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Europe Takes Aim at Sexual Stereotyping in Ads
Doreen Carvajal
New York Times
September 10, 2008
IN Madison Avenue’s mind’s eye,
women are still preternaturally obsessed with the
cleanliness of their kitchen floors, while men ruminate
constantly about which shaving products will render them
more attractive to the opposite sex.
The European Parliament has set out to change this. Last
week, the legislature voted 504 to 110 to scold
advertisers for “sexual stereotyping,” adopting a
nonbinding report that seeks to prod the industry to
change the way it depicts men and women.
The lawmakers’ ire has many targets, from a print ad for
Dolce & Gabbana (which had a woman in spike heels pinned
to the ground and surrounded by sweaty men in tight
jeans) to Mr. Clean, the 1950s advertising icon whose
muscular physique might imply that only a strong man is
powerful enough to tackle dirt.
Clearly, the advertising industry is not quaking in its
boots. But the move, however laughable as a gesture of
political correctness, may well provoke some debate
among agency executives and their clients about the
messages they are sending. (That said, the people who
approved the gender-stereotype measure are the same ones
who suggested that all car advertisements should have
warning labels because of the toxic impact of gas
fumes.)
Such debate could well lead to legally binding
legislation, said Mary Honeyball, a British lawmaker and
a member of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
Committee, which developed the report.
“What I think it might do is encourage the industry in
member states of Europe to improve,” she said. “The
report was passed by a big majority, and so there’s
obviously recognition that there is a need to look at
this. There is unacceptable stereotyping.”
The concern, according to the committee report, is that
stereotypes in advertising can “straitjacket women, men,
girls and boys by restricting individuals to
predetermined and artificial roles that are often
degrading, humiliating and dumbed-down for both sexes.”
The vote by Parliament reflects a growing uneasiness in
Europe about how advertisers and big business promote
their products. In France, the Senate is considering a
proposal — already passed in the National Assembly — to
levy fines of up to 45,000 euros, or $64,000, for
advertisements that promote or incite anorexia. The
European Parliament took note of the issue during its
debate last week, calling on advertisers “to consider
carefully their use of extremely thin women to advertise
products.”
Last year, the Spanish government weighed in, demanding
that Dolce & Gabbana pull its “fantasy rape”
advertisement in a country where headlines about
violence against women are all too common. The designers
at the fashion house, based in Milan, relented, but not
before observing in the Italian press that Spain was “a
bit behind the times” and that the ads were artistic in
nature. But then Italian lawmakers started to fume about
the images, and the ads were also withdrawn in Italy.
With its vote, the European Parliament is raising alarms
not only about provocative images, but also about some
that consumers might consider benign. Ms. Honeyball’s
rogues’ gallery includes an ad for LG Electronics
featuring the muscular backside of a naked man who is
facing a washing machine (a spot that won an advertising
award in Cannes). But it also includes a gray-suited
businessman in a Lufthansa ad, and a Miele campaign that
features a woman, potholder in hand, fawning over a cake
in an oven.
Malte Lohan, a spokesman for the World Federation of
Advertisers, a trade association representing 55
national advertiser associations on five continents,
said that his group was wary that the debate “about the
alleged role of advertising in gender discrimination
keeps coming again and again.”•
“The essential concern that we have is that it is mixing
two different things: gender stereotyping with
discrimination and degrading images,” Mr. Lohan said.
“That’s a real problem because stereotypes are not
necessarily something that are bad. They can be totally
harmless or quite entertaining.”
He said the industry supported efforts to eliminate
degrading or discriminatory images of women. The
association, however, has not taken a position on the
debate over extremely thin women. “That’s still a fairly
recent issue,” he said. “Before, advertisers were
criticized for causing obesity rates to go up, and
that’s being turned on its head.”
Eva-Britt Svensson, a Swedish member of Parliament and
author of the report on advertising images, said that,
at this point, legislators were pressing simply for
self-regulation among advertisers. But she also
suggested that consumers could act.
“If they have more information and awareness about the
impact of gender stereotypes,” she said, ”they can start
boycotting products.” |
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