The Post War society was going through a transition period. The milestone document of the United Nations in the history of mankind is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). With this document, the United Nations have protected human rights regardless of gender, race, religion ethnicity etc. The United Nations agreed that every person is free by born and he/she should be respected. He/she must be considered as human being and thus her rights of freedom must be protected. The two incidents were very important in the world history; first is the Civil Rights Movement and the feminist movement. It was a fight against the discrimination of the base of race and sex. There are several judicial provisions for equality and humanity. But the question is whether this equality is really followed in the society or whether there is still inequality on the basis of gender and race. Unfortunately, the inequality is still prevalent in the world. The White Men are still dominating the world. Male chauvinism is still there. Whites are still superior and blacks are still inferior in the minds of the people. To inculcate the superiority and inferiority complex, based on gender and race, media has allegedly been playing an important role. In our modern society, the role of media is doubtlessly very significant. It is not exaggeration if we say that media shape the society. The audience obtains maximum information and knowledge from media; may it be an image, posters, newspapers, TV, films, internet and social media. Voluntarily or sometimes involuntarily, the information reaches to us by various media. In the modern days, the major task of bringing up generation with cultural and social values is done by media. Media play crucial role in constructing the social identity of the person. Thus media have become at the centre of all social realities in our modern world. Unfortunately every time, the message or information spread by media is not real but distorted. Surprisingly, media have always been forefront in spreading gender and racial inequality. It has a major contribution in spreading the social freak. The term social freak is associated with either superiority or inferiority complex of the person. Gender and race discrimination are social freaks. Wood (31) in her book Gender Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture has given the media report which is race and gender biased. The report says,
“White males make up two-thirds of the population. The women are less in number, perhaps because fewer than 10% live beyond 35. Those who do, like their younger and male counterparts, are nearly all white and heterosexual. In addition to being young, the majority of women are beautiful, very thin, passive, and primarily concerned with relationships and getting rings out of collars and commodes. There are a few bad, bitchy women, and they are not so pretty, not so subordinate, and not so caring as the good women. Most of the bad ones work outside of the home, which is probably why they are hardened and undesirable. The more powerful, ambitious men occupy themselves with important business deals, exciting adventures, and rescuing dependent females, whom they often then assault sexually”.
The above analysis of media is less informative and more biased. The women and are targeted here. They are illogically discriminated on the basis of their physical appearance. The content claims that if the woman is thin and passive, she is beautiful and if she does not meet these parameters of beauty, she is bad woman. The stereotypical gender role is also explained in the above report where men are said to be powerful, strong and economically independent. They are generally the breadwinners. The female role and stereotype representation of women are there. According to the above analysis, for being beautiful the woman has to be thin, pretty (As decided by the White world) and passive in her behavior. In our films, TV shows, advertisements, superiority and inferiority on gender and race are shown directly or sometimes indirectly. The present paper aims at discussing how media spread wrong message about gender and race. Advertisement is one of the most popular forms of media. It is the effective mean of spreading message, marketing businesses, informing and educating people. Advertisements are no doubt doing their best job in disseminating message, educating people and informing them. It is the effective tool of reaching to the maximum number of target audience.
Image 1: 1950s Del Monte Ketchup Advertisement http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-1950s-Housewife/
Image 1 is an advertisement defaming women gender. In media the gender role is categorically shown. According to the study conducted by Brown and Campbell men are very rarely shown doing house chores. The responsibility of household work has always been given to women in media. On the contrary, they are shown uninterested and inefficient in homemaking. Moreover, the women are often humiliated by showing physically and intellectually inferior to men. They are portrayed as dumb and weak creature. In yesteryears’ advertisements for example, in Del Monte ketchup advertisement of 1950, a woman is shown opening the cap of a bottle. It is shown that it is so easy to open the cap that even a woman can also open it. She does not need the help of any man to open it. This is what the advertisement is showing. The purpose of the advertisement does not seem marketing ketchup but showing woman as a weak and unintelligent work. She deserves to do the things which are easy. She cannot do difficult things. She is capable of doing only household chores and she cannot go outside like men. The male dominated society even does not have trust on the intellectual abilities of the women. That is the reason why Bronte sisters in Victorian era hid their feminine identity while publishing their poetry collection. They published the book with the pseudonyms Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne). Thus they pretended to be the male poets by adopting masculine names. It was because the stereotype image of the women in our society that they are dumb and are not capable of writing books or poetry or doing any such kind of work that is related to intellectuality. The same image continued even in the last decade of twentieth century and in twenty first century as well. The author of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter series with the initials of her name. This is because the society generally does not accept that a female writer also can write adventurous, mysterious and suspense books like Harry Potter. It is obviously because of the inferior status of women propagated by media. This is the indirect message given by the advertisement.
Image 2 Image 3: Van Heusen Ties
Sometimes she is shown as a servant, completing all needs of her husband, serving him and not raising her voice against male chauvinism (See image 3) sometimes it is portrayed in the media that she is the slave of her man and her place is near the shoes of the man (See image 2). Moreover, in the same image she is shown half naked. It means that she is also projected by this advertisement as a sexual object. She is not portrayed as a human beings with equal respect and dignity as the men have.
The viewers of these advertisements are not just adults. But they are watched by the small children as well. The raised by keeping this thought in their mind that women are inferior, dumb, passive creature as shown in advertisements. By projecting wrong image of feminine gender, the media is responsible for carrying forward the gender discrimination among the future generations of the world.
In the modern advertisements, the image is slightly changed. From servant, passive and dumb creature, her image is more a sex object in today’s advertisements. In many commercials the woman’s body is unnecessarily portrayed. Even if it is the advertisement of the men’s product, the appearance of a woman is always seen in the commercials. It is just to show that woman is an object and she can be obtained by using a particular product. While watching football matches, we often hit by the commercials of beer where a beautiful woman is shown sweeping off her feet. Sometimes a man is shown sitting among many beautiful and attractive damsels on a deserted island and opens the can of beer. This clearly indicates that the women are the reward or they are like a trophy given to the men for consuming the wine. The football matches are watched by everyone from family. Indirectly through such kind of commercials, small children take wrong message of gender discrimination.
It is a question why media never portray a strong woman who is independent and standing by her own without taking any support from her male counterpart. Why there are no women shown in media who are going to the office, or enjoying an executive post and thus making their strong career. We also seldom see men doing laundry or making food and serving food to their wives. It is also a question whether media influence society or society influences media.
Along with gender discrimination, media have a very humiliating approach about the race and ethnicity and many such advertisements are there which propagate false perceptions of racial discrimination. There has always been a bridge between white and non-white community. The advertisements directly or indirectly make the bridge wide by propagating these two communities stereotypically. Media have always been forefront in spreading racial hatred, and superiority and inferiority complex among the people from different races. Black world has always been dominated by the white world. Due to political reasons, colonization, non-white people have always been inferior and exotic for the Western white world. The concept of White and others has been so powerful since then. The civil rights movement gave ample freedom to the minority black community in America, but still the hostility towards black people is still there in the minds of whites. They are still treated inferior. Media are also not exception to this view. The following advertisement of Dove soap is the apt example of spreading of racial discrimination among the people.
In the above commercial, three women of different races are shown. Their complexion is different. They are from three different races, black, brown and white. Here, the soap company claims that their soap makes the complexion fair and thus good looking. The advertisement clearly conveys the message that the black or brown skin is not good and the real beauty lies in fair complexion. After watching such advertisements, the whites start feeling superior whereas the blacks start feeling inferior.
Not just African American, but all non-white people are targeted and exploited in the advertisements. The Arab people are projected as inferior people in some advertisements. The commercial Dow Commercial Ziploc bag carries on the stereotype of the black mammy – subservient, dark, heavy, asexual and inarticulate (Cortese 92). Newsweek magazine had published two- page advertisement in their magazine. This advertisement was for a very popular and branded computer company. In the advertisement, an Arab man was shown in his traditional dress standing near to a camel. At the corner of the page, the computer boxes were shown. The advertisement states ‘Some computer company cannot make their own computer parts. Makes you wonder where they get them” ("Racism and Sexism in Advertising").
After studying several advertisements, it was found that yesteryears and even in today’s commercials also, the following gender biased attributes are found:
General antagonism and hostility towards black men, black women and even white women. Black women are projected ugly, passive and white women are also projected weak and submissive. Black men are projected barbarian and uncivilized and lack in intellectuality.
Exaggerated views, an intolerant content towards the colored people and women: The exaggeration is seen in the above mentioned advertisement of Dove, in which the message has been distorted by exaggeration. It is exaggeratedly claimed by the company that the original and natural color of the skin can be changed by using their soap. Along with the false commitment of changing skin color, the soap company has put down the black community just for the colour of their skin.
Exaggeration related to criminality and violence: Though we have not discussed any such example of criminality and violence, the media many times associate black male with violence and criminality. The violence and criminality is exaggerated in other non-white community. In some advertisements, the women’s mouth is shut with a paper. Those women belong to Middle East countries. It suggests that women have no voice and they are not allowed to speak and give their opinion. In fact, not just the women of Middle East but in so called developed western society also, women are considered inferior.
Some of the yesteryears’ advertisements spread the racial hostility and hatred through their advertisements. There is a commercial in which a white child and a black child are shown. It is an advertisement of soap. The white child is asking black child to tell its mom to wash him with this soap and it will be fair like the white child. This advertisement is really humiliating and insulting. Moreover it is very harmful. Children are very innocent and they are being taught in a wrong way to hate black complexion and to love white complexion.
Thus advertisements are carrying forward the message that the non-white people as well women are not capable of doing anything that requires skill, and intelligent. These two types of human being deserve only to be ruled by white men and they should be made either servants or slaves. Merskin (51-58) has found out that the children frequently see and learn about racial, ethnic and gender identity in television advertisements. The most widespread form of media is advertising and especially it is powerful in children’s television environment (McNeal; Rose, Bush, Kahle). If this is true, advertisement should be aware of what they are giving to their audience.
Work Cited
Wood, Julia. Gendered Media: The Influence Of Media On Views Of Gender. Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning, 2016. Print.
Brown, Jane D. and Kenneth Campbell. "Race And Gender In Music Videos: The Same Beat But A Different Drummer". J Communication 36.1 (1986): 31 – 39. Web.
McNeal, James U. Kids as Customers. New York: Lexington, 1992.
Merskin, Debra. "Boys Will Be Boys: A Content Analysis Of Gender And Race In Children's Advertisements On The Turner Cartoon Network". Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising 24.1 (2002): 51-59. Web.
"Racism And Sexism In Advertising". Deltacollege.edu. N.p., 1997. Web. 26 June 2016.
"The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights | United Nations". Un.org. Web. 26 June 2016.
