Gendered Packaging: Are Our Shopping Shelves Rooted In Stereotypes?

Walk into any beauty store of your choice, and you’ll find shelves overflowing with products for women—lotions, toners and tubes for every indescribable need. The male options would appear limited in comparison. Beyond the basics of grooming and hairstyling, there is very little to choose from in terms of male-specific skincare even with the burgeoning self-care industry.

Comedian Vir Das shared a cheeky post on Sunday revealing his dilemma on using a sanitiser bottle with a princess sticker imprint. In his caption, Das wrote that this was the only sanitiser bottle available in the store. "I am a grown man with a beard. When I take this out, and put it on the table, while I gently rub my hands together..there's no one making eye contact. No one," he added.

While some remarked that it has nothing to do with 'masculinity', others asked him to peel the sticker off. Fellow supporters like actor Shruthy Menon commented on the post, "Keep it. Use it in front of everyone."

Some shared similar anecdotes adding, "This reminds me of the day when it was raining and my father lost his raincoat so he asked for mine and then he had to wear an angry bird raincoat to the office."

Why do people categorise products under gender and specify their clear owners? Pink is for girls, blue for boys? Do products suggest that Anna is for girls, while Kristoff is better suited to men? Is there some kind of rule that using the products incorrectly will bring shame and dishonour to your family? The cultural stranglehold on our beauty shelves is today manifested in an invisible binary: Pastel labels and sparkly fonts to the right, all-black packaging to the left.

Gendered Packaging: What is it got to do with gender after all?

Much of consumer behaviour is driven by gender and various gender-targeted products heavily rely on packaging to bestow an aura of femininity or masculinity, whichever the case might be. But do the guidelines have to remain stereotypical? Companies do not have to rely on clichéd gender stereotypes to become identifiable on store shelves. Putting a little extra effort and thought into your product packaging design can help change consumer belief and create a perception about a product, and also have the potential to create a lasting change that can propel society forward. A sanitiser is a sanitiser, manufactured and used for the same purpose irrespective of its packaging.

Take for instance if I am a regular consumer of cereal, and often buy the product off the shelf, I would look at its ingredients, and nutritional value rather than a declaration that the product is specifically for women. Surely, some males consume cereal for the same reasons as females. The front panel need not have a depiction of a woman; but a bowl of cereal that would send out clean and impactful visual messaging.

However, subverting decades of conditioning isn’t an overnight task, but the good news is that change has been spreading slowly and steadily. Companies don’t have to result in trite packaging design schemes like pink and “girl power” phrases for women, nor do they have to stick with “macho” product names and graphics to target men specifically. Similarly, men shouldn't feel ashamed of using products designed to target women, for I know many women who prefer men's perfumes despite them being marketed only for men. Words and images on your product packaging can make all the difference.

The views expressed are the author's own.

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