Choti ki Pehli "Gol Roti"!!! time to celebrate?
- Laiba Naeem 25020290
- Nov 29, 2022
- 2 min read
Advertisements play a huge role in reinforcing stereotypes. Take a broader look, how are women portrayed in advertisements? Most of them revolve around women applying fair and lovely or winning their mother in laws heart by a certain cooking oil or dishwashing soap. Even in 21st century, when it comes to household chores, women are the ones believed to do it . The audience watching such stereotypical advertisements unconsciously associates household chores with women and thus reiterating the pre-existing gender – stereotypical activities.
Let’s talk about this one advertisement in particular , where a young girl gets out of the kitchen with a perfectly “Gol” roti and her family bursts into happiness over this so called huge success and decides it’s time to celebrate this occasion with ice cream. How does the audience perceive such advertisements when aired in countries like Pakistan where husbands divorce their wives, and a father killed his daughter for not making gol roti? They play a part in confirming the mindsets of such husbands , fathers etc.
“A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth” (Goebbels)
It is almost unbelievable how much impact a 20 seconds advertisement can have on the audience when repeated over and over. When things are repeated over and over , they become the norm. Such advertisements justify the stereotypical mindset that women are to do domestic chores even when they are little girls. While the little girl gets out of the kitchen with a gol roti in hand with her mother , the men of the family enjoy on the dining table.
I will end this on a question, how hard was it for the family to celebrate their daughters success in a sport ? or show up the little boy with the roti “ Chotey ki pehli gol roti!!”
The way you have penned this down is amazing. I’ve seen many advertisements that reinforce gender stereotypes. Celebrating choti’s pehli gol roti is just a portrayal that the family is being happy on a child conforming to the traditional gender roles the society wants to put them in and by being happy, the child is getting a positive reinforcement. This instils the idea that women are made for household jobs while men are the breadwinners. Advertising is one of the most influential ways to promote products by targeting a specific audience, but doing it through such means is just horrendous. The concept of masculinity and femininity is endorsed based on the cultural setting and the gender association with different products.…
Brilliant post! I absolutely loved how you also left the ending open with a question that needs to be answered. I feel that a lot of these brands and advertising agencies simply fail to account for the impact that they are creating with their adverts, and rather solely focus on the capital that they are going to gain out of their marketing strategies. It is high time that these practices come to an end, and women be celebrated for all the roles that they play beyond fulfilling household duties (which, by the way, should be equal duty of men in a household too), such as promotion at work, leaving a job and finding a better one, graduating, or simply excelling…
Initially reading your introduction, I failed to recognise the gravity of the situation as it appeared something rather innocent to me. However, the deep insight you offered has made me recall of countless instances of murder or domestic abuse at the hands of the husband whose wife merely failed to cook him a good meal, make a round Roti or if the food was’nt hot enough. Not only do such advertisements, like you mentioned, show that young girls should be appreciated for the conventionally pertain gender roles of being the perfect woman in the kitchen but we never see a young boy being celebrated for the same culinary actions. Like you mentioned, this advertisements has notions of Patriarchy and gender…
Gender stereotypical ads are a norm in Pakistani media industry. However, some creators took a leap of faith and challenged these norms. For example Shaan Foods One Biryani One Family advertisement which challenged the belief that women are supposed to win the hearts of their in-laws by making tasty dishes. This shifts the roles and shows a male character trying to impress his in-laws by making delicious Biryani for them.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mO2kQn8gq8&feature=youtu.be
In another advertisement by Shaan Food which had a tagline OathforAll showed the relationship between a mother-in-law and a doctor-in-law. In our society, this relationship is considered to be the most toxic relationship. However, Shan Foods instills the message in the minds of the viewers by showing tha…
I agree with you when you say that reinforcement of gender roles occurs through repetition in the media which is done in such nuanced ways. We have also been seeing a shift in this representation an example of which is the Shan masala ads. Considering that they too started with this heteronormative representation of gender it is refreshing to see them increasingly portraying men in the kitchen as well. What I had to ask however, was whether or not these corporations should take up such social issues? Most often then not we see this kind of diversity and inclusivity in advertisements when there’s an uproar about domestic violence, transphobia etc and it really makes you question how sincere their efforts…