#WISPchat: Is Christmas advertising sexist?

One WISPees tube journey home yesterday was punctuated by delight at a journalist’s declaring his dream for a feminist Christmas. Richard Godwin boiled it down to our new favourite analogy for everything ever, the John Lewis advert, in whose terms 'the women are the hares, trying to ensure everyone is happy, grandmother is remembered, etc, while men are the bears, reluctantly coaxed from their caves.’

Though we are loathe to even indirectly criticise Bear and Hare (they participated in our #treetweet campaign, friends fo’ life) we’ve been inspired to analyse the gender equality score of various Christmas ads. This should get you ready for tomorrow’s #WISPchat: do you find Christmas advertising sexist? Check out our Festive Feminist Findings and even add your own gender equality points tomorrow on Twitter, 2pm GMT, or failing that, in the comments below.

Before we get cracker-ing (we’re here all night!), let’s remind ourselves of one of last year’s low points.

Oh, Asda.

The breakdown: It’s a mum! And like all mums do, she shops, sets up camp beds, looks after children, and bosses her husband around with the tree (because all women love to nag, and all men are useless). She cooks the entire Christmas meal, serves it out (wearing an apron, remember we’re in 1950 folks), and her Neanderthal family members don’t even give her a real chair. It even ends with her dweeb of a man asking ‘What’s for tea, love?’ Minus fifteen gender equality points for Asda.
Score: -15

Let’s see if this year’s Santa-sack of Christmas marketing ploys fare any better.

Marks and Spencer

The breakdown: It starts promisingly, with a nice dog – then quickly speeds downhill as gorgeous model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley falls down a manhole, a descent during which all her clothes fall off. This jars a bit with the cutesy Alice-in-Wonderland theme, but hey, a girl’s gotta market her underwear line, amiright? Although some independent-woman-points go to M&S for the men being, like, total props in her dream sequence. And any appearance by Helena Bonham Carter is fine with us.
Score: 5/10

Royal Mail

The breakdown: Tempted as we are to be seduced by the great music, we’re not thrilled by the implication that every Royal Mail worker is a man (bar one in the back room, we woman love to organise). Royal Male, more like (hohoho). Also most of the female bit-players here do stuff like prowl their gardens in dressing gowns, look after small children and answer the door in marigolds, while men play in rock bands and drive trucks. It should be noted, however, that what RM lacks in gender equality it makes up for in ethnic diversity. We think many seasonal ads may have misread the meaning of Bing Crosby’s desired ‘White Christmas’.
Score: 3/10

Waitrose
The man won't let us embed this one - so watch it here. 
The breakdown: An all-male cast of one make up most the 41 seconds of festive fun here. It goes a bit like this: man drives tractor, man fattens up turkey on his Cotswolds farm, man eats turkey (narration provided by – who else – a man!). It’s a bit less macho than it sounds (he does all this whilst wearing a checked shirt and sleeveless fleece). The cooking process is mysteriously absent here, so we imagine he threw his dead bird at some oppressed wife-slave to deal with, probably while quoting Jeremy Clarkson and driving around his massive Land Rover, laughing at poor people. They all eat around a nice table, though, and at least the token woman gets a real chair.
Score: 5/10

Morrisons

The breakdown: It’s a singing, dancing gingerbread man wearing an adorable yellow jacket, performing for Ant and Dec. A helpful gender-neutral bird dresses Dec in his napkin, so no oppressed woman kicking around this table. Morrisons sadly loses some points for all its ‘cooks’ being white and male (and made of plasticine – they wouldn’t last five minutes in a hot kitchen), whilst the only identifiably female characters are the angels serenading the meal. Where are Gabriel and Nigella when you need ‘em?
Score: 4/10

And a brief shout-out to this year’s clanger…

Holland & Barrett
Thanks to Twitter user @eloise_ldn for finding this atrocity. Holland & Barrett proudly proclaim they have gifts ‘to make mum beautiful, bro stronger, dad faster’ and ‘sis svelter’. There are no words. Except: if Holland and Barrett were an animal, they’d be a sexist pig in blanket. Happy Christmas, everybody! 

Join us tomorrow on Twitter, using the #WISPchat hashtag at 2pm GMT for some mistletoe and whine. Are these adverts the reality of Christmas (minus singing gingerbread man)? Or are they outdated, faux-nostalgic marketing schemes?