Imagine a person fighting a gang of hooligans on a street covered with broken glass and shreds of bullets. Before the hooligans can make their next move, the courageous person makes a leap in the air and kicks the leader of the gang, followed by acrobatic combat with the rest, leading to the failure of the hooligans and emergence of the heroic person on the scene.
Now, take a pause…
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.
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And tell yourself the gender of this person you must have mentally visualized by now.
If the answer screams ‘MALE’, then congratulations! You have fallen for the media propagated gender bias. For our imaginations are largely driven from our observations of the world – through lens of our eyes and also less of the camera. What the camera captures and displays in the form of movies, talk shows, soap operas, cartoons, etc. shape the way we look at the various genders in our daily walks of life. And it’s not me, but empirical research telling us so.
A report by The Hindu said in 2021 that an analysis of Indian advertisements on YouTube and television (TV) revealed that portrayal of women in their respective content further gender stereotypes. Women are more likely to be portrayed as married, less likely to be shown in paid occupation, and more likely to be depicted as caretakers and parents than male characters. UNICEF’s 2019 report “Gender Bias and Inclusion In Advertising In India” measured over 1,000 TV and YouTube advertisements aired across India in 2019 and had the highest reach. It showed that female characters dominate speaking time (56.3%) and screen time (59.7%), but they are largely depicted as selling cleaning supplies, food and beauty products to female consumers. What is astonishing is that male characters (7.3%) are more likely to be portrayed as decision-makers on their future than female characters (4.8%), and the latter are twice as likely to be depicted as making household decisions than male characters (4.9% compared with 2.0%). The collective content on social media channels, TV soap operas, kids’ cartoon shows, and movies has more-or-less the same storyline to tell.
Gender socialization & bias normalization across media
The mechanism of gender socialization is built to encourage traditional (read ‘biased’) gender roles that any individual learns from birth and which they acquire in copious amounts throughout their upbringing. Vast amounts of messages flashed on the screen via TV shows and Over The Top (OTT) platforms reinforce the negative gender norms and normalize the discriminatory self-perception of children with respect to their gender. Such incessant normalization of stereotypes through mass media shapes behavior of different genders in the society and influences their academic and professional pathways, which eventually intensify and validate the biases even further. For example, if mass media portrays women to be docile and compromising, while glorifying men as ambitious and overbearing, the viewers of both genders pick up the cues and adopt them in the name of appropriate/expected behavior. Once they grow up, the difference in their demeanor, outlook and aspirations validate what had been shown in mass media years back, and remorsefully, further influences the depiction of these genders in the media, thereby forming a vicious cycle of portrayal, practice and propagation, as depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Cycle of Reinforcement and Normalization of Gender-based Bias (Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
Media driven behavioral normativity in India
Understanding how media has been playing with our minds and society over the years requires a rational analysis of how movies, TV serials, talk shows and even cartoon serials (yes, our behavioral conditioning from our very childhood when we are too innocent to notice subtle signs of bias) have been communicating subtle and stark signs of how men and women must behave and wat roles they must take in the society. In the spirit of unbiased analysis and uncolored interpretation, I have resorted to simply using factual data from credible sources (cited as and when necessary) to identify how our media industry has been doing with the representation of men and women in the offline & online, and print & electronic media. I am sure you will be surprised as much as I have been at the misrepresentation and gender socialization that has happened by far and large by the media channels that we had taken so lightly over decades together. For purposes of simplicity and sanity, I have limited the data collection and visualization to the last 5-10 years, which quite well offers deep insight into the recent trends in media, though the era before the previous decade won’t paint a different picture either. Also, please note that I understand the existence of multiple genders in our world and the concept of gender fluidity; however, for the purpose of this topic, I have focused my research only on two genders – viz male and female.
The society usually associates the color ‘pink’ with women and ‘blue’ with men. Let’s break that stereotype as well and use blue for women and pink for men in our data visualizations. Here we go exploring how media has been normalizing our gender-related perceptions.
Movies
India is a land of innumerable movies and short films that inundate the box office and online media sites alike. As per a 2022 report by Sacnilk, the gross box office collection by 304 movies across all languages combined in India has been INR 10,034.26 crores, while 78 Hindi movies alone contributed INR 3,265.69 crores to the pool. 36 Kannada movies came next as they cumulatively made a collection of INR 648.58 crores. From a bird eye view, we may feel proud about how the entertainment sector is performing in India; however, it comfortably hides a discomforting truth that we most often than not fail to notice.
Have you ever asked why do we usually see our favorite heroes taking centerstage, at times even in movies dedicated to women-centered themes? Why is it that only a man can fling men and vehicles in the air with a slight push of his fist, while all the female lead character does is to cherish having a hero in her life? Why do we need a male teacher on screen to bring change in the life of a dyslexic kid, despite majority of teachers in schools being women? Why is it that the story of Pad Man gets all the spotlight, while the work of equally accomplished menstrual hygiene workers gets unnoticed by our esteemed directors’ guild? Why, just why do we have female lead characters coming only second to the male lead characters in the limelight?
Wait! I am not chastising you, for you and I and as a matter of fact, all of us are just content consumers at the end of the day. Most certainly, passive ones who just consume whatever is fed to us in the name of entertainment. However, kudos to the scriptwriters, directors and producers of movies in India, most of the films are largely male-driven, not only by storyline, but also revenues and fan following. Don’t think so? Well, here’s a trivia.
- Who is called the ‘Baadshah’ of Bollywood?
- Who is famously referred to as ‘Bhai’?
- Who is called the ‘Greek God’ in Bollywood?
Well, regardless of whether you are a movie buff or not, you may know the answers to the select here questions I just asked. Excuse me, do we have such titles for female stars as well? Anyone called ‘Goddess’, or ‘Rani’ or ‘Behena’? I can understand some of us may find this funny; however, it does throw light on a very dark aspect of our movie industry – the fact that Indian content consumers are obsessed with male hero worship. And it’s not me, but the data saying so. Figure 2 shows the classification of Top Grossing Movies in India in the past 5 years depending on the gender of the lead character.
Figure 2: Classification of Indian movies in Bollywood based on gender of lead character (Data Source: Wikipedia; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
See, I told you that our movies are obsessed with having men as the lead character. This is a phenomenon that one can observe across different states, as is clearly visible in the above visualization for movie industry of 3 languages. And if somewhere your critically thinking mind is saying that despite more male lead characters, the movies having female lead characters would be more popular, then let me tell you that’s wrong assumption. Let’s have a look at how much different movies earn based on the gender of the lead character, in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Classification of Indian movies in Bollywood and Tollywood based on revenue collection (Data Source: Wikipedia; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
Yes, that’s the harsh reality. Women-led movies make less than the men-led movies, which again show how the consumers of media & entertainment display a higher preference for male leads. Some may say that it is because of the inferior quality of plot in the women-led movies. I can neither agree nor deny, since perception of storyline quality is quite subjective. However, what is clearly visible is that the directors’ guild is heavily dominated by men, especially for the top grossing movies over the past 5 years, as can be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Classification of gender of directors of top 50 grossing movies in Bollywood and Tollywood (Data Source: Wikipedia; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
What evokes greater surprise is that there have been 11 Bollywood movies in the past 5 years that had a female lead character, but a male director. Similarly, 11 Kannada movies with female lead characters in the past 5 years had male directors. It is striking to see that Bollywood female directors have made only 2 top grossing movies with female lead characters since 2018. How do we expect males to aptly depict women with the right blend of emotions and the best ensemble of behaviors that only a woman can understand?
And this is not a recent phenomenon. Historically, women have been relegated to being secondary characters in most of the commercial movies since the beginning of the silent films in India. The roles and behavior of women characters in movies has largely been inspired from Manusmriti – the ancient code of conduct for the society. Women have always been represented as obeying commands of their father or husband, before our cinema industry switched gears and decorated women as objects of sexual desire in item songs. Ever heard of any item song led by a male dancer? Never, I bet you, never! The only industry you can thank for representing strong and ambitious women characters is parallel cinema, thanks to the work of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Shyam Benegal among a few others.
TV soap operas
The smaller screen is no less a respite from the gender discrimination that we see on larger screen. One thing that changes here is that the lead characters are largely women, primarily due to the gender of the target audience. The gender socialization does not stop with that though. Most of the soap operas are centered around women who play the role of homemaker – or what we like to call “Adarsh bahu”. The glorification of homemaker role “alone” in these TV serials further reinforces the normalization of gender-specific roles that our patriarchal culture has advocated and propagated over centuries together.
Don’t get me wrong please – not for a moment I am saying that homemaker’s role is anyhow less important. No, it is equally empowering to be the Chief Manager of a household; however, the sole depiction of that role in majority of the serials adds to the bias. So does the cosmetic look of the noble and villainous characters, with the villain shown as more modern in her attire and appearance, while the female lead is mostly shown as docile and with traditional make-up. Though cosmetics-driven stereotyping is a discussion for another day, it does add to the biases we harbor in our minds.
Figure 5: Insight into role depiction of women lead characters in TV soap operas – Hindi, Kannada and Bengali (Data Source: Wirally, Tellybest, Cinebuds; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
The above visualization in Figure 5 shows that most soap operas across Hindi, Kannada and Bengali languages depict the female lead character as a homemaker, and not someone enterprising in the industry or in professional sector. With the onset of the 21st century, we observed a phenomenal success of daily soap operas, such as “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi”, “Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki”, etc. which exemplified women in the homemaker’s role, while men went out to ern money through business ventures. Even the women characters that had been shown as well educated, had been confined to the four walls of their home, where they religiously took care of their large family. Such depiction of the two genders further reinforces the notion that women alone are supposed to be the caretakers at home, while men bear no responsibility of holding the family together. From sobbing daughter-in-law and short-tempered mother-in-law to vilification of western-dressed woman in negative role the TV serials have done their part in cementing the traditional gender biases we have in India.
Talk Shows
We are not winding up with just movies and TV serials. Obviously, our media channels are much more varied than just scripted stories. Talk shows are quite popular in a number of languages and they are largely known for the host who drives the conversations. Podcasts are also making it big in the online space and increasing number of people are preferring podcasts over other formats of content. A report by Statista says that revenue from podcasts is estimated to show an annual growth rate of 4.90% over 2022-27, resulting in a projected market volume of US$1,345.00m by 2027. This shows that podcasts are going to be major point of influence for today’s youth in the future.
A quick analysis of the gender distribution of podcasters shows that the leading 50 podcasts (according to Chartable) in India are largely led by men, with 74% of the podcasters being male. This implies that unless the themes of podcasts are 100% gender-independent, the content may have tinge of masculine bias. Themes such as finance, motivation, education and religion have male podcasters dominating the scene. This is not to say that male podcasters propagate gender bias, however, the gender-based perspective does influence the dialogue they have with their guests. Figure 6 delves deeper into the data related to talk shows.
Figure 6: Gender classification of 50 leading podcasters in India (Data Source: Chartable; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
The talk shows also depict a similar picture, with most of the hosts being male. Coincidentally, the gender divide numbers for 50 leading talk shows in India across all languages is same as podcasts, with 74% of talk show hosts being males. This is across all themes – ranging from news and lifestyle to comedy and motivation. It is natural to understand how the conversations in these talk shows will be shaped from a masculine standpoint, and the feminine perspective will get less spotlight. The following visualization in Figure 7 shows how males dominate the talk show scene.
Figure 7: Gender classification of 50 leading talk shows in India (Data Source: IMDb; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
So far, we have looked at content that appeals to the grown-ups. However, what about the kids? Are they immune to gender socialization when they watch cartoons and animated serials? The answer is a loud “NO!” and in the following section, we will see why.
Cartoon Shows
The behavioral conditioning of people commences at a very young age. Believe it or not, cartoon shows play their own part in advocating and propagating gender socialization messages to kids, which shapes their gender-based outlook from a time when our minds are open to absorbing everything that comes across our senses. Before we look at data, let’s do an activity together.
I request you to kindly recollect your three favorite cartoon shows. It can be a TV serial or a movie altogether. Then ask yourself if the lead character of that cartoon show is male or female. The answer may speak volumes about how screenwriters’ gender bias creeps into the storylines of cartoon shows and how it influences how we look at boys and girls from a young age. From the list of top 25 cartoon shows in India, we found that 24 of them have a male character in the lead. Besides the generic cartoon serials that we find on TV, Disney’s movies featuring princesses also have a male cartoon character on which the female lead has immense dependency in the plot. Figure 8 shows how lopsided the gender ratio is when it comes to lead characters in cartoon serials/movies.
Figure 8: Gender classification of lead characters of 25 leading cartoon shows (Data Source: Business Connect India, Film Indigo; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
Portrayal of animated young boys as fighters, achievers and superheroes embed an impression in kids’ minds that men are supposed to be inherently brave, hearty and confident. Girls are seldom shown in the same role, as they mostly war the shoes of a secondary character. Animated movies are no less behind in focusing on male characters as the leads.
Fiction Novels
Yes, this category is equally important. After all, media is not just electronic, but in print as well. And one of the age-old influencers in human civilization have been books. The storytellers have held immense sway on our attitudes and perceptions towards different genders and books have been the one of the media by which stereotypes have been immortalized. A brief look at how famed and awarded pieces of fiction look at genders speaks volumes about how the world of literature impacts the gender socialization that other forms of media contribute to.
I gathered information on the books that have won Booker Prize, Orange Prize and The Hindu Literary Prize, along with those that have been bestsellers on New York Times (NYT) and in Kindle Book Publishing (KDP) Select platform over the past 10 years, and identified how many of these books show women in lead roles and if we have any award tilting towards authors of a particular gender. A quick analysis of award-winning authors in the past 10 years in Figure 9 shows that male authors have exceeded the women authors in the prize list, which also may imply more books written from male perspective than female.
Figure 9: Gender classification of award-winning fiction authors over 2012-2022 (Data Source: Booker Prize list, Orange Prize list, NYT Bestsellers, Amazon KDP, The Hindu Literary Prize; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
With the sole exception of KDP Select, all other award-winning, high-performing pieces of fiction have relied on male protagonists. KDP Select also has more women authors as bestsellers compared to men, which may explain well why female protagonists are higher than male protagonists in their books. However, what strikes as a bewilderment is the fact that Orange Prize winners – which is exclusively for women authors – have also largely written from a male perspective in their books, which is visible in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Gender classification of protagonist in fiction novels (Data Source: Booker Prize list, Orange Prize list, NYT Bestsellers, Amazon KDP, The Hindu Literary Prize; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA)
Moreover, the number of women authors using male protagonists is higher than men authors using female protagonist for their stories. That shows the preference for using male protagonists is generally higher, and not just a function of fewer women authors featuring in the list of awardees. Figure 11 helps us understand the phenomenon better for all the 15 award-winning authors who have used a protagonist of an opposite gender.
Figure 11: Preference for opposite gender protagonist by award-winning authors; Visualization created by author exclusively for YKA
Conclusion
Secondary analysis of content in print and electronic media shows heavy preference for male characters in storylines and reality show formats. The widespread and continuous portrayal of men in the leading roles and women in secondary roles over the years in an individual’s life reinforces the negative normative behavior among women and cements the gender-based stereotypes which enter into a vicious cycle of Portrayal-Practice-Propagation which normalize the typecasts our society has created over centuries. We need more gender equity in the storylines depicted in entertainment sector and more equitable representation of women in the print and online content. We do have some rays of hope, such as Cartooning for Peace – a non-profit global network of 162 editorial cartoonists from 59 nations – which aims to defending human rights and gender equality in cartooning space. Women are taking lead roles in OTT channels and there are women-centric documentaries and webisodes coming out in the mainstream. UNICEF is also striving towards bringing gender equity in advertisements and in print media in general.
We cannot change the content that has been fed to us in the past. However, we can certainly grow more vigilant of what will be up for consumption in the future. With adequate understanding of how diverse media content furthers gender bias subtly and what more needs to be done to build more inclusive media content, we can demand new storylines and the content creators will heed to the changing consumer demand.
A lot has been fed to our eyes and ears over the past decade. It is time for us to now keep our eyes and ears open for any signal of gender socialization in media and demand for appropriate measures to bring a much-required positive change in the content.
Datasets for reference: bit.ly/3Z6eSj8