Polysemic Interpretations: Examining How Women with Visual Impairments Incorporate, Resist, and Subvert Advertising Content

Abstract

This article takes a feminist disability studies approach to the analysis of the responses of women with visual impairments to representations of blindness, disability, and gender in advertising. Empirical data gathered via semi-structured interviews with women who are visually impaired (N = 5) enhances existing understandings of oppressed audiences’ polysemic interpretations of advertisements. The research findings reveal participants’ subversion of stereotypical approaches to visual impairments, ocularcentrism, and gendered constructions of blindness, which are found in advertisements (N = 3) produced post-2000 in the United Kingdom and United States. Participants highlighted subtle stereotyping in advertisements through exploring the intersecting nature of disability and gender identities. Advertisements were used by participants as prompts for reasserting their affirmative senses of self and as a means of critiquing sociocultural attitudes toward women with visual impairments. Recommendations for future research and practice in relation to advertising polysemy and the representation of disabled women in advertising are provided.