Last night the on-line version of the ABC’s Gruen Transfer, known as The Gruen Sessions was broadcast on the program’s site. The topic was the depiction of women in advertising. I was a guest on the panel with media analyst Jane Caro, advertising executives Russell Howcroft and Todd Sampson and host Wil Anderson.
I argued:
• That women continue to be portrayed in objectified, sexualised ways in advertising – and that it’s getting worse
• That women are primarily depicted in normative ways as thin, white, anglo-saxon and idle
• That images which would be considered sexual harassment if posted in a workplace are considered perfectly acceptable if posted on giant billboards in the public domain
• That the regular dismissal of complaints suggests that sexist advertising is acceptable
• That children and young people continue to receive the message that being thin, hot and sexy is the way to happiness and success
• That the Advertising Standards Board is limited in effectiveness, and therefore acts in the interests of the industry, because of a weak code of ethics, voluntary advertiser participation, no pre-vetting of material, no power to withdraw ads and no penalties for offending advertisers
• That there needed to be greater industry accountability and responsibility
• That women’s equality should be placed higher than commercial interests
It is a reality not widely enough acknowledged that the more complaints about sexist advertising are dismissed, the more normalised and entrenched such advertising becomes.
As Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a contributor to Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls and author of Sex in Public: Women and Outdoor Advertising writes in her book:
Whether inadvertently or not, the ASB’s routine dismissal of complaints does mould community standards. The increasing number of sexist advertisements shown, compounded with the small number ever withdrawn, works to give the impression that sexist advertising is tolerable.
Another problem is that a lot of people just do not know where to complain to. As Dr Rosewarne told the Senate committee inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment. (See Melbourne hearing transcripts )
If the complaints process is not made more obvious, the consequence is that community silence is read as tolerance and as being in line with ‘community standards’, thus facilitating sexist advertisements, and that remains the status quo.
Of course, the industry likes things exactly the way they are. As the Australia Institute says:
… advertisers also have an interest in avoiding government scrutiny that may lead to stronger regulation of advertising in the interests of the general public…Self-regulation is a strategy that enables the industry to avoid such scrutiny.
There is also an attitude of contempt towards those making complaints, as John Brown a former member of the Advertising Standards Board, demonstrates. As told to the Senate inquiry, Brown was quoted, in one of the Advertising Standard’s Boards own publications, as saying:
I’m still amused after all these years at the sometimes petty approach of some citizens to the very mild attacks on their sensibility in certain ads. But keep your letters coming. This is democracy in action and also very amusing.
I was very pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the Lynx ads, which feature demeaning representations of women. Lynx is owned by Unilever, which also owns Dove. You would know about Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign which purports to promote respect and recognition of women’s real value. Dove also funds programs in schools to help educate regarding body image issues. How you do that while also presenting women as out-of-control sex maniacs who attack any man who has sprayed himself with Lynx, I don’t know. Dove also has skin whitening creams for dark skinned women suggesting real beauty only comes in white skin. As well, Unilever markets slimfast products for rapid weight loss, suggesting real beauty only comes in size skinny. Had enough of real women already have we?
Last week the Advertising Standards Board released a research report titled ‘Community Perfections of sex, sexuality and nudity in advertising’
The ASB likes to claim it is attuned with community standards and seems to base this on the fact that it upheld complaints about the two most offensive ads. The data in table 4 shows that in a large proportion of the ads about which complaints were dismissed (6 of 11) they were found objectionable by one in three, or more, respondents.
Examining the stats by gender, in the next table, the picture gets even worse. For those ads, on average nearly half of females find them unacceptable (46% – for some ads it is over 50%).
So, according to the ASB, it is in line with community perceptions to offend almost half of women.
As Elizabeth Handsley, Professor of Law at Flinders University and Vice President of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, wrote in an email to me yesterday:
There is a pretty strong argument that being out of step with the standards of nearly half of women is not good enough.
The question always has to be: what is the community benefit that justifies offending this many people?
The self-regulatory system has been inadequate to the task of dealing with increasingly pornified imagery in the public spaces. The continual dismissal of most complaints and the growing display of sexualised imagery serves to normalise and mainstream the objectification of women. Perhaps the whole thing should be handed over to the Sex Discrimination Commissioner rather than handled in-house by an industry which shows us everyday what it really thinks of women.
See also: ‘Fears that children are influenced by sexualising of teens in ads’
Advertising Standards Board. How much is too much? S*x , nudity in ads
19 Responses
The sexualisation of woman has become so normalised that most people can’t understand the fuss. Many of these people are the ones who buy into the idea that that as women they must be young, white, thin, beautiful and the only way to demonstrate that idea is to act out the roles they see depicted in advertising, movies, tv and music videos. Anything less than this and they aren’t ok. How much mental illness could be resolved merely by recognising and being valued for our inherent worth? Go Melinda you are doing a fantastic job.
Cheers
Kerry
It’s highly telling when you compare the ASB’s “Violence Research Report” with the “Community perceptions of sex, sexuality and nudity in advertising” report. The adverts which the most complaints were the violent ones, not the sexual ones. For example in the table on page 16 in the “sexual” report, the highest number of complaints for any one advert was 10. Most ranged around the 2 complaint mark and the average per complaint was about 4 (using my rough maths).
Check out the “Violence Research Report” table on the other hand (page 10). A whopping 106 complaints for one single advert, 50 for a Mother drink advert and 87 for a QLD Government speeding ad. The average complaints per ad was about 25. So, that’s quite a difference between reports. This would indicate to me that people are more concerned with depictions of violence in adverts than sexuality.
I don’t buy the whole “people just do not know where to complain to” argument as they are actually writing in when they see ads that they personally find unacceptably violent.
It’s not just advertising where the problem lies. Last night I was watching the latest episode of True Blood and I was horrified by a sex scene between two vampires where the male was viciously attacking the female, screaming that he would never make love to her, then having rough, violent sex with her, while twisting her head around so she was looking backwards, blood dripping from her mouth as she says “I still love you”. Meanwhile the female is moaning and groaning as if she is enjoying it.
Granted, True Blood isn’t exactly a show that you’d expect high moral standards, but this was pushing it way too far for me. I don’t think I’ll be watching it anymore.
With regard to advertising, I’m 100% in agreement with you about images in the workplace versus on billboards. I went out to dinner with my husband and a bunch of friends to a popular steak house recently, and up on the wall were advertisements for beer and other alcohol, all with mostly naked women, women in lingerie in provocative poses. These weren’t just posters, they were actually framed in big gold frames as if they were some kind of treasure. I was extremely offended by them. It was sexually harassing. How then, must the women who work at that restaurant feel day in day out?
I had my 4 yr old daughter and my nearly 16 year old son with me at the dinner table and that’s is the view we had while we ate.
How can I possibly teach my children their own value as human beings if that is what I have to compete with? How can I teach my son to respect women if there are pictures like that bombarding him wherever he goes? How can I teach my daughter to respect herself and love herself for who she is and not have her try to live up to some “beauty” standard like that? I don’t want my daughter to think she has to ooze sex for people to like or indeed love her. I don’t want my son thinking that only women who dress and behave overtly sexual, are the only women that are attractive.
TV ads are getting worse and worse. If I’m going to watch televsion now, I record the shows I want to watch on the Foxtel box, so I can watch them later… fast forwarding past all the ads. It’s usually a warp speed flesh fest, but luckily I don’t have to sit through them all now. I shouldn’t have to resort to this to keep myself and my children safe from these kinds of themes and images.
Keep up the great work Melinda!
Forever Malcolm Young – the point is that they’re out of touch whether it’s in relation to sexual or violent advertising. (often the two go together in our culture anyway)
And in my experience, many people don’t know where to complain. Just because some people write in doesn’t mean everyone knows what to do. Also, many people will not bother because they don’t think the ASB will do anything about it. ( I get asked “is there any point?” ) And lets face it, the ASB often don’t do anything, because self regulation is useless. How long have we all had to hear about men’s erectile problems?
Melinda Liszewski, it is very clear that more people complain about adverts which they deem to be offensive because of violent content rather sexual content. So are you telling those who are offended by sexual content in adverts don’t know where to complain, yet those offended by violent content do? That doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. There’s a gulf of deference between the amount of complaints in the two reports. This would seem to indicate clearly that people are significantly more offended at violence than sexual content. So one conclusion here is that MTR’s argument is a non-issue to the public.
“How long have we all had to hear about men’s erectile problems?”. Er, not at all? Think I’ve seen about one ad in the last year in regard to this. In fact I’ve seen more offensive adverts on the “Gruen Transfer” in the last few weeks than I have seen in the past year of TV viewing.
Thanks MTR for doing this work. I absolutely loved everything you said on Gruen. The guy on the left who kept mentioning his 2 daughters was disappointing. He said he was concerned about the sexualisation of girls and women but continually justified it by saying that sex sells. What a cop out. The bald guy on the right was just appalling.
I have complained once to the ABS about a sexually offensive ad but I don’t bother anymore because of what Melinda Liszewski said – I just can’t be bothered because I know that I’m not taken seriously. I need to get off my backside and do more though – I keep telling myself that. The more people that speak out the more likely things will change…..It’s very frustrating though, particularly when you have condescending comments like those of John Brown. I’m not surprised to hear this fro him at all – this is the dominant attitude that people on so-called ‘regulatory’ boards seem to take, and this. I would argue, is a major reason that people don’t complain. They are effectively told to shut up before they even start to speak.
I think people have been robbed of a language with which to complain about sexualised images. It is easy to complain about violence, because everyone understands its damage. But as Kerry notes, sexualised images have become so normalised now that when you complain about it you run the risk of being labelled a prude who needs to ‘get a life’ or ‘chill out’.
Sometimes it feels like trying to break through a brick wall…it’s more than disheartening. I’ve been furiously writing letters and emails for months concerning these issues and some days (like today) it all feels too overwhelming and I want to give up. Just thinking about it all can honestly be very depressing.
I see now that i’m not the only person feeling this way. We all must dig in our heels and fight for all it’s worth. I’m nineteen and cannot begin to fathom what the world could be like only five or ten years from now if we don’t urge a change. Let them call us prudes and ugly feminists. Let them laugh at us and tell us to ‘get a life’. At least we’re being noticed and most of all – at least we have each other’s support.
Thankyou once again from the bottom of my heart Melinda – You give a voice to those of us who can’t speak loud enough!
Advertising self-regulation is a disaster. Companies do what they have to in order to sell stuff and see the market as the regulator. They don’t see a role for ethics or the wider public good because that does not bring in the dollars that satisfy the shareholders. When advertising is broadcast to all the community via billboards, free to air tv, radio etc, it demands a community controlled regulator, willing to respond to community concerns. Unfortunately the only way to achieve that is for the federal government to step in and use some regulatory powers. But how to make governments act and threaten the interests of big companies?
C’mon Advertising Industry – take some responsibility!! As well as government, society and community!! Parental responsibility is definitely one aspect of it protecting young women and children. There is no denying that, but there is also a societal responsibility. Parents cannot control everything and I do not think there is anything wrong in expecting support from the community and the State. We need to protect those who are more vulnerable!!
And the escort agency advertising – so tacky! Not only objectifying women, but contributing to the breakdown of families and marriages! Is not anything sacred?
Also, had I known earlier about where to report my concerns regarding such ads – Lynx, etc, I would have done so previously.
Sexual liberation? Sexual freedom? If you devalue yourself, you’ll get paid what you’re worth!!
Go Melinda – the lone crusader!
Disappointingly, I guess the way society is geared today demonstrates a lack of value for women and children within our communities.
I have just watched the Gruen Sessions. Well done Melinda! It was really interesting to see the different perspectives taken by the advertising people there – particularly the difference between the male and female perspective.
There was certainly an attempt to place production values and the ability to sell products above the health and wellbeing of our society which was saddening. Desensitisation to sexual objectification was also distinctly evident.
I think the key is to continue to speak out and not sit back and let it pass us all by. Rather than ignoring the issues we need to demonstrate what the evidence says, and push for change.
I love the stuff you have to say and the points you make. These are important & real issues. I do wonder sometimes though that there is a focus on the negative, all the talk is about what is wrong. Yes, there’s plenty wrong. But how about talking about what is right? Setting a road map? Inspiring people – men and women?
I’m not saying this based on this one post, I’ve been following your work on and off for years, not super closely, but seen your name come up plenty of times. There’s probably been some positive stuff I missed. My overwhelming impression though is negative – a wrong, wrong, wrong approach.
Often the best way to get rid of something bad is to instead replace it with something good. Nature abhors a vacuum.
I applaud your work (and have supported WFA – in the past), but I do feel you are limiting yourself and coming across as all those things you probably strive hard to avoid – the “angry lesbian feminist” type image, although I know you are none of those things (as far as I know anyway!).
@ Jenni
it is interesting that environmental activists who are trying to combat the degradation of the planet are rarely told to lighten up, stop focusing on the negative, and replace the anger with some nice smiley new age positive thinking because they risk putting people off by calling attention to what is wrong.
As for road maps, I think it is pretty clear Melinda has provided a lot of this. Women (and men) have been providing ‘road maps’ on these issues for decades and decades. But it seems that over and over again the accusation is made that nothing positive has been suggested. And often by people who think that if women speak out about the oppression of women then they are, therefore, ‘angry lesbian feminists’. If there was no anger about social injustice then there would be nothing to challenge power.
@ ‘Often the best way to get rid of something bad is to instead replace it with something good. Nature abhors a vacuum.’
This is not about natural law, or nature, it is about power and culture. There has never been a ‘vacuum’ of ‘good’ in feminism or in any of the oppositional movements that question forms of oppression. It is a passionate, courageous and hopeful commitment to a vision of justice and freedom which keeps activists and others motivated.
Hi Jenni,
A lot of the stuff Melinda writes about is negative, because the world is becoming a more negative place for girls and women, which has been documented in various research papers on the sexualisation of children. The American Psychological Association called the culture a ‘toxic’ culture for girls, where girls are growing up in an environment likely to cause physical and psychological damage to them. There are very real harms caused to girls in a culture that sexualises them and objectifies women. So unfortunately, there is a lot of negative stuff happening. And it is wrong.
Regarding what is right…I believe Melinda does talk about that. On the Gruen sessions the other night she talked about how advertising should be equitable and not sexist. She talks about how girls should be able to grow up free of the pressures placed on them to lose weight, look hot and sexy. (imagine that! how great would that be if little girls weren’t hating their bodies by age 9) If something is happening in the culture that is ‘right’ for women and girls then I’m sure she, like others who work in this field would be only too happy to report on it. When we see good things happening, we do need to promote it as you said.
Unfortunately what tends to happen is that what is promoted as ‘good’ isn’t so good after all, or falls very short of the reforms needed to really make a difference in this toxic culture. For example, the ad standards board will tell us they are doing a fine job with self regulation and ads get pulled when complaints are upheld (yeah,..when the campaign is finished anyway) The governments proposed body image initiative is one that slaps the industry with a feature, it is voluntary and as far as we’ve heard, no-one is volunteering to adhere to the recommendations. Some magazines will claim they are celebrating women by objectifying someone who is size 14 rather than size 8. Yet that misses the point, no-one should be objectified. I could go on.
In order for things to change, the light will need to be repeatedly shone on the crap that is out there, in order to expose it for what it is. And that is going to make us all feel a little bit uncomfortable, however we need to get real about the issues in order to realise just how bad a situation we are in and how much work we need to do to change it.
Meanwhile Jenni, if you do know of any awesome stuff that is happening, please let Melinda know, or write to Collective Shout, which is a grass roots movement that I’m working with Melinda T R on. http://www.collectiveshout.org and the email is collectiveshout@gmail.com If you check out the site you will see that some of our members are already doing some great stuff to make a difference in their communities.
I just want to say thank you. I am a mother trying to raise three boys to respect women. And lately, I’ve been feeling so helpless. I even said recently to a friend that I’m losing this battle. I feel defeated. But reading your replies here makes me feel as if I’m not alone. I’ve reached out before only to be disappointed in most responses.
Just thank you.