Gender - Not A Fair Potrayal Options

[catch22]

Date:16/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/...41600350600.htm Magazine

GENDER

Not a fair portrayal

SOMA BASU

An analysis of 200 advertisements shows that sexism and gender stereotyping are still prevalent in the advertising industry.










Privileging the Privileged: Gender in Indian Advertising; Sharada J.Schaffter; First published in 2006 by Promilla & Co., Publishers in association with Bibliophile South Asia, New Delhi and Chicago; Printed and bound in India by Uthra Print Communications.

SMART mom's independence and passion, super wife's assertion in choice, the modern woman's balancing act between domestic and professional life, her cute and smiling daughter who exhorts you to buy anything from pasta and noodles to spices and sauces, oils and shampoos... All on the great ad spots on television.

Yet, ironically, conditioning of women through ads is seldom noticed. Few role models are depicted; women are mostly pushed to domestic roles and portrayed by beautiful models in eye-catching ads.

Distortion of reality



The reality is that women are not just homemakers or mothers. Millions are professionals engaged in productive activities but are selectively kept out of ads. This is innocuous distortion of reality by advertisers, as it predisposes women to unfair treatment by society.

Not just stereotypical but unethical and offensive representations of women in advertisements work to their detriment and succeed in perpetuating gender hierarchy. Sharada Jotimuttu Schaffter tries to raise awareness of the issue by analysing 200 ads (60 in detail) over a 12-year period from 1994 to 2005. She unveils the ingenuity of advertisers in her book Privileging the Privileged: Gender in Indian Advertising.

Conscious that the book was written over a period of time and has been long in the printing, Sharada feels that, of late, men are shown doing domestic chores and boys and girls are shown plugging for education and equal opportunities. But still, she asserts, there's a long way to go. "If media is sexist, advertising is undoubtedly regressive," she writes in her foreword.

Sharada's choice of publications for her assessment have been popular women's magazines like Femina and Women's Era; those read by men such as Business World, Business India, Computers Today, Sportstar, PC Quest; news magazines like India Today; and two English dailies, The Hindu and Indian Express. At the end of it, Sharada is convinced about the lack of respect for the integrity and dignity of women, and how they are stereotyped and dehumanised, turned into commodities.

In India, advertisers often treat women with disdain portraying them as if they have been created only to attend to man's creature comforts. They are shown to be exceedingly anxious about their looks, weak, foolish, incapable of looking after themselves and utterly dependent on man, she writes.

Take the example of Amul ad where the refrigerator is stocked with cheese of different flavours. The punchline is `now you know why dad bought the fridge'. Everybody knows mum buys the cheese but the text implies women are incapable of making crucial decisions in the purchase of high value products.

It is perhaps easy and convenient for advertisers to portray women as they are generally perceived by society, seldom questioning the fairness of it. Does a woman always have to be tall and slim, young and light-skinned with silken skin and a mop of gloriously shining hair? Is this all calculated to catch a man and then spend rest of her life preparing mouth-watering dishes and washing his clothes until they outshine the sun, of course with a man telling her what detergent to use. Sharada also analyses advertisements that use or target little girls to underline how they are conditioned to become passive, narcissistic, dependent, subservient homemakers eager to please men when they grow up.



Sharada focuses primarily on the discriminatory treatment given to women by the advertising industry. How advertisers turn women into commodities and project their images as defined by males only. Qualities attributed to women are mostly negative while the intelligent, strong and assertive woman successfully undertaking responsibilities and contributing to productivity in society is rarely seen.

Task ahead



Much of the advertising portraying women perpetuates their secondary role in Indian society and also more invidiously invents fresh circumstances that characterise women as inferior to men. The Advertising Council of India encourages people to bring to its notice — through elaborate procedures — ads that contravene regulations so that action can be taken to redress the situation. But an ad can not be separated from its import and effect. Once the veil is lifted and contents are unmasked, neither the most regretful retraction nor the most penitent apology can undo the damage caused.

The task ahead is to frame a moral outlook that challenges the patriarchal social order. Sharada, in her book, lists several guidelines for non-sexist language and advertising codes to ensure fair portrayal of women.

















© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

[Priya]

Ads!!!! Some of the most annoying are the beauty product ones.
There was one where a boy did not like to pose with a girl for pix. Then she uses a fairness cream and he comes running to be with her. And she takes him back!!!!
Now with Emami we have the male fairness creams entering the market. Again the bloke is surrounded by gals once he uses the cream.

The Wheel Active ad shows a khadoos snapping pati and a smiling sweet paise bachoing biwi. That supposed to appeal to the middle class market?

And the females who use safal peas to make 10 peas dishes for a family, Pilsbury readymix to make an assortment of brekker options for each member of the family and the ever puri frying, pao bhaji making mummies--they never sweat? Hair always open and synthetic sari and smiling and pretty. AC kitchens?

[catch22]

Woman spanked at work
[ Thursday, April 27, 2006 11:49:43 amAP ]

FRESNO, (California): Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked a jury Wednesday for at least $1.2 million (euro970,000) for the humiliation she claimed to have suffered.

Janet Orlando, 53, quit her job at the home security company Alarm One Inc. and sued, alleging discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.

Employees were paddled with rival companies' yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, according to court documents. The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.

``No reasonable middle-aged woman would want to be put up there before a group of young men, turned around to show her buttocks, get spanked and called abusive names, and told it was to increase sales and motivate employees,'' her lawyer, Nicholas ``Butch'' Wagner, said in his closing argument.

Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim, California-based, 300-employee company, said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.

``This is being done for one reason and one reason only - money,'' said K. Poncho Baker, the company's lawyer.

Alarm One officials ceased the practice in 2004, the year Orlando sued, after another employee complained of being injured, according to court records.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1507130.cms

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If every comaraderial spanking could fetch 1.2 million dollars then it is worth it I presume!