Women’s equality in the UK – A health check

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This persistent portrayal of women as sexualised objects in the print based media is clearly
discriminatory in nature, it is un-paralleled for men, and it exists without context. Indeed, such
images would be prohibited for adults in the workplace under equality legislation, because
they are considered a form of sexual harassment, and when the campaign group OBJECT 13
submitted evidence to the Leveson Inquiry 14 on the harms associated with this persistent
portrayal of women as sex objects in the UK press, their exhibits were censored. 15 Yet, as
OBJECT highlighted, such portrayals of women form a staple part of mainstream tabloids
which are sold in ordinary newsagents and supermarkets without any form of age-restriction.
This lack of press regulation on the issue is inconsistent with other forms of media, and equality
legislation, and it allows for the sexual objectification of women in mainstream media to
continue unchecked.
In relation to advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority 16 (ASA) background briefing paper
on the issue of the portrayal of women (last updated in December 2011 17 ) is entitled Taste and
Decency: Depiction of Women, and refers to the ‘subjectivity’ of what it describes as ‘taste and
decency’ issues. It states the rules as: “ads should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or
widespread offence. Particular care should be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of
race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability.” And it explains that: “Compliance is judged on
the context, medium, audience, product and prevailing standards of decency.” As well as these
general rules, further guidelines have been issued in relation to sexualised advertising in outdoor
settings, largely in response to the Bailey Review 18 referred to in the Government’s report. 19
These attempts to address the increased hyper-sexualisation, mainly of women, are welcomed
as an important first step to counter the sexual objectification of women in mainstream society.
However, there are fundamental weaknesses in the ASA approach to sexualised imagery. Firstly,
to define the sexual objectification of women and girls as an issue of ‘taste and decency’, as
opposed to an aspect of discrimination, is to trivialise the issue by rendering it subjective.
Secondly, attempts to judge complaints on the basis of ‘prevailing standards of decency’ is
problematic. It relies upon interpretation of what would be considered to cause widespread
offence within a culture which is itself influenced by media and advertising; and it allows for a
form of discrimination to become so normalised that it no longer stands out as ‘indecent’, even
though the harms associated with the discrimination remain.
There is much research into the harms associated with the objectification process in relation to
male-female relations and gender roles. 20 This has been shown to impact upon the health and
wellbeing of girls and women, and to play a role in reinforcing discrimination. In the light of such
evidence, it is wholly inadequate and inappropriate to regulate sexually objectifying imagery
in relation to subjective notions of ‘taste and decency’, which actually serve to trivialise the
13. OBJECT http://www.object.org.uk/ Accessed: 21/03/13
14. The Leveson Inquiry http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/ Accessed: 21/03/13
15. See OBJECT’s witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry http://www.OBJECT.org.uk/files/Witness%20statement%20for%20the%20
website.pdf
16. Advertising Standards Authority http://www.asa.org.uk/ Accessed: 21/03/13
17. See Committees of Advertising Practice, Taste and Decency: Sex, sexual orientation and sexism http://www.cap.org.uk/Advice-Training-onthe-rules/Advice-Online-Database/Taste-and-Decency-Sex-Sexual-Orientation-and-Sexism.aspx
Accessed: 16/04/13
18. Advertising Standards Authority (2011) Statement on outdoor advertising: No. 10 summit on Bailey Report http://www.asa.org.uk/Media-
Centre/2011/~/media/Files/ASA/Misc/ASA%20Chief%20Executive%20statement%20to%20No10.ashx also see Bailey, R. (2011) Letting
Children be Children – Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood. Department for
Education https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/CM%208078
19. Government Equalities Office (2011) CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women) report. United
Kingdom’s Seventh Periodic Report. GEO: London http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/international-equality/7thcedaw-report?view=BinaryParagraph
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20. See OBJECT (2012) Speech for July 2012 debate against the Advertising Standards Authority in Parliament http://www.object.org.uk/files/
Sexualised%20imagery%20in%20advertising%20needs%20to%20be%20controlled%20by%20statutory%20regulation.pdf
48 Women’s equality in the UK: CEDAW shadow report 2013