Edouard Martin MEP (S&D, France) presented today to PES members gathering at their Group meeting an initiative aimed at creating a network of towns and cities free from sexist advertisements.
This initiative, to be launched ahead of International Women's Day on 7 March 2018, aims at encouraging towns and cities to adhere to a number of guidelines intended for banning sexist advertising. Such measures already exist in few cities, such as Paris, Berlin, London and Stockholm, but the initiative will seek to enlarge voluntary action.
In a second step, cities embracing the principles of the initiative could be awarded a European sexism-free label.
"The aim of this initiative is to combat sexist adverts in order to ensure that women are not misrepresented", Martin explained. "Sexist adverts should no longer be tolerated and we should stop having a woman's body beside a completely unrelated product that the body is trying to sell."
PES Group President Catiuscia Marini offered Edouard Martin the Groups' full support for the initiative, stressing that "the role of the CoR PES Group can be very important in this endeavour, and progressive cities and regions can act as multipliers on the ground".
The presentation was followed by a lively exchange of views, during which PES members discussed what is already done in their cities to combat sexist adverts, and what could be further done in the framework of the initiative.
