The awareness of sexism in food and beverage advertisements among a young, Maltese, male audience

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation study is to investigate the persistence of a male supremacist culture in Malta. Through the conduction of two focus groups with five participants each, the study was able to analyse how aware young, Maltese men, are of sexism in audio-visual advertising, and examine their stances on gender neutral advertising. The level of sexism awareness was analysed by examining if the shared comments of the young, Maltese males, in the focus group conform to gender constructivist or gender essentialist societal ideals. The research revealed that the young, Maltese male participants were more aware of hostile sexism than of benevolent sexism in advertising, which thus, may suggest that they conform more towards gender constructivist ideals. Another aim of this research is to assess the potential success for businesses to move towards gender neutral marketing messages, specifically if this is a consideration to be made by more food and beverage companies, given that when taking human biology into account, food and beverage items should not be gendered. According to the study, the young, Maltese male participants had very positive feedback towards gender neutrality in food and beverage advertisements. The limitations of this research are that only tertiary level educated young, Maltese males participated, and the moderator’s gender could have created an indirect and unintentional bias in the focus groups, since all participants were males.