Why Daughters are missing in insurance commercials?
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LICI) is the longest-running public insurance company. For more than the past 60 years, they are having their customers in almost every Indian household due to their trust and worth. Being the largest government insurance company they capture a huge chunk of the insurance market and also the mindset.
Flagging their journey they have adhered to the Indian family culture through their commercial advertisements. They have convincingly showcased that life insurance is an utmost priority of an Indian Middle-income family. Thus, buying life insurance for the principal earner and investing in future earners can secure the family from any life mishaps.
Among their noteworthy commercials, in a recent advertisement of 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WqNBnSS9Ms
they again alluringly showcased a journey of a family through their three generations. The commercial included all the crux of a Shukhi Parivar (a happy family) in bits and pieces. It starts with an excellent background score: Where a man earns for his wife and son; invests in LICI’s insurance plans and their future. Then the son grows up with a secure future because of the well-thought insurance plans done by his father. He flourishes, gets married, and follows his father’s footsteps in not only becoming a potential customer of LICI but also buying an insurance plan for his son and wife, simultaneously taking care of his parents. And finally, this happily ever after family cycle goes on..
Everything looked so good and pleasing. Isn’t it?
Or you felt, you have been missing something; rather someone here.
If yes, then she is the daughter. What if there is a daughter in that family? Isn’t she equally willing and responsible to take the insurance plans and secure the life of her family parents? Or her parents were not going to secure their daughter’s future?
Is it just too complicated to think of replacing the boy with a girl who will inherently take up the responsibility, take care of her parents and family? Or we are making an easy escape to avoid the discussions on gender roles.
Most importantly, how magnificently this commercial has overshadowed the contribution of Her/ She. The female characters (as a wife, a mother) have played a passive role just to support the main initiative. She is present in every decision in the family, but not deciding it.
In my view, the advertisement although created with heartfelt generosity also highly endorsed the structured patriarchal system as an important institution of our society. As it unconsciously brings up the thought that three generations only mean- A father, his son, and his grandson. While this spectrum does not include a Mother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. These messages through the commercial ads not only reject the contribution of a daughter but also mislead a clan that she is not capable.
Life Insurance Corporation of India is the most extensive public insurance limited, which explains the value of Insurance policies to a large mass of people in our country. Their commercials reach every household in this country without any barriers and costs incurred. They have the capacity to propagate the right message among their vast audience.
Now it is high time that LICI should change their advertisement strategy to include a “Daughter and normalize that she can take up responsibility”. A daughter has the equal right to secure the life of her parents and aid them financially during their old age, thus buying life insurance policies. Simultaneously, validating that she has to financially secure her parents' future even if she is married.
Anshul Panda Freelance content writer based in Delhi, wants to echo the voice of women who rightfully want their equal space in society
