Whose gaze is it anyway?

A lot has been said and written about women's representation in advertising. Have there been any improvements? Yes. But is there a lot still to be changed? Most definitely, yes.

The time for brand tokenism is over. A Women’s Day often has an avalanche of ads that appear saluting, celebrating, encouraging, and acknowledging women and our everyday struggles. However, what does that communication do? Is it a story for tokenism? Brands must understand that they have to commit to what women want and need and take actual actions that indicate systemic, long term change. And not just a single day-based attempt at stereotype-questioning communication.

The other question is, whose idea of liberation or realisations are the ones being showcased? Are they those of women themselves? Or men’s ideas of women’s freedoms. Do women seek open roads and hair flying on bike rides? Or equal pay and safe roads to roam freely in the night? Do we seek a fat, dark woman included in an ad for inclusivity's sake or genuine normalisation of all kinds of bodies that we see across all ads on a regular basis? Do we seek high-attitude shots with sharp gazes into the camera? Or do we seek, tenacity to bring varied journeys to life authentically?

Patriarchal assumptions

The idea of the gaze is most crucial today. And advertisers must answer this question: Whose interpretation of their audience are they actually showcasing? Given that authenticity is the most prized value that most customers seek from their choice of brands today, are we authentic in our portrayal, and telling of women’s stories, truly?

The stories Indian advertisers choose to tell are largely those of savarna (high caste), tall, fair, thin, privileged women. Or they are stories of women who ‘achieve’ economic success to equate themselves to such women after struggles. However, the specific and varied struggles of disparate women across intersections of caste, religion, sexual orientation, body shapes and sizes are eclipsed from Indian advertising. Without that intersectional understanding, representation will always be skewed and unidimensional. It will, therefore, be important for marketers and advertisers to absorb the fault lines that exist in culture to address them in communication or interventions.

Breaking the stereotypes

There are also the very basic human traits and habits that we have not showcased women doing in advertising. Like resting, eating, or being messy, dirty, confused, and angry. Women are seldom shown enjoying gluttony, especially women of all shapes and sizes. We are rarely shown at leisure other than at hotels and spas at exotic places. Why? Because the patriarchal gaze does not recognise women’s work at home as work; therefore, the need for leisure is also undermined.

Women being angry is considered dramatic, and women being dirty are possibly not considered at all—other than when they are teens and playing on a field. Why? Why aren’t women tousle-haired brushing in the mornings? Why aren’t they frustrated at work with an over-demanding boss instead of being frustrated with the demands of work and home? When will the conflicts of women be centred on them and not on the roles that patriarchy expects them to play?

Beyond this, is also the question of the kind of women in the lifecycles that we choose to represent. The current representations are also the ones currently accepted within the expanded realms of patriarchy, albeit, at its seams. But what of those outside it? Why are we not representing happily separated women raising independent children, or in modern happy friendships with their ex-partners, or single middle-aged women happily ambitious and travelling the world, or women making everyday choices that make them question patriarchy each day, women denouncing the idea of religion? These are everyday women who are helping loosen the ever-tightening circles of patriarchy each day, to make more room for more and more women to lead their lives. Their stories are imperative to be normalised in culture.

Time to unlearn

With such stories is one of the most critical aspects of representation of women that has been woefully eclipsed in Indian advertising. That of women's solidarities in the depth of what they stand for. Female friendships are not just laughter and light conversations. They are deep bonds of empathy, togetherness, and permanence, that last beyond most other relationships in their lives. They help each other up, step up for each other and stand by each other resolutely, irrespective of good or bad times.

They are confidantes and truth bearers, safe spaces and critics. And it is these solidarities that help women take decisions that help them navigate through life. These relationships need to be explored for their depth and their meaning.

So, there is a lot that advertising must still unlearn. And a lot it must see. And to see what it currently doesn’t, it must alter how it sees the gaze. Because that is where it all rests. In the gaze, after all.

— Saumya Baijal, strategy director, India, VIRTUE Asia.