Mayor: I’ll banish ‘demeaning’ ads on Tube and buses
ADVERTISEMENTS that ‘demean’ women and show unrealistic bodies will be banned from thousands of buses and trains following a feminist outcry over a poster showing a woman in a bikini.
Sadiq Khan, London’s new mayor, said that as a father of teenage daughters, he wanted to rid the capital of advertising that makes women ‘ashamed of their bodies’.
The ban will apply to all parts of the network overseen by Transport for London – buses, the Tube and London Overground.
However, Mr Khan has no power over mainline railway stations as they are run by train companies and Network Rail, which means the advertisements could still be seen by hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The rules, which will come into force next month, follow a row last summer over a Protein World poster that asked if women were ‘beach body ready’. It featured the image of a skinny model wearing a bikini and advertised the company’s weight loss supplements. Posters were defaced and after 70,000 signed a petition they were eventually taken down.
Officials said that if the ad is proposed again it would be vetoed.
Last night, Mr Khan said: ‘As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end.
‘Nobody should feel pressurised, while they travel on the Tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this.’ As chairman of TFL, the mayor could in theory veto any advertisement he opposes, officials confirmed. A spokesman for the mayor said an advertisement could be banned if it showed very thin women because this could encourage anorexia. Mr Khan said the rules would not have any impact on advertising revenue, which is set to raise £1.5 billion in the next eight years.