The neosexist attitudes of the Spanish advertising workforce: a gender-based analysis

Abstract

In Spain, the political efforts to eliminate the gender gap in the labour market have crystallised with the enactment of the Law 3/2007, 22 March on effective equality between women and men. However, despite the inclusion of gender issues in the political agenda, there is evidence that occupational sex segregation remains a significant barrier toward gender equality, in particular, in the Spanish advertising sector. Given that advertising speech has a great potential in fostering egalitarian attitudes in our society, it is necessary to make research focused on achieving the full gender equality between the advertising professionals (the creators of these messages). With this background, this article attempts to analyse if there is a disguised form of sexism (neosexism) that could impede advertising women’s upward mobility and could concentrate them in activities related to their gender roles. Thus, the aim of this study, focusing on gender, is to examine the neosexist attitudes of a sample of 753 Spanish advertising employees. Our results indicate that, in line with previous findings, men scored significantly higher than women on the Neosexism scale. However, there was little observed absolute separation of neosexist attitudes between males and females. It would be necessary, as a future line of research, to analyse if there are gender-biased methods in the Human Resources Selection Units that could exclude women from advertising decision-making positions and from departments like creative services.