Estate agency group Chas Everitt this week fell foul of the Advertising Regulatory Board after a consumer complained about their advertising billboard showing two attractive female agents sitting in a sports coupe under the heading “Not your average birdies”.
Offended by the apparent labelling of professional women as birds, one consumer took the matter up by laying a formal complaint against the suburban billboard with the ARB on grounds that the advert was guilty of negative gender stereotyping and was offensive.
“It's not clear what attribute of the 'birdies’ depicted in the billboard are ‘above average’ — is it their looks, their car? Their makeup? Their hairdo? Perhaps maybe their skill at selling houses — but there is no mention of property on the board, nor images that connect them in some way to the work they may or may not do,” stated the complainant.
She also made reference to a community WhatsApp conversation supporting her views, in which it had become apparent that the advertisement was widely disliked.
Responding through their attorneys, Chas Everitt noted that they were not a member of the ARB and therefore not bound by them, and that they were also unable to comment on the WhatsApp conversation as this had not been provided in the complaint.
Undermining a sector of society, in this case women, to promote business is crude gender-discrimination and is not in keeping of our values in a democratic society.
— Prof Rachel Jewkes of the South African Medical Research Council
In their response, Chas Everitt referred to older rulings by the old Advertising Standards Authority, which closed in 2018, arguing that the test for determining whether an advert was in violation of the Advertising Code was an objective matter and therefore not dependent on the subjective views of individuals.
They said significance must be given to guaranteed freedom of expression, which extended to commercial speech.
The agency noted that use of the word ‘birdie’ did not offend against good taste or decency, nor was it offensive or likely to cause widespread or sectoral offence. It said the word was also a play on words referring to both the agents depicted and a golfing pun referencing both the location of the board and the common golfing term 'birdie', or score of one stroke under par, which is generally celebrated as a positive achievement.
Chas Everitt conceded the possibility that the word ‘bird’ may have been informally used to refer to a woman in much the same way ‘bloke’ is used informally to refer to a man.
They submitted the agents were clearly represented as professionals, in a manner that is neither demeaning nor objectifying and the imagery did not exploit, stereotype or diminish their dignity, or women generally, nor did it perpetuate harmful gender norms or biases.
In evaluating the complaint, the ARB simplified it to the question of whether referring to two female estate agents asˑbirdies was a negative gender portrayal.
The ARB noted that the advert relied on the pun of ‘birdie’ in the context of the neighbouring golf course, and to describe women — because if this were not the case, the advert would make no sense.
“The word 'bird' describes an animal, and referring to women in this way therefore objectifies them, while 'bloke' does not objectify men in the same way. Golf associations not withstanding, the term 'birdie' is the diminutive of bird and further infantilises the women it is referring to,” the ARB said.
It also referred to an English judgment in a discrimination case where it was ruled that calling women birds is “plainly sexist, and even using the term jokingly is foolish”.
It also referred to an opinion poll in which 54% of surveyed women said they would like the term ‘birds’ banned from everyday use.
Author Hattie Garlick was quoted as saying: “A bird is a small, fragile thing. It chirrups, flutters and nests. It definitely does not chair board meetings, run multinational corporations or govern nations.”
This was found to be particularly relevant to this instance in which two professional women, shown to be doing a professional job in a professional manner, being labelled ‘birdies’ in their company’s advertising.
The billboard, therefore, was an execution in “objectifying, infantilising and undermining professional women” and was therefore a negative gender portrayal and offensive to public values.
Rory O’Hagan, managing principal of Chas Everitt’s Sandton and Hyde Park branch, said they were amending and rewording the billboard.
“We have already instructed our outdoor advertising company to make the necessary changes. Our group remains committed to maintaining high standards in all its marketing communications and mindful of the differing and evolving expectations of our advertising audiences,” he said.
O'Hagan noted that the image had not been specifically posed for the advert, but had been a candid photo taken during the annual Bobby Locke Festival at the Parkview Golf Club, an event where Chas Everitt was a sponsor.
Gender expert Prof Rachel Jewkes of the South African Medical Research Council said “not your average birdie” may be a pun on golf, but it uses a derogatory slang term for woman and implies that ‘average’ women “are unattractive and dim-witted”.
“Undermining a sector of society, in this case women, to promote business is crude gender-discrimination and is not in keeping of our values in a democratic society,” she said.
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