Ads showing boys as ‘daring’, girls as ‘caring’ problematic: ASCI issues guidelines

Days after advertisements of a perfume brand made waves for allegedly propagating rape culture, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has released a set of guidelines against advertisements propagating false gender stereotypes. These stereotypes include women cleaning the house, men going to office, men being assertive or a women shown as sensitive to other people’s needs.

The advertising watchdog defines stereotypical roles or characteristics as “always uniquely associated with a particular gender; the only options available to a particular gender; or never carried out or displayed by another gender(s).” ASCI also identified those ads as being problematic that are targeted towards children or depict them and portray a certain set of activities as appropriate for one gender while it goes onto portray the same activities as utterly inappropriate for the opposite gender.

The guidelines read, “Ads suggesting that a boy’s stereotypical personality should be “daring” or that a girl’s stereotypical personality should be “caring”, or someone chiding a boy playing with dolls or girls jumping around because it is not the typical activity associated with the gender, are likely to be problematic.”

Even though these ads are likely to feature attractive people, they must not, in any way, suggest that any individual’s happiness or emotional state depends on conforming to these gender-stereotypical body shapes or physical features that have been hailed as ideallistic.

The guidelines furthermore warn against sexual objectification of any gender or depicting people in sexualised and objectified way in a bid to titillate viewers such as depicting women wearing lingerie in a provocative pose.

As per ASCI, “Even though the image may not be sexually explicit, by using a suggestive image of a woman that bears no relevance to the advertised product, the ad would be considered objectifying women by presenting them as sexual objects, and, therefore, is a gender stereotype that is likely to cause harm.”

They also maintain that ads should not make people the butt of jokes for not conforming to these stereotypes, their sexual orientation or gender identity. Neither should these ads impose unrealistic and undesirable gender ideals or expectations nor they should suggested that a person is unable to do a task simply because of their gender, as per these guidelines.

It also stated, “No gender should be encouraged to exert domination or authority over the other(s) by means of overt or implied threats, actual force or through the use of demeaning language or tone.” It added these ads can neither provoke or trivialize violence nor can they promote voyeurism, eve-teasing, stalking, emotional or physical harassment.

For the unversed, these guidelines come in the wake of ads by a perfume brand wherein women are shown getting apprehensive over a bunch of men making lewd comments could sexually assault them. One of the guys in the ad says, “Hey bro, it seems you have taken a shot. Now , it’s our turn.” On hearing this, the girl becomes scared, but the guy goes on to pick a deodorant bottle kept on the dressing table. The woman expresses relief as soon as the man picks up the bottle.

In another advert, four men spot a woman at a supermarket. One of them says, “Four of us, and she’s alone. Who’ll take a shot?” After she becomes sure that they are talking about the deodorant, the woman is relieved.

Soon after the ad became viral on social media, netizens complained about it and alleged that such ads promote rape culture in a country where women safety is a burning issue. Soon after the netizens’ outrage reached fever pitch, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asked Twitter and YouTube to pull down these adverts.

The I&B Ministry said in a letter to these platforms, “The above-mentioned videos are detrimental to the portrayal of women in the interest of decency or morality, and in violation of rule 3 (1)(b)(ii) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which inter-alia provides that the users shall not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information which is insulting or harassing on the basis of gender.”

After this scathing letter by the I&B Ministry, the perfume brand issued an apology on its Twitter account. The statement read, “We sincerely apologise for the advertisements that consequentially caused rage amongst individuals and several communities and beg their pardon.” It added that media partners of the brand have been informed to stop broadcasting the advert with immediate effect.