Gender Role Assignment in Nari and WOW: A Critical Visual Analysis
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study is an attempt to explore how, through the women's magazine, namely, Nari and
WOW, assign definite gender roles through their textual and visual messages. In exploring this
issue, primarily, Theo Van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress's ideas of the Grammar of Visual Design
and Roger Fowler's idea of lexicalization have been utilized. In doing so, Nari, women’s
magazine, is selected. A brief cross-sectional analysis (syntagmatic and paradigmatic, in
Saussurean sense) is made. The selection of items under analysis is made eclectically. The study
argues that the women's magazines under scrutiny do not contribute to empower women in
general, as their investors claim, but rather they disempower certain women by assigning them
the traditional gender roles. Nari and WOW assign homogenous and reductive gender roles that
are confined to food, fashion, childcare, homemaking and entertainment. And at bottom, the
women participants, whether represented or interactive, are controlled and guided by the
consumerism, capitalism, and male mindset.