Women's Responsibilities,Freedoms, and Pleasures

In the building of the Swedish welfare state, men and women have been seen as equal in their roles as parents, breadwinners, and citizens. This conception is not confirmed by the images produced by advertising. The article presents an analysis of alcohol-related advertisements published in Swedish women's magazines from the 1960s to the 2000s. The advertisements are approached as representations of gendered performances in which gender is made visible “here and now” by placing women in particular subject positions that are related to private or public spheres and associated with specific kinds of gender norms reflecting women's shifting responsibilities, freedoms, and pleasures. The article asks what kind of drinking-related subject positions have been portrayed as desirable in women's magazine advertisements over the past few decades and how those positions have changed as we move closer to the present day. The analysis reveals both continuity and variability in alcohol-related subject positions in Swedish women's magazine advertisements. It shows how women's responsibilities, freedoms, and pleasures have expanded from the traditional domain of the private sphere to multiple new areas as Sweden has developed from a modern welfare state to a late-modern competition state. However, this does not mean that the traditional gender norms have disintegrated and been replaced by equal gender norms. Rather, it seems that traditional gender norms continue to be reproduced in alcohol-related advertising.