SOCIAL MONITOR
Advertising gender bias
Neelu Kang
A PAIR of tiny scissors held by a male hand cuts apart criss-cross strings of a woman’s back, undressing her. The visual is quite often seen on popular TV channels. The scissors is one of the attachments of an army knife offered free along with a deodorant for men.

A brush with pain led her to paint
Inderdeep Thapar
AS I looked at the paintings done by Deepshikha, I felt I was gazing into eternity. One need not be qualified to recognise art. A good piece is one that makes one forget one’s self. Perfect colours, expressions, use of light and shade and it dawned on me that I am meeting an expert.

I feel strongly about...
Sex, sensibility and the Indian woman
Sakoon Chabbra
HOW articulate are Indian women when it comes to sexuality or for that matter how real is the whole issue to them? Time was when the queasy Bollywood represented all that it had to say in the matter by closing the frame on two full blown pink dahlias or through the naughty lover who hit the pinnacle of sexual expression by his talk of the darjan bachche that his mother’s benevolent eyes desire to see playing in the aangan.

Male viewpoint
Tyranny of women’s fashion!
N.S. Dhami
PICTURE this. A woman goes to visit a sick aunt in a hospital ward. She’s wearing a fashionable long skirt-like white kameez, a long salwar that almost touches the floor, and a duppata to match. As she climbs the hospital stairs to the first floor, where her aunt’s ward is, her kameez sweeps the stairs, as does one end of her dupatta.

SOCIAL MONITOR
Advertising gender bias
Neelu Kang

A PAIR of tiny scissors held by a male hand cuts apart criss-cross strings of a woman’s back, undressing her. The visual is quite often seen on popular TV channels. The scissors is one of the attachments of an army knife offered free along with a deodorant for men.

A man and a woman cling to each other, woman’s head sunk in his chest, visible is a woman’s long nude back with four horizontal strings and a pair of mail hands playing it as a bass/cello. This advertisement is of a music store.

Agreed that advertising is a necessary instrument for business to operate and economy to run. How these imaginaries in visual and print media use and project women does unconsciously affect people’s mind, needs to be addressed.

All advertisements, by and large (mainly on TV), depict sports, work situations and the outside world as focus of man’s existence and kitchen as a woman’s world. Hardly is a woman shown as an equal partner, who is employed and is a person of her own will, e.g., in advertisement of a cigarette (in newspapers) mainly consumed by men, man is shown as a distinctive business personality with a female looking at him admiringly.

The visual of a shampoo on television brings about a woman’s desire to get mere sapnon ka rajkumar as if this is the only goal she has. One of the texts of Amway products in the print media reads: ‘You will find me in the praise of proud husbands’.

Reinforcing gender roles, these representations project a modern housewife who is fast, active, intelligent, confined to the home but commanding the kitchen. She is a caring mother, loving partner, devoted wife, ideal daughter-in-law whose happiness ranges around the health and happiness of her family. This woman, in one package, advocates the image of Sita. Above all, she is a smart buyer. Through these representations, a woman is announced as a homemaker, whether it is cooking oil (Sweekar cooking oil where she is referred as home manager) toothpaste, hair oil, detergent, electronic gadget or automobile.

"Not only do these advertisements reinforce stereotypes but they are also far from real conditions of existence", maintains Jaya, a college lecturer. Not close to reality, women are shown in a neat environment with done up hair. Even while being confined to bed by pain or illness, a woman is dressed in a traditional costume as in the ad for the ointment for pain. All beauty products like creams, shampoos, lotions and soaps highlight woman as healthy, fair and beautiful. The gap between the real and these representations does not reflect on any other aspect. On the extreme end are models, particularly in the print media, shown as new generation ultra modern women waring scanty clothes, breaking all rules and thus expressing a sense of freedom. "These ‘imaginaries’ are there to befool people and create a false world of beauty," says Tanu Anuja, a doctor by profession.

These representations have made beauty a pressure for women. After all what is this beauty and for whom? Many women have internalised the belief that their job is to please men and these standards of beauty, they do not realise, are set by men. The media has used this concept of beauty for commercial purposes. Not only does it increase competition among women who can afford all the products but also creates a complex among those who are unable to possess these. "A woman becomes victim of incompleteness and feels that if she does not look like models, some thing is wrong with her. She feels guilty", says Sujata, a college student.

Feminine charm and sex is projected to boost the sale of products. Almost every advertisement of sanitary ware in prestigious magazines use the female body. One such advertisement, of a large photograph of woman in her two-piece costume on a beach accompanied by the next, which reads ‘looks so tempting, you wouldn’t mind fishing out extra money’. Though the product is more important and she is only a secondary object, but still her body is highlighted to enhance the face value of the advertisement. Instead of showing the model cleaning the bathroom (which she actually does) she is there only to attract the attention of readers.

Scrutiny of the text and its relation to the image in all reveals commodification of women. She is brought on a par with the commodity and creates an impression that she is for the consumption of man. What is dominating in the advertisement is the model and her looks and not the phone. A model in her soft blue neckless skirt endorses her confidence and freedom through possession of a mobile phone. In another newspaper ad of the same product, one woman holding the mobile is dancing to glory surrounded by six men adoring her. Her presence is there only to increase the visual appeal of the advertisement.

Postures and expressions of female models in many advertisements nearly lead to eroticism. In another advertisement one finds a woman whose bosom is covered with merely a strip of cloth. The advertisement is vague, the idea silly and there is no clarity of concept. One assumes from the pair of scissors (the only thing next to woman’s image) that it could be about opening of a grand showroom in Ludhiana. The pleasing smile of the woman seems to be soliciting that nude is in vogue. Another ad of the same shop has a nude woman with few glitters covering her private parts. Visuals of Swarovski crystal jewellery and carbon accessories are equally provocative.

Not only big companies but even local and small business entrepreneurs feel that advertisements of their products are incomplete without a woman, e.g., visuals of a photographer’s studio, wristwatches and bedsheets etc. The commercial slot of underwear and vests for men on TV has nothing to do with women but still a woman is a must in them. All shampoos and soaps are used by men and women both, but exclusively women using these products are depicted.

Besides commercial slots, some programmes on TV also use women is a wrong way. For instance in Khulja sim sim on Star Plus all the products won in Darwaja number 1, 2 and 3 are displayed along with a tall, slim woman usually in a tunic or blouse. When the Darwaja opens, this attractive young lady is the first one to catch the viewers’ attention and is made to stand there just to enhance the beauty of the whole show. She does not utter a single word and silently points to the products with a broad smile.

There are many commercials where women do not appear at all, for examples in ads of Calcium Sandoz (haddion ke jaan, winners ki pehchan) Dabur Chawanprash, Sona Chandi Chawanprash, Parle ji biscuits, Kisan Jam etc. on TV. Boys are shown engaged in physical activity outside home (as if girls are not suited for adventurous activities). These ads clearly demonstrate a gender bias. Browsing through magazines like Health would reveal that products of MNCs like Nestle’s milk powder with honey, Nestle cerelac (mere ladle ko chaiye poshak tatv sahi matra mein) etc. show only a baby boy and not a baby girl. All these products claim to have vitamins, proteins and calcium etc. for growing children. But absence of girls in these ads projects that a girl child does not require strength and energy. Even the ad of Linc pen on TV displays a boy student in boys’ school. It ends with the slogan "encouraging literacy" (perhaps only for boys).

We have to understand the whole scenario in a commercial framework, that is understand the close relationship between industry and the media. The issue is related to these questions: To whom does a particular advertisement speak? To whom is it addressed? Who controls the media, sponsors the ad and who benefits from it? It is true that consumer capitalism depends on the continual production of novelty of fresh images to stimulate desire but at what cost?

The debate can be extended to the male projection as well perpetuation of sex-specific roles and stereotypes. Even a cursory survey reveals how the representation of women is much more distorted than that of men when it comes to advertisements.

AS I looked at the paintings done by Deepshikha, I felt I was gazing into eternity. One need not be qualified to recognise art. A good piece is one that makes one forget one’s self. Perfect colours, expressions, use of light and shade and it dawned on me that I am meeting an expert. Deepshikha is a law graduate by qualification, a clothes designer by profession but as she says: "My soul is in colours and my paintings are my expressions."

Deepshikha has had no formal training as far as painting is concerned. She was introduced to it during her childhood, mostly in summer schools. "Even though I received no formal training in painting, yet there is scarcely a teacher in Chandigarh from whom I have not picked up something or the other."

A topper in school as well as in college, Deepshikha could pursue painting only as a hobby, not as a profession. Then destiny intervened: "While doing law I had a series of small accidents which ultimately damaged my spine and confined me to the wheelchair. Painting was and is my source of strength. I must draw or paint every day. I use water colours as a medium if I have less time and oil paints if there is more time, but my favourite medium remains charcoal sticks."

Deepshikha never sells her paintings. "How can you sell a part of yourself? Each painting takes a year or more and every stroke has one or more incident that is associated to it". However, it is important to earn and be financially independent. For that purpose, Deepshikha designs clothes as an expression of her creativity. She has been designing the ethnic wear for Ebony and her own outlet. As she puts it: "I am a workaholic. I paint whenever I get time. I paint mostly portraits, figures. Every sinew, muscle, vein should be an expression. Of course wildlife painting too has its charm but abstracts are not for me. I like defined forms If you ask me about techniques I have no knowledge about them. I think I rely on visualisation alone. For inspiration I look towards George Fernandus, a Goa-based artist and Sardar Sobha Singh. Although the latter's art has been called Calendar Art yet his paintings are alive and pulsating". And yes, she would like to hold an exhibition, but not in Chandigarh. Deepa is of the view that Chandigarh has very little awareness about art and a culture that encourages art appreciation. A painting has to be displayed on the wall but one does not know where to buy paintings from. There are practically no art critics of repute here. "An artist can grow only if there is criticism. There is no organisation here which has a jury of art critics to evaluate the work of upcoming artists or interact with them. This is the reason why most of the artists eventually move out of Chandigarh," says Deepshikha.

According to her, "Chandigarh has some very talented artists but they haven't got the right exposure or are too poor to produce and then collect them for an exhibition. I wish there was some way out for them for an artist craves for recognition. Money plays a secondary role". Describing her journey as she was trying to come to terms with her suffering, Deepshikha says:

"It is not possible for me now to paint big canvases because they require a lot of standing so now I concentrate on the smaller ones. There are no regrets now. In the beginning it was like a bad dream from which there was no waking up. My whole life crashed as I questioned,`why me`.It was a lonely period. My friends dwindled to one or two. I missed out on the innocent laughter, pranks and the jokes that are the charm of youth.. I grew up overnight There was an intense effort to compete with normal people. Gradually, the peer pressure declined. Once I grew out of the need to conform to peer pressure, came peace.Then came the stage when all the walls of the house were filled up with my oil paintings. I didn't want to part with them—neither to sell nor to gift them away. Then came the question `why paint' but then I started giving them to P.G.I and Mother Teresa's home. One of my teachers showed the way. After reading an essay "God is but a small boy who likes to pull off wings of flies for fun," she explained that God had resrvedsomething special for me. He did not want me to fall in the rut of normalcy. Those words changed things once and for all for me. After that, my illness has just been a small hurdle for me. My family has been my strength throughout apart from being my greatest critics. My mother,father, siste and cousins are my pillars. And painting is my Being."

Long-forgotten words echoed in my mind as I moved out:

Consumerism has so clouded man today that he has forgotten that he is something more than his ambitions and desires. The deeper desires never surface and one is reminded of a story of a musk deer who wanders throughout it’s life trying to find the beautiful, alluring smell not knowing that the fragrance is emanating from itself. A chosen few unearth this mystery and one stands humbled before such people.

I feel strongly about...
Sex, sensibility and the Indian woman
Sakoon Chabbra

HOW articulate are Indian women when it comes to sexuality or for that matter how real is the whole issue to them? Time was when the queasy Bollywood represented all that it had to say in the matter by closing the frame on two full blown pink dahlias or through the naughty lover who hit the pinnacle of sexual expression by his talk of the darjan bachche that his mother’s benevolent eyes desire to see playing in the aangan. Simultaneously, the expectancy in the woman’s heart was conveyed through some vibrant notes of jaltarang. However, lately with the coming of films like Astitva all this has changed. Sexuality has now come to be analysed more closely and a woman is begun to be perceived as an equal participant in the sexual aspect of marriage, it is begun to be realised that women too can, and do often, feel unfulfilled sexually.

But my sad body felt so beaten — Kamala Das. An Introduction

In recent times, repression largely has been the single most prevalent reaction to issues of sexuality in India. Starting from that semiliterate biology teacher in school who decides to cross out the ‘reproduction chapter’ from the semester to save herself the discomfort of explaining it to young minds, to that matron in the girls college who wants the young things to disbelieve the very existence of the opposite sex, repression and denial has ruled our attitudes to sexuality.

For the woman, the added desire to be ‘mama’s/papa’s good girl’, the husband’s (almost motherly) monogamous wife and the nurturing mother carries the connotations of sexlessness very powerfully. At least consciously, they abdicate all sexual expression and see its expression as opposed to their immediate overwhelming social roles.

Repression of sexuality is one of the numerous things that we have unwittingly borrowed from the Victorian Englanders who ruled us. For a civilisation which has never bundled sexuality into the closet, which has religions whose iconography unabashedly celebrates the body, which has ancient texts on sexuality that are profusely illustrated, it was unnatural (and yet ironically inevitable) to be so influenced by the western perception. The great thing about Kamasutra is that it celebrates sexuality in a completely guiltless way. Probably it was its matter-of-factness that made Khushwant Singh recently proclaim that it is by far most boring description of sexuality that he has read. Perhaps, he, like most of us, is conditioned through the western tradition to approach it with thrill, disguise and loads of innuendo. We have forgotten the other ways of talking about it.

For an Indian woman, all these attitudes to sexuality combined with fixed projection of social roles further influence a sexual relationship: it often becomes an obligation devoid of all pleasure. Sexuality, too is just one of the several realms where the husband/boyfriend ‘calls the shots.’

Male viewpoint
Tyranny of women’s fashion!
N.S. Dhami

PICTURE this. A woman goes to visit a sick aunt in a hospital ward. She’s wearing a fashionable long skirt-like white kameez, a long salwar that almost touches the floor, and a duppata to match. As she climbs the hospital stairs to the first floor, where her aunt’s ward is, her kameez sweeps the stairs, as does one end of her dupatta. She reaches her aunt’s bed, and bends down to speak to the ailing old lady. As she does so, she is completely unaware that the longer end of her unevenly worn dupatta has dipped into the metal pan by the side of the bed. The pan is filled with waste. A moment later, she swings her dupatta which was slipping off her shoulder, and thwacks the attendant of the patient on the next bed full in the face with the filthy end. The poor guy races wildly to the bathroom to wash of the mess.

No, I haven’t made this up. I actually witnessed this revolting incident last year.

It is quite common to see women dragging loose, difficult-to-manage clothes over floors and streets, and in dirtier public places spattered with paan-spit, bird droppings, and worse. I’ve seen dupattas coiled into the greasy wheel-hubs of rickshaws, long kameezes and saris hanging out from under car doors, or ripped on jutting furniture nails. Besides imperiling their own health and dignity, these women (unwittingly) carry the filth into their homes, transmitting the microbes through caresses and cooking.

It is a well-known fact that fashions evolve in the homes of the very rich, where pampered women rarely do any work with their own hands, and seldom stroll in public places. They can afford to wear loose, flowing dresses without fear of unknowingly collecting dirt. In fact, these novel clothes are meant to assert their upper class status. The madness begins when the fashions trickle down to the middle classes. I’ve noticed that most women from the lower classes are, thankfully, not to be bothered with such pointless things as fashion, and stick to their regular no-nonsense clothes.

Middle class women, usually very active, need practical and sensible clothes. Of course, they do not have to be unfashionable, but impractical and potentially hazardous styles need not be blindly copied en masse. A synthesis of agreeable fashion and sound sense is needed. Clothes do not have to be absurdly long or billowing in our public urban environments, which, let’s face it, generally lack hygiene and cleanliness. The same goes for the length of saris, which often tend to reduce the municipal sweeper’s workload. The Maharashtrian working woman’s style of wearing the sari, popularised by the irrepressible Maratha noblewoman Ahilya Bai Holkar, is undoubtedly the most liberating. But, sadly, it has over the years acquired too strong lower-class connotations to qualify for popular fashion.

Going against the tide of trends and fashions is not at all easy, I guess. In most cultures, women are conditioned to watch, and comment upon each other’s clothes and appearance. There is this dread of appearing to be outmoded and behind the times. I sometimes feel that our feminists and women’s liberationists have a duty to come forward and hold special classes for darzis, boutique owners, and soap-opera makers. As these are the people who propagate fashion trends. They should be motivated to bring a dose of good sense into the fashion and design sensible and practical traditional clothes for women. This, in turn, might have a desirable effect. I don’t see any other way of emancipating the middle-class Indian woman from the tyranny of unrealistic fashion.