'Harmful' gender stereotypes in adverts banned in UK [BBC News]

[Pankratous]

Sometimes I come home from a very long and difficult day at work so I might relax while my girlfriend picks up the slack and does some housework.

Sometimes this happens the other way around and she relaxes while I pick up the slack.

It's now banned to film scenario #1? That's stupid as fuck, sorry.

I can see the point when it comes to the yorkie adverts pointed out above because those are ridiculous, but day to day living situations that actually occur in the real world... Uh.

 

[Laserdisk]

Sometimes I come home from a very long and difficult day at work so I might relax while my girlfriend picks up the slack and does some housework.

Sometimes this happens the other way around and she relaxes while I pick up the slack.

It's now banned to film scenario #1? That's stupid as fuck, sorry.

I can see the point when it comes to the yorkie adverts pointed out above because those are ridiculous, but day to day living situations that actually occur in the real world... Uh.

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It is not a woman doing the house work, it is saying that is all they do or that all housework is only for women

 

[Radeo]

Sometimes I come home from a very long and difficult day at work so I might relax while my girlfriend picks up the slack and does some housework.

Sometimes this happens the other way around and she relaxes while I pick up the slack.

It's now banned to film scenario #1? That's stupid as fuck, sorry.

I can see the point when it comes to the yorkie adverts pointed out above because those are ridiculous, but day to day living situations that actually occur in the real world... Uh.

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Other situations likely to fall foul of the new rule include:

• Adverts which show a man or a woman failing at a task because of their gender, like a man failing to change a nappy or a woman failing to park
• Adverts aimed at new mothers which suggest that looking good or keeping a home tidy is more important than emotional wellbeing
• Adverts which belittle a man for carrying out stereotypically female roles

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However, the new rules do not preclude the use of all gender stereotypes. The ASA said the aim was to identify "specific harms" that should be prevented.
So, for example, adverts would still be able to show women doing the shopping or men doing DIY, or use gender stereotypes as a way of challenging their negative effects.

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Come on at least read the OP

 

[AGoodODST]

Sometimes I come home from a very long and difficult day at work so I might relax while my girlfriend picks up the slack and does some housework.

Sometimes this happens the other way around and she relaxes while I pick up the slack.

It's now banned to film scenario #1? That's stupid as fuck, sorry.

I can see the point when it comes to the yorkie adverts pointed out above because those are ridiculous, but day to day living situations that actually occur in the real world... Uh.

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No it isn't because context is a thing. In a bubble by itself the situation you are describing is obviously fine. But when the majority of adverts depicting this scenario feature women doing the hovering it reinforces the stereotype.

The OP actually covers this anyway and states that this wouldn't be banned necessarily.

 

[weemadarthur]

I am very quickly coming to the realisation that I am from a very different generation than the vast majority of people on here.

There are lots of things that I don't understand, this being one of them, and I like to think that I am quite left leaning progressive person, at least for someone born in the 70's

So I think I have two options, try and reconfigure my brain to fit in with this new way of thinking, or accept that I am too old and my views no longer correlate with places like this, and disappear into the wild blue yonder.

Funny old thing getting old :(

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You're not in that different an age range, you've just not noticed things.
Personally I've seen the downside of stereotypical ads since the 80s.

 

[Deleted member 18514]

One of the main stereotypes you see is the hapless Dad being bailed out by Mum but I'm ok with that in a way because that's me, I'm Daddy Pig who tries to hang a picture and breaks the wall instead!

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Are you kidding? That is one of the worst ones! Totally lazy ad writing and clearly sexually discriminating.

It is as bad as the "eek, there is a spider, save me 'man of the house'!" stereotypes.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Are you kidding? That is one of the worst ones! Totally lazy ad writing and clearly sexually discriminating.

It is as bad as the "eek, there is a spider, save me 'man of the house'!" stereotypes.

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Yes sorry I am kidding, it's everywhere but always tolerated for some reason!

 

[Deleted member 37739]

Are you kidding? That is one of the worst ones! Totally lazy ad writing and clearly sexually discriminating.

It is as bad as the "eek, there is a spider, save me 'man of the house'!" stereotypes.

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Agreed - a lot of of this humour I think was created to sort of 'level the playing field', as it were, with both men and women being equally pilloried by advertisers, but my suspicion is that promoting these stereotypes about men being hopeless with housework, unable to ask for directions, terrible with emotions, etc. serve to and normalise these shortcomings, perpetuating the problem.

 

[Deleted member 18514]

Agreed - a lot of of this humour I think was created to sort of 'level the playing field', as it were, with both men and women being equally pilloried by advertisers, but my suspicion is that promoting these stereotypes about men being hopeless with housework, unable to ask for directions, terrible with emotions, etc. serve to and normalise these shortcomings, perpetuating the problem.

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It's not even that. It's setting up one person (almost always the male character) to be a dunce that needs the hypercompetent savior (almost always a woman) to rescue him. Now I get it, this is played TO DEATH across lots of media in the other direction (women characters exist just to be rescued by a guy) but in ads, really? It's the cheap gag of "person #1 is clueless, but product X in the hands of person #2 wins the day!" that gets me.

 

[gutter_trash]

the problem with these sorts of LAWS is the interpretation.

Putting something up to interpretation can have a wide range of varying degrees of divergence of opinions .

When people complain of Nanny State, this is it right here: the UK.

First they come for your Porn, then they come for your artistic expression

 

[Messofanego]

the problem with these sorts of LAWS is the interpretation.

Putting something up to interpretation can have a wide range of varying degrees of divergence of opinions .

When people complain of Nanny State, this is it right here: the UK.

First they come for your Porn, then they come for your artistic expression

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What laws are you talking about? Or let me guess, you didn't read the OP or the BBC article.

 

[Zaph]

the problem with these sorts of LAWS is the interpretation.

Putting something up to interpretation can have a wide range of varying degrees of divergence of opinions .

When people complain of Nanny State, this is it right here: the UK.

First they come for your Porn, then they come for your artistic expression

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It's not a law or a government decision. In fact, the way the ASA works is the exact opposite of nanny state censorship - adverts go live without review and are only looked at after the fact if there's a formal complaint, so any decision made has the benefit of context and nuance.

 

[Radeo]

the problem with these sorts of LAWS is the interpretation.

Putting something up to interpretation can have a wide range of varying degrees of divergence of opinions .

When people complain of Nanny State, this is it right here: the UK.

First they come for your Porn, then they come for your artistic expression

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Hey I know it's real fun to act all superior to le nanny state but at least read what you're commenting on before you go off

The ASA is an independent self-regulatory organisation. It does not have the power to interpret or enforce any laws and is not funded by the government.

 

[Conal]

Yep was closer to mid 2012 and they did it with pink Yorkies.

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Holy Shit "Get your lips around this"

 

[Ragnorok64]

Hey I know it's real fun to act all superior to le nanny state but at least read what you're commenting on before you go off

The ASA is an independent self-regulatory organisation. It does not have the power to interpret or enforce any laws and is not funded by the government.

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What authority do they even have? Is there a point to all this if it's unenforceable?

 

[Messofanego]

Those Yorkie ads are something else, the level of misogyny in 2010s that you'd only see decades back.

 

[Laserdisk]

Holy Shit "Get your lips around this"

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Yep it's all kinds of a mess

 

[Plum]

the problem with these sorts of LAWS is the interpretation.

Putting something up to interpretation can have a wide range of varying degrees of divergence of opinions .

When people complain of Nanny State, this is it right here: the UK.

First they come for your Porn, then they come for your artistic expression

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Maybe have a basic understanding of what you're talking about before making wide-reaching statements about another country.

What authority do they even have? Is there a point to all this if it's unenforceable?

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They have no official authority, it's just agreed upon that they do have authority because of the bad publicity (and potential reprimands from the advertisement's hosts) that stems from not following their rules. However, if things do get bad, they have the power to refer the offender to Ofcom (Britain's media regulator) or Trading Standards as broadcasting licenses require companies to agree to the ASA's rules. If you want an easy comparison look to America's ESRB; both are self-regulatory organisations set up so that the industry is regulated by itself instead of the government.

 

[Walter White Walker]

Good.
I hate the "Dads are hapless especially when taking care of kids" trope. I was mostly a stay at home dad before my kids went into kindergarten, and since a dad with primary custody, so I take that as just fucking insulting.
I do online surveys from time to time and when I come across bullshit like "Moms approve of this product for kids" I always comment to correct it to "Parents approve of this product because just saying moms is bullshit you clueless advertiser survey person".

 

[Radeo]

What authority do they even have? Is there a point to all this if it's unenforceable?

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They have no official authority, it's just agreed upon that they do have authority because of the bad publicity (and potential reprimands from the advertisement's hosts) that stems from not following their rules. However, if things do get bad, they have the power to refer the offender to Ofcom (Britain's media regulator) or Trading Standards as broadcasting licenses require companies to agree to the ASA's rules. If you want an easy comparison look to America's ESRB; both are self-regulatory organisations set up so that the industry is regulated by itself instead of the government.

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Pretty much this, also worth noting that they are funded by a levy on the advertising industry rather than government or private funding.

 

[Grug]

Good.
I hate the "Dads are hapless especially when taking care of kids" trope. I was mostly a stay at home dad before my kids went into kindergarten, and since a dad with primary custody, so I take that as just fucking insulting.
I do online surveys from time to time and when I come across bullshit like "Moms approve of this product for kids" I always comment to correct it to "Parents approve of this product because just saying moms is bullshit you clueless advertiser survey person".

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Same bullshit that results in old ladies saying "aww is daddy babysitting you today" to your kid at the park.

"Uh, no. Dad is being dad".

 

[zabora]

I know people on here harp on the Yorkie ads as offensive, but I've always thought that was the whole point of them, they highlight the ridiculousness of a chocolate bar made only for men. They were never meant to be taken at face value.

 

[thesuperfunk]

I know people on here harp on the Yorkie ads as offensive, but I've always thought that was the whole point of them, they highlight the ridiculousness of a chocolate bar made only for men. They were never meant to be taken at face value.

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Exactly, they were incredibly tongue-in-cheek.

 

[BarryFishFinger]

I know people on here harp on the Yorkie ads as offensive, but I've always thought that was the whole point of them, they highlight the ridiculousness of a chocolate bar made only for men. They were never meant to be taken at face value.

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THEY'RE NOT FOR GIRLS.

Seems like a sensible change, the hapless male advert trope has always been a bit of an annoyance.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I know people on here harp on the Yorkie ads as offensive, but I've always thought that was the whole point of them, they highlight the ridiculousness of a chocolate bar made only for men. They were never meant to be taken at face value.

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Exactly, they were incredibly tongue-in-cheek.

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No

The campaign was designed specifically to target and cultivate a desired male audience

Yorkie had a long heritage as being a man's chocolate featuring big burly truck drivers, but sales had gone stale in recent years. We decided to play on this heritage by launching a fully integrated 360 campaign aimed at cementing Yorkie as a men only bar.

To start things off, the wrapper was re-designed and manufactured so people were in no doubt that we meant business.

A predominantly male audience was then targeted through sponsorship of Soccer AM with a series of idents. I like making idents and love football so it was a dream job. Here are just a few of them.

Off the back of the previous poster,the debate was fueled further by convincing Nestle to co-create and sponsor a programme with ITV called the 'Great British Driving Test'. It pitted the nation's men and women in a winner takes all driving competition and was presented by Gabby Logan and Doctor Fox.

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https://ryanlawson.co.uk/It-s-not-for-girls

Yes it was "tongue in cheek" but it was so in service of actually advertising a chocolate bar to men not in service of satirizing such a thing.

 

[nekkid]

I personally don't think the gender roles depicted are harmful, but I guess that's because I come from an era where these roles where the norm.

That's not that I expect woman to do those roles, I just don't see any harm in what I see to be traditional gender roles depicted in advertising.

But I can also see that others view it differently.

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This ban doesn't prevent adverts with women cleaning or men doing DIY. They're not harmful.

It's when you have a woman doing the cleaning and the man sat chilling. Or the man going out being the breadwinner and the woman being a housewife it becomes a bit of a problem. I get your point - in isolation they're not particularly harmful (or uncommon), but in perpetuating those stereotypes it conveys a sense that those traditional roles are "correct".

In other words without this you'd rely solely on the advertising firms to be more diverse in their messaging off their own backs, which they wouldn't be because these stereotypes are just easier.

 

[show me your skeleton]

That columnist who is a critic of this, Angela Epstein (maybe she's a conservative?), also criticised her friends' appearances in the Daily Mail and didn't want to hang around with "dowdy dames" because she's doing everything in her power to look young. Massive insecurity about ageing and appearances to the point she writes herself a decade younger than her actual age on Facebook. So, not a surprise she would be for dated gender stereotypes!

Her own ridiculous words:

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and the dumb thing is, all of this pressure is coming from a society that demonises women getting older. she's a victim of the thing she's fighting for.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

No matter what you think of these rules, at least they make us talk about the effects of stereotypes in media.

I think it's good.

 

[Turin]

JFC at Yorkie. Especially the pink wrapper.

 

[Messofanego]

and the dumb thing is, all of this pressure is coming from a society that demonises women getting older. she's a victim of the thing she's fighting for.

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Exactly, but she's got no awareness. Or must have cognitive dissonance.

 

[Kyuuji]

https://ryanlawson.co.uk/It-s-not-for-girls

Yes it was "tongue in cheek" but it was so in service of actually advertising a chocolate bar to men not in service of satirizing such a thing.

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Yep. Won't miss these.

 

[nelsonroyale]

I am very quickly coming to the realisation that I am from a very different generation than the vast majority of people on here.

There are lots of things that I don't understand, this being one of them, and I like to think that I am quite left leaning progressive person, at least for someone born in the 70's

So I think I have two options, try and reconfigure my brain to fit in with this new way of thinking, or accept that I am too old and my views no longer correlate with places like this, and disappear into the wild blue yonder.

Funny old thing getting old :(

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Other option is to continually educate yourself to gain a deeper understanding of reality such as to not be characterised simply as a figment of your formative years. Not saying specifically you are, but that is something that I personally feel is the case with a lot of people. You just happened to be born in a particular period which formed a lot of your perceptions on what is normal, but that has always been a shifting baseline. Better to analyse things in more depth in terms of who really is harmed by laws such as this on one side or the other. For me, I am not really against this because I think our society has maintained certain ways of looking and assigning attributes to gender, which do not accurately know what we understand from contemporary research. We are going through a period of significant change in gender percetions and relations, and I understand it is happening quite chaotically at the moment. But it is a way of making society a more inclusive place that more people have a say in defining...So yeah, don't fall into the trap of 'I am too old for this shit'. Good to be reflective on why you feel a certain way and what the positive and negative impacts are on people, especially the more vulnerable.

 

[thetrin]

The memories!!!!

Also posting for the second time this week

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Holy fucking shit, that is fucking awful.

 

[Laserdisk]

Holy fucking shit, that is fucking awful.

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It ran for years and years.

 

[julia crawford]

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y-yikes...

 

[Laserdisk]

y-yikes...

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It's not like the fully stopped either....

 

[Razmos]

I personally don't think the gender roles depicted are harmful, but I guess that's because I come from an era where these roles where the norm.

That's not that I expect woman to do those roles, I just don't see any harm in what I see to be traditional gender roles depicted in advertising.

But I can also see that others view it differently.

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Traditional gender roles are bullshit. Just because something is traditional doesn't make it any less harmful

 

[Croc Man]

Good. Although if it was up to me I'd ban a huge number of adverts, it's all manipulation often designed to make people worse about their life and they're getting more sophisticated and ubiquitous.

All the talk of mental health issues but this is rarely addressed outside some examples .

At least they've started on fast food and crap like this.

 

[BlackGoku03]

I mean, if you realize that's all they are then you should also realize how fucking dumb those biases are to begin with. Self-reflection is a requirement for learning to listen to others and changing your perspective. It seems to me that you are fully capable of that? Stop seeing it as a contest of arguments and just listen. You'll be surprised how much value you can find in that once you let go of your own internal presumptions. Or to put it a simpler way: you are not a woman. Of fucking course you don't have the most reasonable perspective on this particular question. Why would you? People need to stop overvaluing their own perspective in questions they know nothing about. That's all I'm saying.

As for the specifics of your question; there are plenty of materials out there within academia. Go read some studies if you are genuinely interested. The topic is far too complex to give a simple quick answer aside from the cliched "because it reinforces gender roles, duh" which I realize is not the answer you are looking for.


Done.

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Thanks. You said it better than I would have.

 

[danowat]

Traditional gender roles are bullshit. Just because something is traditional doesn't make it any less harmful

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Hard to argue with such a well constructed argument.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Hard to argue with such a well constructed argument.

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I mean there's nothing to argue. Enforcing traditional gender roles is a significant contribution to the oppression of women.

 

[danowat]

I mean there's nothing to argue. Enforcing traditional gender roles is a significant contribution to the oppression of women.

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And there in lays the rub.

There isn't anything wrong with traditional gender roles if they aren't enforced.

Saying traditional genders are bullshit as the kind of stuff that makes people feel guilty for having traditional gender roles, my wife does the sewing, I do the garden, but not because we have to.

The trouble is with places like era is that everything is black and white, real life is much more nuanced than that.

 

[Laserdisk]

They were taking the piss out of this stuff in the 90s and it took till now?




That is that gets me.

 

[excelsiorlef]

And there in lays the rub.

There isn't anything wrong with traditional gender roles if they aren't enforced.

Saying traditional genders are bullshit as the kind of stuff that makes people feel guilty for having traditional gender roles, my wife does the sewing, I do the garden, not because we have to.

The trouble is with places like era is that everything is black and white, real life is much more nuanced than that.

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Repeating them ad nauseum in media and advertising is enforcing them.

But nice way to try to set yourself above Era lol

 

[Deleted member 41520]

I am very quickly coming to the realisation that I am from a very different generation than the vast majority of people on here.

There are lots of things that I don't understand, this being one of them, and I like to think that I am quite left leaning progressive person, at least for someone born in the 70's

So I think I have two options, try and reconfigure my brain to fit in with this new way of thinking, or accept that I am too old and my views no longer correlate with places like this, and disappear into the wild blue yonder.

Funny old thing getting old :(

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The worst thing about this shit is that your brain's neuroplasticity decreases the older you get - it literally becomes harder for you to forge really new ideas and change your older thoughts/opinions

In this case it's really easy to see this stuff as an ineffectual waste of energy. But with modern research we know that the media everyone sees does affect what we all consider "norms" and does affect how we all think we can behave. That's why this law has come into effect.

If you're a young woman who, say, happens to be blonde, in countless movie and adverts you'll constantly hear "dumb blond" and "science isn't for girls" and blah blah blah - a thousand different messages. These aren't direct commands to you or direct facts, but they're portrayed as a norm. You'll literally hear tons of women IRL say shit like "god I'm so blond" and shit like that. All this cultural/media shit really does affect your psychology, even if it's subconscious.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

And there in lays the rub.

There isn't anything wrong with traditional gender roles if they aren't enforced.

Saying traditional genders are bullshit as the kind of stuff that makes people feel guilty for having traditional gender roles, my wife does the sewing, I do the garden, but not because we have to.

The trouble is with places like era is that everything is black and white, real life is much more nuanced than that.

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So you're 100% dodging responding to my post and also showing your true colors by staying ignorant by choice. If you have no interest in learning then say so from the start so I don't have to waste my fucking time explaining things to you next time. Cheers.

 

[Desi]

Good.

It's not like the fully stopped either....

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That was really well done.

 

[Ragnorok64]

If nothing else, this thread has made me much more interested in trying a Yorkie bar if the opportunity should ever present itself.

 

[Plum]

If nothing else, this thread has made me much more interested in trying a Yorkie bar if the opportunity should ever present itself.

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I wouldn't bother; they're just really sugary iffy-tasting chocolate bars that are too big and chunky to be eaten comfortably.

 

[plagiarize]

This is good. I was actually just praising a few recent UK adverts for being good on this point (the Purplebricks adverts that show both a man who made bad financial decisions in one, and a woman in the other).

Completely off topic, the rise in patriotism in UK adverts of late... I wonder what's driving that, when the country is decidedly divided, and the majority are unhappy with the direction the country is going.

If nothing else, this thread has made me much more interested in trying a Yorkie bar if the opportunity should ever present itself.

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It's the only chocolate bar I cut my mouth eating. I mean, the blood probably helped the flavor of the chocolate a bit, but the sting did it no favors. No this isn't sarcastic or exaggerated.