Mayor should remove Mavericks billboards — FPI

The Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia De Lille should urgently remove the appallingly sexist and harmful Mavericks billboards erected along the city’s streets, Family Policy Insitute (FPI) says in a press statement.

The strip club’s billboards feature a half-naked woman in a sexually suggestive pose next to the slogan “I was working late.” The billboard appears to promote adultery and stereotypes women as mere sex objects, says FPI.

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The Mavericks billboards are erected on the NI highway and in Tamboerskloof opposite a children’s park. Children are therefore exposed to these lewd and harmful images.

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Although the City of Cape Town has acknowledged the billboard on the N1 highway is erected illegally it refuses to immediately remove the billboard citing a legal process.

However, in light of the harm the images cause women and children and the fact that the billboard is already in contravention of the city’s by-laws, FPI calls on the city to immediately remove it.

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The Mavericks billboards make a mockery of the stated objectives of the “16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women and Children Campaign” which will be launched next week.

“It is shocking that in a province and city led by women that women can be degraded and objectified in this manner on our city streets by organisations that profit off the sexual degradation and enslavement of women” says Errol Naidoo, FPI Director.

Helen Zille, the Western Cape Premier and Patricia De Lille, the City of Cape Town’s Mayor must act swiftly to defend the dignity of women and children. The billboard sends out a destructive message to society that women exist primarily for the sexual gratification of men, says FPI.

The Western Cape and South Africa have some of the highest statistics of rape and sexual abuse of women and children in the world. The Mavericks billboards add fuel to these crimes and must be removed from the city’s streets without delay.

The Mavericks campaign has previously drawn fire from Christian Action Network (CAN), which has urged citizens to complain to the Advertising Standards Association of South Africa (ASA) about the Mavericks billboards in Cape Town.

Last week the ASA ruled that an anti-abortion billboard used by CAN in its pro-life campaigns was “offensive”. CAN is appealing against the ruling.

“It is notable that the ASA, paid by the advertisers, so often rules in favour of strip joint advertisers — adverts offensive to many South Africans, yet rules a billboard stating the obvious truth that ‘abortion kills babies’, as ‘offensive’ to the hypothetical ‘reasonable person’!” says CAN.