shEqual launches to transform advertising in Australia with support from industry and government leaders
shEqual – an Australian first initiative to realise equality in advertising – has launched with the support of industry and government leaders.
An initiative of Women’s Health Victoria, CEO Dianne Hill says: “Women’s Health Victoria is proud to launch shEqual. shEqual aims to positively transform Australia’s advertising landscape. I hope shEqual will start a national conversation about how advertising can be a powerful force for driving gender equality and ending violence against women.”
shEqual launches with support from strategic partners in the advertising industry, government and beyond including: Clemenger Group, Respect Victoria, The Shannon Company, OMD Australia, Our Watch, Venus Comms, Marmalade, RMIT University and City of Melbourne.
Remarking on the broad support for shEqual, Hill says: “I look forward to seeing advertising agencies and brands taking the shEqual pledge and committing to changing the advertising they produce, and how they do business. Advertising equality is a benefit to our community and a win for business.”
shEqual is supported by funding from the Victorian Government, with Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams MP launching the brand at the event.
Says Williams: “The Victorian Government is committed to taking serious action on gender equality. shEqual represents a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with the advertising industry to achieve this outcome.”
Says Tracey Gaudry, CEO of Respect Victoria: “Respect Victoria is proud to be a strategic partner of shEqual and champion this leading initiative with the advertising industry. With 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence commencing Wednesday, this is a timely reminder of the importance of taking action on gender equality, and the role we can all play – individuals, organisations, industry and government – to achieve a society where everyone is safe, equal and respected.”
Chris Howatson, CEO of CHE Proximity; Priya Patel, managing director of DDB Sydney; Martin Cowie, chief of people at OMD Australia; and Neysa Goh, head of marketing – Oceania for the Puma Group joined legendary social commentator and event MC Jane Caro AM for a panel discussion on the future of advertising and equality.
The panel had much to say on how the industry is changing, the role of advertising in driving equality and the important role shEqual will play.
Says Patel: “There are huge untapped opportunities brands should be looking at in how we celebrate women.
Reflecting on advertising to women, who are the primary household purchasers, Chris Howatson, CEO of CHE Proximity said: “Change is a necessary requirement. Our role as advertisers, or as people who create brands and shape culture, is to shape [advertising] in a way that is motivating and desirable for our audiences.”
14 Comments
This is well-intentioned. It’s also worrying.
Firstly, is there any rigorous evidence that advertising in Australia today causes violence against women? I ask that as a married father of three awesome daughters.
Secondly, I support the idea that advertising should not further entrench harmful stereotypes about any group in society. And I think we have, on balance, come a long way over recent years. And that is a good thing.
However, this strikes me as a small but significant step towards government seeking to influence what and how people can think and speak. It’s about a government body seeking to subtly exert pressure on an industry to see and speak to the world a certain way.
It’s worrying – however laudable its aim may be.
We are currently facing a major economic and strategic challenge from China. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that some future Australian government could seek to influence – voluntarily, subtlety – how journalists and media outlets present China to Australians.
Just because you agree with the goals and underlying philosophy underpinning one attempt at influence and not the other doesn’t make much difference.
I offer my views respectfully and with an open mind!
actually is Shequal? I still don’t understand.
If you read the website, or any expert in gender inequality, family violence, or gender-based violence, you’ll note the significant evidence base that supports this initiative – namely, that disrespect, harmful attitudes and behaviours are the root of all violence against women. Think of it as an ladder: disrespect and thinking women are “less than” are the first step to encroaching negative attitudes and behaviours that lead to violence. Michael Flood is an academic who writes prolific studies on causes and symptoms of violence. The other important thing to note is that advertising is incredibly influential in shaping public attitudes and behaviours. Bandera, the social learning psychologist from 1965, proved that humans learn by observing, and replicate the behaviours shown by figures of respect or authority. (Just think of how the MAGAverse takes its cues from Trump to see how an influential authority figure can shape the thinking of the masses.) So too with advertising – it’s proven to be a cultural force that shapes the unconscious attitudes and behaviours we all have towards ourselves and others. Advertising has the power to influence how we collectively think of gender norms and roles for good. As SpiderMan said: with great power, comes great responsibility. Given Australia has one of the world’s worst domestic violence rates in the world, taking the harmful stereotypes out of advertising is a simple, cost-effective and effective way to decrease violence and increase respect for all.
Thanks for the considered response.
I’m not sure that there is much accuracy to your assertion that Australia has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. I’m abhorred by domestic violence. Nevertheless, I would question that claim. Happy to be proven wrong…
Maybe this is a laudable idea that will have a positive impact on attitudes and, more importantly, behaviours. I don’t know how you would measure that over time. Either way, maybe it does some good and that’s as far as this all goes.
My fear is that it is a step in a dangerous direction. Will we next be inviting some government department to take an inventory of our public libraries and remove those items that are deemed damaging to the development and flourishing of all individuals?
Yes, that’s a ‘slippery slope’ argument that you can attack on that basis if you wish. However, what this initiative does is impose constraints on freedom of thought and freedom of expression – all for a very laudable reason, sure.
However, I am uncomfortable with the idea of government bureaucrats manipulating the manipulation – even if it’s for a good cause.
false equivalence mate. Communism and equality aren’t the same.
I think the original @JaseR has answered your question re the connection. Regarding the government influencing how we think and speak, they already do when it comes to alcohol, cigarettes, cars etc. In fact, that they’ve implemented strict guidelines policing how we portray driving, gambling, drinking and smoking behaviours in order to reduce self-harm before doing anything around how we portray women, is alarming and skews towards the protection of men (haven’t glanced at the data but pretty sure all the issues resulting from dangerous driving, drinking, smoking and gambling skew male). In terms of your comparison to journalism, it’s a very different equation. Regulating how facts are presented by journalists is damaging the fourth estate. Seeking to reduce harmful depictions of women in advertising is about ensuring capitalism doesn’t come at the expense of the lives and health of others.
According to OECD (2018), we rank 8th in the G20 for domestic violence. Go us.
I’m sure there is a more recent stat, but nonetheless, with a woman dying every week in Australia at the hands of a current or dormer partner, our track record of gender-based violence is shameful, and deeply in need of change.
ANROWS report suggests intimate partner violence contributes to around 5.1% of the total “burden of disease” among women aged 18-44, making it the largest single contributor to the “burden of disease” for that group of women.
Most of my clients are female. They like having females in gender specific roles. They even demand it. So perhaps the evil ones here are other females.
I think Shequal is well intentioned, but it’s so self righteous and hell-bent on blaming men for everything (come on, it is, stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes) it’ll fail to strike a chord and fall on deaf ears and won’t change a single thing.
But hey, I’m a bloke with a daughter, wife, mother and sister (BTW, I beat them regularly if it’ll make you feel happier. I never beat my son, he’s a bloke, in fact this weekend we’re off to kill a goat, drink its blood, praise Satan and write pro-Trump poetry), so I may as well as get back to writing my female hating scripts.
Finally, the people who write the most ads with dick and sexual innuendo in them are mostly females. Go figure. But we can’t acknowledge that. It’s not part of the narrative.
Let the hate begin, gals and Guardian readers.
Can’t wait to see an agency take the ‘equality pledge’ in relation to account service, copywriting, mac operators etc… etc…
My clients are mostly female. PR is almost exclusively female. Account service skews female. Production is skewed female. HR skews female.
So should they take an equality pledge?
I agree that the portrayal of women in advertising, while definitely improving, has an awful long way to go, and it seems feasible that it does affect men and boy’s (and women and girl’s) attitudes to women. A push to fix this is welcome.
One note: far worse than advertising, when it comes to imagery of unattainable ‘perfection’, are fashion magazines, gossip mags, and teen oriented magazines for young women. These are almost exclusively edited by women.
For anyone who needs to hear it today: saying ‘I have a wife and daughters’ before making anti-equality comments is the sexism equivalent of saying ‘I’m not racist but…’ It’s what Congressman Ted Yoho said to Congresswoman AOC to try and justify calling her a ‘dangerous b****’ on the steps of the Capitol. It’s important both men and women have a say, but please consider your rhetoric. The only ones in danger here are the Australian women being murdered weekly by current or former partners.
At some of these comments.
As has already been pointed out, Australia has terrible rates of domestic violence. There’s plenty of reasons for that but rates spike as a result of a mind-numbingly wide range of triggers. From lockdown, to a sports team losing, to pregnancy and too many others to account.
The case of Hannah Clarke is bringing much needed attention to the fact that Australia has no laws that directly criminalise non-physical domestic abuse, such as psychological abuse or coercive and controlling behaviour.
This is something that should bother everyone, not just women or fathers of daughters or Guardian readers but every person living in this country. Because it could easily be your mother, friend, sister, niece, daughter, goddaughter or partner who is killed one day.
If advertising has been shown to contribute to those rates, and I don’t doubt that it has, this campaign is clearly needed and luckily is being supported by some of the biggest names in the industry.
To feel defensive and attacked and start casting blame at women who work in advertising is just bizarre. We are all culpable and have a responsibility to make society a safer place. Grow up.
I despise being attacked in these comments because I prefaced my remarks with a reference to my daughters. Using the reference demonstrates that I have a very real stake in this debate. I am sickened by domestic violence. It is the embodiment of cowardice.
Domestic violence is a very real challenge and one that deserves far more attention and resources than it currently receives. That doesn’t mean that you need to believe this initiative is a constructive solution.
There are millions of men who watch the same advertising as everyone else who don’t mistreat or kill their partners. It a simplistic approach to a very complex problem. And I am suspicious of researches who argue otherwise.
Moreover, this initiative invites a greater role for bureaucrats to curate our thoughts and lives based on what they think is good. Surely, we can resist that tendency whilst still working towards reducing and eliminating domestic violence.