Sold on Gender

Sold On Gender:

Japanese Television Advertisements

and Cultural Re/Production

Synopsis

Perspective

Rationale

Findings

Conclusions

Audience

Competition

Design

Contents

Synopsis:

This books centers on genderisms in contemporary television advertising in Japan. Its approach is:

qualitative,

semiological,

structuralist, and

constructivist
Applying these perspectives to a systematically drawn sample of thousands of ads culled over the past decade, I demonstrate how culturally and historically-rooted values concerning gender are embedded in advertising content and vary in consistent ways as between men and women.
By so doing Sold on Gender is not only able to show the many ways gender is constructed in Japanese society, specifically, but also how depictions of gender in advertising can both reveal and serve to reproduce the deeper beliefs, structures and practices of Japanese society, more generally.
In the course of this analysis, Sold on Gender empirically identifies points of intersection, as well as instances of dispersion from, contemporary western-based social theory.

Most notable in this regard are the concepts of:

structuration,

the sociology of knowledge,

frame analysis,

myth, and

post-modernity.

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Perspective: Because the focus of Sold on Gender is advertising in Japan, the text concerns mass communication and popular culture.
Its core, however, concerns the matter of "gender production". Importantly, this centers not only on women, but on the matter of men, as well. A structuralist/semiotic perspective would argue that it is the portraits of both men and women that reveal gender in its full dimensions. These are two sides of one coin.
Meanings pertaining to one gender-group are often only realized (in social reality) because of the existence of ideas pertaining to the other group.
More, the intention of gender portrayals in media (whether they concern men or women) are often only fully comprehensible via the decoded representations concerning "the implicit other".
This is especially so when men and women appear in the same "frame".
In short, full knowledge of "genderisms" relating to men assist in better understanding the genderisms being communicated about women, and vice-versa.
Moreover, it is the totality of gender presentations in television commercials--their specifiable, continual, repetitious interplay--which underscores cultural stereotypes, social reproduction and valuational difference in contemporary Japan.
The focus on genderisms tells us as much or more about the society as it does about either gender or communication, alone.

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Rationale: The book adopts as its starting point the path-breaking work by Erving Goffman, Gender Advertisements (1976).
At the most fundamental level (and if for no other reason), the utility of Sold on Gender lies in updating (confirming, modifying, challenging) Goffman's widely-read work.
Even greater potential value exists, though. For, while Gender Advertisements is still regarded as the definitive word on gender in advertising, from our current vantage point, numerous limitations are apparent.

First, Goffman's tract is based on visual data culled from newspapers and magazines, alone;

Secondly, it is confined to American advertising; and

Thirdly, its findings (and conclusions) are now over a quarter century old.
Since that time dramatic changes have transpired in our social world; among them:

1. Alterations in numerous values and practices vis-a-vis gender;

2. Additions to the sociological library of concepts such as structuration, post-modernity, the body, emotions, media culture, and social semiology;

3. The explosion in the number and kind of media forms woven into the fabric of everyday life;

4. Heightened intercourse between nations and cultures, thereby serving as a conduit for the transmission, sharing and influence of media form and the social content it communicates;

5. A corresponding proliferation in the ideational, technical and semiotic "literatures" available to media forms in any particular context, thereby facilitating or otherwise bearing on communication processes (such as advertising);

6. The increasing centrality in contemporary society of advertising as a vehicle for mass communication;

7. A steadily-accreting interest in academic circles for so-called "cultural studies" which aim at deconstructing the deeper meanings of popular (and often visually-oriented) texts;

8. A palpable rise in the amount of social (i.e. ideational) text present in advertising; and

9. A discernible change in the character of the social text which constitutes advertising.

While such social text (often called "secondary discourse") in advertising includes messages pertaining to:

race

class

political values

cultural "myths"

sexuality

morality
among the most pervasive area of so-called "second-order connotation" is gender.

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Findings: Among a large number of concrete results, Sold on Gender is able to demonstrate the following:

1. Japanese ads of the late 1990s mirror American ads of the mid-1970s in numerous respects:
above all, they adopt and "sell" genderisms to ad audiences pertaining to:

"feminine touch"

"functional ranking"

"relative size" and

"split domain"

2. At the same time, while many of these original genderisms have persisted into the present, they have either:

mutated in certain identifiable respects,
or else

become less pronounced in favor of other genderisms which are now transmitted in the course of discourse about goods.

3. In the case of the genderisms that have persisted in modified form, for instance, we see how men now often operate outside of their traditional domain

for instance, they toil in the home as cooks or cleaners, but generally do so via recourse to another of the traditional genderisms

for example, invoking the executive function over a female subordinate.

4. In the case of new genderisms that have developed since the work of Gender Advertisements, we find that women in Japanese ads have moved from:

a prior status of (exclusive) sexually passive objects for the predatory male gaze,

to a condition in which, increasingly, they are depicted as sexually aggressive beings who seek out men

in so doing, they transform the male into a passive subject of female affection.

5. In much the same way, numerous claims about the structure of Japanese society can be discerned in gender representations in ads

if only socially constructed images of how women and men ought to be, could be, occasionally are, or are reconstituted as "naturally" being.

6. Such versions of men and women compete astride certain representations that appear to emanate from cultural history.

Among these, for instance, is the ubiquitous view of women as natural
not just pure, but linked with nature in a way that is often threatening (or counter to male existential orientation).

A second pervasive view is that men and women are the natural pair bond

despite contact between women, there is virtually no physical or emotional contact between men.

So, too, are women consistently depicted as social, while men are seen as loners;

women are sensitive and emotive, while men are active and intellectual.

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Conclusions The qualitative, empirical analysis at the heart of Sold on Gender lends considerable weight to a number of theoretical positions:

1. The idea that mass mediated images have deep links to cultural history, practices and values.

The "myth" Barthes speaks of in his theory of semiology is apparent in (and reproduced by) Japanese advertising when coded for gender.

Myth flows into and is supportive of:

gender roles,

conceptions of nature,

family,

sexuality,

occupations,

body,

beauty,

spirituality,

technology, and

power.

As a whole such myths work in concert to support the second order connotation: gender system.

2. Studying the appearance of such myth in these gender-frames, it is quite apparent the degree to which advertising content is a product of social construction.

Specifically, invariant ideas about:

the body,

sexuality,
nature,
the emotions,
intellect, and
permissible bounds on and domains for social action (by gender),
are reproduced continuously by the media of mass communication.

3. What is most apparent from this totality of evidence is this:

as much as specific substance has been altered, little has actually changed in the position and treatment of gender in society.

"The male" and "the female" are still greatly differentiated in advertisements.

They are often kept gendered, in fact, for specific utilitarian purposes:

in order to effect product sale.

However, there is more to it than simply social construction for economic advantage.

One by-product of the repetitious salvo of commercial missives about gender is that "male" and "female" (and gender difference and gender system, itself) are further etched into mythic consciousness, more deeply embedded into the socio-cultural order.

All of this is true despite the fact that, far from the world of Gender Advertisements, the venue is Japan and the year is now 2002.

4. Placed alongside the wealth of data presented by Goffman so many years ago, and given the differences in cultural context and generation, Sold on Gender proves extremely valuable

for one, it can point to the continuation in the "grand narrative" concerning gender;

a grand narrative that offers prima facie rebuttal to the notion that we have entered the "post-modern" moment (at least with regard to gender)

In this way, Sold on Gender serves as an indirect, but forceful contribution to the on-going existential debate whether post-modernity exists.

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Audience: Scholars from a number of distinct, yet inter-related disciplines should be interested in this work. Among them:

Sociologists interested in grounded, qualitative studies of society;

also those wishing to apply work of a major contemporary theorist to another cultural context;

Media studies scholars
particularly those concerned with television advertising and its relationship to social values);

Japanese studies scholars
wishing to gain greater documentation for and insight into the dynamics of their culture);

Semiologists
looking for grounded examples of how to apply semiology in service of social analysis;

Gender Studies scholars
looking for in-depth explorations of the gender system in contemporary society

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Competition: Sold on Gender embraces a number of substantive areas that are popular in the social sciences today. Among these:

advertising
gender representations in media
semiotics
Japan
popular culture
grounded social theory
Nevertheless, no one book comes to mind which integrates all of these elements.
In addition, no book has ever sought to apply Goffman's work on gender advertisements to television, and none to Japanese television commercials.
In a word, this is a unique book positioned to call attention to itself from among members of a number of different substantive academic groups.

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Design: A number of books stand out as models for the work contemplated here. These include:

McLuhan and Fiore's The Medium is the Massage (1967)

John Berger's Ways of Seeing (1972)

Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements (1976)
And, to a lesser degree:

Judith Williamson's Decoding Advertising (1978)

William O'Barr's Culture and the Ad (1995).
All five books are good models in the sense that they are

relatively short,
not overly weighted down by references,
nor tied to the past work of others,
accessible to both specialists and a more general public, and
chock full of pictorial evidence.
These are major design objectives for Sold on Gender.
The latter two, however, though concerned specifically with advertising, are less preferred as guides for the work envisioned here.

This because they are more conventional in structure, with eight chapters each, of roughly 20 to 30 pages on average, and topping out at about 200 pages in total length.

Even so, the written and visual text is about equally balanced.
By contrast, the former three books are primarily--if not almost entirely--visual.

At the extreme end is McLuhan's effort.

Of his 156 pages, a scant ten percent is devoted to the written word.

Slightly less eccentric is Berger's work.

His sketchy (and under-sized) 155 pages are about equally divided between text and pictorial reproductions.

Goffman's work, at 84 over-sized pages, falls somewhere in-between.

It features 30 pages of traditional descriptive introductory text, with the remaining 54 pages consisting almost entirely of thumbnail photographs (upwards of 400 or more) supported by cursory analytic captions.
What unifies these three books (aside from their status as "classics") is their bold, provocative and, most importantly, persuasive integration of visual evidence.

In each, pictures take precedence over written text.
Similarly, Sold on Gender, works toward social theory based on the semiotic analysis of visual data
Following the lead of the models identified above, the completed manuscript is no longer than 200 pages

only two-thirds of which would is devoted to written text

Panels comprise a large part of every page. (3 to 10 thumbnail images each)
To gain a better sense of how I integrate pictures and written text, visit my article on gender advertisements at the Intersections web site

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Contents: Chapter headings are listed below, accompanied by a brief description of each section.
Given the design proposed above, chapters are no longer than 10 pages, with but one half to two-thirds of that space devoted to words.
Most often, a brief two or three page explanation will outline the concept uncovered by the data, then the remainder of the section displays evidence supporting the concept.
Captions offering focused commentary will complement the pictures explaining the connection between the visuals and the chapter's explanatory text.
Exceptions to this format include the preface, introduction and conclusion, where matters of theory, literature review and method are laid out.

Specifically, in the Preface a background on advertising in Japan is presented as well as my methodology and theoretical perspective.

In the case of the Introduction, the intellectual precursor to my study (i.e. Goffman's Gender Advertisements) is systematically outlined, then applied to Japan.

In the case of the Conclusion, the data from the preceding chapters are assessed in relationship to a set of theoretic elements, as described above.

Each of these chapters will be disproportionately devoted to written text and run upwards of 20 to 30 pages.
The planned chapters are as follows:
1: Preface

A primer on Japanese advertising

Author's perspective: social re/production, media effects versus audience power, frame analysis, myth, Japan as a "media culture", semiotic literacy
2. Introduction

The Goffman take on Gender Advertisements;

Applied to Japan
3: Colors

Ladies in red, men in black: how certain colors are continually employed, working to reify conceptions of gender difference
4. Comparative views of men and women

How certain products "gender" men and women by producing different versions for the same product
5. Behavioral Boundaries

What actions are permissible for men and women. What actions are not.

How such acts are often defined spatially and occupationally.
6. Domains

Where men and women reside; their sites of power and action
7. Roles

Traditional and Emergent, associated with home/parenting and work
8. Nature

Mythic associations: women and water; men and land
9. Mind

How images of intellect, cunning and knowledge are associated with gender and context
10. Body

Systematic, relatively uniform conceptions of health, fitness, shape, and use can be shown to be assocaited with gender
11. Sexism

How emphasis on body most often works (with other visual and contextual cues) to degrade women
13: Sexuality

How emphasis on body often is used to sexualize gender (most often women)
14. Intimacy

Apart from overt sexuality, advertising increasingly emphasizes emotional closeness and spies on trans-gendered private moments
15. Emotions

Despite the increase in intimacy, emotions are still heavily gendered in terms of women and away from men
16: Queerless Space

Despite physical contact between women and the expression of emoptional closeness among women, with regard to sexuality, advertising is queerless space. This is especially so in the case of men
17: Interaction/Social Composition

The dynamics of interaction and group activities are less apparent; still, genderisms can be spied, based on certain factors associated with context and social role
18: Professions

Genderisms still persist based on professions
19. Technology

How do genderisms emerge when technology is presented? Evidence of patterning is discussed
20. Leisure

Who is it that tends to have free time? How and with whom is it spent? What does that say about men and women in contemporary Japan?
21. Power

Who has it, under what social conditions, and how do they wield it. Genderisms are dramatic and clear in this regard
22. Conclusion: television advertisements, gender, and social theory

Gender reproduced

Gender in production

Gender and social action

Gender and globalization

Gender and post-modernity

Gender in understanding Japan

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	1. Alterations in numerous values and practices vis-a-vis gender;
	2. Additions to the sociological library of concepts such as structuration, post-modernity, the body, emotions, media culture, and social semiology;
	3. The explosion in the number and kind of media forms woven into the fabric of everyday life;
	4. Heightened intercourse between nations and cultures, thereby serving as a conduit for the transmission, sharing and influence of media form and the social content it communicates;
	5. A corresponding proliferation in the ideational, technical and semiotic "literatures" available to media forms in any particular context, thereby facilitating or otherwise bearing on communication processes (such as advertising);
	6. The increasing centrality in contemporary society of advertising as a vehicle for mass communication;
	7. A steadily-accreting interest in academic circles for so-called "cultural studies" which aim at deconstructing the deeper meanings of popular (and often visually-oriented) texts;
	8. A palpable rise in the amount of social (i.e. ideational) text present in advertising; and
	9. A discernible change in the character of the social text which constitutes advertising.

	1. Japanese ads of the late 1990s mirror American ads of the mid-1970s in numerous respects: above all, they adopt and "sell" genderisms to ad audiences pertaining to: "feminine touch" "functional ranking" "relative size" and "split domain"
	2. At the same time, while many of these original genderisms have persisted into the present, they have either: mutated in certain identifiable respects, or else become less pronounced in favor of other genderisms which are now transmitted in the course of discourse about goods.
	3. In the case of the genderisms that have persisted in modified form, for instance, we see how men now often operate outside of their traditional domain for instance, they toil in the home as cooks or cleaners, but generally do so via recourse to another of the traditional genderisms for example, invoking the executive function over a female subordinate.
	4. In the case of new genderisms that have developed since the work of Gender Advertisements, we find that women in Japanese ads have moved from: a prior status of (exclusive) sexually passive objects for the predatory male gaze, to a condition in which, increasingly, they are depicted as sexually aggressive beings who seek out men in so doing, they transform the male into a passive subject of female affection.
	5. In much the same way, numerous claims about the structure of Japanese society can be discerned in gender representations in ads if only socially constructed images of how women and men ought to be, could be, occasionally are, or are reconstituted as "naturally" being.
	6. Such versions of men and women compete astride certain representations that appear to emanate from cultural history. Among these, for instance, is the ubiquitous view of women as natural not just pure, but linked with nature in a way that is often threatening (or counter to male existential orientation). A second pervasive view is that men and women are the natural pair bond despite contact between women, there is virtually no physical or emotional contact between men. So, too, are women consistently depicted as social, while men are seen as loners; women are sensitive and emotive, while men are active and intellectual.

Conclusions	*The qualitative, empirical analysis at the heart of Sold on Gender* lends considerable weight to a number of theoretical positions:**
	1. The idea that mass mediated images have deep links to cultural history, practices and values. The "myth" Barthes speaks of in his theory of semiology is apparent in (and reproduced by) Japanese advertising when coded for gender. Myth flows into and is supportive of: gender roles, conceptions of nature, family, sexuality, occupations, body, beauty, spirituality, technology, and power. As a whole such myths work in concert to support the second order connotation: gender system.
	2. Studying the appearance of such myth in these gender-frames, it is quite apparent the degree to which advertising content is a product of social construction. Specifically, invariant ideas about: the body, sexuality, nature, the emotions, intellect, and permissible bounds on and domains for social action (by gender), are reproduced continuously by the media of mass communication.
	3. What is most apparent from this totality of evidence is this: as much as specific substance has been altered, little has actually changed in the position and treatment of gender in society. "The male" and "the female" are still greatly differentiated in advertisements. They are often kept gendered, in fact, for specific utilitarian purposes: in order to effect product sale. However, there is more to it than simply social construction for economic advantage. One by-product of the repetitious salvo of commercial missives about gender is that "male" and "female" (and gender difference and gender system, itself) are further etched into mythic consciousness, more deeply embedded into the socio-cultural order. All of this is true despite the fact that, far from the world of Gender Advertisements, the venue is Japan and the year is now 2002.
	4. Placed alongside the wealth of data presented by Goffman so many years ago, and given the differences in cultural context and generation, Sold on Gender proves extremely valuable for one, it can point to the continuation in the "grand narrative" concerning gender; a grand narrative that offers prima facie rebuttal to the notion that we have entered the "post-modern" moment (at least with regard to gender) In this way, Sold on Gender serves as an indirect, but forceful contribution to the on-going existential debate whether post-modernity exists.