Strangely enough my project does not start with feminist work, it starts with Playboy and Cosmopolitan. When reading and looking through dozens of feminist works for our class, I found advertisements in these magazines that seemed pretty standard such as alcohol, cigarettes, life insurance, clothing, etc.  When I open a magazine these are the types of advertisements I expect to see, advertisements that are driven by capitalism and materialism.

When I opened up feminist periodicals such as Quest, Heresies, and Conditions, the advertisements were so non-capitalistic it was concerning.  The advertisements were concerning in the sense that everything that was mainstream and normal (cigarettes, alcohol, etc) could not be found. All of the advertisements I saw in feminist periodicals were exclusively in support of feminist work; these advertisements furthered the message that was being articulated within the periodical. There were no cigarettes, alcohol, or images of big breasted women with golf clubs. Through this post I want to compare mainstream advertisements (Playboy and Cosmopolitan) and feminist advertisements (Quest, Heresies, and Conditions) and try to understand why they might be different.