It is insipiring to see a a slight shift in the discourse of Pakistani ads in recent times. An ad for a tea brand features Fawad Khan making a cup of tea for his wife, essayed by Momal Sheikh.
InstepComment
In a bid to sell menswear, a clothing brand recently managed to demean and discriminate between both men and women, questioning a woman’s individual worth while holding the man up to an ideal that no one can corroborate.
When people talk about advertising’s sexist past with women in the kitchen and men “keeping them in their place” the caveat is: look how far we’ve come today, times sure have changed! But have they really? While the discourse abroad seems to have moved on to how brands are cashing in on feminism and selling empowerment to women through “fem-vertising,” Pakistan is still in the dark ages if one were to gauge from our ads (or one in particular). In a bizarre ad that drew ire from across the country the moment it was shared on Facebook, a clothing brand’s latest campaign proclaims, “a woman isn’t complete without a man but where do you find a real man these days?”
In a bid to sell their menswear, the brand has swiftly managed to demean and discriminate between both men and women. In one distasteful copy, they’ve questioned a woman’s individual worth and held the man up to an ideal that no one can corroborate - who really is a real man? This ad is against feminism and not just because it is damaging to females. We’ll tell you why.
In a bid to sell their menswear, a brand recently came up with a demeaning advertisement that questions a woman’s individual worth and holds men up to an unrealistic ideal.
Gender stereotypes don’t just affect women. Feminism is about equality, which affects everyone - man or woman. To give an example, the pay gap prevents men from being stay at home fathers just as much as it forces women to stay at home with the children, taking away “choice” from both sexes and making them a slave to the system. That is what feminism is against. To take the first part of the statement, women aren’t just mothers, sisters, daughters and wives, they’re first human beings and the same goes for men so it’s unfair to say that one is zero, zilch, zip, nil, nothing without the other. As for the second part, there is absolutely no ideal for either gender and that is what feminism propagates. Ads have to be called out for believing in some kind of “perfect ideal” that both men or women have to aspire to.
It is beyond us why in this day and age brands cannot display a little more sensitivity and align themselves with more empowering messages; why creative agencies cannot help portraying women as the perfect bahu who will make the perfect cup of tea? As for empowering messages directed towards females - we connect more, we engage more and we ultimately hold the purchasing power in our households so brands must begin considering that before they alienate half of their client base. To be fair there are some changes in which a Fawad Khan will be seen making a cup of tea for his wife, but then you’ll have a Maya Ali waking up a day after her wedding to make her new family the perfect cup of tea as her expression of how much she cares.
As our industry continues to evolve, with social media and influencer marketing becoming benchmarks of progress, we must ensure girls and women look at advertisements for inspiration so that they do not feel objectified. A step towards the better is the fact that beginning this year, the jury packet for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the “Oscars” of advertising – will include a series of guidelines about objectification and the harm that it causes. Cannes Lions applicants will now have to be careful about how they present women in their work and judges will be analyzing whether they would still consider the work to be effective if the women portrayed were their sisters, wives, or daughters.
While the added judgement criteria at Cannes is a step in the right direction, changes must begin from the top down. It’s up to every individual in the marketing world to be a catalyst for change, rather than a perpetuator of outdated beliefs and ideas. Instead of just talking about advertising’s sexist past – let’s bury this sexist hatchet once and for all.