ABSTRACT
This cosmetics advertisement, from a women’s magazine during the heyday of the women’s liberation movement, is clearly ripe for feminist critical analysis. Like most ads, it invites insecurity on the part of its audience by setting up a daunting goal: in this case, looking soft and feminine, sensuous and sophisticated, all at the same time. The un-self-consciously bossy assertion-“A woman’s mouth should look”—may appear dated to our contemporary sensibilities, much more blatant than the appeals in today’s ads. (As Neuborne [2001:183] writes, “What my mother taught me to look for-pats on the butt, honey, sweetie, cupcake, make me some coffee-are not the methods of choice for today’s sexists. Those were just the fringes of what they were really up to.
