If today women are climbing new heights and have a voice, then women in advertisements can’t be degrade to just washing clothes, cooking or pleasing husbands. Many advertisements have gone over the white picket fence when it comes to portrayal of women in recent times .These are some social practise on women that advertising has reinforced since time immemorial. Women in advertising are relegated to the confines of her house, while men have conquered mountains, closed business deals and succeeded in every walk of life it is said advertising is a display of the life around. Showing women as homemakers obsessed with getting the stain out of clothes must have made sense a few decades ago but today’s women have come a long way. In recent times many advertisements have gone over the white picket fence when it comes to portrayal of women. We were bonded by empathy. Advertising is more powerful than we think. It can’t get separated far from its surrounding, if it has to stay relevant to the audience. Advertising always is what is happening in society. Thirty years back the movement was that a woman has to take care of the house, the kids and the daily chores. Many detergents showed women enjoying washing clothes and they probably did enjoy it because of how they were raised and what they were taught growing up. But in the last 30 years, the role of the same names has changed. They are still running the houses but they have a dissimilar hold in our society. The advertising industry had changed quickly in the last three years. It has become more substantial, urban and politically correct. The changing role of women in Indian society is begun to move more quickly due to a few key reasons. First is the growing education of Indian women and the second is the relocation and moving out of home towns, leading to nuclear families where the woman has a stronger voice. If women in the state were climbing new heights, then the women in advertisements couldn’t be relegated to the surroundings any longer. Today you would find far more women out there working, far more women carrying the burden of running the family. What you see in ads now-a-days is a mirroring of what is actually taking place in society. New avenues and platforms available to women, it is getting more difficult to suppress their voices. If someone had a problem with an commercial or a piece of communication, there was no public platform to give vent to that frustration but today with the social media playing an essential part in ad campaign the reaction is instant and brands aren’t taking any chances. Social media is the rectifying liquid of the world. It is poking brands to align with the public’s need and want for a better balanced world. It was believed that the advertising industry hanged back behind the feature film industry in throwback societal trends but with the advent of social media, I believe the advertising industry is catching up. Ads online about a only mother, about a lesbian marriage; the FastTrack ad about lesbians; the Red Label sponsored video about the eunuchs. The society has transformed and the minute women in the society transformed and their voice in the society transformed, brands had to be with them because more and more brands are echoing her emotions and I think it is high time we did it because in the past 20-30 years we haven’t been bringing them honesty and now we should make up for it. But evenly you will find in small towns women who have a strong voice and stand for something. They may or may not be working but that doesn’t mean they are not doing something productive in their lives. Trend is something that is short lived. This is absolutely not a trend and it is something that is hopefully here to stay for long and it will probably become more progressive as society becomes more progressive.
Monnishaa Mahajan, Principal Attorney at Legal Help NRI. Monnishaa has an experience of more than 15 years in assisting and advising NRI's in resolving their disputes in India.