Billboards and the Politics of Gender Representation in Morocco

Abstract

This study examines gender representation in Moroccan billboard advertisements, focusing on how visual and textual strategies construct and normalize gender roles through a multimodal semiotic framework. Based on a qualitative analysis of selected billboard ads, the paper demonstrates that women are frequently depicted through reductive and stereotypical images, including confinement to domestic roles such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare, as well as through the fragmentation and sexualization of the female body. The study shows that the selective focus on women’s body parts reduces them to objects of visual consumption and produces a gaze structured by “to-be-looked-at-ness.” In many cases, women are portrayed as passive subjects, dependent on men or valued primarily for their physical appearance. Overall, the paper argues that billboard advertising contributes to the reinforcement of unequal gender relations and the reproduction of dominant cultural ideologies of femininity and masculinity in contemporary Moroccan society.