LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:1 January 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Gender Stereotypes in Advertising: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Beebee Hassanaath Heathy, Ph.D. Research Scholar

Abstract

Gone are the days when men were considered as the financial providers of the family and women as the caring mothers and loving wives happily doing household chores. Women are now engaged in the workforce where they can take on various leadership roles within companies. They are not only taking up of the responsibilities of a mother but also an executive of an organization. It is commonly believed that advertisements reflect the society, but, in reality, they failed to depict the achievements of women; instead they prefer to follow the traditional gender stereotypes. Advertisements portray women as ‘damsels in distresses.’ They are depicted as feminine being weak and fragile, easily frightened, defenseless, blinded by emotions, dependent on male counterparts and showing their beauty, grace and sexual attractiveness. Advertisers often display them in domestic scenes and in products like perfumes and cars. They are shown as sex objects to promote the brand. While men are portrayed as athletic, strong male individual engaging in high status jobs. These gender stereotypes continue to persist and degrade the status of women. Keeping all the above deliberations in view, this paper will aim to identify all the possible gender stereotypes that exist in advertising. By employing semiotic analysis techniques as research tool, the paper will explore how different icons, symbols and indexes used to perpetuate gender stereotypes in advertisements. While the discourse analysis will adopt Fairclough’s three dimensional framework – textual features, discursive practice and social practice to expose how the advertisers construct ideologies about the female in advertisements.

Keywords: Female, Stereotypes, Advertising, Semiotics, and Discourse Analysis

Introduction

The depiction of women in advertising is often labelled as exploitative, derogatory and demeaning, which does not represent the modern women (Khandeparkar & Motiani, 2015). Advertising always lags behind in promoting gender equality. Instead, it still reinforces female stereotypes and fails to depict the empowerment of women. Gender stereotyping in advertising occurs when gender roles depictions deviate from equality. This occurs, for instance when women are pictured in doing household chores, in a high degree of nudity, being dependent on men's protection and making tremendous efforts to get the ‘ideal beauty' in order to keep their mate happy; while men are shown in leading positions being strong and powerful. Advertising picture men and women the way we think they behave not the way they actually do behave in society.

Cortese (2015) claimed that feminine counterpart is disregarded and devalued in advertisements when they are depicted as passive and subordinate; as sex objects or obsessed with household chores. He further argued that advertisers are constantly bombarding women with the message that they are inherently flawed. They make women believe that if they are not physically perfect or attractive, they will not be loved by men. Goffman (1978) one of the first sociologists to study gender stereotypes in advertisements claimed that women are often portrayed in a stereotypical way and have a submissive role and a lower physical and social position than men. 42 years have passed since Goffman's research and women are still portrayed similarly, thus indicating that advertisers continue to degrade the status of females in most advertisements.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Beebee Hassanaath Heathy
Ph.D. Research Scholar
Department of Mass Communication
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh U.P., India
hassanaath08@gmail.com
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