ByRebecca Huval

Rebecca Huval is a writer and editor living in San Francisco.

  1. Advertising and feminism can seem like enemies. The phrase “Often a bridesmaid but never a bride” was first popularized in 1923 by a Listerine ad: The campaign heroine, Edna, sobs over a bouquet because she apparently isn't “wife material.” (Little did she know it was just her halitosis.) But there is one real-life Peggy Olson who peddled consumer products and genuine body positivity in ads throughout the 1980s and '90s, several leagues above today’s Dove ads…

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