Sexist Advertising in Sweden

A Swedish Christian Democrat youth leader has protested the censorship of a sexually-suggestive food stand advertisement in southern Sweden by taking to the streets with red lips and painted nails to deliver her own sausages.

The supposedly offensive advert, with a close-up picture of a hotdog, two hands, and two red lips wrapped around the tip of the sausage, was taken down after a member of the local council responded to a complaint by the municipality's 'gender expert'.

This move prompted Felicia Lundqvist from Uppsala to protest against the local municipality in Simrishamn, which she claims is wasting tax money by employing a gender expert.

She stood in a busy square in the town with a sign over her chest which read: Felicia's hotdog stand. Suck on that gender experts! She said that she found nothing to be offensive about the original advert.

Britten Dehlin was the 'gender expert' who had taken issue with the street vendor's initial picture, causing its removal. She spouted:

This is a sexualized picture. A prime example of an poorly-thought through act and a traditional gender approach with the aim of drawing in customers.

Lundqvist, however, was shocked that politicians could remove an ad for reasons of gender equality without even reporting it first to the advertising ombudsman. Furthermore, Lundqvist says that she can't understand why gender experts are given such lofty platforms to speak, claiming that Simrishamn's gender expert's salary should be donated towards preschools in the area instead.

Sweden's advertising ombudsman upheld a complaint against the advertisement, promoting a television operator called Boxer, in which a photo shop character called Robert stretches out on a sheepskin rug wearing only a pair of straining, white boxer shorts.

Even if the intention was to present a humorous link between the man and product, the man is presented, through his posture and lack of clothing, as a mere sex object in a way that could be deemed offensive to men in general, the ombudsman's office claimed in a statement.

It added that Robert's legs, chest, arms and abdomen are very muscular, and the outline of his genitalia is visible through his underpants .

A complainer argued that the focus on the organ and its size had nothing to do with the product, and even if that was the case, it is no way to portray either a man or a woman . It was also claimed that Robert's physical shape could place pressure on impressionable men who aspire to have the same physique.

The advertisement sparked lively debate on internet comments sites, with many men stating they found it harmless and inoffensive, and that the ombudsman should get a life .

An editorial in Aftonbladet, a leading Swedish newspaper, said that the ombudsman had to act on equality grounds because it would have upheld a complaint if Boxer had used a female image.

Black & Decker battleaxe grinder

US power tool maker Black & Decker has received a hammering from a Swedish advertising censor for an advert described as degrading to women.

The Swedish business sector's Ethical Council against Gender Discriminatory Advertising (ERK) slammed an advert that promised beauty treatments for the wives of men who bought its products.

The Black & Decker ad earlier this year promised customers a pleased wife guarantee, offering beauty treatments worth 350 kronor ($43 dollars) to the wives of men who bought spent more than 1,500 kronor on its tools.

Through this text, the council finds that (the company) conveyed an outdated view of gender roles in which women are expected to be placated with beauty treatments while men buy tools, ERK said in its ruling: This is degrading for both women and men. The ad is thereby gender discriminatory.

ERK, which is made up of representatives of Sweden's main advertising companies, has no power to impose sanctions on companies it finds guilty of discrimination.

Britain is outraged at dastardly foreign attempts to banish busty beauties from the nation's billboards. The root of their anger was Swedish politicians who, having failed to get sexist ads banned on the home front, scored a win in Brussels.

The Daily Mail, an organ never to miss an opportunity for a bit of Euro-bashing, was justifiably breathless with indignation after a committee of Euro-MPs demanded that EU countries put a stop to any ads that reinforce gender stereotypes.

The person behind this nutter plan is none other than Eva-Britt Svensson, a Swedish Left Party MEP and vice chairperson of the European Parliament's women's rights committee.

The author of the report seems to have swallowed an undergraduate gender studies textbook: Gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting individuals to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes.

So it's 'Goobye Boys' from Wonderbra, but also from yummy Diet Coke builders, Calvin Klein-clad footballers and the rest.

Actually, the chances of any country being forced to ban anything is close to nil (no law has been passed – the European Parliament's women's rights committee has just recommended a course of action that governments are free to ignore, as they no doubt will.

If you've been in Sweden for the past few years, the proposal had a familiar ring. The Swedish Council against Sexual Discrimination in Advertising (ERK) has long waged a battle against ads depicting scantily-clad models.

ERK's rulings have led to accusations that it was trying to act as the thought police. They have also raised a number of questions: is sexy advertising always sexist? Why should advertisers be expected to be more politically correct than the consumers they target? Whatever happened to free speech? And besides, surely the whole business should be self-regulating: consumers won't buy products if the ads are offensive?

The controversial nature of ERK's work also has the self-defeating side-effect that the ads it censures are guaranteed lots of free publicity in the tabloids.

ERK's rulings don't have the force of law, but earlier this year an official committee proposed going one step further and banning all material with a commercial aim that could be construed as offensive to women or men.

Equality minister Nyamko Sabuni refused to adopt the report's findings, saying: I don't want to infringe on fundamental human freedoms and rights for a law the efficacy of which I question. This is not the way to win the fight for gender equity. Defeated on home soil, it looks like Svensson is seeing whether the battle can be won elsewhere. She probably shouldn't hold her breath – in the UK, at least, even the left-wing papers are subjecting the idea to ridicule.

Svensson's poorly-presented arguments might leave an open goal for her opponents, but the failure to pass a similar law in Stockholm must beg the question: if rules like this haven't worked in politically correct Sweden, how on earth could they be made to work elsewhere?