You trade more we lighten the load, MTN

1. Show how advertisers and their clients often ignore gender dimensions of the product or service they are advertising, and how this perpetuates gender discrimination and;

2. Analyse media campaigns for assumptions and preconceived notions around gender and business.

This advert is gender blind because it ignores the fact that women can also run successful small and medium-scale business. Standard Chartered Bank is exhibiting discrimination against women by targeting only men for this empowering service. Women must have access to baking services that are aimed at empowering them. It is important to use images that send positive messages that both men and women can run successful businesses. Very often, women are seen to participate more in informal businesses like child care, trading in small goods, home-based health care, etc. Often women are not seen as cutting edge business partners, and the absence of women from this ad would appear to perpetuate this assumption.

1. Alone, this advert appears sexist, and assumes that it is only men who take part in formal business. How would your perceptions of Standard Bank’s campaign change if this ad was only one in a series?

2. When women appear in advertising, it is often based on sex appeal, caregiving, or the notion that women are materialistic. What strategies can advertisers use to engage women in business without falling into stereotypically "female" images or tactics? i.e. using analogies involving shopping, a preoccupation with beauty, or the theme of ‘mothering’.

1. Provide the group with a selection of newspapers. Ask them to look for advertisements related to business. Where are women featured? Where are they absent? When women are featured, are they portrayed in the same way as men? Discuss what this says about how women are perceived to participate in business.

2. Ask each participant to write in half a page what they think about the advert: Does it promote or perpetuate gender discrimination? How could the ad be improved? How could Standard Bank’s campaign be improved?

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