Swedish sexy ad ban faces sceptics in Europe
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Britain, we were led to believe at the weekend, is outraged at dastardly foreign attempts to banish busty beauties from the nation’s billboards. The root of their anger was Swedish politicians who, having failed to get sexist ads banned on the home front, scored a win in Brussels.
The Daily Mail, an organ never to miss an opportunity for a bit of Euro-bashing (or, indeed, dredge up images from old Wonderbra ads), was breathless with indignation after a committee of Euro-MPs demanded that EU countries put a stop to any ads that reinforce gender stereotypes. The person behind this controversial plan is none other than Eva-Britt Svensson, a Swedish Left Party MEP and vice chairperson of the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee. The author of the report seems to have swallowed an undergraduate gender studies textbook:
‘Gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting individuals to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes.’
So it’s ‘Goobye Boys’ from Wonderbra, but also from yummy Diet Coke builders, Calvin Klein-clad footballers and the rest.
Actually, the chances of any country being forced to ban anything is close to nil (no law has been passed – the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee has just recommended a course of action that governments are free to ignore, as they no doubt will, despite the parliament voting to adopt the report), but if you’ve been in Sweden for the past few years, the proposal had a familiar ring.
The Swedish Council against Sexual Discrimination in Advertising (ERK) has long waged a battle against ads depicting scantily-clad models, as we have reported here and here .
ERK’s rulings have led to accusations that it was trying to act as the ‘thought police’. They have also raised a number of questions: is sexy advertising always sexist? Why should advertisers be expected to be more politically correct than the consumers they target? Whatever happened to free speech? And besides, surely the whole business should be self-regulating: consumers won’t buy products if the ads are offensive? The controversial nature of ERK’s work also has the self-defeating side-effect that the ads it censures are guaranteed lots of free publicity in the tabloids.
ERK’s rulings don’t have the force of law, but earlier this year an official committee proposed going one step further and banning all material “with a commercial aim” that could be “construed as offensive to women or men.”
Equality minister Nyamko Sabuni refused to adopt the report’s findings, saying: “I don’t want to infringe on fundamental human freedoms and rights for a law the efficacy of which I question. This is not the way to win the fight for gender equity.” Defeated on home soil, it looks like Svensson is seeing whether the battle can be won elsewhere. She probably shouldn’t hold her breath – in the UK, at least, even the left-wing papers are subjecting the idea to ridicule.
Charlie Brooker in the Guardian wonders what effects non-sexist ads might have:
I can scarcely picture what kind of patronising hell we’d be creating for ourselves there. And what if it worked? What if all our ads were suddenly filled with ladylike men eating chocolates and butch ladettes swigging beer, and these images proved so influential that everyone started behaving that way in real life, until these brave new anti-stereotypes had become stale old actual stereotypes, so we had to start all over again by subverting our old subversions?
Equally cutting is an article by Claire Beale, editor of ad-industry magazine Campaign. Calling the report “fatuous bureaucratic meddling,” she describes it as “the legislative equivalent of one of those We Love the 70s programmes, a real trip down time warp lane.”
Ads are never going to be subtle, she continues:
Does advertising deal in stereotypes? Of course. When you’ve only got 30 seconds or a glance to make an impact on a broad group of people you don’t have time to invent a new language. You tap into common themes, ideas and images to create an instant connection.
Svensson’s poorly-presented arguments might leave an open goal for her opponents, but the failure to pass a similar law in Stockholm must beg the question: if rules like this haven’t worked in politically correct Sweden, how on earth could they be made to work elsewhere?
There is some good news for those who think advertising is sexist, though – things have improved over the past 50 years, as these ads show.
September 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
The thing about stereotypes is that there is usually some measure of truth to them. No, they are not a complete picture, but in advertising they are not intended to be either.
Would it be a stereotype if an ad showed a woman baking cookies while a man was working on a car engine? Some might see it that way, but that’s what my wife and I were up to yesterday afternoon. She likes baking and I like working on my truck – there is nothing “artificial” about it.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I´ve lived in Italy many years, and I can see how Italians companies uses sex and semi-nudity to sell from toilet paper to baby food. I am happy here in Sweden, where advertisement is regulated. Why on earth do I need to be bombarded by sexist advertisement 24 hrs a day. It is ridiculous to think that the advertisement industry will self regulate. Their role is to sell goods not sex or things related. Young generations are feeling the pressure of this over-sex-up society, normal woman also…why on earth defend the advertisement companies? Love and peace!
September 20th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Gender stereotypes involve prejudices and false assumptions propelled by patriarchy. Compared to America Sweden is socially a much more freer thinking society and has a greater understanding that such is a social phenomenon; is socially constructed, and thus can change. Plenty of men there enjoy baking, push baby carriages, and there are greater efforts to encourage women to enter fields of natural sciences and engineering. I dont think the previous American has been to Sweden… I greatly praise the country to be at a point where sexist advertising is a serious discussion in mainstream media. I hope the US can get there someday, until then, I’ll work on getting closer to Scandinavians!
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
The joke is that they believe that they can change human psychology by tinkering with a few advertisements. All they succeed in doing is making their cause look like a joke. I believe that it is a case of “banning walking on the grass” whilst “gangsters shoot up pedestrians on the side walk for their money”. I find it far more worrying that goods and services are sold on the basis of fear eg “if you don’t buy our car you could kill your children” “if you don’t use our spot removal cream you will never breed”. Many of the fears hyped up by advertising are exaggerated but they become the norm though advertising. It seems highly debatable whether associating products with what passes for “sexiness” in a culture is anywhere near as damaging as engendering a widespread climate of fear in people though advertising.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I would also like to add something about Ryanair and their new ad campaign. Not only is it sexist, but it also depicts young women in high school (I assume) wearing almost no clothes, in what looks like a school uniform. They are of course stupid and have no idea what Swedish girls wear. First of all, we don’t have school uniforms in Sweden, secondly, if Swedish girls wear clothes like that to school it is allowed but something most girls grow out of, and thirdly, it does not actually cause interest in an ad at all. ‘
In addition: not many school girls actually buy tickets from Ryanair without consulting their parents as they don’t have credit or debit cards when they are that young.
I think I will boycott Ryanair for the rest of my life. Too bad, I was a happy costumer.
Hello Sterling!
Streja
high school teacher in Sweden who will test the ad on her students and will see how they react
October 20th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
i am from the uk, and i dont want busty beauties banned, far from it……..lol
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
Hi can someone please translate for me thanx,