The current study belongs to the latter category of research on language used to talk about men and women, which investigated the gendered discourses that help shape gender identities[r] (1)(2)ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ……… ĐỀ TÀI NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC CẤP TRƯỜNG Mã số: N.14.04 HÌNH ẢNH NAM GIỚI VÀ NỮ GIỚI TRONG QUẢNG CÁO TRÊN TRUYỀN HÌNH VIỆT NAM TỪ GĨC ĐỘ PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN (Men and women’s representations in TV advertisements in Vietnam: a multimodal critical discourse analysis) Người thực hiện: TS Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà Bộ môn: Ngôn ngữ học Anh Khoa: Ngơn ngữ Văn hóa CNN tiếng Anh (3)i Abstract (4)ii Tóm tắt (5)iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Tóm tắt ii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Rationale ……… 1 1.2 Aims of the research and research questions ……… 2 1.3 Research methods and scope of the study……… …… 2 1.4 Main findings of the research ……… 3 1.5 Structure of the report ……… 3 Chapter 2: Literature review and contextual background of the study 5 2.1 Literature review ……… 5 2.2 Contextual background of the study ……… 7 2.3 Gender equality ……… 11 Chapter 3: Theoretical background and methodology 15 3.1 CDA as a theoretical approach ……… 15 3.2 Main tenets of CDA ……… 16 3.3 CDA analytical framework ……… 21 3.4 Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar ……… 25 Chapter 4: Findings and discussion 30 4.1 Women as homemakers ……… 30 4.2 Men and women in the caring roles ……… 39 4.3 Men’s jobs are more important than women ……… 43 4.4 Gender stereotypes ……… 47 Chapter 5: Conclusion 50 5.1 Recapitulation of main findings ……… 50 5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research ……… 51 References ……… 52 (6)1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale (7)2 1.2 Aims of the research and research questions The study aims to show the gender ideologies underlying television advertisements in Vietnam and how these ideologies are mediated through both visual and linguistic means The final goal of the research is to raise people’s awareness of the hidden perpetuation of gender identities assumptions and normalization, which eventually disadvantages women and reinforces gender inequality The study attempts to answer the following research questions: • What are the gender ideologies underlying TV advertisements? • How are these ideologies mediated in the discourse? 1.3 Research methods and scope of the study The study approaches the data of 99 TV advertisements from a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective There advertisements were videotaped from different TV channels during October and November, 2014 The framework used is Fairclough’s (2001) in which part of Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar (1996) is incorporated to analyze the visual features, given that Fairclough’s framework guides the analysis of verbal elements only The study focuses on both the visual images and the linguistic elements in the voiceover of advertisements, though aspects like the lengths or the time slots of the advertisements are out of scope (8)3 process In the step of description of texts, the study takes into consideration both the visual and the verbal elements These three steps of analysis are conducted in combination rather than one by one in a chronological order The findings of the study, hence, are final in the sense that they are the results of the description of the texts at surface then the interpretation of the meanings in connection with other discourses and the interpreter’s background knowledge and the explanation of those interpretations in the socio-political context 1.4 Main findings of the research The study finds that there exists salient gender role differentiation in which women are bound to their home and their children much more than men Other than that, in the public sphere, women are represented doing less important jobs than men Moreover, gender stereotypes are also prevalent in which traditional femininity and masculinity are reconstructed, which may disadvantage women to some extent The gender ideologies as mentioned are both explicitly and implicitly mediated through verbal and visual elements of the data The study argues that such gender representation re-enforces traditional Confucian ideas of gender hierarchy and is against some political efforts towards gender equality 1.5 Structure of the report (9)4 (10)5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Literature review Gender representation has been the focus of both media studies and feminist linguistics for decades (11)6 are discursively constructed, often in favour of one gender over the other, whereby women are more often disadvantaged than men (12)7 There are two things noted from the literature of gender and language studies First, gender issues exist in almost all contexts; however, these issues are different in many aspects from one context to another This is because, gender is a social issue which is built up in and affected by the historical, cultural and political context of the different countries Hence, to contribute to the existing studies of language and gender studies, more research in diversified cultural contexts are welcome, to add a stroke to the big picture of gender issue the world over Second, while this domain has flourished internationally for decades, very few studies have been carried out in the context of Vietnam Very recently, Nguyen (2011) published her study on gender ideologies in print media and Ngo & Phan (2015) researched the sexist language used in football commentaries These two authors did point out that sexism and gender inequality exist in discourse in the context of Vietnam, however with only two studies, gender issues in relation to language in Vietnam cannot be comprehensively exploited More efforts are needed to dwell into this topic for the sake of social equity in Vietnam and for the international academic literature of language and gender The current study is an attempt to answer the raised necessity 2.2 Contextual background of the study (13)8 understanding of contextual background should be required There are some main points to note concerning gender issue in Vietnam as follows First, Vietnamese women were not originally oppressed The historical fact of constant wars in Vietnam has aroused and nurtured a centuries – old tradition of heroism and nationalism among the Vietnamese people and women were not exceptions During the Chinese conquest (207 B.C – 39 A.D.), Trung Trac, Trung Nhi and Lady Trieu were prominent examples of combative nationalists who rose up in arms against Chinese rulers During the two resistance wars against France and the U.S., there were no less examples of combative nationalist females, who were conferred with ‘heroines of armed forces’ by the state, such as heroine Vo Thi Sau and General Nguyen Thi Dinh, (Le, 2009; Tran, 2009) For all their contribution to the national resistance wars, the state conferred all the Vietnamese women with 10 golden words “Phụ nữ Việt Nam bất khuất, trung hậu, đảm đang” (The Vietnamese women: undaunted, faithful and skillful) This explains why Vietnamese women have been glorified especially as martyrs throughout history although they were at times devalued by Confucian ideas In the contemporary Vietnam, women continued to be glorified especially on certain occasions such as International Women’s day (Nguyen, 2011) (14)9 society in the fifth century; however, not until the fifteenth century had Confucian impact come to its peak to become one of the three religions in Vietnam besides Buddhism and Daoism Central to Confucian doctrine was that men are superior and women inferior Confucian doctrine clearly supported a patriarchal social order, putting women in a lower social rank compared to men Although Confucian ideals of gender were more or less eroded when Vietnam came into contact with Western people from France in early twentieth century and they were later legally eradicated by the first constitution of Vietnam granting equal rights for both genders, these ideals seem not to be washed off from people’s mind And in this 21st (15)10 women’s movements are not feminist, and have been closely attached to nationalism These movements were not feminist in the sense that the cause underlying them was not primarily for women’s own rights and benefits but for the call of the nation or more neutrally, the call of political leadership in time of political instability One clear example is the foundation the Vietnamese Women’s Union (VWU) in 1930 with the highlighted task of mobilizing women nationwide to take part in the anti-feudalism and anti-imperialism movements led by the Indochinese Communist Party, which constantly emphasized the importance of women’s participation in politics in order to strengthen the revolutionary movement (Hannam, 2007: 91) The gender ideology underlying this was Marxist in seeing the sameness between men and women and while there might have been oppression by men on women, they were ‘ultimately oppressed by capitalism and hence the interest of men and women are not crucially different’ (Beasley, 1999) (16)11 2007:7) Apart from the constitution, gender issues have been reflected in the laws on marriage and family first composed in 1959 More recently, Vietnam passed the laws on gender equality in 2006, the aim of which was to eradicate gender discrimination and to build gender equality in all aspects of social life and in the family Alongside with Laws on gender equality, Laws on prevention of domestic violence became effective in 2008, prescribing how to educate people about, prevent people from and punish people for crimes which had been protected by the patriarchal society for long Additionally, promoting gender equality is the responsibility of different governmental institutions such as the National Committee for the Advancement of Women in Vietnam and the Vietnam Women’s Union In liberal terms, Vietnamese women have gained the rights that women elsewhere in the world have been struggling for for centuries In this context, the study aims to look at the gender ideologies underlying advertisement discourse and to see if those ideologies reconstruct or challenge any existing gender ideologies in the society 2.3 Gender equality (17)12 differently Beasley (1999) summarized some of the major differences in feminist views on gender equality as follow (18)13 that different feminist views may develop from or challenge the other feminist views on gender equality More recently, feminist writings have been influenced by poststructuralist thinking that stresses plurality rather than unity and, in particular, rejects conceptions of women or men as a homogeneous category Poststructuralist feminists emphasize the differences amongst women and amongst men rather than differences between women and men They argue that universalism marginalizes what is seen as dissimilar, thus bringing into play normalization, which declares dissimilarity abnormal and attaches a negative judgment to non-conformity (Beasley, 1999:81) They see gender as socially/ discursively constructed; and hence, gender identity is in flux, unstable and can be changed While sex is generally seen as dichotomous, gender is a continuum and should not be mapped onto sex That means only some women and some men exist at the two extremes of femininity and masculinity respectively, producing gender stereotypes and the rest can be found somewhere on the gender continuum, and gender identity is also context dependent (Baker, 2008:63) Poststructuralist feminists are against the mapping of gender onto sex, which is constituted by social practices reflecting norms and taboos (19)14 (20)15 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 CDA as a theoretical approach (21)16 59) also asserts that ‘many proposals and basic assumptions of feminist linguistics relate to and overlap with principles of critical discourse analysis’ 3.2 Main tenets of CDA CDA emerged in the 1970s, reflecting a turn in the interest of linguistic research from the purely structural dimension to the functional aspect of language as it relates to the social CDA studies language use in its socio – political context and regards ‘language as social practice’ (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997) CDA pays particular attention to the relation between language and power, aiming to unearth the ideologies underlying discourse Phillips and Jorgensen (2002) summarize five CDA tenets and principles as follow (22)17 sense, discourse refers to the communicative process in which language in the form of texts is produced and interpreted in a social communicative setting Discourse encompasses not only spoken and written linguistic texts but also other forms of communication such as visual or audio-visual modes A current view of discourse sees that discourse in most cases is multi-modal (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996); hence, a comprehensive analysis of discourse must include forms of communication other than language In a more post-structuralist sense, discourse is a way of representing and interpreting social realities Discourses exist in relation to other discourses and these discourses can be supporting as well as competing or conflicting In this study, the term discourse is used in both senses: as language in use and as ways of representing and interpreting social realities As Phillips and Jorgensen (2002) put it, the aim of CDA is to shed light on the discursive dimension of social and cultural phenomena and processes of change (23)18 and the how dimensions The relation between discourse and the social, however, is not a one way process but a dialectical one (Fairclough, 2001) Discourse is constitutive at the same time because discourse also contributes to the shaping and reshaping of social structures In other words, discourse has effects upon social structures and contributes to the achievement of social continuity or social change In a sense, social structures are partly a product of discourse Foucault (1972) emphasizes the potential constitutiveness of discourse by defining it as ‘the practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ However, CDA is less post-structuralist in that it does not negate the material that exists independently from discourse as most post-structuralists maintain Discourse is not omnipotent, and is conditioned by social reality or other discourses As Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999: 6) put it, CDA recognizes the social import of discourse without reducing social life to discourse (24)19 and interpretation, but analyzing the relationship between texts, processes, and their social conditions Social conditions include both the immediate conditions of the situational context and the conditions of institutional and social structures on a higher level (Fairclough, 2001) Beyond context, which refers to the extralinguistic factors such as culture, political condition and ideology, CDA also introduces the notion of intertextuality and interdiscursivity, which highlight the importance of seeing texts in relation to other existing texts Different from all other methods, CDA takes into consideration a wide range of factors that influence the production and consumption of texts (25)20 neutral discourse; whenever we speak, we have to choose between different systems of meaning and different sets of values Language embodies our cultural and social values; hence, when we speak, we not just say words, we speak our culture (Goddard & Patterson, 2000: 67) CDA practitioners, however, not ask whether certain ideologies are deliberately or subconsciously embedded; rather, they are interested in finding out what the underlying ideologies are If certain ideologies disadvantage a particular social group, then the uncovering of these ideologies can raise people’s awareness, which is believed by CDA practitioners to be the first step towards emancipation (26)21 from their own experience on the basis of their ideological commitment As stated by Fairclough (2001:4), scientific investigation of social matters is perfectly compatible with ‘opinionated’ investigators, and being committed does not prevent investigators from arguing rationally and with evidence CDA attempts to be a systematic kind of analysis which bases on particular linguistic theories and social contextual information to draw out conclusions According to Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999: 152), CDA is textually-oriented discourse analysis, which means it anchors its analytical claims about discourses in close analysis of texts The term ‘critical’ is to be understood as having distance to the data, embedding the data in the social, taking a political stance explicitly, and a focus on self-reflection as scholars research (Wodak and Meyer, 2001:9) 3.3 CDA analytical framework (27)22 set of systems which offer language users a choice of ways in expressing meanings It is SFL’s stress on the functional aspect of language and on the context of communication that makes it particularly relevant as a linguistic theory for CDA (28)23 advertisements and sees how these social actors are related to each other and to the theme of the advertisement Explicit phrases or sentences concerning gender ideologies are also picked out as supporting evidence The second stage in Fairclough’s model is interpretation, which deals with discourse processes and their dependence on background assumptions Interpretations are generated through what is in the text (formal features) and what is in the interpreter (Member’s Resources-MR) In other words, formal features are ‘cues’ which activate elements of interpreters’ MR, and interpretations are generated through the dialectical interplay of cues and MR, which is referred to as interpretative procedures (Fairclough, 2001: 118) (29)24 interpreters will start their interpretation from an overall judgment of textual structure, which will assist and cue the interpretation at the more localized levels In the third stage of explanation, we see discourse as part of social process, as social practice, showing how it is determined by social structures and what reproductive effects discourses can have on those structures, sustaining them or changing them (Fairclough, 2001: 135) These social determinations and effects are mediated by MR: that is social structures shape MR, which in turn shape discourses; and discourse sustains or changes MR, which in turn sustains or changes structures Note that social structures are subdivided into three levels of societal, institutional and situational levels, and on all these three levels, social effects or determinations of discourse are seen So, explanation is a matter of seeing a discourse as part of processes of social struggle, within a matrix of relations of power (30)25 knowledge of gender issues is of importance When the patterns occur, we attempt to see how these patterns occur, which means we put these patterns into the social context to explain their occurrence We may have to look back at the texts again, extending the data scope to make sure there are no more patterns occurring In presenting the findings of the study (chapter 4), we not mention the steps that we take, but we present the ideologies found with supporting evidence from data analysis We also make arguments when we put the found ideologies in the socio-political context 3.4 Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar As stated earlier, for the purpose of the current study, I have included visual analysis in the framework for data analysis, seeing discourse from a multimodal perspective For analyzing the images in the data source, I draw on Kress and van Leeuwen’s framework (31)26 the visual, like all semiotic modes, fulfils the three meta-functions namely ideational, interpersonal and compositional (or textual) They also see that visual designers face with multiple choices (of colors, size, distance, etc.) in reflecting and constructing reality through the visual just like a speaker or a writer does with language This implies that both language and the visual can be used as a coding system to talk about the world though they it differently, by linguistic elements or by shapes and colors and so on The meta-functions of the visual Underlying the ideational meta-function of the visual is the view that any semiotic mode has to be able to present aspects of the world as it is experienced by human beings (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996: 42) Within the ideational meta-function of the visual, Kress and van Leeuwen separate the narrative structure from the conceptual structure The narrative structure, or ‘transactional’ structure, is identified when the participants are represented as doing something Of particular use in the present study is the analysis of the action process, where the focus is on what women and/or men are represented to The conceptual structure, in contrast with the narrative structure, (32)27 Apart from the Ideational meta-function, analysis of the interpersonal meta-function of the visual is also helpful in observing how men and women are represented in the images The Interpersonal meta-function is concerned with the representation of social relations between the producer, the viewer, and the subject being represented Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 119) distinguishes between three types of relations (1) Relations between represented participants (2) Relations between interactive and represented participants (3) Relations between interactive participants Among the above relations, in this study, we pay more attention to the first one, i.e the relations between the represented participants We wanted to see how men and women are represented in relation to other represented participants such as children, the old, the unwell or colleagues (33)28 • Salience: This is how certain elements might be made to stand out, to have the viewer’s attention drawn to them • Information value: This is how elements are placed that makes them relate to each other and to the viewer • Framing: The use of framing devices connects, relates, groups or separates elements in the image In this study, the analysis of textual meta-function seems to yield less findings than the other two meta-functions; however, we did find foregrounding and backgrounding structure in making meaning revealing in some cases To analyze images in these three ‘grammatical’ categories, we have to base ourselves on various principles which are cultural dependent Within a Western culture, Kress and van Leeuwen suggests that salience can be achieved by size, colour, tone, focus, foregrounding and overlapping (Machin, 2007:138) Information value, on the other hand, is cued by how the represented subjects are arranged from left to right, top to bottom or center to margin The arrangement of subjects in these dimensions may denote that certain information is given or new, ideal or real and important or less so However, this type of interpretation is debatable and highly dependent on cultural factors (34)29 (35)30 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter presents the main findings from the data analysis, which comprises the three mingled steps of doing CDA as presented in the previous chapter These are the prominent ideologies found across the data and these ideologies are argued to be disadvantageous for women; hence, promote gender inequality Gender role differentiation is the focus of the discussion, while gender stereotypes are also briefly mentioned in this critical study of discourse For some reason, the name of the brand advertised should not be disclosed in this report, so the phrase ABC is used to replace the actual name of the brand At some points where the linguistics features are analyzed, English translation is provided in brackets for the convenience of international readership 4.1 Women as the homemakers Women housework (cleaning and cooking) The most salient point concerning the representation of men and women is that women the house work, ranging from cooking for the family, wiping the kitchen, washing the dishes, polishing the floor and cleaning the toilet while men are completely absent from those tasks (36)31 41(dish washing liquid) or Ad 32 (detergent) A close look at an image from Ad 27 would give much more insight (Image 1) In this image, the woman is holding a broom, looking puzzled at the child’s dirty sock The child is having an uncomfortable look as his sock is dirty This clearly shows that in this scenario, the woman is doing the job of cleaning the floor and she is responsible for the cleanness of the floor The man behind her is represented doing nothing; maybe, he is only watching the incident Apparently, the man and the child in this add not housework; it is the woman who does it This claim is further supported by the fact that the man is depicted in office attire, the child school uniform and the woman home clothes Maybe, the two “men” are just from work and school; only the woman is at home, doing housework (37)32 As far as cooking activities are concerned, women are represented as the one who cooks while her husband and children, especially male children are the ones who enjoy the food and comment on the food In no ad that men are represented as the cook of the family In other words, men are totally invisible in the role of cooking for the family Examples can be found in Ad 40 (a brand of noodle), Ad 46 (cooking oil), Ad 64 (instant porridge), or Ad 58 (additives) They are not only cooking for the family but also serving the family during the meal Occasionally, they are just standing, watching at their husband and children eating Image is added as an illustration: Image 2: Women as home makers (Ad40) (38)33 replacement for women, which perpetuates the assumption that cooking or doing housework is not their task In Ad 39, a father and a son are represented cooking in the kitchen in an inexperienced manner, ending up lying sleeping while the mother is the one who eventually cooks the food and serves the two men in the advertisement In Ad38, a father does the washing routine but he needs his wife’s advice through Face-time while she is away, perhaps on a business trip Apparently, the image of men doing housework in these two advertisements does not imply the sharing of housework but rather, emphasizes that housework is women’s responsibility and not men’s Linguistic evidence can also be found supporting this presentation of women as the homemakers The social actors mentioned in the voice over in the advertisements picturing housework are “mẹ” (mum) or “phụ nữ” (women) The following are just some examples: Verbal (1): “Mẹ người có bí nấu ăn ngon.” (Mum is the only one with the secret tip for delicious dishes) (Ad39) Verbal (2): “ABC mẹ tin tưởng” (ABC is believed as good by mum Verbal (3): “Bác ơi, mẹ nói ăn ABC yêu đời ngay.” (Uncle, my mum says eating ABC will make you happy right away.” (Ad52) ) (Ad44) Verbal (4): “Phụ nữ khắp Việt Nam chọn ABC.” (Women all over (39)34 The choice of mum or women to be the social actors in the voice-over perpetuates an assumption that women, and in the family they are mums, are more prestigious as far as cooking or housework is concerned They are the ones who hold the secrets for delicious dishes and who know what brands to choose to care for the family In fact, they are praised in these advertisements, and not men However, these compliments may lead to more pressure and more challenge for women as well And the reason why men are not seen in these compliments is that housework is stereotypically perceived as women’s and not men’s This gender role differentiation sticks all housework onto women, and men are freed from the tedious chores, which should be unfair (40)35 Image 3: Men as professional cooks (Ad18) Another evidence to suggest that home is the sphere for women and women housework is that they are most of the time represented in home clothes while men are shown in office attire of shirts and trousers or even suits and ties much more often These images are found in numerous advertisements such as Ad21, Ad27, Ad28, Ad29, Ad30, Ad54, Ad60, Ad69, Ad71, Ad83, Ad85, Ad87, Ad93, Ad99, etc (41)36 21st If we look at the socio-political context of gender issues in Vietnam, we would notice that the perpetuation of women’s whole responsibility for housework is against the laws Vietnam passed the law on gender equality on November 29, 2006, which started to have effect from July 1, 2007 The main aim of this law is to eradicate gender discrimination, to create equal chances for both men and women in developing themselves in all social activities and to build gender equality in all aspects of social life and in the family (Clause 4) More specifically, the law progressively asserts that all family members have the responsibilities of doing housework (clause 18, item 5) Maybe, in the society of Vietnam, fewer people know about this law than people who are deeply influenced by Confucian ideals that the domestic sphere is women’s sphere and they find that it’s natural and obvious for women to housework And if the law is not enforced appropriately and the media continue this kind of dissemination, gender inequality will persist in this society century A critical look into the image of working women in the advertisements would reveal some findings Working women and their family roles (42)37 conference, verbally reveal that they have just quickly finished their washing activities using the advertised detergent Verbal (5): A woman says: “Chị lo em tới trễ phải hoàn thành nội trợ, giặt giũ nhiều thời gian” (I am worried that you are late because you have to finish housework, especially washing, which takes a lot of time) A group of women reply: “… có bột giặt ABC giặt nhanh … em kịp làm đẹp tham gia cộng đồng” (…with ABC detergent, washing is quick … so I have time to beautify myself and join the social work.) (43)38 (44)39 4.2 Men and women in the caring roles Women taking care of children It is salient from the data that the image of children is closely attached to the image of women and not men Whenever children are shown in the advertisements, the accompanying adult taking care of them is a woman or several women The woman is most often in the role of the mother and in some other cases the grandmother of the children They are represented in numerous caring activities such as feeding the child (Ad23), cuddling the sick child (Ad87), teaching the children (Ad2, Ad11), playing with the children (Ad21, Ad25, Ad48, Ad23), and in some cases, women and children just simply appear together (Ad29, Ad28, Ad32, Ad33, Ad34, etc.) Quite covertly, in Ad33, there are two little babies depicted in the front and at the background, if we look closely, we will see two women choosing baby’s stuff in a supermarket The bond between women and children was there though implicitly represented Linguistic analysis also reveals that the pair of personal nouns “mẹ/ con” (mum/child), “bà/ cháu” (grandma/ grandchild) appear as the social actors in numerous voice-overs of the advertisements in the data source, for examples: Verbal (6): “Để mẹ giúp, vào cuộc.” (Let mum help you, now you son can join the game) (Ad 32) Verbal (7): “Mẹ, xem tụi tìm này?” (Mum, look and see what (45)40 Verbal (8): “Trò bà giỏi nhất, cháu cẩn thận, trốn nhé.” (This game grandma plays best, you grandchildren be careful and go hide somewhere) (Ad48) In some rare advertisements, where men appear next to children, they are represented playing with children only (Ad22, Ad27) or eating with children (Ad40), and not caring for them as women are displayed to Apparently, women are pervasively represented taking care of children and not men It can be agreed that biologically, only women can bear children but this should not entail that only women can take care of children The exclusion of men in this task can be in favor of men but at the same time can also be a disadvantage for them In the first place, men have an excuse for not spending their time with their children, so they may have more time on their own enjoying themselves However, on the other hand, they may be deprived of the right to nurturing their children, which can be rewarding as well It is because, when there is a norm, those who act against the norm may be ridiculed or picked on Hence, representing only women taking care of children may cause advantages to both women and men at the same time Caring for children should be represented as both men and women’s task, instead Women taking care of men and the elderly (46)41 however, women are still seen in this role much more than men are In the category of medicine advertisements, the found patterns are that when the unwell is a man, a woman will give medicine for him to take and when an elderly needs help, the helper is more often a woman (Ad76, Ad78, Ad79, Ad82, Ad86) It is also noted that, there are advertisements where the unwell men take care of themselves, i.e taking medicine by themselves (Ad69, Ad71) However, in only one ad, a man is represented as the care-giver for a woman, as shown in image Image and image are also included here to illustrate how women are represented as care-givers (47)42 Image 5: Women as caregivers (Ad86) (48)43 Though not as salient as the previously mentioned points, the presentation of women as care-givers outweighs the representation of men as care-givers This also constructs gender role differentiation to some degree 4.3 Men’s jobs are more important than women’s Moving on to gender roles represented in the public sphere, it is first noted from the data that, men are presented doing more important jobs, i.e jobs of higher positions or jobs that require more qualifications and skills All the experts and scientists appearing in the advertisements are men: they are the ones who develop new formulae for babies (Ad23), take care of new generations of washing machines (Ad28), invent new medicines (Ad79, Ad83, Ad91), run businesses (Ad85) and so on (Ad60, Ad69, Ad86, Ad93) Contrastive to the image of women in home clothes mentioned earlier, the images of men wearing white blouses and suits and ties in the roles of experts, scientists and businessmen are prevalent (49)44 Image 7: Men’s jobs are more important than women’s (Ad11) (50)45 Image 8: Men’s jobs are more important than women’s (Ad5) (51)46 In a rare case where a woman is represented as a businesswoman (Ad68), a man also appears in the ad, being her business partner and by no means subordinate to her The woman is represented confidently shaking hands with the man; however, the confidence is not from her intelligence or position, but from her appearance as this is an ad for a beauty product The woman’s image in this ad gives rise to an interpretation that even in an equal position as men’s, women care about appearance and cannot be confident without a good look The emphasis of the ad on the woman’s appearance downplays the importance of the high position she is holding Hence, in this ad, even though women are represented as successful in their career, the impression is made on her beauty rather than on her profession (52)47 prejudice because being a woman should never entail being less competent or less efficient Competence and efficiency may depend on some physical traits concerning health, education and upbringing and cannot be due to the sex of a person This finding of the current study seems to contradict to Nguyen (2011)’s research result that many of Vietnamese women have crashed through the ‘glass ceiling’ to reach the highest position in an organization (Many feminists believe that there exists an invisible ‘glass ceiling’ in every organization, referring to a limit to how high a woman can be promoted) As a matter of fact, according to VWU’s statistics, in Vietnam, more than 41% of owners of small production factories and more than 20% of enterprise leaders are women However, the data that Nguyen (2011) worked on was taken from the media during the international women’s day, so the image of women seemed to be much more glorious The representation of women in the advertisements under study seems to downplay women’s status, and hence, contribution, in the public sphere 4.4 Gender stereotypes (53)48 one may argue, but it sometimes disadvantages both men and women in obsessing them to follow the trend In the first place, women are represented as weak and men strong both physically and mentally Men are seen more in actions that need energy (Ad29, Ad11) and in games of more movements and strength such as football (Ad20, Ad32) or basket ball (Ad15) In those games, no women are detected playing More specifically, in Ad29, for examples, a group of boys help pushing a car, and in Ad32, a group of boys play football and a girl and her mother stand to watch Second, men are the ones who give solutions; in other words, they are in the role of the rescuer An example is Ad28, when the woman has a trouble operating a machine, a male expert appears from nowhere and showed her out of the problem Similar plots are employed in Ad90, Ad18, where men appear just in time to get women out of the trouble (54)49 can be that women care too much for their appearance and they may not equally care for their other values Moreover, the role models being aired seem to be limited to certain standards that the ad producers perceive as beauty such as being slim, being gentle, with long smooth hair as mentioned We not notice rougher images of tomboy girls, for example, or the like In a liberal point of view, women should have more choices to become comfortable with themselves rather than stick to some stereotyped beauties to please men And last but not least, women need to be beautiful to seduce men In all the advertisements that promote women’s beauty, there are men represented as the target or purpose of women’s beautification In these advertisements, men are attracted by women’s appearance and that is why women beautify themselves to seduce men A clear example is Ad12, where a girl with long black and extremely smooth hair caught the attention of a male singer and she is invited on the stage to sing with him Another example is Ad10, in which a girl attracts a boy with her sparkling teeth and perfume like breadth thanks to the toothpaste brand being advertised (55)50 (56)51 CHPATER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation of the main findings Gender issues are culturally dependent; hence, there is need for studies of gender issues in different cultural contexts to understand different aspects of gender (in)equality the world over For this reason, the current study set out to investigate gender issues in relation to media discourse in the Vietnam context, aiming to find out the gendered discourses being perpetuated by the media’s TV advertisement discourse The data was approached from a multimodal critical discourse analysis perspective to answer the questions: (1) what are the gender ideologies underlying TV advertisements? And (2) how are these ideologies mediated in the discourse? (57)52 role differentiation was heavily stressed Such representations were seen as going against the law of gender equality; hence, against the political efforts towards social equity The representations found also downplayed women’s status and contribution in the work arena Gender stereotypes of extreme femininity and masculinity were also explored and argued to disadvantage both men and women 5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research (58)53 REFERENCES Al-Mahadin, S (2003) Gender representation and stereotypes in cartoons: A Jordanian case study Feminist media studies, 3(2), 131-151 Baker, P (2008) Sexed text: Language, gender, and sexuality London: Equinox Barry, K (1996) Vietnam’s women in transition London: MacMillan Press Ltd Beasley, C (1999) What is feminism? 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APPENDIX List of the advertisements and their location and category Advertisements Where Group 1 Dầu gội Pantene Mov A 2 Kem đánh P/S (dì) Mov A 3 Sunsilk mềm mượt Mov A 4 Dầu gội Dove Mov A 5 Clear men trj gàu Mov A 6 Clear hoa anh đào Mov A 7 Dầu gội Treseme Mov A 8 Clear trị gàu Mov A 9 Pantene ngăn gãy rụng Mov A 10 Kem đánh Close Up Mov A 11 Kem đánh p/S (bv nụ cười) Mov A 12 Dầu gội Rejoice Mov A 13 Dưỡng trắng da Pond’s Mov A 14 Nước xúc miệng Thái Dương Mov A 15 Dầu gội Thái Dương 3/7 Mov A 16 Cream O Mov 17 (1st data) D 17 Bánh Richese Mov 19 (1st data) D 18 Dầu Mezan Mov 30 (1st data) D 19 Pond ban đêm Mov 31 A 20 Clear Men (Ronaldo) Mov 35 A 21 Dielac Optimum Mov B 22 Bỉm Pamper Mov B 23 Anpha Gold Dielac Mov B 24 Anmum Materna Mov B 25 Bio-Acimin Gold Mov B 26 Similac Gain Plus Mov 12 B 27 Sunlight lau nhà Mov C 28 Máy giặt Panasonic Mov C 29 Omo nước giặt Mov C 30 Vim – nước tẩy VS mảng bám Mov C 31 Bột giặt Ariel Mov C 32 Bột giặt Omo Mov C 33 Comfort da nhạy cảm Mov C 34 Bột giặt Attack Mov 13 C 35 Downy nước hoa Mov 15 C 36 Bột giặt Alba Mov 33 C (64)59 38 Picenza Mov C 39 Hạt nêm Knorr Mov D 40 Mì Chíp Chíp Mov D 41 Nước rửa chén Sunlight (QL) Mov D 42 Sữa tươi Ba Vì Mov 10 D 43 Sữa Vina soy Mov 13 D 44 Nước mắm Chin Su ngon Mov 13 D 45 Mì Gấu Đỏ Mov 13 D 46 Dầu ăn Simply Mov 14 D 47 Mì ba miền Mov 14 D 48 Sữa đậu nành (trốn tìm) Mov 14 D 49 Sữa Milo Mov 14 D 50 Trà Xanh C2 O Long Mov 14 D 51 Cà phê Birdy Mov 14 D 52 Mì Kokomi Happy Mov 15 D 53 Milo ống hút chiều Mov 15 D 54 Trà Xanh O độ Mov 15 D 55 Trà Thảo Mộc Dr Thanh Mov 15 D 56 Sanofi Mov 15 D 57 Seven Up Revise Mov 18 D 58 Aji Ngon Mov 25 D 59 Heineken Mov 27 D 60 Trại bò sữa Vinamilk Mov 29 D 61 Gold Soy (HNH) Mov 36 D 62 Aquafina Mov 37 D 63 Sữa chua Ozela Mov 37 D 64 Cháo Gấu Đỏ Mov 37 D 65 Monte Snack Mov D 66 Coca Cola Mov D 67 Cansua 3+ Mov D 68 Sắc Ngọc Khang Mov E 69 Đại tràng Bảo Nguyên Mov E 70 Hoạt huyết nhất Mov E 71 Xương khớp nhất Mov E 72 Trứng Cá Nhất Nhất Mov E 73 TrungCa Mov E 74 Hoạt Huyết Minh Lão Khang Mov E 75 Dáng Hồng Nhất Nhất Mov 13 E 76 Coldi – B Mov 15 E 77 Thuốc ho bổ phế Mov 17 E 78 Thuốc nam trị ho P/H Mov 17 E (65)60 80 Viên uống hoa thiên Mov 21 E 81 Sâm Nhung Bổ Thận Mov 28 E 82 Cerecaps Mov 28 E 83 Tràng Phục Linh Mov 28 E 84 Nhân Hưng (Xương Khớp) Mov 30 E 85 Delcogen Mov 30 E 86 Hoạt huyết CM3 Mov 30 E 87 Bạch Ngân PV Mov 30 E 88 Viên uống Tây Thi Mov 30 E 89 Hoạt huyết Vina Mov 30 E 90 Rocket Mov 31 E 91 Viêm vai gáy Thái Dương Mov 31 E 92 Bảo Xuân 50+ Mov 33 E 93 Vina Ho Mov 35 E 94 Big Mov 35 E 95 Happi Vision Mov 13 F 96 Yamaha Mov 14 F 97 Grand Mov 15 F 98 Sơn Nice Space Mov 33 F 99 Ngân Hàng ACB Mov 37 F Group Category Including No Index Group A Personal hygiene Shampoo, shower gel, mouth rinse liquid, … 20 Ad1-Ad20 Group B Food and baby stuff Baby milk powder, instant porridge, baby shower gel, … 06 21-26 Group C Family hygiene Cleansing liquid, dish washing liquid, washing machine, detergent, … 12 27-38 Group D Food, drink and kitchen stuff Additives, food, drink, cooking oil,… 29 39-67 Group E Medicines 27 68-94 Group F House and means of transport (66)(67)APPENDIX List of the advertisements and their location and category Advertisements Where Group 1 Dầu gội Pantene Mov A 2 Kem đánh P/S (dì) Mov A 3 Sunsilk mềm mượt Mov A 4 Dầu gội Dove Mov A 5 Clear men trj gàu Mov A 6 Clear hoa anh đào Mov A 7 Dầu gội Treseme Mov A 8 Clear trị gàu Mov A 9 Pantene ngăn gãy rụng Mov A 10 Kem đánh Close Up Mov A 11 Kem đánh p/S (bv nụ cười) Mov A 12 Dầu gội Rejoice Mov A 13 Dưỡng trắng da Pond’s Mov A 14 Nước xúc miệng Thái Dương Mov A 15 Dầu gội Thái Dương 3/7 Mov A 16 Cream O Mov 17 (1st data) D 17 Bánh Richese Mov 19 (1st data) D 18 Dầu Mezan Mov 30 (1st data) D 19 Pond ban đêm Mov 31 A 20 Clear Men (Ronaldo) Mov 35 A 21 Dielac Optimum Mov B 22 Bỉm Pamper Mov B 23 Anpha Gold Dielac Mov B 24 Anmum Materna Mov B 25 Bio-Acimin Gold Mov B 26 Similac Gain Plus Mov 12 B 27 Sunlight lau nhà Mov C 28 Máy giặt Panasonic Mov C 29 Omo nước giặt Mov C 30 Vim – nước tẩy VS mảng bám Mov C 31 Bột giặt Ariel Mov C 32 Bột giặt Omo Mov C 33 Comfort da nhạy cảm Mov C 34 Bột giặt Attack Mov 13 C 35 Downy nước hoa Mov 15 C 36 Bột giặt Alba Mov 33 C (68)38 Picenza Mov C 39 Hạt nêm Knorr Mov D 40 Mì Chíp Chíp Mov D 41 Nước rửa chén Sunlight (QL) Mov D 42 Sữa tươi Ba Vì Mov 10 D 43 Sữa Vina soy Mov 13 D 44 Nước mắm Chin Su ngon Mov 13 D 45 Mì Gấu Đỏ Mov 13 D 46 Dầu ăn Simply Mov 14 D 47 Mì ba miền Mov 14 D 48 Sữa đậu nành (trốn tìm) Mov 14 D 49 Sữa Milo Mov 14 D 50 Trà Xanh C2 O Long Mov 14 D 51 Cà phê Birdy Mov 14 D 52 Mì Kokomi Happy Mov 15 D 53 Milo ống hút chiều Mov 15 D 54 Trà Xanh O độ Mov 15 D 55 Trà Thảo Mộc Dr Thanh Mov 15 D 56 Sanofi Mov 15 D 57 Seven Up Revise Mov 18 D 58 Aji Ngon Mov 25 D 59 Heineken Mov 27 D 60 Trại bò sữa Vinamilk Mov 29 D 61 Gold Soy (HNH) Mov 36 D 62 Aquafina Mov 37 D 63 Sữa chua Ozela Mov 37 D 64 Cháo Gấu Đỏ Mov 37 D 65 Monte Snack Mov D 66 Coca Cola Mov D 67 Cansua 3+ Mov D 68 Sắc Ngọc Khang Mov E 69 Đại tràng Bảo Nguyên Mov E 70 Hoạt huyết nhất Mov E 71 Xương khớp nhất Mov E 72 Trứng Cá Nhất Nhất Mov E 73 TrungCa Mov E 74 Hoạt Huyết Minh Lão Khang Mov E 75 Dáng Hồng Nhất Nhất Mov 13 E 76 Coldi – B Mov 15 E 77 Thuốc ho bổ phế Mov 17 E 78 Thuốc nam trị ho P/H Mov 17 E (69)80 Viên uống hoa thiên Mov 21 E 81 Sâm Nhung Bổ Thận Mov 28 E 82 Cerecaps Mov 28 E 83 Tràng Phục Linh Mov 28 E 84 Nhân Hưng (Xương Khớp) Mov 30 E 85 Delcogen Mov 30 E 86 Hoạt huyết CM3 Mov 30 E 87 Bạch Ngân PV Mov 30 E 88 Viên uống Tây Thi Mov 30 E 89 Hoạt huyết Vina Mov 30 E 90 Rocket Mov 31 E 91 Viêm vai gáy Thái Dương Mov 31 E 92 Bảo Xuân 50+ Mov 33 E 93 Vina Ho Mov 35 E 94 Big Mov 35 E 95 Happi Vision Mov 13 F 96 Yamaha Mov 14 F 97 Grand Mov 15 F 98 Sơn Nice Space Mov 33 F 99 Ngân Hàng ACB (mua nhà) Mov 37 F Group Category Including No Index Group A Personal hygiene Shampoo, shower gel, mouth rinse liquid, … 20 Ad1-Ad20 Group B Food and baby stuff Baby milk powder, instant porridge, baby shower gel, … 06 21-26 Group C Family hygiene Cleansing liquid, dish washing liquid, washing machine, detergent, … 12 27-38 Group D Food, drink and kitchen stuff Additives, food, drink, cooking oil,… 29 39-67 Group E Medicines 27 68-94 Group F House and means of transport (70)
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