Representation of women in the context of marriage depicted in Sri Lankan memes

Abstract

Women being always subjected to various portrayals in media, their image is now the source of new age humor; Internet Memes. Widespread all over in the social media platforms, these memes express any aspect of the individual, society or daily life savored in comedy, thus being appealingly influential on a vast readership. The main objective of this research study is to explore the representation of women in the context of marriage as depicted in Sri Lankan memes. The importance lies on its aim to dissect the image of the woman through a critical perception on memes which are rather taken for jokes but as entities highly reflective of typical Sri Lankan culture and attitudes towards women. The methodology involves a sample of randomly selected 50 memes about marriage from several Facebook meme pages collected within 2 weeks. Taken into observation, all the memes were categorized into 2 phases of marriage; choice of the bride and role of the wife. A thematic analysis is conducted considering the memes‟ textual and pictorial content. According to the findings of this research study, memes continue to define the woman‟s image within the traditional framework as the subordinate sex. It is remarkable to find the persistent prevalence of cultural practices and beliefs such as demand of dowry in marriage. The memetic humor is generated on the basis of stereotypical woman behavior; fickle, superficial and traditional gender roles; husband dependent and responsible housewife. In conclusion, under the disguise of humor, woman-centered discrimination and sexism are conveyed through memes in a less offensive way. The representation of woman is still stereotyped and traditionalized even though Sri Lankan society and the new age media have been labelled as “modernized”.