14 DECEMBER 2018

---

The Advertising Standards Authority has today announced that it will enforce a new code around gender stereotyping in adverts from June 2019. Under the new rules, British companies will no longer be able to create promotions that depict harmful gender stereotypes.

Sam Smethers, Fawcett Chief Executive, says:

"What the ASA has done is very welcome. It is time for us to wake up to the harm that gender norms and stereotypes can do. Limiting girls' horizons and career choices, objectifying women and causing them to self-harm; legitimising violence and aggression in boys and inhibiting dads' caring roles. Our society and our economy pays a heavy price for the constraints we place on boys and girls from our earliest moments of life. It has to change.

“Gender stereotypes hold us all back and help to drive assumptions about who does the caring, cause toxic masculinity and hold women and girls back in terms of the career choices they perceive as being ‘for them’. By smashing stereotypes we will begin to address the underlying causes of the inequality which causes the gender pay gap, drives misogyny and violence against women and girls.” 

Th Fawcett Society is feeding into this important issue with their #SmashingStereotypes campaign, and is asking members of the public to signpost gender stereotypical labels or marketing on toys and children's clothing. Get involved by tweeting @fawcettsociety today.