“In this way, the presence of women in ads in India reinforces traditional gender roles. This is problematic because of the intergenerational transfer of norms to children, including a lack of empowering role models for men undertaking domestic work in the home and women working in the paid workforce,” it is stated in the report titled “Gender Bias & Inclusion In Advertising In India.”
The research conducted by UNICEF with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media measures the level and type of gender stereotyping found in Indian advertisements on TV and YouTube, through analysis of over 1,000 most viewed advertisements in 2019. The ads were provided and translated by the India Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA). UNICEF shared that IAA will be working with members to launch campaigns to deconstruct harmful stereotypes.
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“Sexual objectification has serious consequences in the real world. The more girls and women internalize the idea that their primary value comes from being a sex object, the higher their rates of depression, body hatred and shame, eating disorders, and a host of other personal impacts. Advertisers promoting the message that women are sex objects need to be mindful of the negative impact that may contribute to their dehumanization and personal harm,” it is stated in the report.
The report also highlights the issue of “colourism”. Two-thirds of female characters (66.9%) have light or medium-light skin tones— significantly more than male characters (52.1%). “This is problematic because this advances the discriminatory notion that light skin tones are more attractive,” the analysis concludes.
The report concludes that while it is heartening to see that women and girls have achieved or exceeded parity of representation in terms of presence and voice, deeper analysis shows that the quality of this representation is problematic and there is enormous room for improvement by the advertising community in India to address the issues of gender stereotyping in Indian marketing to help drive gender equality.
It is recommended that advertisers and content creators must increase representation of women and girls across age, social class, skin tone and other diversity indicators.
UNICEF calls for promotion of diverse templates of beauty and avoiding regressive beauty norms of women and girls being only fair and thin. It is recommended that more women and girls should be portrayed as leaders and representation of women in advertisements must promote positive gender norms around the body and attitudes towards healthy eating.