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<p class="MsoNormal"><img width="126" height="36" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image003.png@01D465A3.56FE7BA0" alt="UN Women – United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/10/op-ed-ed-phumzile-fostering-an-unstereotyped-culture">http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/10/op-ed-ed-phumzile-fostering-an-unstereotyped-culture</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#5E5A55">Fostering an Unstereotyped Culture for a Legacy of Gender Equality<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><b><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director
of UN Women</span></i></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">October 2, 2018 - Advertising has a principal purpose: to sell a product, to influence choice, to attract or build loyalty to a brand. We need to get more used to the idea that it can—and should—also
do good. And there is no good reason why it shouldn’t. After all, we know that consumers want this, and that ads that use progressive, multi-dimensional characters sell more product.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">With The Female Quotient and Ipsos, we surveyed 14,700 men and women aged 16-64 in 28 countries around the world – and 84 per
cent agreed with the statement “</span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">I really like when ads include a positive message about making the world better</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">”.
Yet only 38 per cent of these same people agreed that they had seen an ad in the past year that made them feel inspired. There’s a vitally important lost opportunity here, especially when it comes to making a positive shift in the way traditional gender roles
are portrayed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">At UN Women, we have asked why the messages we see every day, echoed on screens, pages and posters, don’t show women as equal to men, girls as able as boys, and people in all their magnificent
diversity. We know that where there is inequality, there is discrimination; where there are power imbalances, there is violence; where there is exclusion, there is poverty of every kind. And we wondered if there was an unintentional legacy of harm accumulating
from unconsidered characterization.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">Last year at the Cannes Lions Festival in France, I convened some of the biggest industry leaders to form the Unstereotype Alliance to confront this challenge. The members committed to create unstereotyped
branded content by depicting people as empowered actors; refraining from objectifying people; portraying progressive and multi-dimensional personalities, and fostering an unstereotyped culture through business and workplace practices that promote gender equality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">Since then, our movement has rapidly grown, with 14 new members coming on board in the past months. As a group, we have developed
shared tools to measure both content and business practices, and we are amassing a growing body of research on how to unpack stereotypes. We continue to grow as a forum where members set aside competition in favour of collaboration to achieve the higher goals
set by the United Nations—in particular Sustainable Development Goal 5: </span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">There has never been a better time to change the negative stereotypes that disproportionately deny women opportunities and build confining versions of masculinity. This global partnership with
advertisers gives us the reach to change the conversation, to rewrite the messages, and to call a halt to discrimination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">The Unstereotype Alliance premiered a short film at Cannes this year called </span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">The
Problem is Not Seeing the Problem, </span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">created by MullenLowe of IPG. Our starting point is to make the problem visible, learning how stereotypes take hold, and how they vary from culture
to culture. It’s complex; our research </span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Beyond Gender</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"> illustrates
how gender-based discrimination is compounded by other forms of discrimination, such as race, age or marital status. For example, in South Africa 72 per cent of married black women reported their belief that society expects them to be feminine, dutiful and
obedient, compared to the average of 58 per cent of women. As an Alliance, we have committed to address these multiple forms of discrimination, and to promote positive masculinity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">We also have initial findings from our </span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Gender
Equality Attitudes Study. </span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">This first-of-its -kind research into gender-based social norms which started in 10 countries, including Colombia, India, Japan, Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria,
United Arab Emirate, Turkey, Sweden and the United States of America, with plans to take this to 40 more. Consumer research techniques to are helping us to understand how men and women view issues such as access to education, employment, healthcare, political
participation and leadership, as well as the dynamics of gender-based violence. So far, results show high perceptions of inequality between women and men across all dimensions and countries, developed and developing, and a high gap in women’s leadership and
participation. This is helping us to expose oversimplified and generalized beliefs, and to see the problem in much more nuanced ways. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:9.0pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">While we continue to deepen our research, partners in the Unstereotype Alliance are already applying it to show people in all of their complexity, and to create advertising that is not only free
from stereotypes but is progressive in its portrayals.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">In the survey conducted by Ipsos, 76 per cent of respondents agreed that “</span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:inherit;color:#5E5A55;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">advertising
has a lot of power to shape how people perceive each another</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Roboto;color:#5E5A55">”. They are right. And our members are right. They are in the vanguard. It’s good for the bottom line. It’s what people want.
And it’s essential if we are to create a gender equal world for this and the generations to come. Join us and build a legacy of intentional good.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p>
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