Reports say that India has only 11% women legislators, while the global average is 27%. The good news is that Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023 has been unanimously passed from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The Bill seeks to reserve one-third of the total number of seats in Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for women.
Where are women when it comes to advertising? Yes, advertising and marketing services employ a large number of women. But the number of women in key leadership positions are still relatively low. It was only in 2017 that the Advertising Agencies Association Of India awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award [for the first time] to a woman, Roda Mehta.
What about women in ads? Are there too few or too many? And how are they presented?
Erving Gofman in his book ‘Gender Advertisements’ did an analysis of women in US advertising, analyzing hundreds of print ads in the 1960s. He concluded that women tend to get portrayed in ‘HyperRitualistic’ roles; they are always shown as lesser than the male characters in ads, playing a ritualistic role of a support character.
If we were to do an analysis of Indian video ads we will see something that reflects this ‘hyperitualism’. Women are still shown in gender defined roles of cooking, cleaning, washing, feeding, caring, shopping. While this is the narrative in India, it is not just an Indian phenomenon but has been found to be common in numerous countries. This has led to the formation of the Unstereotype Alliance where companies such as Unilever and Nestle have joined hands to take a pledge to try and discourage the portrayal of women in gender defined roles. Why should it be the woman who does the cooking and cleaning? P&G’s Ariel advertising ‘Share The Load’ is a reflection of this ethos.
I will not go into Bechdel Test and how Indian movies rate on that. The answer is obvious.
What are the downsides of showing men doing household chores when in reality they do very little [barring the time when maids were not allowed to enter housing societies during the height of the pandemic]. I submit that when a brand uses a man instead of a woman it could send out the message more than what is intended. Why is a man cooking? Is the woman too busy to cook? Will the family enjoy what he makes?
Some years ago when the agency handling an SUV brand wanted to show a woman driving the vehicle there was strong push back from the client. Are we saying that the SUV is meant for women? Will women really be buying the SUV? What happens if men see it as a ‘feminine’ SUV? The argument that won went something like this: this is a monster of an SUV; no man is going to see it as a ‘feminine’ car; by showing a woman driving it we are saying that it is an easy vehicle to drive and maneuver. That discourse won the day and the brand was launched with an attractive women chauffer driving around her male boss. The brand went on to become a top seller. No one mistook the SUV for a feminine women vehicle. In fact Hero Pleasure, a specially designed scooter for women, had a line that went ‘Why should boys have all the fun?’.
The idea of showing men in roles that a woman plays in an average home is indeed excellent. But this has to be seen in the context of what the subtext of the message will be. Just as in the case of the SUV, using a woman had its positives and negatives. Showing a man using a sambar powder will have some positives and some negatives. On the positive side: easy to use, easy to cook, But on the negative side it may imply : meant for novices, not for women who are good at cooking, more expensive?
Smart brands are finding a way around this by showing men and women cooking together as a sign of bonding. That may hold the answer. Just by plonking a man in the place of a woman may cause more confusion. We need to find out what the subliminal message will be and then find a suitable answer. Just as in the parliament, reserving seats for women is only the first step. Many more steps will have to carefully curated so that we end up with a more equitable balanced humane set of law makers.
Appeared originally in Business Standard