Femvertising or Faux Feminism? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Sport Femvertising Campaigns

This study investigates the representation of female athletes in Gatorade's Sister in Sweat (2019) and Adidas’ Reimagine Sport (2020) Femvertising campaigns. Adopting a critical feminist lens, this study examined verbal and visual strategies and the post-feminist elements that sports brands apply to communicate female-empowering messages. Guided by Fairclough's framework of critical discourse analysis and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar, a multimodal critical discourse analysis was conducted to analyze verbal–visual strategies and semiotic resources used to construct/challenge the gender relations in sports. Also, following Gill's post-feminist media culture, recurring themes that characterize female athlete representation are identified. These themes include femininity as a bodily preoccupation, sexualization, individualism and choice, self-surveillance, and intersectionality. Results reveal that, despite the sports brands’ support of gender equality and female empowerment through femvertising, gender stereotypes still exist within the campaigns.