Gender, Discourse and Semiotics: The Politics of Parenthood Representations

Abstract

This article analyses the co-presence of two potentially contending discourses of gender relations - the Discourse of Egalitarian Gender Relations, and the Discourse of Conservative Gender Relations - in the domain of parenthood in a Singaporean national advertising campaign. The difference between the two discourses is a question of symmetry and asymmetry, respectively, in gender roles and expectations. By undertaking a combined analysis of linguistic and visual structures in the texts, I will show how the two discourses are manifested within, and across, the advertisements in the series. I conclude by suggesting that the distinction between the two discourses is not a clear-cut one. Rather, on closer scrutiny, they work in tandem to maintain a largely unchallenged conservative gender order.