•  
  •  
 

Abstract

One of the sensitive areas in the world of advertising and marketing is the portrayal of women. Women are an indispensable part of Indian society as they constitute half of the population and play critical roles. However, the depiction of women as sex symbols, objects of desire, and as having subservient behaviours has presented a great concern to feminist scholars, activists, and researchers. The objective of this research paper is to study how women’s role portrayal impacts consumers’ willingness to buy and to identify the difference in views of Indian men and women when it comes to the stereotypical role portrayal of women in advertisements. The study uses MANOVA statistics to identify whether significant differences exist between the men and women when it comes to willingness to buy. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis are used to identify the latent variables. The impact on purchase intent is determined by validating the proposed hypotheses through structural equational modelling statistics.

Author Biography

Sangeeta Sharma is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. She has contributed to connecting the classroom to the corporate world and training, writing books and research papers, and presenting papers at national and international conferences. She has published 26 books and 46 research papers in the areas of gender studies, advertising, cultural studies, and communication in reputed journals. She is a licensed trainer for Springboard Development Program (U.K.).

Arpan Bumb is a student at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and has a strong academic background. He is consistently in the top 10 percentile of the class and has topped in several courses at the undergraduate level. He is interested in marketing mix, market research, and consumer behaviour.

Download

Share

COinS