Has The Depiction of Women in Indian Media Really Changed?

Media by its nature receives wide exposure. It presumably affects various activities of people including lifestyle and values. It exerts a powerful influence on the society due to its ability to shape social trends and mould personal attitudes. It plays a substantial role in the social and economic development of women.In the past, women were always patronized by men. Their modus vivendi included marriage, looking after the family, needs of the house, getting involved in household chores, lacking confidence to deal with the cosmos outside the four walls of the kitchen and being oblivious to all the political events and technological breakthroughs in the country and the world.

It would be incorrect to say that depiction of women has not changed since the dawn of media in India. We have ads like Yakult - which shows a lady looking after her family without being dependent on her husband, Stayfree- which says, “'If something irritates us so much, hume isse change karna chahiye” indicating that women today are capable of bringing about a change, Samsung Galaxy Y that shows a young girl trying to fulfil her dream of becoming a singer despite of discouragement from others, the Scooty Pep ads with the tagline, “Why Should Boys Have All The Fun?”  In earlier days, a widow in movies was depicted as a Dukhi Aatma who was chronically ill and poor. We can witness an array of movies that depicted actresses like Nirupa Roy and Kamini Kaushal as helpless, dependent widows trying to save defend themselves from being dishonoured. Whereas today, one can acknowledge the change by watching movies like Partner, where Lara Dutta plays the role of a photo journalist, who wears low waist jeans and short skirts, is the mother of a child and falls in love with a man despite of being a widow. The word “Vidhva”is a part of her life and is not dominating her life.

Regardless of these changes, some studies have found that social issues of status and opportunity related to women got less than nine percent while sensational stories relating to women which included mostly crime stories got a score around 52 in newspapers. Majority dailies portray women as victims of sexual harassment but news of serious problems that are faced by women in their daily lives is missing. The portrayal of women in advertising is an issue that has received a great deal of attention.  Some ads have been stereotyping women, failing to recognize their changing roles in the society. The Axe Dark Temptation ad shows a woman taking bites out of a man’s bottom who is coated in chocolate after using the chocolate flavoured deodorant. A Wild Stone deodorant ad shows a woman tricking her way into her brother in law’s arms due to the effect of his deodorant on her. The makers of the ads have defended themselves by saying that since males mostly groom themselves for females, they have used the theme of attraction for selling the products; however the objection here is reaction of women which states that sexual availability of a woman becomes easy after using these products. Females have been used as decorative objects by showing them in ads which are nowhere related to women, a J.K Cement ad showed a woman in bikini emerging the sea to show the strength of the cement.

Our daily saas- bahu serials depict women involved in conspiracy, premarital, extra-marital affairs leading to pregnancy (How can we ever forget the proverbial “Main Tumhare Bache Ki Maa Banne Waali Hu.” dialogue?) , wearing big ticket clothes and make-up, roaming in luxurious cars to attend parties and functions with little concern about the happenings in the outside world. In fact when I was watching an episode of a serial, I overheard my friend’s father saying, “This is the reason why girls shouldn’t be given the liberty to lead their lives the way they want!” News channels have many good looking female news readers, reporters and it evident that many of them are employed mainly because of their looks rather than potential.

All this indicates that though the lifestyles and habits of women have changed dramatically in the last few decades, media reflects a very small part of the true picture. Instead of trying to curb stereotypes and promote values, trends, attitudes that can help in strengthening the position of women in our country, media falls short in the enhancement of women’s role in our society.