Gender-roles in magazine advertisements: A comparison between Egypt and Sweden

Abstract: Middle Eastern countries are highlighted by media today and people all over the world are getting more interested in the Middle Eastern cultures. Egypt is one of the more liberal and west influenced countries in the Middle East but despite that only one survey has been done of Egyptian media contexts trying to examine the construction of men and women and its effects and reflection of the society. The purpose of this paper is to examine how men and women are constructed in Egyptian magazine ads compared to Swedish magazine ads and to compare it to previous western researches on the subject. I will study how ads may reflect or contribute to reinforce or alter gender roles and its meanings within a cultural context. The methodology used is a semiotic analysis combined with literature studies and with interviews with Egyptian media experts. The conclusions of this study is that both men and women in the Egyptian ads are constructed according to the western consumer culture, where women are portrayed as innocent or sexy, dressed in western fashion and where men are portrayed as determined or sexy, associated with work or relaxation. The Egyptian woman’s expanding role in the labour market is not depicted. Furthermore this study concludes that the ads are only reflecting the top of the society, thus the higher classes and their habits and ways of dressing. The vast majority of the society is not targeted by the magazines, which is also shown in the society in that the most common dress worn by women is still the loosely fitting eastern dress and the veil.