Most adverts for children’s toys reinforce “narrow and limiting” gender stereotypes
The Independent tells us that the advertising watchdog is going to look into the sexism issue.
The UK’s advertising watchdog has launched an inquiry into the prevalence of negative gender stereotyping in ads. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has announced they are commissioning new research on the topic and invited members of the public and interested organisations to contact them to share their views on the issue in a bid to gauge public opinion.
In the US that would set off agonized protests about free speech. I have some qualms about the state schooling advertisers on sexism, but I also have massive objections to routinely insulting and belittling sexism in advertising. Competing qualms here.
A spokesperson for the ASA said: “The objectification and sexualisation of women in ads, presenting an idealised or unrealistic body image, the mocking of women and men in non-stereotypical roles, the reinforcement of stereotyped views of gender roles, and gender-specific marketing to children are all issues that have gained considerable public interest.”
And all of that is done to serve the agenda of persuading people to spend money on a product. They should be able to do that without belittling women.
Adverts aimed at children have also subject to criticism. Last year, a study of adverts broadcast on UK television found the majority of adverts for children’s toys are “sexist” and reinforce “narrow and limiting” gender stereotypes.
The study by Let Toys Be Toys followed moves by retailers Toys R Us, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Boots and Sainsbury’s to drop gender-based marketing.
Guy Parker, Chief Executive of the ASA, said: “We’re serious about making sure we’re alive to changing attitudes and behaviours. That’s why we’ve already been taking action to ban ads that we believe reinforce gender stereotypes and are likely to cause serious widespread offence, or harm.”
Do that. Gender stereotypes are useful to no one.
Anyone who wishes to submit evidence or comments on the issue is invited to email gender@asa.org.uk
Does this mean that #AdvertiserGaters will have to post endless hateful posts about “ethics in toy advertising”? God, I hope not
One of the most remarkable examples of this was in the video game market. When home consoles were first introduced (Atari, Commodore 64), the games were pushed as family entertainment; you’d usually see either a mixed group of kids, or even a Nuclear Family (dad/mom/daughter/son) playing together. Then the Great Video Game Crash of the 1983 hit–poor quality games had flooded the market, causing the big players to pretty much collapse. Then Nintendo stepped in with the NES–and very deliberately marketed the system exclusively to boys.
It’s those ads that led to the development of the oh-so-toxic Gamer Culture we’ve got now. This is very demonstrably not a harmless way to message young children.
An excellent article on the subject: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed
Oh, I did not know that. Thank you for the link.
Freemage, that article by Tracey Lien is very interesting. Thanks!
It is. I’ve just been reading it too.
“As for the boys section, there isn’t one. Everything else is for boys.”
Glad folks liked the article. I found it very illuminating, too, especially the way the language has gotten warped (so that things like Farmville and online flash games and the like are not considered “video games”–and just so happen to be much more gender-balanced in their player base).
There really isn’t much “game” to be found in games like Farmville, Tribez, etc though…
Blood Knight: I’ll concede that they’re essentially elaborate programming puzzles/logic problems–figure out how to turn out specific results using certain inputs*. But the same claim is made about pretty much any game that isn’t an FPS or World of Warcraft clone these days (and WoW isn’t a game unless you’re playing PvP).
I’ve seen these guys claim that Civilization isn’t a freaking game, for crying out loud, even when it is competitive multiplayer.
*: I’ll also note that the games that seem to have the largest contingent of female players are those I just described as logic/programming puzzles, which also undermines the claim that wimmenfolk can’t logic.