There have been several campaigns and awareness created in
the media to change certain stereotypes
attached to people by reason of their sex. Despite the
numerous campaigns and awareness being created to achieve gender equality,
there are still people who believe the place of the woman is in the kitchen.
I am not talking about some uneducated man living in a
village somewhere who thinks all the girl child is good for is to be a wife. I
am actually talking about the educated, those who uphold the concept of gender
equality. I am referring to people who have educated their girl child to obtain
higher academic laurels. They take them to the best of schools so that they can
hold important positions in the future but still hold the notion that a woman’s
place is in the Kitchen. I don’t know if it is done consciously or
unconsciously.
I believe every advert we see in the media whether prints,
electronics or online have two meanings to it, the general and the subtle. The
general one would be to sell a product, service or idea. But there are hidden
meanings in all advertisement in the media.
I have observed the Ghanaian media for a while now and can
confidently say that women are often portrayed as kitchen materials in most of
the adverts. Of course, that is not what
the adverts seek to achieve but these stereotypes are fed into our subconscious
mind through advertizing.
I have realized that women are used to advertize food and
cooking. Women are always used to advertise tomato paste, cooking oil and the
like. No wonder, Gino, Frytol
and Maggi, all ingredients of
cooking have women at the centre of it. To show how
superior the man is to the woman, they also use him to advertize technology and
business.
Maybe advertisers have never really thought of the subtle
meaning they convey with their adverts. I pray advertisers would be more
cautious when creating their adverts so as not to make the efforts of those
fighting for gender equality futile.
Perspective: How women are portrayed in adverts.
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