Media ads and gender insensitivity

By Michael K. Muchiri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): You have been glued to a television program, probably watching the local love dramas, the Mexican dramas or the Indian musicals where mostly the woman is typified as ungrateful, self-seeking, insatiable, but a gorgeous thing.

The usual picture of the woman on all the television programs is the same: women are helpless, vindictive, self-seeking souls who gossip and do stupid things.

When they are not advertising shampoo and soap, they are on the brink of being easily seduced at the same moment a priest is about to purify their wedding.

The following examples dot the typical commercial break.

A serious looking businessman is assessing a girl through a six-week program skin lightener, courtesy of Ponds. Initially she is "dark" skinned but as the weeks progress, and with the aid of the Ponds product, her face becomes "white", what the advert calls beautiful, until the once disinterested man in the office decides to announce that he would take her out for dinner.

Besides the controversy on whether Indonesians should strive to lighten their skins, the advert portrays women as persons worthy only of being dinner partners who should strive to whiten their faces in order to interest men.

Then the second advert -- a man cuddling his sweetheart, drives a beautiful boat on a serene, calm river. "Believe me sweetheart", the man says, "I will always protect you". Until a crocodile appears, then the man, forgetting his promises made only a few moments earlier, hangs onto a tree branch as the helpless woman shouts for help.

The male savior, another man who uses a product called M150 dubbed "energy for the brave", rides on the back of the crocodile as he brings the woman to shore.

Whether the advert sets out to educate girls to mistrust men or whether it sets out to show how women will helplessly hold on to men for help, the M150 advert portrays women as mere playthings who should be lied to when necessary.

Then the Suzuki Baleno car advert -- whether the advert aims to compare a Baleno to a woman running to nowhere is not clear. What is clear is that the car stops to pick up the woman -- but not before her expansive thighs are momentarily the focus of a prying camera. Baleno is a nice car that should not have to exploit the sexuality of women to promote sales.

There are so many more: the female "noisemakers" on the Telkom advert while a male model is the busy businessman; the Kit-Kat commercial in which it is difficult to imagine that a male interviewer would tolerate such nonsense as being "seduced" with chocolate. Such trivialities, the advert seems to be asserting, can only be accommodated by women bosses.

Then comes the Lippo bank radio advert. It opens with a coarse experienced sulky voice of a malcontent woman: she calls the manager of a certain bank to complain about the way her account has been relentlessly the target of the bank fees, dwindling her accounts and motivating her to withdraw from the bank.

Not so long after Lippo Bank says that opening an account with them suffers no costs for all services and with a high interest rate on deposits we hear another telephone buzz.

Now the "unsatisfied" female customer on the line accuses Lippo Bank management of causing her to be "overweight" and other health problems due to the growth of her account with them. The malcontent in women is brought out again -- even when you do good to women, they will never stop complaining!

One cannot help but wonder whether there are women in charge of advertising departments and dramatic productions who dare challenge the monotonous stereotypes that are being portrayed by the mass media.

Do advertising agencies advise their clients on gender and even racial sensitivity? Are the advertising agencies doing enough to check the return of stereotypes such as those depicting women as mere dim-witted people, here for the satisfaction of man?

Roles that caricature women or worse still magnifies existing female stereotypes should be avoided by the mass media.

Why can't adverts featuring women emulate the new Extra Joss advert that positively portrays a woman lifter eying gold as well as aiming for success in the Olympics? Or the Mylanta stomach medication that depicts a working woman in a complex working environment? It is time that advertising producers go back to the drawing boards and make more gender sensitive adverts.

The writer is a Kenyan student at the Faculty of Psychology, Gadjah Mada University.