Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Advertising has often come under the crossfire for their sexist portrayal of women. But with changing times, are they also changing?
Sexism in advertising has been a norm for long. Whether or not you are a fan of Mad Men, you have to be living under a rock to not realise that advertising is guilty of extreme sexism. From selling cement through a bikini model to having a woman in lacy underwear advocate safe driving, we have seen it all.
Advertising as an industry has come under crossfire for their work, pay gaps, objectification, stereotyping (pink glue for girls) and (maybe) importantly the #MeToo movement.
But here are some thoughts I have:
Unlike a lot of other industries, advertising has the power to undo. Remember the ad that said ‘The Best A Man Can Get’?
Years later, you can talk about ‘The Best Men Can Be.’ The ad in question was equally lauded and criticised. However, it is important to recognise that an industry that built cultural conversations around the aspiration of being a certain kind of man can switch to an altogether different line of conversation.
It’s interesting that industries sanction agencies to make ads for them but seldom get embroiled in the cultural conversation surrounding sexism in advertising. Many hapless servicing folks will tell you of instances where they were asked for thinner, fairer models or for a particular ‘look.’ So companies that are still making sexist ads are perhaps more to blame…
In fact, advertising has never shied from employing women. Not in leadership roles or with model behaviour, but historically, even entry-level roles were out of reach for most women.
You have got to admit that the lifeblood of advertising is to be contemporary and rooted in the cultural realities of the world around. Pay gaps exist, yes but is advertising the only culprit? No.
The industry was caught in the eye of the storm during the #MeToo movement because unlike manufacturing, hospitality or finance – women in the industry had the gumption to speak up. Ditto for media.
There’s an interesting parallel – Kerala reports the highest number of sexual assault cases. This is not because they have the highest assaults but the highest education rates.
It’s easier to criticize advertising unlike say an Investment Bank. Doesn’t absolve sexism at all. However, it is easier to judge a woman draped across a man as objectification rather than a woman facing casual sexism while doing financial modelling.
On the one hand, there is an emphasis on the portrayal of women in the ads. However, critics are missing nuances such as digital landscape and how media targeting women still follow sexist norms that traditional advertising did.
Another important thing to know is that advertising has to zoom into a target group for which stereotyping is often needed. We can write articles on share the load but is it speaking to the majority of women or household maids who still do the laundry?
Stirring communication and conversation can only do so when cultural habits and sociological patterns remain the same. And if brands cared they would work on that but behaviour change is pretty hard to effect.
To sum it up, just like pretty much everything else, advertising as an industry has a long way to go. While we outrage at deodorant commercials and cheer for #ShareTheLoad ads, blaming ads, instead of the society from where these cultural narratives stem, is akin to missing the forest for the trees.
Picture credits: Still from Ariel’s #ShareTheLoadCampaign
Ayushi Mona co-leads Broke Bibliophiles Bombay Chapter, India's first offline reader driven community. She is a poet and writer who evangelizes Indian writing in English at the India Booked podcast and has also read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address