"No to Sexist
ads!"
an example of successful campaigning
-Elodie Meillot, Journalist, France
Debate in the press, a report commissioned by
the government, brands boycotted, professionals heckled: France in 2001 saw an
unprecedented rallying of public opinion through the determined action of a few
organizations in response to the flood of images of purely sexual, submissive or abused
women in advertising. The beginning of public awareness of the power of pictures.
'Babette, je la lie, je la fouette, et
parfois je la passe a la casserole" an expression laden with double meaning, which,
roughly translated politely says, "'This is Babette, I use it for thickening. I whip
it, and I sometimes add it to stews" and vulgarly, "This is Babette, I tie her
up, I whip her and sometimes I give her one", or loosely translated, " I may not
be the sharpest knife in the box, but I'm sweet". A well equipped kitchen makes you
more desirable"..These 'short sentences' are not taken from dialogue of pornographic
films but are in fact advertising slogans promoting a fresh cream, a low calorie sweetener
and household items.
While, in early television advertisements,
the image of women could often be summed up as a mother of a family, buying tea time
treats for her children or doing the family washing, today she finds herself propelled
into a radically different world. Products regarded as 'staples' are no longer the only
ones to deliberately look towards conveying the message in a new way.
Making violence ordinary: Gone is the
"luxurious, understated voluptuousness" of the big brand names, nowadays they
are prepared to shock in order to sell. Take the example of Yves Saint-Laurent's campaign
for Opium perfume, which presented a naked, inviting and lascivious woman. The objections
were not so much to the nudity as to what the posture could suggest. " At present,
the real problem is more the violence or submission which may be made to seem ordinary in
certain advertisements," explains Gerard Noel, the advertisers' Vice-President and
Chief Executive in the daily newspaper Liberation.
Swathed in satin or silk and backed by some
big names ( Dior, Versace. Etc.) Female models are no longer beautiful and ethereal, but
are seen being sexually assaulted and abused, in a setting of sordid reality. This is what
is known as the trend to "porno-chic"; thus, the prestige car maker, Audi, had
no hesitation in showing a man looking out of his car at a pretty young woman, accompanied
by the slogan, "He has the car, he has the money, he'll have the woman"'. The
major Bank, Barcleys, has advertised with a poster showing the face of a woman in tears,
her makeup running down her cheeks, visibly battered, with the slogan "She's not
crying because she's losing money, but she is losing it all the same".
Fced with these repeated affronts and the
legitimization of sexist behavior that these advertisements might imply, a number of
campaigning organizations" have reacted. They challenged the advertisement directly
after the publication of these advertisements, which they considered damaging to the image
of women and incitements to violence.
A vehicle for ordinary sexism:; For Isabelle
Alonso, who heads Chinese de Garde, a group set up to fight against the 'prevailing
misogyny', the mirror held up by the advertising is "the one in which it likes to see
us ( ) In our andro-centered world, advertising has a masculine way of looking at things,
even when the target is the celebrity housewife under fifty years of age. It is a vehicle
for ordinary sexism".
These feminists movements are not the only
ones to be offended and , according to the polling organization, Ipos, 46% of the French
say they are shocked by the way in which women are portrayed in advertising.
The French secretary of State for Women's
Rights and Vocational Training, Nicole Pery has ordered a report on "the portrayal of
women in advertising". The working party, comprising of dozen of experts issued its
report in July 2001. In their line of fire were advertisements which "manifestly
transgress respect for human dignity". I do not wish to take a moralizing attitude,
but I do not want to see women shackled and humiliated", says the Secretary of State.
A reminder of respect for human
dignity
The report lists a whole series of proposals
along thee lines and advocates, in substance, making advertisers more responsible and ''
strengthening civil society's ability to speak and act", particularly through
organizations fighting discrimination of all types. Laws which can be invoked by
individuals already exist, but they never make use of them. So competence must be
transferred to the organizations which at present cannot, because of their status, take
legal action. Some organizations such as La Meute, also propose that legislation outlawing
sexual discrimination be introduced along the same lines as the racial discrimination
laws.
At present very few coercive measures have
been taken against advertisers. Only tioz advertisement have recently pinpointed by the
BVP: the footwear manufacturer, Weston, and the ready-to-ware group, La City, which was
forced to withdraw its posters showing a woman in revealing clothing on all fours next to
sheep, captioned " I want a sweater". " People talk a great deal about the
image of women and about the image of women and about "pornochic", but in fact
there is little to do in this area. It seems that the fashion has passed", stresses
Jospeh Besnainou , chief Executive of the BVP.
Meanwhile, even if advertisers are far from
unanimous in recognizationg earlier blunders, they are non opposing this trend. While the
ready-to-wear group, Kookai, has for a few years now, shown men at the mercy of all
powerful women, the shoe manufacturer, ERAM, reacted with humor by proposing poster
campaign in which women's shoes were presented by a chair, an ostrich or a naked bodies
were exploited in this advertisement".
The French association of women journalists,
which awards an annual prize for a non sexist advertisement, has preferred to award the
2002 prize to Vinci, a construction company, which presented a woman architect, in
trousers, showing the plans and car park of the building she has just built; with slogan,
" Think about it. Think about it very hard – and do it".
On the eve of German
National Day October 3:
The state of German unity: Where there are
still big differences
-Franz Bertsch, Germany
As remarkable as the progress of recovery in
eastern Germany may be, the differences between the East and the Western states are also
still clear.
Pay in five new states is still well below
that in western Germany. The reason is not for a lack of fairness or disregard for the
achievements of the people in the new states, but that productivity there still lags
clearly behind that of the western states. If 'western' wages were paid in the East
despite its lower productivity, no truly business-minded entrepreneur would invest and
manufacture in the new states. But eastern Germany still urgently needs new companies to
be founded there.
Pointing to the difference in pay and its
links with productivity makes clear a problem which for a long time to come will
characterize politics, industry and also the day-to-day coexistence of the people in
eastern and western Germany. This is that economically strong regions and flourishing
business sectors multiply economic strengths just as the economically weak ones multiply
their weaknesses. Expressed in similar terms, where more money is in circulation everyone
benefits, and vice versa. That is the logic of the free market economy.
The reasons for the still considerable
productivity shortfall in Germany are mainly structural. Companies in the new states have
a lower value added intensity compared with their western counterparts. In addition, the
lack of big companies in the East is reflected here. Other problems include the fact that
eastern companies are much less firmly positioned in national and international markets
than are western firms, and they also suffer from shortcomings in organization, management
and marketing.
Several more years of state recovery aid will
be required to bring the living standards and economic strength of the East into line with
those of the western states. The goal is to make eastern Germany competitive on
international markets. Nothing would be more socially harmful and economically detrimental
than to accept the existence of 'second-class citizens' or of regions whose
competitiveness could be maintained only by permanent subsidies.
The goal of the self-supporting upswing has
not yet been achieved. But political, social and economic commonsense says it should
continue to be pursued without curtailment. Gross domestic product, GDP, in the eastern
states (less Berlin) in 2000 grew by only 1.1% year on year, compared with 3.3% in the
western states (less Berlin) which recorded growth of 0.9%. The greatest GDP growth to
date in the eastern states was in 1993 when they achieved a plus of 11.9%, and the lowest
was 1.0% in 1998. Despite eastern Germany having doubled its GDP compared with the time of
unification, the figure per working person there in 2000 averaged only 68% of the western
level. However, also in 2000, the eastern states' productivity growth of 2.1% was much
better than that of the western ones, which managed only 0.7%. In 2001 the productivity of
the eastern Germany reached about 70% of the western level.
The most pressing problem:
unemployment
By far the most difficult problem in eastern
Germany is the still unsatisfactory situation on the job market. Unemployment in the new
states is about twice as high as that in the western states. Joblessness in the east has
hovered around the same high level since 1999. Therefore the federal government sees no
scope for reducing its promotion funds. At end-January 2001 about 1.3 million people in
eastern Germany were registered as unemployed, giving a jobless rate of 17.6%. In the
western states at the same time, 2.5 million people were out of work, meaning an
unemployment rate of "only" 7.7%. About 17 million people of Germany's
population of about 82 million live in the new eastern German states and Berlin.
Combating long-term unemployment is a special
problem. Here, too, the situation in the new states is much more critical that in eastern
Germany. In 2000, long-term unemployment in the western states dropped by 7.1 %, while in
the East it rose by 6.7 %. That is why the eastern states are taking a disproportionate
part in the Federal government's special program to reintegrate the long-term unemployed
in the job market.
The government's active job market policy is
continuing at a very high level – almost 10 billion euros were spent on measures for
the new states alone. That is equal to about half the total funds spent by the Federal
government and the Federal Labor Office in 2000 on active job market policy measures, with
focus on initial and advanced vocational training. For 2001, the funds for combating
unemployment were increased by a further one million euros. In addition, the EU social
fund Is contributing almost 1.7 billion euros to a program running from 2000 to 2006 to
develop the job market in the eastern German states.
The eastern states' contribution of about one
million euros per year to a national 'crash' program to reduce unemployment among young
people was increased in 2001 from 40 per cent to 50 per cent. About 45 per cent of the
young people promoted in 2000 lived in eastern Germany. Despite all these efforts, experts
of the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), which comes under the
Federal Labor in Nuremberg, believe the will be no easing ion the eastern German job
market in the foreseeable future. According to their 'provisional model calculation",
the experts say "the is no indication of a self-dynamic positive job market
development" in the new states.
At the same time as promoting qualification
measures both for employed and jobless people the Federal government is also banking on
measures to promote eastern German industry in order to increase the number of jobs from
the company side as well.
The government's promotion focal points are
investment incentives, research in innovation sectors and the creation of networks. The
'InnoRegio' network is aimed at strengthening regional economic development, whereby
educational and research institutions as well as industry and public administration
cooperate in a joint innovation concept. 'PRO INNO' promotes small to medium-sized
businesses above all by means of accelerated implementation of research findings. The same
main goal is pursued by the national 'InnoNet' program, in which the eastern states have a
stake of more than 50 per cent. The closer meshing of companies and research institutes is
aimed not least at countering the so far marked under-representation of the eastern states
in research and development (R & D)
Eastern Germany's current share of national
R&D staff is only about 9%, and its proportion of all-German spending on internal
R&D is in fact only about 6%. This shortcoming is due mainly to the fact that eastern
German companies are predominantly small to medium-sized businesses which can hardly
afford cost-intensive R&D. The forming of networks is to counteract this deficit which
is so detrimental to the power of innovation. That was also taken into account by the
federal government in its decision to allocate the eastern states a disproportionate share
of Federal funds for education and research. In 2001, the federal ministry for Economics
and Technology and the federal ministry for Education and Research made available more
than 1.5 billion euros for the R&D sector in eastern Germany. IN 2002, the federal
Economic Ministry is promoting innovations in small to medium-sized businesses and
external research institutes with about 270 million euros. Also for this year, the federal
ministry for education and research is providing about 1.8 billion euros for education and
research in the eastern states. All these measures to strengthen the competitiveness of
industry in the new states are aimed largely at boosting employment.
Since German unification, another important
aspect of social life, provision for old age, has in the new states been continually
brought closer to the level of pensions in western Germany. The federal government in
April this year approved a pensions adjusting according to which pensions in eastern
Germany were increased from July 1 by 2.89%, and by 2.16% in the western states. The
standard state pension in the eastern states thus rose from 86.92% to 87.78% of comparable
pensions in western Germany.
Text courtesy: IN-PRESS ST 8-2002.
Embassy of Germany in Kathmandu. |
