Sexism and cultural context

In the Guardian article ‘Time to Kick the Sexism out of Advertising’ by Kathryn Perera, she writes about sexism evident in advertisements, especially around the time of the 2010 World Cup. She also criticises the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for the way it regulates content in advertisements allowed to be shown to the public. Her stand is obvious – why is there not more consideration for sexist content in advertising and how it may offend?

This situation is an example of how cultural and situational contexts should be taken into consideration when creating messages for an audience. As mentioned by Schriver (2006), readers naturally bring a lifetime of information with them in order to interpret verbal and visual cues. Especially now with the rise of feminist movements, more people are being educated that it is degrading to stereotype genders. In this case, the issue is sexism, which is seen through the use of women in advertisements as “… sex objects, domestic archetypes, or pure props in male-driven scenarios” (White, 2010). However, there is also sexism towards men, whereby they are portrayed as brainless and unable to perform household chores such as cooking and cleaning (Edaburn, 2009). However, sexism towards women is more evident than that towards men. The following is a video which parodies the typical route taken by most advertisements which stereotypes male and female types.

Many women and men find sexism offensive, which may in turn bring a negative reaction towards the advertisement in question as all sexist portrayals are degrading. The Malaysian Code of Advertising Practice 2008 states that “advertisements must not identify or type each particular … sex with vocations, traditional values and backgrounds”. Therefore, advertisers in Malaysia are expected to take into account that sexism in their advertisements is offensive to the Malaysian public.

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References

Edaburn, P 2009, Does sexism still reign in TV advertising?, The Moderate Voice, viewed 9 November 2010, http://themoderatevoice.com/27132/does-sexism-still-reign-in-tv-advertising/.

Perera, K 2010, ‘Time to kick the sexism out of advertising’, Guardian 29 June, viewed 6 November 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/29/kick-sexism-out-of-advertising.

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: Creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

White, D 2010, Selling stereotypes: Sexism in advertising, University of Missouri-Kansas City, viewed 9 November 2010, http://info.umkc.edu/womenc/2010/10/18/selling-stereotypes-sexism-in-advertising/.