Abstract

The present study is concerned with the stereotypical representation of gender in print media of Pakistani newspapers, in English and Urdu. The study specifically focused on discourse analysis critically for aspects of sexism and gender representation. The analysis of the selected texts from both English and Urdu newspapers was done in the light of three-dimensional model presented by Fairclough (1989) and the images were analyzed with objectification theory by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997). The analysis shows gender representation in these newspapers was deep-rooted in their ideological positioning determined by the typical social ideology. The analysis showed that women in Urdu newspaper are represented as objects in provocative manner. They are represented mostly in their stereotypical role like house wives and pieces of enjoyment for men. The English newspaper on the other hand, showed them more in their professional role though with some cultural tags as well.

Key Words

Gender, Objectification, Images, Newspapers, English, Urdu, CDA

Introduction

The term gender is a new concept in the academic and social milieu. Previously, the generic term 'sex' would be used to refer to the physical bodies of females and males and to the social roles assigned to these men and women. That is why a new term ‘gender’ was needed to explain and describe the social roles assigned to different sexes by society (Rubin, 2002). We can see gender in different shapes and presentations of our daily lives such as the ways we carry our dress, our behaviour, and the way we communicate, in print media, magazines, and newspapers and the way gender is presented in advertisements (Susiu, 2007). The ideas of gender are so common that we believe it as if it is a scientific fact (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013). Gender is constructed and sustained discursively. It is performed on daily basis by every individual and the performance of gender is carried in social and cultural discourse (Butler, 1990). Words have the power to construct our identities, and our realities and they can also oppress certain groups (Hohendorf & Pucci, 2014). Due to gender’s complex nature, it has been the subject of different debates to be discussed to decide whether, it is a biological construct or a social construct (Xue, 2008). Gender and discourse not only give the platform of descriptive discourse for males and females but also unveil how language as a symbolic resource, functions to accomplish and build personal, social, and cultural meanings and identities (Popa & Gavriliu, 2015). Print media is one of the important aspects of socialization because it has an impact on the reader's mind and behaviour. The headlines of the newspaper work as the building block of interest presenting the genders and the place (Dragaš, 2012). Different sections of newspapers represent the genders in different ways (Greenwald, 1990). In the absence of institutionalized and well-defined policies for different genders, newspapers in Pakistan represent gender in different ways (Mansoor, 2013).




Purpose of the Study 

Newspaper, being the platform for voicing expressions, conveys different messages and content to entertain readers. But on the other hand, it also represents the sketch of sexism by painting the stereotypes in written discourse in print media. The issue of how gender is presented in the print media in the present-day digital world is significant and cannot be ignored. The present study critically analyzes the discourses in English and Urdu Pakistani newspapers for their representation of gender. The study would scan newspapers for challenging the aspects of sexism and stereotypical representation of gender. Print media like any other medium of expression depict women's apparent characteristics such as their appearance, age, how they carry themselves, their clothes and their status etc. Men on the other side, are the figure of power and control the society and are known by their professions, skills and how they perceive the world around them. These all issues can be solved if the media challenges the stereotypical gender representation and sexism in their content of print media. 

Literature Review

Gender is represented in many ways in the newspaper. Gender is built by cultural and social norms and principles based on the conventions known as femininity and masculinity. It is a consolidating unit that shapes the structure of society and fixes the identities by knowing about the world around us (Meyerson & Kolb, 2000). From a critical view, ideologies are representations of practices formed from particular perspectives in the interest of maintaining unequal power relations of dominance (Lazar, 2005). Being a man and woman is not a predetermined state (Connell, 2009) but a multidimensional concept playing several roles at once like identity, work, power, and sexuality. The concept of gender concept differs from culture to culture because gender is a social concept, not a biological one. IT is a social construct having a scale of achievement for different gender that establishes the gender order recognized through physiological limitations presented by the biology of males and females (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013). That is why, gender, is the result of the behaviour and social codes as feminine and masculine. Some of the institutions that create gender socialization include family, religion, education, popular culture, media, sports, and the legal and criminal systems of justice (Launius & Hassel, 2018). The concept of gender is humanly created through their interaction and environment in society and the social roles assigned are normalized for both genders through the discourse and popular cultures (Blackstone, 2003). 

Media plays a vital role in society by reporting the current situation and events and propagating agendas for interpretation to inform citizens about the numerous issues of their interest and so to construct their identities and social values (Lemish, 2012). From childhood, parents teach their children how to act like a girl and a boy (Collins, 2011), which is further stereotypically represented in media (Popa & Gavriliu, 2015) deliberately ignoring to suggest a healthy surroundings in which both sexes can show their skills and abilities to move forward in life (Jamil, 2018). Media has developed gender stereotypes among youngsters (Ward & Grower, 2020). Media modifies the direction of sociocultural change (Johannessen, 2006) and presents gender roles (Wood, 1994) in the form of objectified texts which are gendered biased (Manisha & Mangla, 2009). The same-gender presentation holds a significant place in the digital world of print communication (Ullah, Khan, Khan & Ibrahim, 2016) researched in previous studies in the socio-cultural context of Pakistani society and feminism-based theories by applying different methods (Sheids, 1996; Rakow, 1986). Print media is the basic source of creating male hegemony in the private and public spheres. The roles of women have been examined like how images in mass media portray traditional sex role stereotypes as homemakers, mothers or wives (Hazir, 2016). That is why, how women are overrepresented in the print media specifically in the entertainment section of the news (Yasmin, Masso, Bukhari & Aboubakar, 2019). The media is the power bank for controlling things socially (Sheerin & Garavan, 2021) and gender is represented differently for different social roles (Rozas, Busse, Barnoya & Garrón, 2021). Media is a projection of reinforcing gender-based standards (Bridges & Wadham, 2020) stereotypically representing gender to attract readers (Rasul, 2019) which later on affects their habits like language use (Nesar, 2019). The stereotypical representation of gender has an impact on the coverage of gender in newspapers (Payne, 2009) strengthening the notion of media being a masculine hegemonic institution (Kian, 2007). Manisha and Mangla (2009) asserted that gender is presented in different media fields differently. Individuals shaping their race, culture and ethnicity are all set by the portrayed writing in media which is the reason for the bias found in gender construction by society. Media literacy and awareness can help women to be safe from getting into health issues because how they portray females can lead them to some serious consequences assumed to be the case in India. The same bias was created by print media in Pakistan and the women are portrayed in a similar fashion through language use and content. These stereotypes are being controlled by protests and increased input efforts by women activists (Mansoor, 2013). 

Gender inequality presentation and propagation lead to either patriarchy or matriarchy (Qadir & Riaz, 2015) reflected in many fields like science and research (Poczatková & K?ibíková, 2017). The never changing situation of gender inequality in Pakistan was reported in The Global Gender Gap Index in 2018 released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), showing unfortunately, Pakistan is not only the second worst country at the top list of gender-equality but also bad in treating women’s rights (Masitoh & Pramesti, 2020). Women’s education is useful to reduce inequality among genders (Daraz & Bilal, 2018) and other socio-economic (Ponthieux & Meurs, 2015) and legal issues (Kabeer, 2005) and so creating gender bias-free society (Dastidar, 2018). Otherwise, females were denied basic rights like education (Paynter, 2018) if we were not bestowed with a blessing like advances in machinery and reduced time consumed in daily chores (Jayachandran, 2015). These like roles were historically linked with the roles of men (known for their bravery and performances in the wars) and women (objects of decoration and appreciated for their flawless beauty) (Balraj, 2015). According to this theory, women are objectified sexually and are treated as if they are the object of use, by men and the media. Media has always played role in shaping the lives of women and their thoughts on how should they be presentable and not presentable in the public sphere. Objectification occurs when a woman's body is considered just a showpiece and the value that she needs besides beauty are not given. Objectification takes place on three related grounds. Firstly, it takes place within actual relational and communal encounters. Secondly, it takes place in graphic media that present social and relational encounters. Thirdly, how they are in the eyes of the public encounter the graphic media which represents and highpoints bodies (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). According to Calogero (2012), “to objectify is to make into and treat something that is not an object as an object” (p. 574). Self-objectification can be the reason for the less participation on the women's side (Gothreau, 2021). 

Reality and the perception of oneself are socially constructed. Discourse is not made of only language but other components have a big role in it like, actions, interactions, values, beliefs, feelings, non-linguistic symbols, tools and objects along with the time and proportions of place (Hohendorf & Pucci, 2014). News discourse is about news and events that give information about the events going on around the place you are living in or about the country. It is largely an addition of language and image that addressees can meet in news reports and news platforms (Daqun, 2013). Discourse analysis has shown immense interest in the study of the news and considers it an independent form of discourse. The prominent features of the news and how discourse analysis achieves its linguistic aspects have been studied from many perspectives (Drid, 2019). Critical discourse analysis is a beneficial framework for the study of gender bias in the media related to political discourse. Language and gender studies in media discourse work with various hypothetical viewpoints supporting each specific work (Sriwimon & Zilli, 2017). It is a powerful framework to study the representation of ideologies. The social setting decides the creation of discourse and its role in building social power (Ramanathan & Hoon, 2015). Being a multidisciplinary method, CDA is for the study of mass media discourse and is also beneficial in unveiling the invisible socio-political problems and schema in numerous areas of language as a social practice and in the process of doing so, potentially, authorizes the individuals and social groups (Abdullah, 2014). Wodak and Meyer (2009) consider critical discourse analysis as a model categorized by multiple principles. This approach is characterized by the shared concerns which lead to "de-mystifying ideologies and power through the systematic and reproducible investigation of semiotic data (written, spoken or visual). The researchers, in this approach, rely on different theoretical backgrounds further differentiated by different data and methodologies adopted for analysis. For Fairclough and Wodak (1997), critical discourse analysis acts as a tool for analysis of the text/language in social practice/surroundings and focuses on the situation or context where social practice takes place. The powers of political, ideological and cultural spheres are the sole aspects of discursive events. The discursive event is not only the production but also the interpretation of a text. So, in this way, the discursive event is text as well as practice. Motion and Leitch (2007) pinpoint Foucault's expressions in discourse as "statements that formed the objects, concepts, subjects and strategies within discourses" (p.264). 

The first aspect of the CDA is to discuss social issues (Mirzaee & Hamidi, 2012). CDA is not only concerned with language and language use but also pays attention to the linguistic characters which are connected with social and ethnic processes. For Janks (1997), the CDA approach consists of three inter-related dimensions of discourse which are as given below:

1. The object of analysis (including verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts). 

2. The processes by means of which the object is produced and received (writing/ speaking/designing and reading/listening/viewing) by human subjects. 

3. The socio-historical conditions govern these processes. 

According to Fairclough (1997), each of these dimensions requires a different kind of analysis:

1. text analysis (description) 

2. processing analysis (interpretation)

3. social analysis (explanation)   

This approach is beneficial because it makes you emphasize the signifiers that build the text and particular linguistic choices (Janks, 1997). The study of a language is important to be acquainted with the discourses. CDA is considered to be the practice of language in society (Gee, 2001). Nurjannah (2018) writes that "it can be generalized that CDA is concerned with scrutinizing the power and ideologies embedded in both linguistic and social aspects" (p.20). 

The choice of Fairclough's (1989) CDA is very much suitable for the study of newspapers because it presents three stages of discourse, which are given below:

a. Description: The feature of the presentation is described with the help of a description.

b. Interpretation: It studies the connection between text and interaction.

c. Explanation: It relates to the interaction with the social setting.

Methodology

The present study was qualitative in nature. The study was kaleidoscopic in nature and all the relevant parts of the newspapers for gender construction were critically analyzed. A survey descriptive research design was used for the analysis of the selected texts. The study selected one English and one Urdu newspaper to critically analyze the content for gender construction. The sample of the current study contained ten newspapers from The Daily Jang (Urdu) and ten newspapers from Dawn (English), and Pakistani newspapers. The selected newspapers were taken from the year 2021 for Dawn and 2021-22 are selected for Roznama Jang. The newspapers were read widely for the contents to be analyzed in light of the selected framework.

The selected newspapers are widely read in Pakistan and are more news-sensitive than magazines. These newspapers inform about social and political movements in the county. These newspapers were analyzed with the help of objectification theory by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997). This theory was applied to study gender construction and sexism. The concept behind the objectification theory is to treat something/someone as an object with the knowledge of the fact, of that thing/someone, is not an object. It is about treating something/someone in such a way, that it seems to be controlled, operated and presented as a product known by its physical properties/appearances. The proposed study also used the three stages model presented by Fairclough (1989). From these three stages, the first two were the tools for analysis, description stage and interpretation stage to access the third stage.  The following three stages of the model were used for analysis.




 

Table 1

Fairclough (1989) Three-Dimensional Model

TEXT: Description Stage	DISCURSIVE PRACTICE:           Interpretation Stage	SOCIAL PRACTICE:   Explanation Stage
Linguistic features examined Choices in vocabulary (wording) Grammar (transitivity, passivation) Text structure (text is organized or not) Thematic choice, turn-taking system	Process of production/consumption Fairclough (1989) says, "Interpretation is concerned with the Relationship between text and interaction with seeing the text as the product of a process of production and as a resource in the process of interpretation.The discursive stage studies how discourse is produced, who .produces it, and the process of production, and it also studies who are the consumers of discourse and how are they consuming it. For instance, news reports, and speeches.	Social Significance and Relationship The relationship between discourse and society is examined. Discourse is explained in the light of social context and situation.

 


This framework was chosen to analyze the collected data. The coding of the text was done with help of the linguistic features of vocabulary, grammar, punctuations, and non-linguistic features (visuals) because Fairclough (1985, p. 27) is of the view that visuals are “perceived by the interpreter”. “A photograph is often as important in getting across the ‘message’ of a report and very often visuals and ‘verbals’ operate in mutually reinforcing which makes them very difficult to disentangle” (Fairclough, 1985, p. 28).  “The features related to linguistics will help in understanding the “power relations and ideological process in discourse” (Fairclough, 1985, p. 109).

Figure 1

Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 1989, p. 25)



Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model consists of three dimensions:

1. Description: Text analysis, concerned with the formal properties of the text.

2. Interpretation: Processing analysis, concerned with the relationship between text and interaction i.e., looking into the text as a creation of the process of production and a resource in the procedure of context and their social impacts. 

3. Explanation: Social analysis is about the relationship between interaction and social context and their social impacts. 

The three-dimensional model is the analytical structure for studying the relationship between language and society. Any study on communicative discourse must use the three dimensions presented by Fairclough. The model gives factual aspects that a text cannot be studied or scrutinized in a vacuum; any text must be analyzed from the perspective of the text's relationship with other texts and its social context (Amoli, 2016). 

These dimensions were about the scrutiny of the power relations hidden in the social structures. The structures gave conductive ground for the analysis of the production and distribution of certain kinds of texts while showing other devaluations (Fairclough, 1992a). First, textual analysis, of selected newspapers, was done in the study. This textual analysis was done with the help of the linguistic features of lexicogrammar including modality, nominalization, transitivity and lexis (Fairclough, 2001). The study, according to its scope had only considered the examination of structures related to transitivity and had studied the lexis present in the newspaper texts. The reason for selecting transitivity as an analytical tool for the three-dimensional model was, that it presented the linguistic means for demonstrating a social reality which was embedded in its process types and bringing forward the ideologies which were not accessible to the naked eye to a reader (Halliday, 2014). The transitivity process included material, mental, verbal process and relational processes. The analysis of selected newspapers' text, and sentence structures, was studied through these processes. Using transitivity as an analytical tool, unveiled ideologies. The choice of lexical items was also used because it had a significant role in studying the gender ideologies presented in newspapers. According to Van Dijk (1991), journalist word choice always presents the ideologies, which have an impact on groups and individuals. Fairclough's dimensions, interpretation and explanation adopted in the study were useful for the social analysis of the selected texts from the newspaper.     

The newspapers were analyzed with the help of objectification theory by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997). This theory was applied to the study of gender construction and sexism. The concept behind the objectification theory is to treat something/someone as an object with the knowledge of the fact, of that thing/someone, is not an object. It is about treating something/someone in such a way, that it seems to be controlled, operated and presented as a product known by its physical properties/appearances.

Data Analysis

News discourse is part of social practice. In the discourse analysis of the news reports, the hidden ideology, power and language were studied and explained in institutional and social contexts. The interaction between the socio-cultural background and the production and consumption of the text were explained with keeping the ideology and power in mind. The analysis of both newspapers was done through the same tools. The first stage was observed through the material process and objectification theory. The lexical choices were also considered for the study of the ideologies which create gender stereotypes. The Women in Dawn were represented with exemplary talent, and professional excellence and celebrated for their achievement. The writer has used many lexical choices to create the women's identity as powerful people in their professional life. “The participants discussed the goals for achieving women empowerment in the Pakistani context, as well as the role of change-makers, cooperation and society at large in this quest” (Dawn, September 11, 2021, p.8). The actor here is the "participants" material process of "achieving women empowerment" and the goal is the "role of the change makers, cooperation and society at large in this quest". 

Why for the female gender, it is difficult to become the symbol of power and intelligence because of the absence of the change makers and society on a big scale. The lexical choices showed how gender was represented and how the context was created for this presentation; the empowerment of women in the Pakistani context and quest showed that it is a difficult task to be carried out. “Many professional women are mothers and it is important for them to mould children to become useful members of society” (Dawn, September 11, 2021, p.8). In the Pakistani context, even working women are responsible for everything at home. The training of children is even their responsibility. The men, on the other hand, are represented as showing the way to professional success. “It is important for male senior executives to be champions of change and craft policies that support women professionals to realize their talents and passion” (Dawn, September 11, 2021, p.8). The lexical items like “male senior executives”, “champions of change”, “support women” and “to realize their talents and passions” and the context show that without a male figure, it is impossible for women to achieve their goals because only men are considered the champions of their field and are good at whatever they do. But the women have different views about themselves, “When I play, I feel like a strong woman. I can imagine myself as a woman who can do anything, who can make her dreams come true", one ex-player told the BBC ” (Dawn, p.8, 12th September 2021). The lexis “imagine” and “dreams come true” show the desires and strength of the women to achieve their goals. Although these desires of theirs and their determination always appear in the form of questions from men's side. The same discrimination is even observed in the initiatives taken by the government, which are reflected in the advertisements for such new initiatives. 

??????? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? (Roznama Jang, back page, 11th September, 2021).

????? ????? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ? ????? ???????? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ????????           (Roznama Jang, front page, 9th September, 2021).

The lexis ?????? ??????? ‘historical initiatives’ show the new trends by rejecting the prehistoric practice of subjugating women and making them independent in their lives. But the irony is that even such schemes are mostly in the hands of the males. The same advertisements were found in both English and Urdu newspapers. In this analysis, the transitivity structures used were mental, verbal and relational. ????? ?? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ?? ???? ????? ????? ???? ??? (Roznama Jang, city page, 14th September, 2021).

The challenges faced by female are always more than the challenges faced by a male because male enjoys freedom of movement and many other types of liberties which are denied to females. As a result, females are always dependent on males for their survival. Even, society, as a whole is considered male where females are, only to serve the males. Females are used as commodities by males in this male dominant society. The same cultural concept is reflected in newspapers, which we find in Urdu newspapers more than in English newspapers. The same representation of the female gender is reflected in the section of Urdu newspaper where questions are asked.  ????? ?? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?? ??????? (Roznama Jang, Section, Iqraa 10 June, 2022). 

The above question asked in the newspaper by a religious scholar shows the mental level of the readers of the newspaper. The females are considered so weak and dependent that they cannot even go to a doctor for a checkup alone. The males, on the other hand, are free to go for their checkups to either a male or a female doctor. The lack of trust in females is reflected in the question asked. Females are not trusted by males and that is why are not allowed to go alone to any doctors; although, it is the doctor (the male one) who is dangerous not the female. In this chauvinistic society, instead of the guilty one (the male here), the innocent one's movement (that of the female) is restricted. If the same question is interpreted in the light of the previous excerpt, we can see how many challenges females have when they live in the world of males who are always ready to tear them apart for their vicious desires. The Urdu newspapers particularly are full of such instances where gender is represented in such a way that the females are represented as weak and dependent while the males are as independent and strong. The same was found in the heightened form of images in the newspaper. 

The Urdu and English newspapers in Pakistan are basically meant for the same cultural groups with different classes representing gender in different ways. The concept behind the objectification theory was to treat something/someone as an object with the knowledge of the fact, of that thing/someone is not an object only. It was about treating something/someone in such a way, that it seemed to be controlled, operated and presented as a product known by its physical properties/appearances.

Figure 2

Metropolitan Leisure (The Metra Funnies, Dawn, p. 16, 11th September. 2021)

The image above is a funny image about married life where a husband is a working man, doing a job and the wife is staying at home. The depiction of the sketch clearly showed how a woman was depicted by the newspaper. In this image, the dialogue exchange showed that women are very much concerned about their weight, which if increased, will be the cause of tension because it will make them feel that they cannot be part of society. Women get worried about their weight gain because it is the need of society where one cannot be called fashionable or modern unless they are presentable in their clothing style and the way they speak and carry themselves. 

Figure 3

Metropolitan Leisure (The Metra Funnies, Dawn, p. 16, 7th September.2021)

In this image, the sketcher has tried to show that women are meant to clean the house, do dishes and cook food. The husband in the picture brought flowers for the wife on the way back home but the wife is still wearing the apron and doing the house chores. She is happy for a while to see her husband with flowers in his hands but then she remembers that she had just cleaned the floor and alerts the husband not to enter the room as she has just finished cleaning and mopping. This image shows that women cannot think outside of the house boundaries and even cannot enjoy the gifts brought for them by their husbands as a token of love. She has the responsibilities of being a mother and wife which are killing the innocent joys of married life. The images clearly and aptly depict the representation of both male and female gender in terms of their needs, responsibilities and wishes. 

Figure 4

Dawn, p.1, 7th September 2021

The choice of the lexis, in the image above for Mercedes-Benz, shows that dominance, power and strength are always related to men. Men are the dominant figure of society and they are seen as a symbol of power and strength. The Mercedes in the image is parked in a way that its front right wheel is a bit turned towards the inside which shows the rough look of the car, making it more desirable because the look shows strength, dominance and power. These terms are mostly used for men. The next image is about the crew of a space mission. The description shows how they are represented.  

Figure 5

Dawn, page 12, 17th September 2021



The words used by the newspapers are always the source of a big impact on society and in this image, one can clearly see how females and males are presented and what their seats in the "first all-civilian crew space mission", show.  The female on the top right is showing "hope", hope is good, and one should be hanging on to it but if we look at the male figures what they are presenting, is leadership, prosperity and generosity. Women's poor souls are left with just hope that they can be the image of strength, power, responsibility and many other things, which can build up a good society. This image shows that the leadership badge is only for men and they are the humans who can play role in prosperity and become a figure of generosity. The female is represented as 'hope' because we hope that they may be the centre of power one day and can be a source of prosperity and generosity. 

This type of representation of women was found in both Urdu and English newspapers with the help of images objectifying the female gender to attract the audience for different reasons. The Urdu newspaper, particularly, was found out having more such images than English newspapers. Such images in English newspapers were represented mostly with the help of words. The reason for this might be the influence of English culture on the English language in Pakistan because the culture no doubt is always reflected through language. The English newspapers were more word-centred on gender representation, while the Urdu newspapers contained both verbal and pictorial representations of gender. The male gender was represented more in terms of performing certain jobs or in search of such opportunities. The female gender, on the other hand, was found represented as a showpiece to advertise the things helping is increasing one’s physical charms. 

Figure 6

(Roznama Jang, City page 10 June, 2022)



??"

The woman in the picture is represented as an object because it can be analyzed by the lexical choices of the writer which shows that it is presented as something which is only there on the page to entertain the readers because in Pakistan most people read newspapers in the morning or in the evening with a cup of tea. Women, be it electronic media or print media, have been a source of entertainment for people because our media is always showing women as fragile and someone who can be just perfect for staying in a composed manner. On the pages of a newspaper, women have always been part of advertisements like shampoo, weight loss, medicine and soap. This type of representation of the female gender, especially, has created this craze for being perfect which is not possible and people have gone to the extreme level to attain their goal of being a symbol of perfection in the world which is now a field of competition for the best physical appearances. The magazines, especially, are sold by including such attractions on almost every page of Urdu newspapers. Women are represented differently when it is a different matter, for example, in any advertisement for job opportunities for women. In the following image, the woman is represented differently but again with some cultural constraints.

Figure 7

Roznama Jang, 11th June 2022



In the above advertisement, we can see that the word ??? ????? stands for being independent. This statement shows that women have not been provided with full freedom. They needed men and women development departments will guide women to groom themselves in a way that they can be beneficial to society. But even this freedom is freedom with some constraints like the cultural concept of covering the head shown in the image. The historical initiatives of the government are for making females financially independent but not socially as reflected in the image. The woman is supposed to cover her head even going for a job outside their home though gender equality is claimed in the same advertisement.  

Both English and Urdu newspapers represented gender in similar and different ways. The similarity in this representation was found in representing males as strong, responsible, independent and performing some jobs for the family because being the head of the family, they have to be so. The females, on the hand, were represented as weak, dependent and showpieces for men. The responsible key positions are always advertised with masculine figures while the females are objectified to attract the males as if to claim their bounty (as a reward or due right to possess and use females according to their desires).   

The difference was found though in the representation too. In Urdu newspapers, the poetic touch through the display (images) was more focused than in English newspapers. The masculine support for the survival of female lives was focused on Urdu newspapers than in English. In English, the commercial purposes were more focused than the representation. The Urdu newspapers included fictional descriptions with the help of images and literary language. English, on the other hand, focused on the technical aspects of life and represented gender in such terms. The Urdu newspaper on the hand, included imaginary things, which are considered significant for survival socially, in the form of being accepted by the more successful men were focused like physical fitness etc. 

The masculine gender was represented the same in both newspapers in terms of attracting the audience to participate from commercial points of view, having different attractions for both genders but the way of attraction was different in these newspapers. In English newspapers, the writers relied on words in a technical sense, while in Urdu newspapers, on images and literary type of language, probably assuming that Urdu readers have not come out of the romantic aspects of life while English readers (maybe because of their familiarity with English literature) are more concerned with the technical aspects of life, not the romantic and domestic ones. Even, the female images in English newspapers, were sometimes the same in terms of dress, because the focus was on something else not on dress. though even in the case of the same dress, the underlying conditions are the same for both gender, the one marginalized and the other enjoying a prestigious and stable position in society. That is why, one gender is represented through the other for making sure that the survival of one (females) lies in the success of the other (male) and to secure that, the male could look attractive by being secure from an economic perspective while the female from physical perspectives. The Urdu newspaper was full of such images where the female gender was objectified for attracting another gender. The English newspaper, on the other hand, highlighted some opportunities for a female to make sure of financial independence and so to make sure of their place in society.   

Conclusion

The study was concerned with the representation of gender in newspapers in Pakistan. The study specifically analyzed the discourse critically in these newspapers. The linguistic resources were applied to achieve answer the questions of the present research. Studying the text, from the perspective of the social context, the researcher noted the findings which showed how newspaper discourse was shaped by the editors’ ideology and how ideology was embedded skillfully in the discourses. The study also showed that the linguistic choices were not just randomly selected but were intentionally written under the power of ideology. The representation in these newspapers was deep-rooted in their ideological positioning determined by the typical social ideology. The analysis also revealed that the discourses of news are the results of social construction and are the products of principles and values, which are preserved and strengthened by languages and discourses. The newspapers are indeed not a see-through representation of the world but are the built realities which give birth to different ideologies.  

The analysis revealed how transitivity structures change with the lexical choices and themes to highlight that news reports have a huge impact on the minds of readers. The newspapers not only provide text on some facts but also construct ideology and it is implanted in the reporters’ perspective of viewing things and the behaviour they have toward the subject under observation. In the investigation of gender representation through discourse, power, and ideology, the study focus was to make readers acquainted with critical thinking and awareness. When they are reading a newspaper and engage themselves with the matters of who is writing, (the producer) and who is reading (the consumer). The analysis showed that women in Urdu newspapers are represented as objects in a provocative manner. They are represented mostly in their stereotypical roles like house wives and pieces of enjoyment for men. The English newspaper, on the other hand, showed them more in their professional role though with some cultural tags as well.

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