The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered the SABC to immediately take a sexist (Only Your Man Can) Pay Your SABC TV licence advert off the air that suggests that only men can pay SABC TV licence fees since women apparently can't manage.
Jesse Kaplain complained to the ASA about a SABC TV Licence commercial on the public broadcaster's commercial radio station 5FM that she found extremely sexist.
The ad told listeners that "Luckily you now no longer have to subject the man in your life to the horrors of a shopping mall when TV licence payment time comes around. The new site let him pay from cellphone, tablet or laptop wherever he may be even from the comfort of the couch, while you get to follow the sound of those heels calling your name. Seems fair‚ doesn't it? The new TV licence website - quick‚ convenient‚ secure".
Kaplan told the ASA in her complaints that women are self-sufficient, can pay their own bills and that men are not needed to do that.
The ASA agreed with the complainant and said "in essence, the complainant found the advertising sexist and gender stereotyping", saying that the commercial "makes reference to men hating malls, but now the men can stay at home and can pay while a woman just goes shopping for pretty shoes. Because clearly she has nothing else to do and he's the bread winner and makes all the important decisions and payments in life."
The ASA ruled that "The storyline of the commercial is reliant on an assumption that the man has to pay the TV licence. Previously, he would have had to go to the mall to do so, and his female partner would have had to persuade him to do this."
"Now, he can sit on the couch and pay it. But either way, the man has to pay the TV licence. The idea that the woman could have simply paid the licence while she was at the mall is not entertained. The communication is, as the complainant highlights, dependent on an assumption that women are financially or mentally incapable of paying the TV licence if a man is around to do the job."
The ASA that that what it finds "untenable is not the humorous stereotyping of the genders, but the underlying assumptions regarding the role and ability of each gender."
The ASA ordered the SABC to withdrew its SABC TV licence fee ad with immediate effect and not to use it again in future.
