The Week UK – 23 August 2019

20 NEWS Talking points

THE WEEK 24 August 2019

Motherhood has become an

“offensive gender stereotype”,

said Katie Glass in The Sun.

At least, that’s the message

of anew ruling from the

Advertising Standards

Authority (ASA), which last

week banned two “supposedly

sexist” television adverts under

new rules, introduced in June,

that outlaw harmful “gender

stereotypes”. So what were

these appalling ads? “Did they

feature women in lingerie

chained to the kitchen sink?”

Or abusinessman smacking

his secretary’s bottom? “Er,

no.” One of the ads–for

Volkswagen–depicted a

succession of men involved in adventurous

activities, from athletics to space exploration,

beforeaclosing shot ofawoman sitting next

to apram. The other–for Philadelphia cream

cheese–showed two new dads absentmindedly

leavingababy onarestaurant’s moving

conveyor belt, before one exclaims, “Let’s not

tell Mum”, as he realises his mistake.

Yes, they were intended to be funny, said Lucie

McInerney in The Independent–but at best,

these ads were “boring and lazy”. At worst, they

represent “something far more concerning” –

that some in TV advertising “still struggle with

the revolutionary idea that women work and

men can be primary caregivers”. Would it have

been so difficult for them to make one of the

astronauts in the VW advert

awoman? Or for one of the

bungling fathers in the

Philadelphia ad to have been

amum? Despiteapredictable

outcry against the ban from

those who say feminists need

to “lighten up” and “get a

sense of humour”, the industry

has proved once again that it is

“incapable” of resisting

outdated gender stereotypes. It

all serves to underline why the

ASA felt the need to introduce

its rules in the first place.

On thecontrary,said Fay

Weldon in theDaily Mail: the

“tiny” number of complaints

it received shows that its “nannyish” ban is an

“absurd overreaction”: only 128 people said

they were offended by the Philadelphia ad, and

amere three by the VW one. But even if that

outrage were to become more widespread, said

Katherine Timpf in National Review, it is highly

questionable whether it is the role of government

to spend “taxpayer-funded resources” on

protecting the public from the alleged dangers

of “viewing potential stereotypes”–anissue

which, frankly, most of us are “perfectly

capable” of handling ourselves. After all, our

ability to take our money elsewhere means that

we already have in our possession an ideal

mechanism to discourage companies that persist

in making truly offensive or harmful ads. “It’s

called public opinion.”

Pick of the week’s

Gossip

Sexist ads: is the ASA right to ban them?

Mass public surveillance is something we

associate with authoritarian regimes, said The

Times. Beijing makes extensive use of facial

recognition technology to monitor its people,

notably the Uighur Muslims. But “outside the

alternative reality of aJason Bournefilm, this

sort of thing is not supposed to happen in the

freedom-loving West, where civil liberties are

highly valued.” Yet civil liberties groups are

warning that the use of facial recognition

technologies has reached “epidemic”

proportions here in the UK. According to a

report by Big Brother Watch, “many millions of

innocent people” have had their faces scanned in

shopping centres, museums and other privately

owned spaces around the country. These include

67 acres of regenerated land around King’s

Cross station–which is home to shops and

cafés, as well as Central St Martins art college.

The zone’s developer, Argent, says it’s trying to

ensure “public safety”–but it has not revealed

what, exactly, it is using the technology for.

We can haveagood guess, said Stephanie Hare

in The Guardian. Argent and other companies

may be scanning faces to match them against

police watch-lists, or to compile their own

watch-lists. They may also be passing data to

third parties. Police chiefs in Britain seek to

reassure us by saying that they already use

biometric data such as DNA and fingerprints,

and that this new form could enable real-time

identification of suspected terrorists and help find

missing people. Maybe so. But DNA samples or

fingerprints are laborious to gather, and there

are rules limiting their use and how long police

can keep them. Facial recognition data is subject

to far fewer constraints. If you think your face

might wrongly be held inapolice database, you

have to request that it be deleted. What’s more,

the technology is alarmingly unreliable,

struggling to correctly identify dark-skinned

people, women and children–leaving huge

numbers at risk of being misidentified as

suspects, and having to prove their innocence.

Still, as the technology grows more sophisticated

it’ll get more accurate, said The Daily Telegraph.

And it could havearange of highly positive uses.

In the US it’s already used at summer camps, so

parents can be sent pictures of their children at

play. It could also be used to help combat fraud

and keep hospitals safe from intruders. The

technology is bound to become more pervasive,

said The Independent–but that will create more

opportunities for snooping and blackmail. Too

often, the law has failed to keep up with digital

innovation, and has struggled to regulate it

retrospectively. This time, we must get robust

guidelines in place before it’s too late.

Big Brother: now watching you in real time

Bungling dad: “Let’s not tell Mum”

Mick Jaggerknows the

importance ofagood night’s

sleep, and takes no chances

when on tour. “Mick always

asks foranew mattress in

his room, no matter how

posh the hotel,”asource

told The Mail on Sunday.

“But he insists that the

plastic stays on while

someone else sleeps on the

mattress to break it in. It’s an

unusual request, but hey –

he’s Mick Jagger. Why not?”

Elton John(pictured) has

sprung to the defence of the

Duke and Duchess of

Sussex.The couple have

been accused of hypocrisy,

for travelling by private jet

first to Ibiza and then to the

south of France, while

urging ordinary people to

do more to tackle climate

change. But the rock star

has now revealed that he

had laid on the second jet,

so that Harry and Meghan

could be safely transported

to his mansion near Nice –

and that he had offset the

carbon emissions. In a

series of indignant tweets,

he said he feltaduty to

protect Harry from press

intrusion as he had been

close to his mother, Diana

–and urged the media “to

cease these relentless and

untrue assassinations”.

Jeremy Clarksontook a

while to find his feet asaTV

presenter. In his first year

withTop Gear,heearned

just £180, forasingle

report. “I wasasqueaky,

very posh-voiced boy,” he

says. “No idea whatIwas

doing really.” Was he

nervous? “Of course I

was nervous, because my

hands were marrows.

Massive. AllIcould think,

whenIwas talking, was,

‘My hands are enormous!

They’re enormous!’”