Sexism complaints not upheld by ASA

A complaint about a New Zealand Transport Agency ad depicting dangerous driving as only a male problem, diminishing the gender, was not upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The television ad begins with a male narrator entering a metaphorical house called "mandom". He begins walking through different rooms, where men are shown engaging in different activities such as playing computer games, shaving, skateboarding, and playing cricket.

As he walked, the narrator said: "Most of man's greatest achievements can be found within these walls. We control everything that goes on in here.

"However, the fate of mandom is uncertain. There is something we haven't mastered control of yet. It's our driving. We're good, but not great.

The man later slides down a pole until he gets to the basement, where he walks over to a crashed car and three bloodied men inside it.

"Men, we are not man-driving. Man-driving is realising what we don't control. The road and the bends, the hills, the corners, the rain. It's knowing when to pull back and slow down.

"It's us staying in control, what we like to call Mantrol."

Complainant F Northway said the ad was sexist and degrading.

"By implying that only one gender is responsible for certain type of dangerous driving, diminished the male gender."

The ASA said it was in the view that the NZ Transport Agency used established cultural stereotypes of macho male drivers to educate men in particular about the dangers of speeding.

Rather than diminishing the male gender, the agency had extended the concept of the "mantrol" to driving in order to help reduce the road toll, ASA said.

Meanwhile, another complainant called a Holden Barina Spark advertisement "sexist and offensive", but the ASA ruled it was light-hearted and illustrative of the vehicle's benefits.

The ad showed an actress driving the vehicle into a carpark with a passenger, and then one of the actors said: "Every girl loves a challenge and today we are putting the new Barina Spark through a few of its own."

The first challenge is a scene showing one of the actors parallel parking the vehicle into a parking space.

K Dorsey laid a complaint with ASA, saying the ad "is stating that women find it a challenge to parallel park.

"The parallel parking space that they show would fit a bus in it for a start. Parallel parking is not a challenge to women."

The ASA did not upheld the complaint.

ASA referred to a previous complaint, where Holden said the advertisement shows women putting the "vehicle" through several challenges.

The ad was light-hearted and did not reach the threshold to cause serious or widespread offence, ASA said.

- NZPA