Hoo Boy. The UK “Gender Stereotype” Rules Are Up And Running
JAZZ SHAWPosted at 10:31 am on August 15, 2019
Following complaints from the public over the past couple of years, the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has implemented new rules for television and print advertising. The purpose of these regulations is to eliminate “harmful gender stereotyping” in ads. If that phrase leaves you scratching your head, don’t worry. You’re not alone.
In any event, the first two “harmful” ads have been banned from the airwaves. They were from Volkswagen and Philadelphia cream cheese. So what were they depicting? Child abuse? Violence against women? Racism? Nope. One was a shot of a woman sitting in the park next to a baby stroller and the other showed two dads acting dumb in a restaurant. (CNN)
An advertisement juxtaposing male astronauts with a woman sitting by a stroller, and another depicting two hapless dads, are the first casualties of a British ban on gender stereotypes in advertising.
The ads, for Volkswagen and Philadelphia cream cheese, were investigated by the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) after viewers complained they perpetuated gender stereotypes.
New rules that came into force in June prohibit depictions of gender that “are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offense.”
The Volkswagen commercial shows a number of primarily male people taking part in adventurous activities — two male astronauts in space, and a male athlete with a prosthetic leg doing the long jump — before cutting to a mother sitting on a park bench next to a stroller. It prompted three complaints from viewers, and the ASA found it showed a woman “engaged in a stereotypical care-giving role.”
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