The symbolic subversion of the advertising imaginary: a coeducational intervention from mythanalysis to feminist artistic deconstruction

Abstract

Gender biases continue to be natural in 21st century’s symbolic imaginary —especially through advertising and social networks—, shaping in today's students a biased vision of reality that contributes to the assumption of stereotyped identity constructions, which contradict values of equality promoted by institutions. The problem is worsening due to educational deficiencies detected in Teacher Training students, related to feminist and artistic knowledge, which hinder their critical thinking and visual literacy, and prevent them from deploying their creative intelligence and sensitivity. Based on these needs, a coeducational intervention has been created in order to promote critical analysis of mythonarratives present in the advertising imaginary, to subvert them through deconstructive artistic processes based on deviations of meaning. Thus transforming these mythonarratives into feminist audiovisual creations, ultimately gathered in a digital tool similar to Net Art videogames, with the aim of increasing feminist imaginary on the Net, contributing to raise awareness of the challenges faced by Coeducation. The results show that these initiatives are valuable for the students and yet insufficient to solve a structural problem, almost invisible in its omnipresence, which is becoming dizzyingly acute with the biases of Artificial Intelligence.