Stereotypes Of Women

Portrayal of Women in Malaysia Fashion Magazine Advertisements and Their Racial Stereotypes
"6 billion advertisements appear in magazines and other periodicals" and occupies 52% of a magazine 's content (Plous 628). According to Plous, advertisements contain the most shocking stereotyping on women. Women 's bodies, within magazines, are exposed four times more often than men. Not only this, but it has also been found that "magazine advertisements have a tendency to portray women 's body parts, rather than their faces" (660). For example, "by 1993-1994, 42.8% of the advertisements with White women contained a display of cleavage or breasts, compared to 22.8% in 1985-1986" (634).

Theoretical Background

General Stereotypes of Women Portrayed

During the time, employment of women were highly demanded as men were sent to fight in the war, there were many opportunities for career option. Some women took over the man’s career, variety of women’s roles occurred. However, as the World War came to the end, the phenomena of women working outside the house gradually reduced and again women were portrayed traditionally. Work clothes for women had dominated the women’s fashion in World War I, the change to more practical clothing was fast in pace, many midi skirts and looser waisted clothing had been worn by stylish young women (Mason, 2014). This occurrence can be assumed as women that time have more power in conducting their fashion, or clothes are more demanding as women needed to wear it to work.

Newspapers and magazines are to be told that have been the most reflective of altering of women image. They reflect by high coverage relating to woman’s right to vote in elections and the feminist movement. Change in increasing pro-feminist stories and articles concerned with women’s career were found as well. However, there were still magazines that remained to reinforce the traditional norms towards women and some were focused on physical appearance. This has failed to reflect and react to women of reality in altering their roles and

The next biggest ethnic group is Chinese, which accounts for 23% of the total population. (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2012).

The study of racial stereotypes in advertising often utilises the proportionality criterion, which states that representation of racial groups within the media should be directly proportionate to their representation within the wider population (Faber, O’Guinn, & Meyer, 1987). A great deal of research is modelled off this concept, which helps to determine whether racial groups are accurately represented in advertising.

Malay
As the above had mentioned, the two advertisements of Muslim women advertise for hair shampoo were found in Remaja magazine. In terms of general advertisement, a hair shampoo advertisement suppose to show model’s hair in order to advertise efficiently of the hair product. However, in the two hair shampoo advertisements, Muslim women’s hair were covered with a headscarf. In the advertisements, one was holding a camera with a cheery smile and another one was posing demurely, giving a polite smile with two hands holding together. The relationship of the model and the product in advertisement seem to have zero connectivity. Due to religion issue, the conservative is highly strong in Muslim women, they often do not appear much in advertisements and when they do, only their eyes may be showing. This is where