1. Based on your viewing of Killing Us Softly 3, what do you see as the relationship between advertising, gendered identities, and our senses of ourselves as gendered beings? Did you find Jean Kilbourne's presentation persuasive? Why or why not (be specific)?

2. How does Bordo see ads as reproducing gender ideologies? What are the connections she draws between gender, desire, and consumption? How are these concerns the contemporary legacy of the Victorian discourses described by Nava? Do you agree with her reading of magazine and television food ads?

3. How does Friedan use her analysis of advertising techniques to support her feminist critique of housewifery and consumerism? How does her argument compare to Miller's depiction of the housewife as "global dictator"? Whose argument do you find more compelling, and why?

4. According to Nava, why have women's experiences of shopping and consumption been excluded from the social scientific literature on modernity? How does her argument respond to debates about the gendering of public and private spheres, as discussed in class?

5. How, according to Wilson, have notions of "natural," "artificial," "social construction," and "free choice" shaped feminist attitudes toward fashion? What is her critique of these ideas and the way they have shaped feminist debates about fashion? Why does she argue for viewing fashion as a kind of performance art?

6. What do Dockers' ads reveal about men's attitudes toward fashion? How does the relationship between men and advertising differ from that between women and advertising, as described by Gladwell, Friedan, and Bordo? How would you explain these differences?

7. What are the differences between men and women's attitudes toward shopping, and how does Campbell account for them? Can you think of different explanations?

8. Overall, why do you think that women are more closely associated with fashion and consumption than men? What are the social, political, and cultural effects of this association, both positive and negative?

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu