Gender advert workbook

Language, gender and online shopping
An investigation

The scenario

You are on work experience at the online shopping company which markets
its gift products on www.giftinspiration.com.

The Marketing Director has received a letter of complaint which argues that
the ‘Gifts for Men’ and ‘Gifts for Women’ webpages are a morally
contemptible misrepresentation of men and women, and that the product
descriptions use language in an unacceptable sexist manner.

The Marketing Director is very surprised as the Customer Testimonials have
always been extremely positive: these can be viewed on the website. Wary
of sensitivity surrounding matters of social justice, and keen to do the right
thing as far as possible within a commercial context, s/he wants to know if
the allegations have any substance.

S/he asks you to investigate the complaint and to report back with your
findings. Your report can be a written document or a verbal presentation.
This complaint is a serious concern to the company, so the evidence must be
well documented and your conclusions clear.

Introduction

Write a short introduction to your research project. The audience for this is
the Marketing Director of www.giftinspiration.com. Start by making brief
notes under these headings if you find it helpful to do so:

• Some reasons why this investigation is important for the company.
• Any ideas about the nature of online shopping that help to explain
why getting the marketing language right can be a difficult task.
• How the investigation might help the development of the website.

Data description

Give basic factual information about the data you are investigating.

• You are investigating short product descriptions designed to sell gift
items on an online gift shopping website, specifically items on
webpages entitled ‘Gifts for Men’ and ‘Gifts for Women’. State how
many product descriptions are in each data set.
• Where and when was the data collected? (Give the URL and the date
accessed.)
• Was the data collected with the consent of its owner?

© 2007 www.teachit.co.uk 8057 Page 1 of 22

An investigation

Aims

Explain that you are/were hoping hoped to find out the answer to this
question:

• Is the representation of men and women in the ‘gifts for men’ and
‘gifts for women’ webpages sexist?

Then explain that this is broken down into two smaller questions, as follow.
Write in some brief notes under each question, explaining what answers you
expect/expected to find. We will compare the ‘real’ answers afterwards.
This process is called forming a hypothesis and is an important part of a
research project. You mustn’t worry that what you write here will be
‘wrong’. The whole point of research is to test ideas out to find the truth.

• What stereotypes and assumptions about male and female behaviour
and interests do the product descriptions appeal to?
• How do the product descriptions use language in gendered ways?

Methodology

Explain how you did your research. The basic facts are given below, but you
should add some detail to each of these as you work through the tasks. You
should try to say something about the merits of these methods. Be aware of
any limitations of these methods as you complete the tasks as this will be
helpful for your evaluation.

Question 1: What stereotypes and assumptions about male and female
behaviour and interests do the webpages appeal to?

1) Identified how many of the product descriptions belonged to each
product type to determine if there were any gendered patterns [TASK
1 below].

2) Compared ‘male’ and ‘female’ items of the same product type to
determine if there were any gendered patterns [TASK 2 below].

Question 2: How do the product descriptions use language in gendered ways?

1) Corpus investigation to generate Keyword Lists for both data sets
[TASK 3 below].

2) Investigation of keyword lists for both data sets to explore interesting
patterns of gender differences and to test these against key markers
of language and gender according to popular beliefs and research
ideas. [TASK 4 below].


An investigation

Findings and analysis

This section should give a detailed and organised analysis of your
discoveries. This means saying what you discovered as clearly as possible,
but also explaining what you think it means, what is interesting about it, or
why it matters. You could use charts, tables and screenshots to help make
some of your points clear. This section should be divided into sub-sections
with relevant headings to make it easier for your readers to follow your
explanation. You should start by summarising your thoughts in response to
the bullet points under each of the headings below. You could go on to use
these as headings in your report, but feel free to change them in ways that
better suit your findings.

Gender representation in range and frequency of product types
• What might it be reasonable for an online shopper to expect in terms
of this aspect of gender representation?
• What patterns of gender representation have you observed in the
data under this heading?
• What is interesting about your observations? Why are they important?
What do they mean? In answering these questions think about the
challenge of marketing products to online shoppers.

Gender representation in products of the same type

Gender representation in semantic fields analysis


An investigation

Gender representation in noun pre-modifiers analysis

Conclusions

Explain to the Marketing Director the conclusions you are able to draw from
your analysis. To do this, go back to the original question(s) and consider
what answer(s) you can now give.

You might like to consider how accurate your hypotheses were. Be open-
minded: don’t force the data to fit what you hoped to see. If your
conclusions weren’t what you expected, discuss why you think this may be
the case. In giving your conclusions, it is appropriate to be tentative. Due
tentativeness could come from:
• mentioning any biases the methodology may have produced, for
example that you were working with a very small data set, and
without any comparison with other online gift marketing websites
• touching on different ways the same findings could be interpreted by
other people

In an ‘applied’ language investigation of this kind, you should then present
recommendations for action, based closely on your conclusions. You could
put these under a new heading.

In this case, summarise for the Marketing Director any points about website
content and style that you would recommend any changes to, in order to
improve the company’s public image in relation to gender representation.
You could do this in bullet-point format if you like. (Busy directors will
always read this page first, so make sure it’s good but very quick and easy
for them to read!) You should include one product description from each
data set rewritten in a more appropriate style.

Alternatively, if you believe no changes are necessary to website content or
style, summarise the key arguments you would recommend in order to
respond to the letter of complaint. You could do this in bullet-point format
if you like, or you could write a draft letter for the Marketing Director to
edit.


An investigation

Evaluation
In this section you review how good you think this piece of research was.
Start by making some brief notes in response to each of these questions.

How good was the data we used? (ie the product descriptions texts)
Where there any limitations with the analytical method we used?
What have you learned that you think might be useful for future
research projects?


An investigation

TASK 1
Start by skim reading the two sets of gift description texts (‘Gifts for Men’
and ‘Gifts for Women’) to identify what sort of product each set contains.
Use the table of product types below to help you and record your findings in
the tables that follow.

You could check your answers on the Gift Inspiration website
(www.giftinspiration.com) but be warned of two things (1) their electronic
classification allows for multiple tagging whereas this paper data record
sheet encourages you to choose one product type and (2) the website is
updated periodically and the data may not match what is in this resource.

Product types (adapted from the classification used on
www.giftinspiration.com)
Extra rows are provided in case you want to need to add to the
classification. You could code these for ease of reference, giving each a
colour or symbol, for example.

Gift Hampers Wine Gifts
Garden Gifts Pampering Gifts
Gifts for the Home Jewellery Gifts
Chocolate Gifts Photo Albums
Champagne Gifts Leather Gifts
Whisky Gifts Gifts to Drink

Further on in this activity, you will need to calculate some percentages.
Here is how (in case you’ve forgotten…).

Calculating percentages

Formula Number of products in the set of that type X 100
Total number of products in that set

Example
2 chocolate gifts X 100 = 10%
20 products in male data set


An investigation

Type of product: male data set

Name of product Type of product Name of product Type of product
Leather Golf Ball
The Scotch Whisky
Holder, Golf Balls &
Hamper
Tees

Pewter Tankard & Real Leather Gold Ball
Ale Hamper Marker Pouch

England or Scotland
Aspirin Cufflinks
Cufflinks

Golf On The Go Hamper Happy Birthday Hamper

Hunters Flask & Cups Mini Texas Hold ‘Em
Poker Game

Malt Whisky Cake Leather Driving Licence
Wallet

Macallan 10 Years Old ‘Worlds Best Dad’
Single Malt Whisky Chocolate Gift

Leather Wash Bag The Scotch Whisky
Hamper

Bath and Body Essentials
for Men Gift Box

Banoffee Chocolates

The Beer Game

Golf or Fishing Hobby in
a Box!

Brandy Glass Warmer,
Brandy Glass & Martell
Cognac


An investigation

Type of product: female data set

Name of product Type of product Name of product Type of product

Make-up Bag & Organic ‘Hot Hunk’ Hot-Water
Pamper Kit for Hands Bottle

Diamond & Silver Open Belgian Chocolate
Heart Necklace Hearts

Leather Jewellery Roll Leather Travel Wallet

Relaxing Lavender Bath Organic & Gorgeous
Gift Box Weekender Gift Box

Champagne & Chocolate Lilac Handblown Glass
Truffles Scent Ball

The Great Big Garden The Chocolate Passion
Hamper Hamper

‘Forget Me Not’ Pocket
Heart Hot-Water Bottle
Garden

Leather Bag for Make Up
Bear Bearing Chocolates
& Brushes

The Afternoon Tea Bone China Tea for One
Hamper Set

Semi-precious Stones Chocolate Grand
Necklace Marnier Cake

‘World’s Best Mum’ Breakfast Coffee or
Chocolate Gift Afternoon Tea Gift Set

Organic & Gorgeous
Happy Birthday Hamper
Scented Candle Gift Box

French Hot Chocolate Chablis Premier Cru in
Pot Gift Set Presentation Box

Organic & Gorgeous
Pampering Gift Box


An investigation

• How many types of product are there in the data set?

Gifts for Men Gifts for Women

• What percentage of the product descriptions in the data set belong to
each product type?

Product type % in male data set % in female data set
Gift Hampers
Garden Gifts
Gifts for the Home
Chocolate Gifts
Champagne Gifts
Whisky Gifts
Wine Gifts
Pampering Gifts
Jewellery Gifts
Photo Albums
Leather Gifts
Gifts to Drink


An investigation

TASK 2
Now compare ‘male’ and ‘female’ items of the same product type to determine if there are any gendered patterns. An example
has been filled in to get you started, though feel free to amend/improve this (you may, for example, disagree with this
classification of product types).

Product
Male data set Female data set Notes and questions
type
Gift
Hampers

Garden
Gifts

Gifts for
the Home

Chocolate
Gifts


An investigation

Product
type
Champagne
Gifts

Whisky
Gifts

Wine Gifts

Pampering 1) Bath & body essentials gift 1) Make-up bag & organic More items for women. Could suggest women
Gifts box pamper kit for hands are airheads only interested in mindless
2) Relaxing lavender bath gift activity like ‘pampering’; or greater need for
box relaxation due to the burden of modern
3) Organic & gorgeous women’s lives?? What does it suggest about
pampering gift box men? Are these products still seen as an
4) Organic & gorgeous affront to masculine identity?
weekender gift box
Jewellery
Gifts


An investigation

Product
type
Photo
Albums

Leather
Gifts

Gifts to
Drink


An investigation

TASK 3
Follow the instructions in the separate document ‘How to generate a corpus
gender keyword list’. Print off the two lists this creates, one for male
keywords and one for female keywords. Alternatively, your teacher may
provide you with these lists. Either way, read them carefully and get to
know the data. You could print off or photocopy a couple of copies of each
list so that you keep one clean ‘reading’ copy, and one ‘working’ copy you
scribble thoughts and ideas over, colour code, and whatever else helps you
get to know the data well.

TASK 4
You now need to investigate the keyword lists for both data sets to explore
interesting patterns of gender differences and to test these against key
markers of language and gender according to popular beliefs and research
ideas. A Keyword list can help you to see some things more clearly, but
looking at the whole texts will reveal other interesting patterns and
observations. Start by working through these activities, but don’t be afraid
to experiment with other approaches and to explore other interesting lines
of enquiry.

1. Semantic fields
A popular idea about language and gender is pithily summarised in the
popular self-help book title ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’.
This suggests that men and women have completely different world views,
and it is a popular belief that this reveals itself in male and female
discourse in the predominance of different semantic fields. Test this by
classifying each data set (male data set, and female data set) into
semantically related groups of words. You could use the semantic fields
diagram sheets on the next pages to help you with this. Examples are given
to guide your thinking.


An investigation

Semantic fields diagram sheet
Male data set

Give each box the name of a significant semantic field for which you have
identified at least three words in the keyword data set. You could write
these in too, or list them separately. Add as many boxes as you need.

SPORT &
GAMES
Poker, golf,
tees

Male data
set


An investigation

Semantic fields diagram sheet
Female data set

Give each box the name of a significant semantic field for which you have
identified at least three words in the data set. You could write these in too,
or list them separately. Add as many boxes as you need.

LUXURIOUS
finest, organic,
indulgent,
Handmade

Female data
set

2. Pre-modification of nouns

Another popular idea is that female discourse is more ‘flowery’ or more
‘descriptive’ than male discourse. It can be difficult to pinpoint what
people mean when they say this, but for the purposes of this investigation
we can focus on how the nouns in each data set (all gift items) are pre-
modified. Start by sorting the words in each data set into their word
classes. You may be given sets of cards with the male/female words on to
make the process of sorting easier. You could use the word classes
classification sheets on the next two pages to document this.


An investigation

Word classes classification sheet – male data set

This is a traditional word classes classification. It is not the only approach
and it has its limitations, not least in this activity because nouns and
adverbs can pre-modify nouns in the same way that adjectives do. There
are two sources of information that can help you identify the word class of a
word: a good dictionary will help you narrow the range of options down, as a
single word can belong to more than one word class (eg, in ‘take a walk’
walk is a noun, but it is a verb in ‘I walk to school’); looking back at the
word in its original context(s) may clarify its specific use in the example(s)
we are considering. This task will take detective work and judgement.
Remember that you are not working with every word from the texts, only
those that are significantly marked in contrast with the other data set.

NOUNS ADJECTIVES

VERBS ADVERBS

CONJUNCTIONS PREPOSITIONS

PRONOUNS DETERMINERS


An investigation

Word classes classification sheet – female data set

This is a traditional word classes classification. It is not the only approach
and it has its limitations, not least in this activity because nouns and
adverbs can pre-modify nouns in the same way that adjectives do. There
are two sources of information that can help you identify the word class of a
word: a good dictionary will help you narrow the range of options down, as a
single word can belong to more than one word class (e.g. in ‘take a walk’
walk is a noun, but it is a verb in ‘I walk to school’); looking back at the
word in its original context(s) may clarify its specific use in the example(s)
we are considering. This task will take detective work and judgement.
Remember that you are not working with every word from the texts, only
those that are significantly marked in contrast with the other data set.

NOUNS ADJECTIVES

VERBS ADVERBS

CONJUNCTIONS PREPOSITIONS

PRONOUNS DETERMINERS


An investigation

Thinking about noun pre-modification
Then you need to check how the nouns are working. To do this you need to
know a little bit about noun phrases and their structures.

A noun phrase is the little cluster of words that form the subject or object
of a sentence, the thing that is doing the verb or having it done to it in
simple examples, or the thing or idea that is, seems, feels and so on in more
complex examples. Here is a simple example:

The dog barked

The green highlighted text is a verb (technically, speaking a verb phrase
because the verb ‘bit’ can be more than one word, e.g. is barking), the
yellow highlighted text is a noun phrase. The noun phrase can be analysed
further as it contains more than one word.

The dog

‘dog’ is a noun and ‘the’ is a determiner.

We could add more description to our noun phrase.

The enormous dog

‘enormous’ is an adjective which pre-modifies the noun. ‘Pre’ means it
comes before the noun, and ‘modifies’ means it changes our perception of
it. We hit ‘enormous’ before we encounter ‘dog’ and our perception of the
dog is shaped by the word that comes before it.

We could add other words as pre-modifiers.

More adjectives: The enormous white dog

An adverb: The really enormous white dog

Another noun: The really enormous white plastic dog

If we need to, we can distinguish between the role the noun ‘dog’ is playing
in this phrase, and the role the noun ‘plastic’ is playing here, by calling
‘dog’ the head noun and ‘plastic’ a premodifying noun.

A verb form: The really enormous white plastic grinning dog

Got that? When nouns appear as pre-modifiers they can tend to create a
more factual style of description. Hold on to that thought.


An investigation

When adjectives appear as pre-modifiers they can create very different
styles, depending on their nature. One way of classifying these is to divide
them into these three types:

Descriptive adjectives which give factual detail of the material
property of an object e.g. size (‘large’), shape
(‘round’), colour (‘blue’), texture (‘rough’).

Evaluative adjectives which either state or imply a judgement of
whether something is good or bad, e.g. ‘good’, ‘bad’,
‘ugly’, ‘beautiful’, ‘skinny’, ‘funny’.

Emotive adjectives which express an emotional attitude, often
adjectives that have been bleached of any very specific
meaning, e.g. ‘fabulous’, ‘horrendous’, ‘amazing’.

As with most attempts to classify language, it is difficult to apply this
system ‘cleanly’ to every adjective, but it does give a starting point for
stylistic analysis. A more factual style is more likely when a greater
frequency of descriptive adjectives is used; a more judgemental or
emotional style is more likely with the other two types of adjectives in
greater frequency. It is a popular belief that male discourse is likely to be
dominated by a more factual style and female discourse by a more
emotional style.

The linguist Robin Lakoff contributed to this view with the idea from her
observational research that women use more ‘empty’ adjectives (largely the
same as our ‘emotive’ classification) and also more ‘intensifiers’ (adverbs
such as ‘really’).

These are all issues to investigate in our gender data sets.


An investigation

Back to the data

So, you need to work through all of the nouns in your two data sets, and find
out whether they are operating as the head noun in the noun phrase, or
whether they are pre-modifying a head noun. Here are two examples from
the data sets.

Example 1 steel Male data set
steel might be regarded on the keyword list as a head noun but closer
investigation in context reveals that this is used as a pre-modifier in noun
phrases such as stainless steel flask (Hunters Flask & Cups), where flask is
the head noun, premodified by stainless and steel

Example 2 silk Female data set
silk might be regarded on the keyword list as a head noun but closer
investigation in context reveals that this is used as a pre-modifier in noun
phrases such as exquisite silk packaging (Organic & Gorgeous Pampering Gift
Box), where packaging is the head noun, premodified by exquisite and silk

When you have sorted the nouns out, make a list of all the pre-modifiers in
each data set. Then complete the pre-modifier classification sheet,
amending or improving it as you see fit.


An investigation

Pre-modifier classification sheet
Sort the pre-modifiers you have identified from the keyword lists into these categories. Feel free to amend/improve this
approach.

Male data set Female data set Comments and questions

Nouns as pre-
modifiers

Adverbs as pre-
modifiers

Descriptive
adjectives as pre-
modifiers

Evaluate adjectives
as pre-modifiers

Emotive adjectives
as pre-modifiers


An investigation

Pre-modifier classification sheet – teachers’ notes
This resource is deliberately ‘holey’. It includes classification of the data, but only some initial thinking points in the
‘comments and questions’ column. These are not exhaustive, the ideas need development, and they are contestable – the point
is to show how the task gives rise to some interesting lines of enquiry. It is not a set of ‘answers’.
Male data set Female data set Comments and questions
Popular ideas about language and gender
Nouns as pre-modifiers Malt would have it that male discourse will
contain more nouns as pre-modifiers
Popular ideas about language and gender
Adverbs as pre- would have it that female discourse
Really, two
modifiers would include more frequent use of
‘really’ as an intensifying pre-modifier

Verbs as pre-modifiers Relaxing, soothing

Interesting difference in colour palettes;
Stainless, steel, green, Scented, handmade,
Descriptive adjectives interesting contrast between metallic
metal, tan, black, lavender, long, pink, blue,
as pre-modifiers fabrication in male data set and luxury
complete, single, highland hot, organic
fabrication in the female data
Interesting contrast between
Evaluative adjectives as
Great, good, smart Indulgent, beautiful monosyllabic words in male data set and
pre-modifiers
polysyllabic words in female data set…

Emotive adjectives as Fabulous, lovely, wonderful, Reinforces Lakoff’s assertion about
pre-modifiers gorgeous ‘empty’ adjectives and female discourse?

Not enough data to support a strong
Superlative adjectives claim but perhaps in line with Lakoff’s
Finest
as pre-modifiers assertion about intensifiers and female
discourse


Gender advert workbook

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