her just now on iplayer and she's very keen to be 'feminine', and specifically contrasts to other athletes who she describes as looking like men (or words to that effect - you don't have to look masculine to be a successful sportswoman)

It's also quite noticeable that having just won a race at high speed, she still looks perfect.

Agree with those who say it's annoying that female athletes get all prettied up, whereas it's cool for the men to be just muddy and hot.

That said (apols if this is slightly off-topic) but the one thing I'm really enjoying about this summer of sport is the fact that there are women on the telly with athletic rather than scrawny bodies.

I'm tallish, broad-shouldered and build muscle easily. I'm fit enough to run 10k in an hour, eat well and am healthily proportioned. But because I'm thick-bodied and muscular, I never normally see women on the box who are the same shape as me. It's easy to end up believing (as I have for long periods of my life) that I'm chunky, freakish, generally just a bit wrong.

Then I was watching the Euro athletics the other day and saw one of the hammer throwers. I went 'OMG!!! She looks like me!!! And she's pretty cool!!!'. It sounds stupid, but it was a really nice moment.

So I agree 100% that it's really irritating the way the meeja wants to recoup female athletes for the 'skinny and pretty' box. But at the moment there is still more of a chance than usual for women like me who don't fit the 'five foot nothing and size 6' box to see someone they could realistically aspire to resemble, rather than endless people they don't ever stand a chance of resembling and therefore just another string of reasons to hate their body.

As a slight aside, has anyone else seen the blister patch advert with Caroline Wozniacki in a mini-dress tottering around a court in high heels while playing tennis? The same principle applies here - I get that the advert is designed to sell blister patches but it isn't just high heels that give you blisters! It really makes me .

Agree with Manatee, I used to be a footballer and am built like twelveleggedwalk's image of the US sailor - big chunky thighs made for running and strength! Even being an athlete you're expected to look like a pretty feminine little bundle.

I read an article ages ago with contributions from Kelly Sotherton and Gail Emms, who both said that there was pressure from their sponsors for them to wear shorter, tighter, more feminine kit, and to present themselves in a glamorous way.

Victoria P's hair in that ad looks really strange, probably because it isn't her actual hair, it's a computer graphic. Even in my most ad-sympathetic frame of mind, I can't even really see how competitive cycling and shampoo go together in an advert. It doesn't work, so they've had to shoehorn in random glamour. A crap ad, then.