The mass media worldwide have set standards for sex roles which are expected to be followed strictly by members of the society. The society is said to define what constitutes perfection as well as the price that must be paid to attain such perfection.  For American woman, Berberick (2010) asserts that the answer is often the media and that social trends highlight how the media and its “ideal” image of femininity have impacted women in unprecedented ways. In defining sex role for men and women,  the   latter   are   often  at  the  receiving  end  in societies because a standard for perfection is set for them to attain or  consider themselves ‘losers’.

In Nigeria, the result of this stereotypes have resulted in a low-self-esteem among women. Most Nigeria women are highly unsatisfied with their physical bodies. This is because women have always been stereotyped in the media as decorative objects for the media pages and screens. Or at most, as women who are only good as babies’ producers and home managers. This is in line with Ford et al (1998) and Kang (1997) assertion that:

Advertising has been accused of stereotyping images of women and previous research has established this fact that advertisement portrays women as been dependent on men, been home makers, regarded as sex objects, been childish, weak, irrational, subordinate creature compared to men. But most prominent is the portrayal of women as sex objects.

Kilbourne’s assertions confirmed this study’s findings that women in Nigeria are consistently concerned with their physical appearances. This is in order to meet up with the set standards in the media. Most of the women sampled confirmed changing their appearances or wanting to do so no matter what it takes in order to look like the models they see in advertisements and of course attract the ideal man.

Advertisements have succeeded in assigning sex roles as determined by the society. At a tender age, boys and girls are indoctrinated through advertisements to believing that there are masculine roles that must and should be for the boys who must grow to be men while the girls are assigned their roles in the kitchen and only good for satisfying the yearnings of men. Berberick (2010) buttressed that:

The representation of women in the media has always been exploitative.  It has, throughout the years, reduced women to being nothing more than objects to be won, prizes to be shown off, and playthings to be abused.  It has also created a definition of beauty that women compare themselves to.  Also, men compare the women in their lives to what they see on television screens, in magazines, and on billboards.  Both the self and society has suffered because of the objectification, sexism, exploitation and assessment.

This false representation of the female sex has many dire consequences on women in societies. In the western countries for instance, Berberick,(2010) opined that:

Because of the harmful “ideal” put forth by the Western media and accepted in large by American patriarchal society there are drastic increases in plastic surgery, a steady (not decreasing) number of sexual assaults, and an overwhelming occurrence of eating disorders.  Yet, when a woman gazes at an airbrushed beauty wishing for the model’s thighs or slender hips she fails to register that the image she sees before her is not real. Our understanding of the images we see seldom takes into consideration the “beauty” we see are fabrications. These images are designed by graphic artists commissioned to change appearance and stimulate desire.

In African continents especially in Nigeria, the situation is not different. In the past, cultural beliefs established that the beauty of a woman lied in how much excess fat her body contained. In some parts of Nigeria for instance, some cultures took their time to prepare a woman for marriage through what was referred to as the ‘fattening process’. This was a process where by a woman was secluded for months and fed with assorted foods to ensure she acquires excess fat before been married off to her husband. Other cultures saw the well-being of women they married off in how ‘fat’ they look.  Excess fat on a woman meant she was well taken care of by her husband. Why slim or thin was considered a high level of malnutrition and poverty in general.

This scenario in Africa has changed over the years with the mass media advertisements often assaulting the senses of the audience with the perfect images as well as the ideal sex roles for men and women which they are expected to conform to if they must be recognised in society. The imbalance between women and men in Nigeria society is captured better by Ojiakor (1997) who stated that “The Nigerian men have always believed that Nigeria belongs to them and women are at best the rent-paying tenants. Over the centuries, women have struggled to say no to this misconception.” But from all indication, such efforts have not yielded positive result since many women especially Nigerian women find they are not happy with themselves or their bodies and the media machine is pushing more images that refuse to let women find peace.

This of course has affected women gravely. Most Nigerian women do not believe that they possess intellectual abilities to help improve themselves and their country. They believe that their worth lies in their physical beauty and ability to satisfy men. Hence the inability to achieve the standards of beauty in advertisements results in women feeling inadequate and generally depressed and angry human beings. From this background, this study asses the representation of stereotypical roles especially in advertising, how negative or positive this has impacted on women in Nigeria especially with regards to their self-esteem.

Sexual Objectification (SO) Theory (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997) postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others. SO occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire (Bartky, 1990). Objectification theory posits that SO of females is likely to contribute to mental health problems that disproportionately affect women (that is, eating disorders, depression, and sexual dysfunction) via two main paths. The first path is direct and overt and involves SO experiences. The second path is indirect and subtle and involves women’s internalization of SO experiences or self-objectification (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997). Self-objectification manifests in  a greater emphasis placed on one’s appearance attributes (rather than competence-based attributes) and in how frequently a woman watches her appearance and experiences her body according to how it looks (McKinley and Hyde, 1996; Noll and Fredrickson, 1998).

Sex stereotyping in advertising

Gender or Sex stereotyping is formed by preconceived ideas whereby males and females are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their sex. It is based on the conviction that men and women are biologically and socially evolved to be suited different tasks: private and familiar to women, and publics and professionals to men. Sex stereotyping can limit the development of the natural talents and abilities of boys and girls, women and men, as well as their educational experiences and life opportunities. Gender stereotypes in mass media have various shades: from women’s images and iconographic representation, to their mention in different topics compared to men, to a general under-representation of women in news (Pozzi, 2012).

There are numerous empirical evidences to show that women are stereotypically represented in the mass media especially through advertising where they assign roles in ways that do not necessarily match reality. This often negative representation of women in advertising and its effect on young women is a source of concern for many researchers (Matlin, 1987). Ferrante et al. (1988) stated that the portrayal of women in television advertisements is criticised by many who believe that women’s depicted roles in commercials have not kept pace with women’s changing roles in society.

Stereotypical portrayals of men According to Doyle (1989), whose research focuses on masculinity children’s television typically shows males as “aggressive, dominant, and engaged in exciting activities from which they receive rewards from others for their ‘masculine’ accomplishments.” Television programming for all ages disproportionately depicts men as serious confident, competent, powerful, and in high-status ‘positions.  Men are presented as hard, tough, independent, sexually aggressive, unafraid, violent, totally in control of all emotions, and-above all-in no way feminine (Wood 1994).

While majority of advertisements in the mass media often portrays men as been powerful, strong and capable of facing any challenges that come their way, women (no matter how independent) are seen to be dependent on men. In African cultures particularly Nigeria as the case study, it is common to see self-sufficient unmarried women mocked that they are nothing without a man behind them to complete their life circle. While boys are mocked for behaving in certain ways like ‘a woman’.

Women are portrayed as weaker sex; they are portrayed as people  who  are  weak;  who  do  not have strength. Thus, when it comes to the advertisement of products that show strengths on television, men are used while women are left out (Asemah et al., 2013). Wood (1994) concludes that these stereotypical representations of males and females reinforce a number of; harmful beliefs. These stereotypes underline the requirement that men must perform, succeed, and conquer in order to be worthy.

Another constant theme in media is that women are caregivers and men are providers. Corresponding to this is the restatement of men’s inability in domestic and nurturing roles. Horovitz (1989) for instance, in commercials men are regularly the butt of jokes for their ignorance about nutrition, child care, and housework when media portray women who work outside of the home, their career lives typically receive little or no attention. Although these characters have titles such as lawyer or doctor, they are shown predominantly in their roles as homemakers, mothers and wives.

Another prominent theme in mediated depictions of relationships between women and men is representation of women as subject to men’s sexual desires. Dispenza (1 975) suggests that women are primarily used by advertisers to sell products to both women and men on the basis of their sexual appeal to men. In female-oriented advertisements, women are invited to identify with the female product representative who is offered the ultimate reward, that is, success with males, as a result of using the product. In male-oriented advertisements, male consumers are promised the portrayed female as the bonus that comes with the product. Overall, it is believed that the unfair representation of the female sex with regards to the male sex can result in negative effects in women. In this case, women’s value of themselves will be reduced drastically to a feeling of worthlessness.

Women status in society

The overall status of women in the world and Nigeria in particular, leaves much to be desired. Beside the fact that women are unfairly represented in the media, Osalor (2012) observed that, women are economically marginalized. According to Osalor (2012):

Women own only one percent of the wealth of the world, receive ten percent share in the overall income of the world, and hold only fourteen percent of the leadership posts and offices in the public and private sectors. Apart from this, women own only one percent of the overall worlds land despite the fact they produce almost half of the overall world’s food.

In education, women are said to have lower literacy rates. Osalor (2012) reported that Over 640 million of the women in the world are illiterates with 60% of the out-of-school     121      million      children     being    girls.    The marginalization of women in these aspects according to Osalor is not only due to legal discrimination but due to subtle barriers such as their work load, mobility and low bargaining positions in the household and community prevent them from taking advantage of their legal rights. In their status of employment, the best office for women as assigned by the society is under the umbrella of housewives. In paid jobs, women can only boast of 24% of senior managerial positions globally, 34% of which are privately held businesses (Osalor, 2012).

Politically, women are still way behind in closing the gap between them and their male counterpart in occupying high political positions. Women are greatly underrepresented in the political arena. This of course hinders their voicing in policy making as the saying that majority carries the vote come to play.  In this regards, Swami et al. (2010) noted that:

In patriarchal societies, the roles and privileges accorded to women are inferior to those assigned to men, and as such, sexism plays a central role in the continuing oppression of women. 

Not only are women under-represented in the news media, their images in media content leave much to be desired. In advertising, women are still portrayed in traditional roles that reinforce gender stereotypes; their photographs are also used as mere decorations in advertisements. This unfair representation of women can be attributed a great deal to the way women are portrayed in the media in sexist manner.

As cited in Berberick (2010), following a set of three studies In 2010 that “examined the associations among sexist beliefs, objectification of others, media exposure and three distinct beauty ideals and practices,” Swami et al. (2010), found that sexism exists where beauty ideals and practices are rigidly consumed and followed. Hence the mass media especially through the medium of advertising is considered the worst culprit in the crime against women in the name of sex stereotyping.

Survey   design   was used to carry out this study.  A structured question was designed in a way to control the responses of the respondents. 200 Benue State University Undergraduate female students were drawn to constitute from the population of study as sample size. The reason for the choice of the female students was owing to the fact that the university is one common place well represented by females. In addition, the fact that these young women are highly exposed to the mass mediated messages particularly advertisements and often times more highly at risk of being influenced and able to influence others due to peer pressure. The researcher with the help of assistant distributed and collected the questionnaires within two days. Primary data retrieved were tabulated using simple percentages to analyse.

Out of the 200 questionnaires distributed to the respondents, only a total of 191 representing 99.5% was recovered. Summary of result obtained from respondents is presented in tables.

Table 1 provides answers to the question aimed at ascertaining the representation of the male and female sexes in advertising.  A clear response from the Table 1 is the fact that women are familiar with advertisements featuring men and women but in stereotypical roles. This indicates the fact that women are represented as sex objects who are often thinner than normal, young and stainless and in most cases provocatively dressed. In addition to this is the fact that the best place for a woman is considered to be in the kitchen. This finding is in line with Miller and Downey (1999) findings that thinness is often presented positively in the media, while being overweight is negative. If women are overweight, they risk being perceived in a negative light, which may subsequently lower their self-esteem. Okunna (2000) stressed that women were portrayed as wayward and of low morality, easily lured by material things, subservient to men, causes of family problems, fit for domestic rather than professional and career roles, lazy and dependent on men, etc.

In contrast to how women are portrayed, the men are considered as the super heroes, who must be there for the women to rely on for everything the family needs. This is consistent with 16.7% responses that men are portrayed as bread winners. In all, there is an overwhelming response from Table 1 that men and women are represented in sexist roles that women are expected to adhere to or face discrimination from society.

A consistent image in advertisement is that of the thin, young, spotless and provocatively dress and poised figures of models. This is often considered the beauty set standards that every woman is expected to strive to attain. Nigerian women who were once upon a time considered beautiful depending on how robust and excess fat they have on their bodies now consider thinness and other accessories presented by the mass media as the ideal beauty. This is evidenced from Table 2 with 49.7% affirming that women can achieve the set beauty standards in the media through excessive exercise, plastic surgery and dieting, through cosmetics and other weight control methods. This is a clear indication of dissatisfaction with the self.

Because of the way men are women are portrayed, most Nigerian women think beauty is the ultimate achievement in life for a woman. In a bid to find out why women have accepted the beauty standards of ad by working towards changing their appearances, the highest respondents representing 42.9% believed that to be acceptable, women must be beautiful and that a woman’s beauty determines her success in life. Congruent with this finding is Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) assertion in their objectification theory that women to varying degrees internalize this outsider view and begin to self-objectify by treating themselves as an object to be looked at and evaluated on the basis of appearance.

To confirm the assumption that Nigerian women have deviated from their belief once upon a time that a woman’s beauty lies in how fat she looks, to desiring the thin young, beauty of ad models, Table 3 shows evidence. It is obvious that the set standards of beauty have been accepted by Nigerian women as 42.9% indicated in table 3. According to data herein table 4, women representing 82.7% agreed to their desire to look like the ad models. This without doubt results from a low self –esteem. If one is not satisfied with God-given physics, next step will be geared towards changing appearances. The inability to achieve this goal results in a depressive mood that leaves such an individual constantly angry.

Table 5 aimed to uncover the consequences emanating from striving to attain ad beauty standards. Result in the table shows the respondents representing 45.5% identi-fying depression, anger, negative self-consciousness as some of the resultant effects on women. Depression and anger, including a constant conscious feeling of oneself not being good enough are common ingredients resulting from a low self-esteem.

The consistent portrayal of women in stereotypical ways through the medium of advertising as sex objects to satisfy men’s yearning, as mothers and care givers, kitchen managers and as fragile and unintelligent creatures who can only be saved by their male folk have left the women in Nigeria feeling worthless and only good if their physiques measure up to the standards portrayed in advertisements.

There is no doubt that playing out sex roles in adver-tising has negative consequences more than positive for the female folk. The finding of this study have revealed that, the greatest consequences of this sex role stereotyping for Nigerian women is the problem of low self-esteem. Most of the female students sampled for this study attest to the fact that, they will rather look like the ad models if the opportunity provides itself. This is a clear case of low self-esteem. This finding is in line with Vonderen and Kinnally (2012) observation that low self-esteem can have a strong association with body dissatisfaction if women are comparing themselves to the thin body ideal that is so prevalent in media .

A self-esteem that is not positive can also result in self-infliction. For instance, most of the female students sampled supported this assertion in that, they can go to any extent including compulsory fasting, taking of bitter herbs and even going through surgical procedures to alter their appearance and attain the acceptable standards as portrayed in the media.

This attitude towards the self can also lead to dire consequences such as depression and anger, which in some cases may result to suicidal thoughts. It is thus not surprising that women sampled complained of depression, anger and a self-conscious feeling that leaves them feeling undesirable and therefore worthless because of their inability to achieve their role as prescribed by the media. Needless to stress that the inability of some young women to alter their bodies to attain acceptable standards can cause the individual to feel unworthy to society. Once, she feels that, she is not good enough to win a man’s interest, there is no reason to live. Also there are the health consequences such as depression, mental instability and so on. The earlier mentioned views are clear indication that advertising is a culprit on how they portray women and the value women attach to themselves. 

This study couched in the objectification theory by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) has contributed to other scholars findings that a relationship exists between how women are portrayed in advertisements and the effect of such portrayal on the self-esteem of women. It is clear from the discourse and findings from respondents of this study that, because of the way sex stereotypes are presented in advertisements- as unintelligent or intelligent, as superior and inferior, as weak and strong etc., most women strive to meet the standards as defined in advertisements with failure resulting in devaluing the self-low self-esteem. 

There is need for competent authorities like government to promote a balanced participation of both women and men in production bodies, administrative bodies and decision-making posts. It is not enough that government of the world are propagating for women emancipations and Nigeria as a nation is calling for 35% affirmative action for women, it is time to take action and ensure that women-friendly policies are established and culprits of women unfair representation are brought to book.

Women bodies fighting the cause of women in the society should engage in intensive campaign towards the need for women to value themselves and reject any form of manipulation and intimidation from advertisements to devalue them. This campaign could include the encouragement of women to strive and own Medias of advertisement as well as take position of managerial position in advertising agencies in order to ensure the balance representation of women based on what is obtainable in reality. Both advertising agencies and the mass media should promote the study, creation and formulation of new ideas to reflect the diversity of the roles of women and men in order to ensure recognition of the negative effects which stereotypes based on sex may have on the physical and mental health of the public in general and of young people in particular.  The school curriculum should be designed in such a way that at both the elementary and tertiary institutions, there are courses engaging the students on the relevance of both sexes in the development of a society. This should help both boys and girls from a tender age understand that both sexes have equal potentials if given a level playing ground.

From the point earlier mentioned, it is also vital to recommend that the family has a great role to play in narrowing the gap in gender segmentation. The family is the first point of socialization for the child. Therefore, how both boys and girls are brought up within the family will determine how they each view the role to be played by the other. If girls are thought to recognise their intellectual potentials as well as encouraged to use such potentials for the building of the society and the boys are thought to see same in the girl child, the world will be a better place. The girl will therefore not see herself as only sex object for men but possess a high self-esteem that will give them courage to take the world by the horns.

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.