Sex-Role Stereotyping in Television Commercials: A Review and Comparison of Fourteen Studies Done on Five Continents Over 25 Years - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  Sept, 1999  by Adrian Furnham,  Twiggy Mak

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Mexico. Mexican advertisements showed more females with dependent roles (46/6%) compared with males (30.4%), and males appeared more often in autonomous roles (51%) than females (23.4%).

Australia. Mazzella et al. (1992) found a significant difference in roles of males and females in Australia: both genders were represented more as autonomous central figures; however, men were more likely than women to have autonomous roles (85%), while women were more likely than men to have dependent roles (44%).

Asia. Women were consistently shown with dependent roles (55.4%) more often than men (19.3%) in Hong Kong, while men were more likely to be interviewer/narrator (65/7%) than women (18.5%), and professional roles were also associated with men more (7.9%) than women (1.5%). In Indonesia, most commercials consisted of interviewers/narrators as central figures; however, men were still more often (84.6%) portrayed as interviewer/narrator than women (72.2%), with more women portrayed in dependent roles (16.7%) than men (0%).

Location

America. Bretl and Cantor (1988) found that males were significantly more often presented outdoors (53%), while females were frequently depicted at home (61%). Craig (1992) found clear time-of-day effects with respect to setting. There were no sex differences in the evening but during the day women primary characters were more likely than men to be portrayed indoors (kitchen, bathroom, other room), while men were likely to be portrayed in outdoor or business locations.

United Kingdom. Manstead and McCulloch (1981) revealed a significant difference in location between portrayals of male and female central figures: females were more likely to be shown at home (38%) than males (7.3%), while males tended to be portrayed in various locations other than the home (83.6%) more often than females (52.2%). Furnham and Skae (1997) did not find a significant difference in portrayal of location.

Europe. Furnham and Voli (1989) showed that in Italian advertisements females were depicted more often at home (34.8%) than males (22.4%), while males were slightly more often to be shown in occupational settings (18.7%) than females (15.1%). Neither Denmark nor France showed a significant difference in portrayals of central figures in different locations. However, in Portugal, Neto and Pinto (1998) found significant differences, with proportionally more females (35%) being portrayed in the home than males (12.7%) and more males being portrayed in occupational settings (37.7%) than females (22.0%).

Mexico. The Mexican commercials did not show a significant difference between males and females across different locations. Both sexes were equally likely to be portrayed at home, at work, and elsewhere.

Africa. The Kenyan study (Mwangi, 1996) suggested that females were consistently portrayed at home (79.4%), in contrast to males (20/.6%), while males were frequently depicted at work, in leisure activities, and in places other than the home.

Asia. In Hong Kong (Furnham et al., 1999), women were more often portrayed at home (36.9%) than men (21.4%), while men were more likely to be in occupational settings (9.3%) than women (6.2%). The Indonesian study showed stronger stereotyping, as more women were depicted in home settings (48.1%) than men (10.8%), while men were frequently associated with leisure settings (83.1%) than women (48.1%).