how gender roles are portrayed in advertising

 how gender roles are portrayed in advertising

Introduction

Gender roles have been an essential part of social norms construction since the beginning of time. However, these roles have evolved with time, leading to many social and political changes (Eisend, 2010). These gender roles have depicted how each gender is portrayed in every part of society, especially on television. Gender roles have taken roots in television advertising as it has with everything else, and this has created great contrivances and concerns due to the effecting advertising has on molding people’s attitudes towards certain aspects of life (Eisend, Plagemann, and Sollwedel, 2014). As such, a lot of research has been developed to examine how gender roles are portrayed in advertising more so in regards to sex, the role cast, credibility, location, the products and services advertised among others.

Sex

Kiran (2016) instigates the hidden gender stereotypes in television commercials in five different countries, including Egypt, India, Netherlands, Pakistan, and turkey. The commercials presented are categorized in terms of sex, credibility, role, product type, and location. The findings suggest that in all the literature analyzed, gender stereotypes in television commercials are highly similar to each other. Based on sex as one of the commercial categories, the results suggest that in India, 356 characters out of the 627 characters coded were women, while 271 were male. Egypt, however, recorded more females in the advertisement industry as compared to men at 60% and 40%, respectively. This is the same as in Pakistan, where the number of females in adverting is recorded to be more than men with a percentage of 65.31 and 34.68, respectively. As for the Netherlands, the results as similar to those of India, where the number of men in commercials is more than mend with a percentage of 56.2 and 438, respectively. Neto and Furnham (2005) also examine how gender roles are portrayed in Portuguese, Great Britain, and US television advertisements that aim at children. The researchers covered advertised products such as food, toys, and mass media communication tools, among others. In regards to sex of voice over, the results suggest that 90% of male characters were assigned advertisements with male voiceovers, and 93% of female characters appear in advertisements with female voice overs. Mwangi (1996) also examines how gender roles are portrayed in Kenyan television commercials by coding commercials according to the sex of the spokesperson, the central character, the nature of the service or product presented occupation and settings. The findings indicate that there are no major differences in the proportion of men and women serving as the central characters in commercials. But, both women and men were depicted in traditional roles. The researchers further observed significant gender differences in regards to the services and products presented, commercial settings, preferred spokesperson, and occupational cues. Overall, the Kenyan commercial market is said to portray similar gender stereotypes as portrayed by media from developed countries. Livingstone and green (1986) performed a cluster analysis to establish the main types of characters portrayed in the advertisement. The results indicate that of the eight characters presented in the sample, five of them were mainly male, while the rest three were mainly female. Considerable expensive products are found to be advertised by the stereotypical male character, while the stereotype female character remains silent and makes the man look good. The few women give product authority roles differs considerably from male characters and not just in numbers but also in the role presented, type of product as well as the mode of presentation. Matthes, Prieler, and Adam (2016) also focus on analyzing how gender roles are portrayed in television advertising across the world, with a total of 13 American, Asian, and European countries. The results show that gender stereotypes in a common factor in the advertising industry across the globe. Such stereotypes are based on primary voiceover and characters, work or home settings, age, presented product categories, and the working role of the main character. The results also indicate that gender stereotypes are independent of any country’s gender indices, including the globe’s gender egalitarianism index, Hofstede’s masculinity index, gender-related development index, global gender gap index as well as gender inequality index. The results suggest that gender stereotyping in television is no dependent on gender inequality prevalence in a country. As such, the role of certain cultures in shaping gender stereotypes in adverting is said to be smaller than it is commonly thought to be. Matthes, Prieler, and Adam (2016) further indicate that significant gender stereotypes were found in each country, but there are also significant differences in how the stereotypes are resented in each country. For instance, in the uk, they found no significant age differences between the share of female and male primary characters and female and male voiceovers. Additionally, similar shares of women and men were shown at home in domestic settings. As for us, men the same number of women and men are approximated to have been shown at work and at home evenly, and men are found not to be stereotypically linked to electronic products or cars.

Role

When it comes to the roles of each of these characters, Kiran (2016) indicate that in India’s television commercials, male characters are likely to be portrayed as employed with 23.9% while employed women are at 7%. Additionally, male characters are more likely to be portrayed as professionals, whether in non-business or business-related commercials as compared to women. In Pakistan, the number of the male character featured doing domestic-related tasks are 0.8%, and male characters are 8.7% pot rayed as adventurous as compared to women at 3.5%. The roles such as beauty whether professional or personal, women characters outnumbered the male characters with 9,6% and 3.5% respectively. Similar results were found in the Netherlands, with 76.1% of male characters being portrayed as professionals, while 23.9% of female characters are given the same role. Regarding product types, the results suggest that in India, male characters are shown in commercials with financial and technical products, while most women are shown in beauty and home-related commercials. The same case applies in Egypt, where 78% female and 65% males were linked to domestic products while 35% of male characters were portrayed in non-domestic advertisements, and 255 female characters are associated with domestic advertisements. In Pakistan’s commercials, female characters are seen adverting products such as cosmetics, food, beverages, and personal hygiene more frequently as compared to male characters. Similarly, in the Netherlands, female outnumbered male characters when it comes to adverting beauty and home products while male outnumbered female characters when it comes to products like mechanics and cars. Turkish also reported similar results as those of India, Pakistan, and the Netherlands. Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) found a significant difference in the role depicted by male and female characters across all the selected channels. The male character featured in roles that are relative to others, the main role being the mother or guardian. However, male characters are more likely to be cast as independent individuals, and in roles that are relative, they are cast as friends to the woman or other people in the advert, and this as found to be the case across all the channels. The researchers also found that channel SBC 5 is more likely to portray women as sex and sexual objects as compared to their male counterparts. Livingstone and green (1986) also analyze the idea of television advertisements and how gender roles are portrayed in the British television market. The results indicate that men and women in the advertisement industry conform to traditional gender roles very closely. Slightly more male figures are found to dominate the central characters as compared to women figures, and slightly more authorities voiceover figures are found to be dominated by both male and female. However, men were more frequently to be featured in advertisements that are non-domestic in nature as compared to domestic ones (Livingstone and green, 1986). Kitsa and mudra (2019) focus on examining gender stereotypes of females in television advertising in Ukraine. The results indicate that although the social roles of women in society have changed and continually changing, most advertisements in Ukraine still give women stereotypical roles. The roles include household products, guardians, nurses, decorations to men in power, and even servants. In this case, 22%of women are portrayed as housewives, 19% as nurses, 10% as guardians, 4% as easy prey to men, 8% as goddesses, 3% as toys, 24% s servants, 6% as losers, 2% as traitorous either to other women or men and the remaining 2% as just blonde women with low IQ who cannot drive and only does the shopping and looks beautiful.

Type of product

Stoica, Miller, and Ardelea (2011) also examine gender role portrayals in television advertisements in Romania. The researchers found a significant difference between women and men with respect to the type of products they depict. In commercials for cosmetics and personal care products, women were found to have a higher percentage as compared to men with 67.6% and 32,4%, respectively, and 62.5 to 37.5% for commercials concerning household cleaning agents. However, for commercials concerning food and beverages, male characters were found to appear at greater rates as compared to women with 57.0% to 43% and 70.9% to 29.1% for commercials concerning tobacco and alcohol. Ahlstrand (2007) also asserts that in regards to products such as appliances and telecommunication services and products, male characters are more likely to be portrayed in those commercials as compared to female characters. Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) also examines sex-role portrayal in television advertisements for audiences of different television channels in Malaysia and Singapore. In regards to product use, Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) found that there is a significant difference between males and females on all channels across the two countries. Males and females appear on adverts for products used by their own sex or those of the other sex, but for the opposite sex, the occasions are rare. The percentage of a man appearing on advertisements that promote female products in the SBC 5 channel was found to be only half that of tv # and RTM 1 channel. However, when duplicated commercials are taken into account, the results show a significant difference to have been reinforced.

Credibility

In regards to credibility, Neto and Furnham (2005) indicate that men are more likely to be portrayed as authoritative figures on a product as compared to women with 50% and 37% respectively while female characters are more likely to appear as ‘user’ as compared to male characters with 54% and 345 respectively. Kiran (2016) also indicates that in advertisements in India, most voiceovers are portrayed by men in such a way that out of the 280 voiceovers done, 225 of them were male, while 28 of them were female and 27 of them were both female and male characters. In addition, the percentage of man portrayed as authoritative positions is recorded to be 16.1% and that of female characters is 10% while 90% of women were portrayed as users of the products as compared to men. In Egypt, 74.2% of the voiceovers used in advertisements are male, while 11.2% of the advertisements used female voiceovers, while 14.6% do not use voiceovers. 21% of female characters are portrayed as serving others while 5% of male characters are depicted the same. As for Pakistan, 56.05% of advertisements had male voiceovers while 29.9% were for females, and 12,33% of the commercials had both female and male voiceovers. The researcher also found that female related product adverts in Pakistan have male voiceovers too. Additionally, only 5.9% of the female voiceovers had authoritarian tones whereas 25% male voiceovers presented in this category. Netherlands recorded similar results with 75% male voiceovers and 25% female voiceovers in adverts. While in-home and beauty products, as well as cleaning and detergent supply, female voiceovers outnumbered that of male voiceovers, but male voiceovers outnumber that of females when it comes to products such as financial services and cars. As for the Turkish advertisements industry, male voiceovers outnumbered that of a female with 78.7%while 0.6% of the adverts were found to have mixed voiceover. Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) found no significant difference between males and females in the non-duplicated adverts. Both females and males are said to be more likely to be portrayed as product users than as authoritative figures. However, in duplicated commercials, men are significantly more likely to be depicted as authoritative as compared to female characters. Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) assert that 52% of male voiceovers are used in non-duplicated and duplicated adverts in all the selected channels. Moreover, if there is an addition of male voices in the background singing, male voiceovers increase drastically by 68

Location

As for location, Neto and Furnham (2005) found that female characters are more likely to be depicted in home settings than male characters with 27% and 21%, respectively. However, this difference is not significant. Kiran (2016), on the other hand, found that in India’s advertisement industry, male characters are underrepresented when it comes to home settings, and female characters are underrepresented in outdoor settings. In Egypt, the results indicate that 375 of female characters and 355 of male characters are depicted in home settings. Moreover, 63% of female characters and 65% of male characters are portrayed in locations other than in-home settings. While in Pakistan, 9.5% of male characters are depicted in home settings, and 23.96% were portrayed in private spheres. The analysis in the Netherlands suggests that 22,5% of female characters and 42,8% of male characters are depicted in public settings, while 57.2% of male characters and 77.5% of female characters are depicted in private settings. While in Turkish, the results suggest that 21.8% of male characters and 50% of female characters are portrayed in home settings. In addition, 22.5% of female characters and 10.25 of male characters are portrayed in an employment setting. Wee, Choong, and Tambyah (1995) also indicate that there is a significant difference in the settings was male and female characters are portrayed in both TV 3 and RTM 1 but not on SBC 5 in the non-duplicated adverts. But in duplicated adverts shown by SBC 5, the difference is settings between the two sexes were found to be apparent. In non-duplicated and duplicated adverts, the researchers found that female characters were featured in predominantly home settings for both TV 3 and RTM 1 channels, and male characters were portrayed in predominantly outdoor settings. Additionally, male characters were more likely portrayed in the occupational setting, both non-business and business, as compared to their female counterparts.