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Women's Day Adverts Gallery 2006 Print  
This gallery is intended for corporate companies, journalism students, civil society organisations and other interested parties to encourage good practice for showing women in advertisements.

Whilst it is important to show women in adverts, as in the media more broadly, women are often stereotypically represented in advertising. This is generally true of media coverage, but the trend is particularly acute in advertising. Visual adverts are particularly bad as women’s bodies are often commodified.

Typically, Women’s Day offers corporate companies the opportunity to show their support of gender issues. It is great to see businesses wanting to contribute to Women’s Day in this manner and we do not mean to undermine their efforts or good intentions.

However, many companies seem to miss the point of Women’s Day with its particular historical background. Some companies do this is order to make profits, which is not surprising, as women are undoubtedly a large market. This leads to the promotion of Women’s Day as another opportunity for spending. Messages become, ‘ this is your day, spoil yourself.; There is nothing wrong with this message, but it serves to undermine the historical meaning of the day.
The combination of the commercialisation of Women’s Day and the perpetuation of stereotypes regarding the roles of women, have the impact of the popular undermining of the role of women both in history and as actors in society today.

Please browse though our gallery of good and poor examples of adverts for Women’s Day from a human rights perspective.

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