Sex-Role Portrayals and the Gender of Nations
Author(s): Laura M. Milner and James M. Collins
Source: Journal of Advertising, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 67-79
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Sex-Role Portrayals and the Gender of Nations
Laura M. Milner and James M. Collins
This study compares television advertisements from Japan, Russia, Sweden, and the United States are
compared. Consistent with Hofstede's framework which suggests that countries may be characterized along a
continuum from masculine to feminine, the authors found that television advertisements from feminine
countries featured more depictions of relationships for male and female characters than did masculine
countries. Expectations of fewer gender differences in feminine countries than in masculine countries and of
greater depictions of productivity being found in television advertisements from masculine countries were not
realized, however. Implications of these findings for the international advertiser are considered, and future
directions for research are suggested.
Laura M. Milner (Ph.D., Kansas
State University) is Professor of
Marketing in the School of
Management at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
Jamee M. Colline (Ph.D.,
University of Texas at Austin) is
Associate Professor of Business
Administration in the School of
Management at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
Acknowledgements: The authors
thank Tonya Bauman, Hakan Funck,
Anna Grigoreva, Sergei Ivanov, Taro
Kanazawa, Oksana Khavanskaya,
Virginia Lane, Jeanette ? iva,
Mayumi Sato, Jonas Sonderberg,
Rum i ko Tachibana, Joyce Whitehorn,
Shintaro Yasuda, and James Yauney
for their assistance in data collection.
Gratitude to three anonymous
reviewers and to Barbara B. Stern is
also expressed for their insightful
suggestions.
Sex-role portrayal in advertisements is an extensively studied topic. Re-
searchers' interest in this area results from a variety of factors, the most
important of which are that marketers use gender as a primary segmenta-
tion variable and that social scientists use advertisements to examine gen-
der stereotyping in the media. These research efforts typically focus on
female portrayals. They consistently indicate that women often are not
favorably portrayed and that their roles are frequently narrowly defined
(see Belkaoui and Belkaoui 1976; Busby 1975; Courtney and Lockeretz
1971; Dominick and Rauch 1972; Ferguson, Kreshel and Tinkham 1990;
Hawkins and Coney 1976; Lysonski 1983; 1985; McArthur and Resco 1975;
McCree, Corder and Haizlip 1974; Mosher 1976; Poe 1976; Prather and Fidell
1975; Scheibe 1979; Schneider and Schneider 1979; Sengupta 1995; Sexton
and Haberman 1974; Venkatesan and Losco 1975; Whipple and Courtney
1985). Although this phenomenon is well-studied in the United States, under-
standing of sex-role portrayal in an international context is limited because
there are so few studies (but see Ford, et al. 1994; Gendall and Blakeley 1990;
Gilly 1988; Razzouk and Harmon 1986; Robbins and Paksoy 1989; Sengupta
1995; Wiles and Tjernlund 1991; Wiles, Wiles and Tjernlund 1995).
Hence, the first major goal of the current study is to show that sex-role
portrayal can be an artifact of the cultures that frame the phenomena being
studied. When research is expanded to embrace a different spectrum of
countries, a different picture emerges. This picture indicates that when
feminine values have a dominant influence on a culture, this influence is
reflected in the culture's advertisements. Thus, the second m^jor objective is to
show that cross-cultural sex-role portrayals may be systematically predicted.
This paper begins with a review of relevant research by Geert Hofstede.
His research in cross-cultural work values is increasingly utilized by mar-
keters and provides a framework for the current study. Second, relevant
cross-cultural sex-role research is reviewed, with a special emphasis on a
study by Gilly (1988), whose methods are used in this research. Third, the
methodology and results of the current study are described. Finally, impli-
cations of the current study for academics and practitioners are discussed,
and suggestions for future research are provided.
Hofstede
Hofstede's Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-
Related Values (1980) represents a significant and innovative study of mana-
Journal of Advertising,
Volume XXIX, Number 1
Spring 2000
68 The Journal of Advertising
gerial issues in a cross-cultural context. Hofstede col-
lected 117,000 questionnaires from 88,000 respon-
dents in 20 languages, 66 countries, and 50 occupa-
tions. His analysis delineated four important dimen-
sions that can be used to classify the 53 countries and
regions studied: Individualism, society's preference
for a group or individual orientation; Uncertainty
Avoidance, a culture's tolerance for uncertainty;
Power Distance, societal desire for hierarchy or egali-
tarianism; and Masculinity, a sex-role dimension.
Later research resulted in the addition of a fifth di-
mension, Long-term Orientation (Hofstede and Bond
1988), the cultural perspective on a long-term vs. a
short-term basis. The placement of countries not in-
cluded in the original research such as China and
Russia was subsequently estimated (Hofstede 1993).
Hofstede's research represents a major advance-
ment in the study of organizational theory, as indi-
cated by his impact on international business research
(Chandy and Williams 1994; Sondergaard 1994). Be-
ginning in the 1990's, several marketing researchers
recognized the potential applicability of Hofstede's
dimensions on work-related values to marketing re-
search problems (Albers-Miller 1996; Albers-Miller
and Gelb 1996; de Mooij 1998; Lynn, Zinkhan and
Harris 1993; Milner 1994; Milner and Collins 1998;
Milner, Fodness and Speece 1993; Wiles, Wiles and
Tjernlund 1995). For instance, Albers-Miller utilized
Hofstede's dimensions to examine business periodi-
cals from 11 countries and found that with the excep-
tion of the Individualism category, the other three
are correlated with specific advertising appeals. For
example, untamed, magic and youth are appeals nega-
tively correlated with Uncertainty Avoidance. When
Lynn, Zinkhan and Harris utilized Hofstede's dimen-
sions to examine consumer tipping in 30 countries,
they found that tipping was not highly utilized in coun-
tries that are low on Power Distance or on Masculinity.
The current study focuses on the Masculinity di-
mension. Hofstede describes the dimension in the
following way:
Masculinity stands for a preference in society for
achievement, heroism, assert iv en ess, and mate-
rial success. Its opposite, Femininity, stands for a
preference for relationships, modesty, caring for
the weak, and the quality of life. This fundamental
issue addressed by this dimension is the way in
which a society allocates social (as opposed to bio-
logical) roles to the sexes.
Some societies strive for maximum social differen-
tiation between the sexes. The norm is then that
men are given the more outgoing, assertive roles
and women the caring, nurturing roles....
Other societies strive for minimal social differen-
tiation between the sexes. This means that some
women can take assertive roles if they want but
especially that some men can take relationship-
oriented, modest, caring roles if they want to....The
minimum-social-difTerentiation societies in com-
parison with their opposite, the maximum-social-
differentiation societies, will permeate their insti-
tutions with a care, quality-of-life oriented men-
tality. Such societies become "welfare societies" in
which caring for all members, even the weakest, is
an important goal for men as well as women.
...the Masculinity-Femininity dimension relates to
people's self-concept: who am I and what is my
task in life?
(Hofstede 1984, p. 84)
de Mooij (1998) notes that this dimension "...discrimi-
nates between cultures particularly with respect to
values related to winning, success, and status, which
are much used in advertising appeals....for advertis-
ing and branding, this dimension can be used to dis-
tinguish important cultural differences with respect
to values and motivations like achievement, accom-
plishment, and success" (p. 82).
What Hofstede provides is a method for describing
what we call the "gender of a country." That is, both
ends of his spectrum represent figuratively male coun-
tries and female countries. Hofstede thus elevates
the level of discourse on gender to a cultural plane.
Milner and Collins (1998) suggest that gender of a
nation may be superior to gender of the depicted char-
acter in predicting sex-role portrayals in television
advertisements. Therefore, our study proposes this
dimension as likely to discriminate among countries
in regard to sex role portrayal in television advertis-
ing. Although some studies have examined the explicit
relationship between sex-role portrayal in print adver-
tisements and Hofstede's ranking, none have done so
in the context of television advertising. We now turn to
the application of Hofstede's research in the investiga-
tion of television advertising and sex roles.
Cross-cultural Sex-role Portrayal
Research
The literature addressing sex-role portrayal in the
media is quite large, and it is extremely difficult to
convey the rich substance of this work in a few short
paragraphs. (See Gilly 1988, Lysonski 1985, Milner
1994, and Whipple and Courtney 1985 for reviews.)
However, to provide a context for the current study,
several cross-cultural sex-role studies involving
Hofstede's Masculinity dimension along with Gill/s
Spring 2000 69
work on advertisements are discussed. Gilly (1988)
placed the issue of sex-role advertising in the fore-
front of cross-cultural research in her study of sex-
role portrayals on television commercials in Austra-
lia, Mexico, and the United States. She anticipated
that Australian and Mexican advertisements would
feature more negative sex-role portrayals of women
than advertisements in the United States. However,
her results indicate that "Australian advertisements
show somewhat fewer sex role differences and Mexi-
can advertisements show slightly more sex role dif-
ferences than U.S. advertisements" (p. 75).
In the decade following Gilly's work, other research-
ers compared sex-role portrayals in different cultures
(Ford, LaTour Honeycutt and Joseph 1994; Robbins
and Paksoy 1989; Sengupta 1995; Wee, Choong and
Tambyah 1995; Wiles and Tjernlund 1991; Wiles,
Wiles and Tjernlund 1995). Although important and
interesting, this research generally suffers from what
Albers-Miller (1996) claims is a problem in most cross-
cultural advertising research?lack of a priori justifi-
cation. That is, many studies are based on data from
countries that are selected on the basis of convenience
rather than theory. However, Milner, Fodness and
Speece (1993) did apply Hofstede's concepts to pro-
vide a post-hoc explanation for Gilly's findings by
suggesting that the results are ordered as Hofstede's
taxonomy would predict: Australia (#35), the United
States (#36), and Mexico (#45). These nations are on
the masculine end of Hofstede's spectrum, which may
explain why the results among the countries Gilly
studied were not dramatically different. When Milner
and Collins (1998) compared Gilly's data with data
from Turkey, a feminine country, they found that, in
contrast to the United States, Australia and Mexico,
Turkish advertisements are less likely to feature pro-
ductivity themes and are more likely to feature rela-
tionship themes and portray minimal differences be-
tween male and female sex roles.
Wiles, Wiles and Tjernlund (1995) used Hofstede's
taxonomy with mixed results in their examination of
sex role portrayals in magazine advertisements pub-
lished in a masculine country (United States) and two
feminine countries (Sweden and The Netherlands). All
three countries tend to show men rather than women
in working roles; however, the authors found that these
differences were less often encountered in Sweden and
The Netherlands than in the United States.
de Mooij (1998) links Hofstede's dimensions to ad-
vertisements from different countries. For instance,
she points out the following:
Italian and German television commercials show
bonding between men or between women. In mas-
culine countries, one sees the combinations of fa-
ther-son or mother-daughter, while in feminine
cultures one also frequently sees the combinations
father-daughter and mother-son....A German
commercial...shows a number of housewives cook-
ing together, a scene that would not be accepted in
the Netherlands, where couples are shown cook-
ing or cleaning the dishes together....Claims of
masculine cultures are more task-or success ori-
ented, whereas claims of feminine cultures will be
more affiliation- and relationship oriented. Ger-
man commercials for detergents tend to argue the
effectiveness of the deter gent....The actress is cast
in the role of her job of being an effective house-
wife, not a caring mother. In a feminine culture
like the Netherlands, a more affiliation-oriented
approach will be more successful, casting the
woman in her role of effective mother who has a
happy relationship with her children (p. 194-95).
However, de Mooij's evidence is anecdotal, and in
consequence, not sufficiently rigorous for advertising
research.
Whereas Milner and Collins (1998) simply con-
trasted Turkish television data to Gilly's pre-existing
data, the current study presents the first major sys-
tematic examination of television advertisements from
a range of countries that Hofstede designated as mas-
culine and feminine. Table 1 shows the placement of
these countries on Hofstede's masculinity index.
The selection of these countries clearly is not hap-
hazard, for both endpoints on Hofstede's ordering are
included. The United States and Russia provide addi-
tional representative observations that are nicely
spaced between the two extremes. Thus, two mascu-
line countries and two feminine countries are utilized
in the current study.
The efficacy of Hofstede's rankings is corroborated
by a number of classic measures of female welfare:
legislative representation, employment rates, sala-
ries and social supports such as daycare availability.
For instance, in Sweden, 33% of parliamentary seats
are held by women (MacFarquhar 1994). In the 70s,
paid parental leave was introduced as well as child
care expansion (Peterson 1993). Labor market par-
ticipation is 85% for Swedish women with children
under 6 (Gustafsson and Bruyn-Hundt 1991).
Svensson (1995) notes that as of the late 1980s, Swed-
ish women earned as much as 90% as men. In Russia
until the late 1980s, there was a quota of 35% female
representation in the Duma. However, when the So-
viet Union collapsed, this external constraint van-
ished, and women's representation has fallen to 9.8%
of the total legislative number (Buckley 1997). Over
50% of the Russian work force is female, and there
70 The Journal of Advertising
Table 1
Hofstede's Masculinity Index Rankings of Nations Studied
Country Hofstede's Masculinity Ranking1
Sweden 1
Russia Lower Third2
United States 36
Japan 50
1 The higher the ranking, the more masculine the country.
2 Russia's placement was estimated by Hofstede in 1993; otherwise they are ranked as Hofstede ranked them in 1984.
exists a policy of a three-year guaranteed maternity
leave after the birth of a baby (Puffer 1993). During
the Soviet era, women's pay averaged 70% of men's,
though now it averages only 40% (Linz 1996).
In Japan, only 6.7% of legislators are women. Japa-
nese women earn 57% of men's earnings (The Econo-
mist 1996). do Rossario (1992) notes that women's
employment in Japan follows an "M" curve with al-
most 80% of women between ages 20 and 24 working
but by ages 30-34, only 50% hold jobs. After the chil-
dren grow up, women frequently rejoin the work force.
In 1991, the Japanese Diet passed the Child-Care
Leave law saying that companies should provide par-
ents up to one year of leave to care for new borns, but
apparently this was promoted because of labor short-
ages and was thus designed to make working more
attractive to Japanese women rather than a concern
for civil rights (do Rossario 1992). The Economist
(1996) notes that government is now supporting child
care. In the U.S., 11% of lawmakers are women (The
Economist 1996; Congressional Directory 1997). Ac-
cording to Sepielli and Palumbo (1994), 59% of adult
women worked but Bellafante (1998) notes that Ameri-
can women earn only 76% of what men make. The
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 mandates that
in companies of 50 employees or more, an unpaid
leave with health care coverage for an absence of up
to 3 months in a 12 month period must be granted
upon request by either a male employee or a female
employee to care for family (Mathis and Jackson 1997).
These indices of female well-being show that there is
no place where women are better off than men; how-
ever in the feminine countries of Russia and Sweden
women have, in a relative sense, more opportunity
and advantages than their counterparts in Japan and
the United States.
Hypotheses
The first essential element in Hofstede's masculin-
ity dimension is the preference for masculine or femi-
nine values in a culture; for whereas masculine soci-
eties strive for material success, achievement and
productivity, feminine societies value relationships.
Research (Albers-Miller 1996; Albers-Miller and Gelb
1996; Milner and Collins 1998) shows that themes
related to these values appear in print and television
advertisements. Thus, commercials in feminine coun-
tries are predicted to feature more relationship themes
for male and female characters whereas television
advertisements in masculine countries are predicted
to feature productivity themes prominently for both
sexes. This leads to two hypotheses:
HI: Characters are more likely to be depicted
in relationships with others in feminine
countries than in masculine countries, and
there will be a rank ordering with Swe-
den featuring more characters in relation-
ships than Russia, which will feature more
characters in relationships than the
United States,
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