AIBU to be confused by Aptamil Ad

[milliemolliemou]

First time posting

Tell me if someone has posted about this before.

Young girl fed on Aptamil becomes a ballerina. Young boy fed on Aptamil becomes a rock climber.

My reaction is this is going back to the Sixties. I have DCs and DD loves rock climbing and is a serious biker. StepDS loves music and books.

[LiquoricePickle]

YABU to be confused. YANBU to dislike it.

[DoubleHelix79]

I was quite annoyed by this as well. Perhaps their next ad will show the girl happily cleaning the house?

[Telstar99]

Doesn't bother me.

[Bufferingkisses]

Tbf how do you know the babies are girl/boy? Presumably no genitalia is on show?

[AntiHop]

Buffering the sex of the adults in the advert is very clear.

[Bufferingkisses]

Ah yes fair point.

(We could do the trans dance here but I don't think that's needed)

Op, the ad made me uncomfortable but I could lay my finger on why. You may be right here.

[BigFatGoalie]

Doesn’t bother me.
The messages I give my DC about their identity are far stronger than an advert they may never even see.

[Morphene]

bigfat are you mad? Because either you are mad or the people signing off on spending millions of quid to change our minds about stuff by advertising at us are mad....

Showing people male and female stereotypes day in day out is exactly the kind of thing that is more powerful than messages from parents.

As the full time professional physicist mother of a DD who told me aged 3 that 'the engineer's name can't be Dot, that's a girls name and girls can't be engineers', I can confirm this is the case.

[BigFatGoalie]

I don’t think Aptimel are trying to change your mind about anything other than switching from Cow and Gate... morphene
So which advert told your DD women cannot be engineers? I can’t think of one on TV at the moment.
I am more than happy for my DD to be a ballet dancer. Or an engineer. My son too for that matter. I highly doubt she takes much interest of a formula advert though.
I am not saying that the media plays no role in gender stereotyping. That would be ludicrous.
In this specific Advert that the OP is referring to, I hardly think it matters.
If we start getting offended by this sort of thing, where does it end?
Will every role being played that we see on TV have to be acted by both a male and a female together? Or is it only ballet and rock climbing that concern you (and engineers of course)? What about if they had shown a chef? Or an accountant?

[BlueSapp]

There are far more things wrong in the world to be annoyed about

[sayyouwill]

So now women cant be ballerinas and men can't be rock climbers? Why can't they depict that? They are showing an individual baby and their 'future'. Some girls will be ballerinas. Are we just going to pretend that that isn't a thing? I don't remember seeing it say anywhere that only women can be this or only men can be that...

[DSHathawayGivesMeFannyGallops]

I've seen this ad and thought the same. I think there's a girl doing a STEM or less-stereotyped sports job in the full version of the ad but can't recall and it's not the primary image on the ad. I remember purposely watching it to see what the other kids do and thinking that.

[SidekickSally]

I agree with BigFatGoalie. Myself and my DDs have seen ads like this and it hasn't affected them or aspirations. That comes from me and DH and their wider relatives, their role models.

[britbat23]

Ballet is every bit as physically demanding and mentally challenging as rock climbing so not sure what the problem is.

Just because you do the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy doesn't mean you ARE a sugar plum fairy.

[sayyouwill]

I absolutely hate the fact that in this world at the moment, women absolutely cannot be seen doing or liking anything that once was stereotypically 'feminine'. Surely you're just as bad if you're essentially preventing one sex from doing something? Aren't we just flipping it all over? In 10 years will we all be outraged that they aren't depicting women doing ballet because we are just as capable as men?

[Penguin27]

I agree with you OP!

[OuiNonOui]

Hmm I don't know.

Maybe they could even it out by adding two extra babies (boy and girl) both becoming a rock climber and a ballerina.

Next they could make the ad more diverse by throwing in more babies from different ethnic backgrounds.

A trans baby perhaps?

I don't know where we would stop.

[barefoofdoctor]

Why would it even matter when one can identify as whatever the hell one chooses to these days? Perhaps the girl is a boy who identifies as a Sugar Plum Fairy and the boy a female in drag rockstar? (Today I identify as an exhausted sloth/slug hybrid).

[GaryBarlowsTaxReturn]

I agree with you OP. Its stereotyping and it's insidious in our society. As for the posters who think it doesn't do any harm; wake the fuck up. Millions are spent on advertising campaigns. Why would companies do that if it didn't have some effect?

[reallybadidea]

I think a lot of posters are being either deliberately obtuse or very naive if they really think that adverts like this, as part of a wider depiction of gender stereotypes in society, have no effect. It's the cumulative, drip drip drip effect, of which this advert is one small part.

[BarbaraofSevillle]

Leaving aside the arguments about sexist steretyping, these adverts annoy me because I wouldn't be at all surprised if 'Follow on Milk' is a product that was invented for the purpose of overcoming the ban on advertising formula for younger babies.

All that twee 'of course you want the best for your baby so are breastfeeding and not using our lovely formula that we are not allowed to mention but on the off chance that you aren't why not buy our lovely follow on milk instead'.

[PrettyBelle]

Ballerina is a hell of an achievement. Girls train from pre-school age. Unlike rock-climbers.

[silkpyjamasallday]

@OuiNonOui so you're happy for adverts to contain no ethnic diversity and enforce damaging stereotypes? To compare these two things with a 'trans baby' is ridiculous, you know that there is no such thing as a trans baby presumably, and mock the need for ethnic diversity and the need to tell little boys and girls that they can do anything they want, that they are not limited to choosing what they 'should' due to their sex. Fuck me. You're either incredibly dense or wilfully ignorant or goady.

There are so many adverts around today that perpetuate negative gender roles and are in some cases overtly racist or sexist. DP used to work in advertising and it seems since he left they have been lobotomised. It's essential that we tackle this negative advertising as it is so so pervasive in society now, many are disguised and they will have an effect on how people of either sex view themselves and the next generation.

Thankfully DD will not be exposed so much as Netflix doesn't have adverts, which I have chosen to use rather than normal tv because I remember many as from my childhood very clearly so they do have a lasting effect imo.

[53rdWay]

Indeed, reallybadidea. And there’s a lot of blissful ignorance in saying “but stereotypes like this won’t affect my children, because we don’t tell the girls they have to be ballerinas or tell the boys they can’t be.” (To be followed up in a few years by: “But this stuff MUST be nature rather than nurture, because my boys play with toy guns and my girls play with toy ponies even though I didn’t tell them to!”)

[BigFatGoalie]

So I should be upset if my DD ends up being a ballerina?!
But thrilled if my DS does, as he is breaking social and gender norms?!
Bloody ridiculous.