Active criticizes alcohol industry's distorting picture of women- 100 years women's fight passed by alcohol industry unnoticed

“In Active, we dedicate a lot of work to Human Rights issues and gender equality is certainly a crucial one,” says Andrea Lavesson, the president of Active – sobriety, friendship and peace, “our members today do benefit from the 100-year long fight for women's rights. But we also see that we have to continue fighting gender stereotypes and insulting portrayal of girls and women in society because they're still today obstacles for true societal advancement.”

The alcohol industry and the multi-billion dollar investment into marketing of its products strongly contribute to perpetuating gender stereotypes. The report “They'll drink bucket loads of stuff” by Prof Hastings that analyzed internal documents from the alcohol industry, documents a shocking willingness to exploit sexual stereotypes.

Andrea Lavesson, Active President, explains that “the alcohol industry objectifies girls and women in two ways: since in most countries the alcohol use of girls and women used to be lower than of men, especially girls and women have been identified as new market. Girls and women became the new target group for increasing profits. The second form of objectification can be seen in the commercials: women are displayed as sexual objects.”

In fact, to seduce girls and women to start drinking and increase their use of alcohol, the alcohol industry does not consider ethics: tapping into gender stereotypes is their strategy. Therefore they designed “diet” alcoholic beverages, developed a variety of fruit flavoured beer that soon was called “chick beer” and promote these products in connection with items, like handbags, high heels, make-up, that are highly associated with women.

Sexualization is when a person's value comes only from his/ her sexual appeal or behaviour to the exclusion of other characteristics.

“It is this strategy that the alcohol industry ruthlessly employs – according to the motto ‘sex sells' – in order to increase their profits. The 100 years of struggle that women went through all over the world don't seem to bother the alcohol industry,” points out Andrea Lavesson. “On this historic day, when we remember how far we've come in terms of women's rights, we need to address how to improve in the future. There is still a lot to improve for the young girls today to grow up in a fairer and more equal world. It is clear that the alcohol industry and the distorting picture of women it portrays is an obstacle to this end.”