Should we ban sexist advertising?

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] slim, white woman trails around her beautiful flat in her underwear, swaying her hips and stroking her hair. She gazes at herself in the mirror, runs her fingers down her cleavage while biting her lip, and wiggles into her jeans as if performing the most awkward reverse strip-tease ever, then irons her shirt for the day. If this were a lingerie ad it could be dismissed as just another sexist ploy to sell knickers, provoking another round of wearily annoyed tweeting before being forgotten. Yet, I can’t let this one go.

When the woman’s phone rings and she pats herself down to find it and, oh — how funny, it was in her shirt pocket the whole time and she didn’t notice — we discover that the  dancing about in her underwear and the creepily lingering focus on her boobs and bum were all to sell a phone. A phone. The advert is for the latest offering by Kazam, which, when the advert was produced, was the world’s slimmest phone, enabling the ad’s creators to draw the tenuous link between slim model (Camilla Hansson, Sweden’s candidate for Miss Universe, no less) and a slim mobile phone.

Adverts which objectify women seem ubiquitous, even in 2015

Yet this particular one provoked enough complaints that the Advertising Standards Authority banned it, specifically “because it was overtly sexual and objectified women”. Was the watchdog going over the top? A vehement ‘no’: I, and most other women, are sick and tired of lazy advertising that is internalised by girls and young women throughout our lives. In advertising, where are the women in lab coats? Where are the women saving lives, carrying out important research, playing sports? Women in adverts are far more likely to be orgasming over yoghurt (see Nicole Scherzinger for Müller Light) than lifting weights, though I can definitely tell you which is more common in real life.

Photo: Flickr/Liam Wilde

Near-nakedness can be absolutely fine — in the right context. Clothes get in the way when selling actual lingerie (though there are plenty of problematic bra adverts), and if you fancy wandering round your flat in in the buff, why not? But why is it needed to sell a mobile phone, of all things? The ASA banned this particular clip because it “bore no relevance to the advertised product”. It is one minute long; the phone is in shot for a grand total of ten seconds. The “sexually suggestive” shots highlighted by the ASA “lingered over her breasts, buttocks and lips,” and therefore were directly contributing to the treatment of women’s bodies as blank canvases on which to sell products, any products.

In no way can this be justified

Despite what many straight men (clearly the ad’s targeted audience) may fantasise about, most women do not saunter sexily around their flats and gaze adoringly at themselves in the mirror before slipping their designer clothes on. If I tried, I would burst out laughing and so would my flatmates; I spend my mornings steaming my eyes open over my coffee mug and rummaging in my wardrobe for that top I got a compliment on once, before necking breakfast and legging it to the library.

A phone that’s so tough it can survive a hot iron, though? That would be seriously cool, and far more useful than, well, a skinny phone the length and width of a shoe.

Do you think that it’s right for the ASA to ban sexist advertising? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or tweet us @BoarTelevision!