Take Action!

Collective Shout WA representative Caitlin Roper has been leading the charge against pornified clothing and products sold in general retail stores.

Caitlin created the facebook page ‘Say no to porn t-shirts’ and has been keeping track of retailers that sell pornified products via her ‘Porn Tees’ blog. (Warning: product images)

In July last year Caitlin wrote an open letter calling on retailers to stop selling porn themed products. The letter includes 65 signatories – child advocates, child development experts, women’s and men’s advocates, academics and educators.

One of the main offenders furthering this trend is ‘City Beach’ a youth oriented surf shop. Last year Caitlin complained to the Human Rights Commission about City Beach on the basis that the porn themed products they display and sell are a form of sexual harassment. But amazingly City Beach denied that the products had anything to do with pornography and denied that they sold products with naked women on them. They flatly refused to consider Caitlin’s other  proposals which included applying an age limit on who could purchase the shirts and a content warning sign on the front of their store. City Beach have not changed their ways and have made no commitment to do so.

City Beach were recently in the spotlight once again for selling pornographic pencil cases. Despite saying they will ‘discontinue’ the product, it was still found yesterday in their ‘back to school’ sale.

Caitlin has now created a petition calling on City Beach to adopt corporate responsibility and withdraw these porn themed products. Please sign and share widely. Caitlin has this to say:

Youth retailer City Beach sells clothing, such as t-shirts, with highly sexualized adult images on them. This clothing objectifies and depicts semi-naked women as always willing and available for sex.

In addition to clothing with pornographic images, City Beach also stocks porn-themed thongs, caps, drink coolers, wallets, stickers, i-phone covers, pencil cases and air fresheners. Another item sold is a novelty remote control entitled ‘Control Your Woman’, each button with a different command, one of them being ‘blowjob’.

City Beach sells TITS brand products, a U.S. brand renowned for using well-known porn stars as models for their designs. TITS brand was nominated for an award at the pornography industry’s annual awards ceremony, the 2012 Adult Video News Awards.

Despite complaints and negative press, City Beach continues to sell porn-themed merchandise- even items they claimed would be discontinued months ago.

City Beach sends a consistent message to their target market of youth that it is normal and acceptable to view women as sexual objects for men’s entertainment, to be valued for their bodies and sexuality, and to treat them accordingly. Let’s send them a message- this behavior is not okay.

For photographic evidence visit:

Porn Tees (Warning: product images)

To find us on facebook visit:

Say no to porn t-shirts

Please sign and share this petition

City Beach: stop selling porn t-shirts

Further reading:

Ban move on Offensive T-shirts – The West Australian

Get it off your chest guys but dirty shirts just make slogans for brogans – The Age

Campaigners say no to porn t-shirts – Brianna Piazza  (Includes audio interview with Caitlin Roper and Michael Flood)

Why you need to complain to the Advertising Standards Board

Have you seen an ad that objectifies women or sexualises children? You can – and should – make a complaint to the Advertising Standards Board (ASB).

Why is it important to make a complaint?

For change to happen, we need to make our voices heard. Complaining to the ASB is one very important way to do this. In fact, it is the first thing you should do if you see an ad that objectifies women or sexualizes girls. It takes just one complaint to trigger the Board’s complaint handling process. Fortunately, the ASB has made it very easy to make a complaint.

How do I make a complaint?

You can post, fax, or submit your complaints online, via their website. The ASB’s preferred option is for people to fill out the online form. This allows the ASB to more efficiently process complaints. It is also quick and easy for the complainant, taking around 5-10 minutes to fill out and submit. You are required to provide some information about yourself (ie. your name and contact details) but if you wish your information to be kept from the advertiser, there is a box you can tick which indicates that you want your personal information kept confidential. Once you have submitted your complaint, you will receive a confirmation email from the ASB indicating that they have received your complaint.

How does the Ad Standards Board work?

The ASB is the advertising industries self regulated complaints handling arm. They are responsible for receiving and considering complaints about outdoor advertising (such as bus shelters and billboards) television ads and print ads. Whether the ad generates 1 or 100 complaints, the ad standards board will address the complaint at their next scheduled monthly meeting. In making a decision about the ad they will consider whether the ad breaches the industry codes of practice. If it does, your complaint will be upheld and the ad will be banned.*  If the ASB does not consider that the ad has breached the industry code of practice, they will dismiss the complaint. Complainants will receive a notification via post or email advising of the outcome of the complaint. The outcome of the complaint will also be published on their website. (Your personal details will not be published.)

* While most advertisers comply with ASB determinations and remove ads voluntarily, the board lacks legislative power to compel advertisers to remove advertising. Often by the time complaints have been upheld, the offending advertising campaign has run its course anyway. In the case of  the ‘Aussie Boat Loans’ billboard, the advertiser was initially non-compliant. After discussion the Ad Standards Board convinced the advertiser to remove the billboard, but this occurred a full month after the determination and just 1 week before the scheduled end of the advertising campaign.

If it only takes 1 complaint for the Ad Standards Board to review the ad, why do you want many people to submit complaints?

When Collective Shout campaigns against sexism and objectification in advertising, we always ask people to make a complaint to the ASB. We can make a stronger case if everyone who has seen the ad and who objects to it to submit a complaint. We want you to show the ASB and the government that the community really does care about these issues.

Even if your complaint is dismissed – and many complaints are – it will still be recorded. (You can see an example of that here). When the Advertising Standards Board produce their statistics and end of year reports, the number of complaints about advertisements is important. The media will then publish articles about community views on advertising. (You can see an example of that here and here.)

The number of complaints received by the ASB about sexism, objectification and sexualisation becomes even more important when the government holds an enquiry into advertising regulation. If there aren’t many complaints on record, the ASB may claim that the community is not concerned about advertising content. But we know our thousands of supporters do care about advertising content and regulation. We call on all of you to make sure you let the ASB know what you think at every opportunity.

I’ve made complaints to the Advertising Standards Board and I could not believe they dismissed my complaint! Why should I bother doing that again?

We understand the frustration of receiving a ‘complaint dismissed’ notification from the ASB. Many of us make complaints fully expecting them to be dismissed. We often warn others making complaints that this might happen. We persist with making complaints because there is a bigger picture we need to look at. We are working towards a ‘world free of sexploitation’ and we need to utilise all tools at our disposal. Remember, all complaints, dismissed or upheld are recorded and reported on.

So the Advertising Industry is ‘self regulated’ – that explains a lot

Collective Shout has contributed to two government enquiries relating to regulation of advertising and media; Inquiry into the regulation of billboard and outdoor advertising and Inquiry into the Australian Film and Literature Classification scheme. In both of these submissions we have argued that the system of self regulation is flawed, due to a weak code of ethics, the voluntary nature of the code, lack of pre-vetting, the ASB’s lack of power to remove advertisements, inadequate monitoring, de-sensitisation of panel members, little to no consultation with child development experts and no meaningful penalties to provide any real incentive for advertisers to change their behaviour. We believe advertisers are using the current system to their commercial advantage and the ASB is conflicted in their role, relying on funding from the advertising industry itself. They are not distant enough to be completely objective.

We have recommended that responsibility for regulation be given to an independent body or authority. The code of ethics should be amended to reflect that the objectification of women and sexualisation of children are a threat to the health and well being of women and girls. Unsolicited exposure to sexualised and objectified images should be understood as a form of sexual harassment. International research and child development professionals should be consulted to ascertain the possible impact of sexualised advertising.

To read more about our views on advertising regulation, you can read our submissions here:

Submission to the Inquiry into the regulation of billboard and outdoor advertising

Submission to the Inquiry into the Australian Film and Literature Classification Scheme

Make sure you submit a complaint to the Ad Standards Board

Until we see changes in the way advertising is regulated, the ASB remains the official complaints handling process we need to use. Next time you see an ad you object to, make sure you record your complaint with the advertising standards board.

To read more about the Advertising Standards Board or to submit a complaint, visit their website.

www.adstandards.com.au

This information was provided to assist you in making your voice heard. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below.

[UPDATED] But some items still appear on their website. Take Action.

Collective Shout supporters have taken to social media over the festive season, launching a campaign against stationery retailer ‘Typo’ for selling porn themed products.

Images of these items were posted on our Facebook page and one woman – Tess Corkish – created an online petition calling on Typo to withdraw the products:

The issue was quickly picked up by media and discussed on Sunrise.

Typo has announced via an email sent to Philippa that they will be withdrawing “porn is my saviour” travel mugs and “various other items” from their stores. Collective Shout welcomes this decision and calls on Typo to be proactive in ensuring that none of their products sexualise, exploit or degrade women and children.

Typo is part of the Cotton On group. Cotton On Kids sparked anger in 2009 for selling sleazy baby rompers and slogan tees for children. A social media backlash pressured them into withdrawing over 40,000 of these items from stores.

But Cotton On is still not in the clear. Like City Beach, Factorie and Universal stores, they continue to push porn to young people via their porn themed t-shirt range. Please ‘like’ Say No to Porn T-shirts on Facebook.

We call on retailers to make proactive decisions now, before they are faced with a PR nightmare and a tarnished reputation. Not all publicity is good publicity.  No doubt Collective Shout supporters will be keeping watch to make sure Typo keeps its word.

[UPDATE] TAKE ACTION

Typo is still selling porn-themed products via its website. Contact Typo here and ask them to remove all porn-themed products from stores and their website. Also post a message to Typo’s Facebook page here.

Collective Shout would like to thank all of you for your amazing support this year.

We appreciate all you do to help us create a world free of sexploitation. You have initiated campaigns, shared articles, contacted retailers, posted comments on our blog and Facebook page and much more.

We are grateful for the many messages of support we have received from you and of course, your financial support. Please be encouraged! Your voice counts, you are making a difference. Together we will achieve even more.

We wish you a safe and Happy Christmas and New Year.

We will be taking a short break over the festive season and look forward to working with you again in 2012.