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HSE Expands Research Horizons
Maria Kochneva, a 4th-year student of the Faculty of Management at HSE Nizhny Novgorod presented her report at the ‘Gender and Sexuality in Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia: Past and Present’ conference held at the University of Nottingham. Maria shared her impressions of the event with the HSE news service.
‘I learnt about this conference, as well as about many other events, from Natalia Kim, my Academic Supervisor, who often shares links to different scientific events and research competitions.
At the conference I presented a report on ‘Female Images in Perfume Advertising in Russian Magazines for Young Women: Stigmatization of Teenage Girls’.
I started studying social stigma during my first year of studies, when we had to conduct a mini research project in sociology. My work developed into a full-blown research project and then became the basis for my thesis. Clearly I was very lucky to choose an interesting topic that inspired me for further research.
I study the impact of women's images in advertising on the target audience, on young girls in this particular case. And, according to my research, the effect is mostly negative. One of the effects that I am studying is stigma (from "stigma" that means "the mark"), which implies labeling and identifying women by standard appearance, behaviour, social characteristics like being a mother and a wife, striving to look beautiful and sexy, etc.
However, in reality, most women differ from such standards, so stigmatizing advertisements have a negative impact on the self-esteem of the target audience, it can provoke depression and health problems. It is a relevant problem, but unfortunately in Russia, the attitude towards gender studies is still skeptical. From my experience the topic of my research aroused more interest in Europe than at conferences in Moscow, Saint Petersburg or Nizhny Novgorod.
In Nottingham, I felt nervous presenting my research, as most conference participants were university lecturers and renowned researchers, but my topic aroused great interest, and the audience asked me a lot of questions. During the break several speakers came up to me and asked what kind of research I was presenting - master's or PhD thesis, and they were very surprised to learn that I was still a bachelor’s student.