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Rasheeda Bhagat

The image of women in advertising has changed considerably over the last few years, but have attitudes changed?

THE "bimbo on the bonnet" image of women in Indian advertising and the "See, how thoroughly I've scrubbed the vessels clean" stereotype is, mercifully, changing. And about time too. On Wednesday, it sweetened the morning cuppa that extra bit to see, on the front page of Business Line, the image of a bright, young, smartly-dressed woman account holder of Corporation Bank. She was announcing to the world that her SB account gives her access to an ATM card and Internet banking facility. More important, the ad depicts the woman as having the economic power to send hassle-free monthly remittances to her brother studying away from home, as well as regularly transfer money to her parent's account.

Now, that is a definite change in the gender stereotype of the Indian woman.

Over the last couple of decades, a section of Indian women is slowly but surely getting empowered, socially, educationally and economically, to take care of personal and family needs. But it is only of late that Indian advertising has woken up to record this change.

A couple of years ago, Wipro started advertising its laptops using a female model. And Cititbank hoardings showed women graduating with the loans given by the bank, girls surfing the Net with their mothers, as well as the money coming in handy for the daughter's marriage. No quarrel with the last, because it was accompanied by the first two!

But, of course, our copywriters often slip in the subtle and not-so-subtle differences that persist in gender roles in our society, of whatever class. And so one sees the husband going out and buying a washing machine when the wife is away visiting her parents.

The message: The woman could be expected, without complaints, to go on scrubbing clothes with dark blue detergent bars, with the slightly more sophisticated ones soaking clothes with the latest brands of Surf or Henko, or whatever. But the more muscular inmates of the family cannot carry out these chores, even for a single day.

Or, when cooking is involved for the 20-year-old son studying in a foreign university, the mother makes a long-distance call on a cellular phone, using this service provider or that, to dictate the recipes. Oh yes, times are changing. Our pampered and spoilt sons will not even think of chopping an onion at home, while their sisters routinely help out in the kitchens, picking up culinary skills in the process, but when the male sibling crosses the ocean in pursuit of higher education, the mother wakes up to provide him with a late, and long-distance, catch-up.

Even in as hallowed a milieu as England, we find in that wonderfully refreshing movie Bend it like Beckham, the mother in the Punjabi family caring a tuppence for her daughter Jasminder's talent on the football field. The woman is distressed that while chasing inanities like soccer, her daughter would soon be ready for marriage without mastering the art of making "round chappattis, alu-gobi and a Punjabi vegetarian and meat dinner!"

So, gender roles in our society are changing for the better, and our ad agencies are taking note of this. But, unfortunately, this phenomenon is restricted to a miniscule percentage of Indian women. Even in the mega cities, where new gender rules are clearly discernible to everybody, there are certain backlashes. Psychiatrists will tell you about women who are highly successful in their careers being harrassed within the house, sometimes even beaten by their husbands. Or taunted by other family members about neglecting the home and children, and the usual spiel on an Indian woman's dharma.

In a recent interview to Business Line, Chennai-based behavioural scientist Ms Anuradha Uberoi said that some of the most successful career women are trapped in loveless marriages. Their very success in the office becomes a bone of contention at home, particularly with the husband who often cannot stomach his wife's meteoric rise, while his own career stagnates. While, sometimes, the exhausted and disgusted woman gives up a lucrative and promising job only to settle for a less-paying and less challenging placement, in most other cases, the reaction is totally different, and cause for concern.

"It is not only jealousy over the woman's success in her career; many a time, it is a total indifference to what she is doing in office; or what her other interests are," says Ms Uberoi.

In such situations, stepping into the void pertaining to the woman's need for communication about what really matters to her, is a male colleague at office "who doesn't bring with him the baggage of day-to-day living".

She says the result of all this is the growing number of extra-marital affairs in Indian offices, which are kept well under wraps at the moment. "But it is only a matter of time before the woman says `to hell with such a relationship, to hell with what the society or my family will think or say', and walks out of the marriage. Believe me, this is a volcano waiting to erupt... and the fallout will be felt in the next five years or so," is her gloomy forecast.

But, again, this is still about a class and section of women that has some control over its destiny; a control that really flows from the women's economic empowerment and the confidence to keep both the heart and hearth going.

What about those women who have neither the educational background, nor the social and cultural backing nor, most important, the required monetary power to end a traumatic relationship?

What about the odd woman in the Hindi heartland who still ends up on the sati pyre? Or, the thousands of female babies whose lives are snuffed out at birth, or even at the foetus stage, because of their gender, which their parents think will be their biggest curse?

Recently, in a suburban rail compartment in Mumbai, an 11-year-old girl was raped in the presence of other commuters, who did nothing to prevent the heinous crime, perhaps in the fear that the rapist could have links with Mumbai's infamous underworld, or whatever.

In Chennai, a teenager was ragged and then assaulted by a group of college students in broad daylight in a theatre complex. The cop who went to her rescue was bashed up too.

STAR News is now running a series on how safe women are in urban India. The one on New Delhi was shocking enough.

The young woman reporter who braved walking around the streets of our Capital at night, was subjected to all kinds of harassment and lewd comments. Four out of five cars slowed down behind her, and a couple of times she was asked to step into the car, with an invitation to "go to a hotel."

It is all these contradictions with which our society is grappling on various gender issues. As more and more women come out of the home to work, or are seen in public places such as theatres, shopping malls, and the like, they face a new crop of problems.

How they measure up to the emerging challenges will depend to a large extent on the other half of our population. Neither economic growth nor overall development will do away with such problems.

We know that violence and crimes against women get that much sharper and deadlier in the developed part of the world. And as we grow and make the transition from a developing to a developed nation, we will have our share of problems too.

Acknowledging the problems, in the home, office or the field (in rural areas), and tackling them candidly and honestly, can hold out some hope for finding solutions.

(Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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