On Wednesday, February 21, a seminar on prevention of the manifestations of sexism in advertising was held in the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas. The event was organized with support of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, the Industrial Gender Advertising Committee, the Ukrainian Association of Marketing, the Representative Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine, the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, and Department of Social Policy of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration. The moderators of the event were the President of the All-Ukrainian public organization "Ukrainian Marketing Association" Ph.D., Associate Professor I. Lylyk and head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Representative Office of the Industrial Gender Committee for Advertising, Head of the Marketing and Controlling Department of the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, Doctor of Economics I. Perevozova.
The speakers of the event were: Olena Davlikanova – Project Co-ordinator of the Representative Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine, Tetiana Kononovych – a specialist from the Department of Gender Development, Yurii Sakhno from the Department of Advertising Control and Compliance with the Anti-Tobacco Legislation of the State Service and Myroslava Dihtiar from the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.
Ukrainian and international advertising agencies, together with institutions that protect people's rights, have set up advertising campaign criteria – the "Non-Discriminatory Sexual Advertising Standard."
The greetings came from the director of the Institute of Economics and Management L. Horal and Vice-rector O. Mandryk.
According to the speakers, the legitimization of sexism in social networks forms the idea that violence is normal. There is also dehumanization as a whole culture that affects people's lives. This is when the body is depicted as an object deprived of personal qualities.
"Sexism is not only about women, but also the restriction of gender stereotypes that do not allow a person to be disclosed as an individual. We want to take the experience of doing it in France (French President Emmanuel Macron, at the end of last year, declared his intention to increase funding for activities aimed at ensuring gender equality in France, and in addition to this, the country's president is ready to allocate 420 million euro in 2018).
The assertion that sex contributes to sales was relevant to the sexual revolution, the new generation perceives it differently.
"I think we will oblige a community of marketers to take a severe financial penalty for such advertising," said Olena Davlikanova.
A representative of the Union of Ukrainian Women sitting in the hall told the audience how the organization has been struggling with advertising where the naked body is depicted for 27 years.
Yurii Sakhno noted that initially they identify the offender, and then conduct an examination, and if violations are found, then take measures in accordance with the law.
"With regard to tobacco advertising, alcohol, and medicines – they address us, whether their advertisement contains violations, but there are no appeals for checking sexism yet," he added.
