The Abuse of Women in Advertising (Malaysia)

Sexist advertisements are the norm with industry and advertising agencies who reap huge profits at the expense of women. A sexist advertisement is one that depicts half of the human race as inferior; it is discriminatory, it degrades and humiliates one sex in relation to the other. This form of advertising has become an important tool in the perpetuation of male western culture, and it exploits women's sexuality and their physical appearance. As Alice Courtney and Sarah Lockeretz point out in their study on marketing in the USA, 'men regard women primarily as sex objects. (This is indicated) by the plethora of decorative roles assigned to women more than men. The effect is also heightened by showing men and women sharing recreational activities but not work and by showing women in relatively few working roles.'

In another study, Trevor Millum notes that 'most women were captured in pictures which tended to emphasise "mannequin" and "dummy" expressions ... while men more often demonstrated a "thoughtful" expression implying some intellectual processes.'

Local media appear to be no different. Time and again, in our advertisements, women are depicted as vain and seductive, as sex commodities, dull-witted, in constant need of approval (almost always by men) and ultimately best left in the home or kitchen. Some examples are given below:

National Radio Cassette: This advertisement appears in the daily newspapers. It pretends to advertise a radio cassette: it shows a scantily-dressed woman with flowing long hair, swinging in a hammock with a radio cassette at her side. The text reads: 'Swing to the beat... when you're out having fun, add more excitement ...for a really swinging time. Every time!' These words take on a double meaning and the promised 'fun' and 'excitement' clearly refer to the woman in the hammock. There is no other information about the actual product. The picture of the woman, half reclining and smiling, dominates the advertisement.

There are many such advertisements which show half-dressed women advertising motorbikes, cars or radios, products which bear no relation to the figure of the woman in the advertisement.

Anchor Beer: This advertisement can be seen on the walls of coffee-shops all over the country. 'A Man's Taste' proclaims the poster. But anyone looking at it can only see a bikini-clad, young, seductive woman kneeling suggestively on an anchor with a 'come hither' look on her face. The beer bottle is placed in a corner of the advertisement and is completely eclipsed by the semi-nude woman. Is there a clearer example of how a woman is promoted to men as a mere commodity, her value rated according to her face, figure and age?

This commercialisation of the female body as an object to be feasted upon and consumed by eager male eyes, is nowhere better seen than in the semi-nude pictures of women in suggestive and revealing poses on calendars which advertise cigarettes, tractors, paints and machinery. As the year approaches its end, many big companies commission agents to prepare such calendars which are given to favoured clients. These days, calendar manufacturers sometimes even offer a special deal: 'an exotic lady on each page', complete with an order form.

In recent years advertisers have become more daring in their portrayal of local women. A calendar that is fairly popular is the Industrial Agricultural Distribution (IAD) calendar. IAD is a company which distributes hardware. In the calendar the model is a local woman and the background is a rubber estate. She is standing, very self assured, on a ladder which rubber tappers use when they tap the trees. She poses for the photograph with her sari blouse unbuttoned, partially exposing her breasts. The presentation of local women in a local setting makes use of a subtle psychology that associates local women as potential sex objects. In the eyes and minds of local men, our local women thus have this ability to give them sexual pleasure and satisfaction.

From the above examples it is clear that these advertisements — both in their content and presentation — are aimed at the male consumer. Products such as beer and hardware are also used more by men. These portrayals of women are both dehumanising and humiliating. Are they not examples of a more sophisticated version of prostituting a woman's body? Such a distortion of women only reinforces male sexist attitudes towards women as playthings.

Advertisements that make use of women usually fall under two categories: those that treat them as sex objects and those that convey the stereotype that the woman's place is in the home and kitchen.

While men are portrayed as successful professionals and important decision-makers, women in advertisements are cast as housewives who busy themselves and keep happy with rice cookers, washing machines, sewing machines, floor polish or household insecticides. Men are seldom, if ever, seen sharing household chores while women beam with pride and happiness at the latest household appliance being advertised, as if to say that housework is the sole concern of women. Such advertisements deny the fact that, increasingly, women are participating in occupations and activities outside the home and imply that their being housebound is the natural order of things. The growing acceptance of the idea that men should share in the tasks of housework is also entirely absent.

In the traditional extended family system 'housework' was integrated into the economic activities of the household which involved members of the whole family. It combined work on the land, in the fields, production of handicrafts, weaving and matting, the preparation and processing of food and the gathering of necessities for daily sustenance. Women actually contributed to the subsistence and the economic production of their families and the community. 'Housework' was creative and meaningful. Thus, a woman's work gave her dignity, self respect and confidence.

With the coming of the modern nuclear family, housework became confined to the four walls of the home. Women no longer participated in economic production which was now solely undertaken by the husband who left the house to earn a living. Housework became unpaid work. Consequently, the crucial role it plays and the essential contribution it makes to society was denied because housework was identified only with women. It is precisely because of this role in the domestic economy that women occupy the lowest ranks of social status and economic importance in our modern society.

This typical image of women as housewives is also found in our local advertisements. Take for instance the following example, found in our local dailies:

Washing Machine Advertisement: The advertisement reads: 'This lady is busy washing clothes'. The picture, however, shows a woman in frills and bows, leisurely applying nail varnish to her toenails. The impression given is that housework can be leisurely, easy, fun, and even glamorous. This advertisement thus distorts the reality of housework.

One would have thought that gadgets such as washing machines would be needed most by 'working' women who would not have as much time for housework as 'non-working' women do. But in such advertisements and commercials women are always shown housebound. According to two female researchers, 'while the time-saving products that are extolled as reducing labour are probably desired most by working women who are time harried, the purchasers in these ads are not working.'

Since women are generally seen in the context of the household, children tend to associate their mother with these menial chores. Fathers, however, are always seen driving the car to work, their meals are always prepared for them when they come home, they are the bread-winners and the heads of the household.

Children are not exempt from such stereotyping either. Boys are always soiling their clothes (not to worry, mother will make them whiter than white), camping, playing games or engaged in outdoor activities. Girls are always playing the piano, dancing, dressing up dolls, and playing masak-masak (housewife). They are dainty and feminine. This socialisation of the young through advertisements has far-reaching effects that manifest themselves in adulthood. Boys thus identify with the father who has everything done for him, who is strong, dependable and clever. As for the girls, they learn to identify with the mother, the loving, self-sacrificing and devoted servant of the home and family.

Moreover, the portrayal of women as empty-headed and silly in most ads does injustice to the important role they play in our society. About 1.2 million Malaysian women today are employed in industry, agriculture, the professional and educational sectors. At the same time they carry out multi-faceted roles as homemakers, cooks, mothers and economical consumers, budgeting the family income and doing most of the shopping. The complicated responsibilities of women surely demand them to be more intelligent, resourceful and dependable than most advertisements would have us believe.

Modern advertising also projects women as obsessed with cultivating the beauty of their faces and bodies. These advertisements define the characteristics of 'femaleness' in terms of glamour, coyness, fashion. To be a 'real woman' is to be 'alluring'.

What is the effect of images such as these on most ordinary women? Inevitably, a deep sense of inferiority, guilt and inadequacy is created among the so-called 'unfortunate' women, the 'plain Janes'. So we try to hide our ugliness and look like those female goddesses on the screen and in the glossy pages, and some of us spend a fortune in the attempt. For example, a CAP survey showed that factory girls who earn very low wages spend a large part of their income on clothes, cosmetics and shoes, stinting on good food at the expense of their health. Women have thus been conned into buying such packaged promises. They are made to feel that manufacturers of such glamour and happiness can actually make their wildest dreams come true. In the process of attaining this elusive beauty we not only compete to outdo one another in sophistication and seduction, we also lose confidence in ourselves and our true worth. How this 'sexual sell' is achieved by appealing to women's self image and femaleness, is told in the words of a marketing man: 'Properly manipulated — if you are not afraid of that word — housewives can be given a sense of identity, creativity, the self realisation, even the sexual joy they lack — by buying things.'

The portrayal of women in the mass media is but a reflection, albeit a distorted one, of how women are regarded in a consumer society.

Women are not manipulated by the media into being domestic servants and mindless sexual decorations, the better to sell soap and hair spray. Rather, the image reflects women as men in a sexist society force them to behave. …The real evil of the media image of women is that it supports the sexist status quo. In a sense, the fashion, cosmetics and 'feminine hygiene' advertisements are aimed more at men than women. They encourage men to expect women to sport all the latest trappings of sexual slavery — expectations women must fulfil if they are to survive.

This feature is an adaptation of an article entitled 'Use of Women in Advertising' which appeared originally in Abuse of Women in the Media, Consumers' Association of Penang, 1982.