The Student Room Group

What stereotypes should be banned in adverts?

I thought it was the ASA that did all the advertising stuff, but apparently there's an extra layer of bureaucracy, with it being the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) being the ones to decide what is allowed or not. The CAP has decided to ban "gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence".

This ban will include men struggling with household chores (understandable) and girls being less academic than boys (here, I'm not sure I've ever seen such an advert).

There are some grey areas they are considering, such as a man relaxing while a woman cleans (this is the 'agreement' for certain households, I'm sure, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, or the other way round if the couple agree), situations where someone fails at something due to their gender (I'd support banning this, no product should be claiming someone is a failure due to their gender) and adverts that belittle men for doing 'female' tasks (I'd support banning adverts that attack people happily doing something they want, but then that's what most advertising relies on).

Obviously they can't ban all stereotypes, otherwise we end up with the same stereotypes but with the other gender as the media tells only men to be the primary caregiver, and women only to do STEM. But a lot of adverts are really stupid and need sorting out.

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The trouble is that current generation adverts are just sex/race swapped versions of the old adverts which were causing offence;

β€’ People complained about the lack of mixed race relationships portrayed in adverts, so now adverts include a biracial relationship
β€’ People complained that a woman having difficulty with a task was sexist, so now men are portrayed as having difficulty with the task

The adverts themselves are still offensive in the same way as before, the intentional exclusion or depiction of a race/sex in a way designed to humiliate or remove. The sad truth is that many companies are brainwashed into the belief that pandering to specific groups, such as 'minorities' and 'females', will improve sales - when in reality the new adverts often create a backlash that has driven away customers who have been loyal for years because the company no longer stands by its original values and bends to the pressure of social justice groups.

Kleenex Man Size tissues is an example of this, an entire product brand had to collapse completely because of some insecure people on twitter.
Maybe just go back to old style ads, picture of product with price, company logo and music theme, then end, have it in black and white as well, npc friendly.
Perfume adverts irritate me, it's always some elegant girls swooning all over the place being all flowery and feminine or it's some hunky grrrr masc guys in gym lockers or something
Noone is totally masculine or totally feminine it's just playing on weird 'seductive' stereotypes
Santa Claus.

The old, fat, while male in red is just so dated.

Why can't Santa be a young, slim, woman in a little black dress? It may encourage teenage boys to rediscover their belief in Santa.
Reply 5
"Under the new rules, gender stereotypes would not be banned "outright", the committees said, because the evidence did not show that the use of gender stereotypes was always "problematic"".

in other words, they're not 'banning gendered stereotypes' - they're banning adverts that contain gendered stereotypes which are likely to cause harm, i.e. they're being judged on a case-by-case basis. kind of like their other so-called ban on "adverts that include gender stereotypes on grounds of "objectification, inappropriate sexualisation and depiction of unhealthily thin body images" -- yet we all know we see objectification and thin models all the time. it's just that a line needs to be drawn somewhere, those being on the extreme side.

other than that, i suspect this 'ban' will affect a small minority of morons who don't know how to advertise in 2018. don't remember the last time i've seen an ad that featured gendered stereotypes from the 1950s but then again i haven't watched tv in 5 years.
Original post by Joleee
"Under the new rules, gender stereotypes would not be banned "outright", the committees said, because the evidence did not show that the use of gender stereotypes was always "problematic"".

in other words, they're not 'banning gendered stereotypes' - they're banning adverts that contain gendered stereotypes which are likely to cause harm, i.e. they're being judged on a case-by-case basis. kind of like their other so-called ban on "adverts that include gender stereotypes on grounds of "objectification, inappropriate sexualisation and depiction of unhealthily thin body images" -- yet we all know we see objectification and thin models all the time. it's just that a line needs to be drawn somewhere, those being on the extreme side.

other than that, i suspect this 'ban' will affect a small minority of morons who don't know how to advertise in 2018. don't remember the last time i've seen an ad that featured gendered stereotypes from the 1950s but then again i haven't watched tv in 5 years.

So basically anything the left doesn't like...
Reply 7
Original post by CoolCavy
Perfume adverts irritate me, it's always some elegant girls swooning all over the place being all flowery and feminine or it's some hunky grrrr masc guys in gym lockers or something
Noone is totally masculine or totally feminine it's just playing on weird 'seductive' stereotypes

Did you just assume my gender?
Original post by Joleee
other than that, i suspect this 'ban' will affect a small minority of morons who don't know how to advertise in 2018. don't remember the last time i've seen an ad that featured gendered stereotypes from the 1950s but then again i haven't watched tv in 5 years.


Exactly, this is probably more helpful than anything for advertisers. It tells advertisers how to advertise better to millenials.

If people are offended by your advert, it is a bad advert in the first place!
Reply 9
This is just stupid.

Those Mr muscle adverts from back in the day would be banned under this and no one ever took offence to them, but now due to snowflake culture everything gets banned..
Reply 10
Original post by Violet Femme
Why can't Santa be a young, slim, woman in a little black dress?




Because she'd get called a "ho, ho, ho!"


Spoiler

Original post by Joleee
"Under the new rules, gender stereotypes would not be banned "outright", the committees said, because the evidence did not show that the use of gender stereotypes was always "problematic"".

in other words, they're not 'banning gendered stereotypes' - they're banning adverts that contain gendered stereotypes which are likely to cause harm, i.e. they're being judged on a case-by-case basis. kind of like their other so-called ban on "adverts that include gender stereotypes on grounds of "objectification, inappropriate sexualisation and depiction of unhealthily thin body images" -- yet we all know we see objectification and thin models all the time. it's just that a line needs to be drawn somewhere, those being on the extreme side.

other than that, i suspect this 'ban' will affect a small minority of morons who don't know how to advertise in 2018. don't remember the last time i've seen an ad that featured gendered stereotypes from the 1950s but then again i haven't watched tv in 5 years.

This is ridiculous. The ASA has the power to subjectively and arbitrarily decide what is and isn’t a β€œharmful” gender stereotype, let alone what is a gender stereotype at all. It’s literal social engineering. What objective criteria is being set to decide what’s a β€œproblematic” gender stereotype from a non-β€œproblematic” one? How far should it go? If an advert depicts an all male football team is that β€œproblematic” because it might be suggesting only men can play football? Consumers can decide for themselves if they like or dislike an advert by their purchasing choices, the last thing we need is for a committee of SJWs to enforce their worldview on the rest of us.
Original post by Jebedee
Did you just assume my gender?

How original.
Original post by CoolCavy
Perfume adverts irritate me, it's always some elegant girls swooning all over the place being all flowery and feminine or it's some hunky grrrr masc guys in gym lockers or something
Noone is totally masculine or totally feminine it's just playing on weird 'seductive' stereotypes


the adverts this year are hilarious... some gormless floozies in a pond in their nighties

:toofunny:
I find the idiot husband trope to be incredibly offensive.

Actually, not really, because they're only adverts and I don't pay much attention to them anyway. I rarely even watch television. Who watches TV anymore?
Original post by the bear
the adverts this year are hilarious... some gormless floozies in a pond in their nighties

:toofunny:

Oh yeh I seen that one :lol:
I'm not a sjw or anything close to that but some things are so pointlessly gendered, like who needs a 'womans' BIC biro :confused:
All of them.

Make advertisers actually come up with some original ideas for a change.
Original post by CoolCavy
Perfume adverts irritate me, it's always some elegant girls swooning all over the place being all flowery and feminine or it's some hunky grrrr masc guys in gym lockers or something
Noone is totally masculine or totally feminine it's just playing on weird 'seductive' stereotypes

lol Females are (bar the red haired feminist) feminine in nature, while men (bar the beta male feminists) are masculine - its nature not a stereotype, no matter how long you listen to these so called feminists



im a woman, and i value being feminine, unlike those who want to be men with long hair lol - dont see what is so triggering
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by BlueIndigoViolet
lol Females are (bar the red haired feminist) feminine in nature, while men (bar the beta male feminists) are masculine - its nature not a stereotype, no matter how long you listen to these so called feminists



im a woman, and i value being feminine, unlike those who want to be men with long hair lol - dont see what is so triggering

I'm not triggered (is anyone able to have a discussion without resorting to 4chan sound bites)
Women aren't nessecarily feminine and I'm one of those people, as someone who likes to wear men's clothes etc it would be nice if people like that were in such adverts
I'm not asking for them to be banned I'm just saying I personally find them a bit irritating, literally is just my opinion
Not sure why you're so 'triggered' that i have an opinion different to yours

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