Two adverts have been banned for perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes of women working in fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The first advert for PC Specialist – a manufacturer and seller of bespoke PC computers – featured three men performing different activities, including producing music and coding with a male voice-over which stated: “For the players, the gamers, the ‘I’ll sleep laters’, the creators, the editors, the music makers. The techies, the coders, the illustrators ... From the specialists for the specialists.”

According to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), eight viewers complained that the advert perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes by depicting men in roles that were stereotypically male and implying that only men are interested in technology and computers.

Following the complaints, PC Specialist said that its product, branding and services had been developed for their target audience, which is 87.5 per cent male.

The company said there was no comparison between men and women in the advert and that it did not imply women were not interested in computers.

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Show all 12 1 /12 The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Anne Hathaway The 32-year-old actress said she has already experiences job rejections because of her age. “Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are,” she told Glamour. EPA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Helen Mirren On news that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been turned down for being ‘too old’, aged 37, to play a 55-year-old man’s partner: “It’s f***ing outrageous. It’s ridiculous. Honestly, it’s so annoying. And ’twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It’s so annoying.” Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Maggie Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal revealed she was told by a Hollywood producer that she was too old, aged 37, to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. “It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh,” she said at the time. Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Meryl Streep Meryl Streep has helped fund an all-female screenwriters group called The Writer’s Lab to encourage more women to pen Hollywood scripts. She previously told Vogue in 2011: “Once women pass childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level.” Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Emma Thompson The actress said she thought Hollywood is “still completely s***” when it comes to treating women equally to men. ““When I was younger, I really did think we were on our way to a better world. And when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad.” EPA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Elizabeth Banks Banks said she was driven from acting to directing due to the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood. “"[Industry sexism] drove me to direct for sure. I definitely was feeling that I was unfulfilled and a little bit bored by the things that were coming across my desk. I mean look at Gwyneth Paltrow who has her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love] and played fifth banana to Iron Man,” she told Deadline. PA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Viola Davis “I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size 2 be a sexualised role in TV or film. I'm a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualised woman. I was the prototype of the ‘mommified’ role,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Liv Tyler The Lord of the Rings actress said she only get cast in roles where she is treated as a “second class citizen” at the age of 38. “When you’re in your teens or twenties, there is an abundance of ingenue parts which are exciting to play. But at [my age], you’re usually the wife or the girlfriend - a sort of second-class citizen. There are more interesting roles for women when they get a bit older,” she told More magazine. Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Cate Blanchett The actress famously called out sexism on the red carpet at the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When a camera operator scanned her up and down, she said: “Do you do this to the guys?” In her Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine, she reminded the film industry that movies with leading women can still be successful. “And thank you to... those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not -- audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.” Gareth Cattermole/Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Ellen Page Asked if she had ever encountered sexism in Hollywood, Page told The Guardian: ‘Oh my God, yeah! It's constant! It's how you're treated, it's how you're looked at, how you're expected to look in a photoshoot, it's how you're expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it's how you... If you're a girl and you don't fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man's perspective, then you're a little bit at a loss.” Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Zoe Saldana The actress says she refuses roles where she has to play the generic girlfriend, wife or sexy bombshell. "It's very hard being a woman in a man's world, and I recognised it was a man's world even when I was a kid. It's an inequality and injustice that drove me crazy, and which I always spoke out against — and I've always been outspoken,” she told Manhattan magazine. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Charlize Theron The actress spoke to ELLE about negotiating equal pay for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel: "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way." Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

However the ASA disagreed, stating that the advert repeatedly cut to images of only men, who were both prominent and central to the advert’s message of opportunity and excellence across multiple desirable career paths.

“We therefore considered that the ad implied that excellence in those roles and fields would be seen as the preserve of men,” the ASA said.

”Because of that, we considered that the ad went further than just featuring a cross-section of the advertiser’s core customer base and implied that only men could excel in those roles.

“Although the guidance did not prohibit ads from featuring only one gender, we considered that because the ad strongly implied only men could excel in the specialisms and roles depicted we concluded the ad presented gender stereotypes in way that was likely to cause harm and therefore breached the code.”

The second advert to be banned by the ASA was a poster campaign for PeoplePerHour – an online platform giving businesses access to freelancers – which was posted on the London Underground in November.

The image featured a woman alongside the text: “You do the girl boss thing. We’ll do the SEO thing,” referring to search engine optimisation.

The ASA said 19 people complained that the advert perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes by depicting a woman running a business in a patronising way and implying women were not technologically skilled.

People Per Hour said the term “girl boss” was a reference to a book, popular culture movement and professional network.

The company acknowledged that the “execution might unintentionally come across as sexist and demeaning to women” but said they had taken steps to rectify this by removing the word “girl” from the advert and issuing a public apology on their website.

Despite this, the ASA said it was a well-established stereotype that men were more suited to positions of authority in the business world than women, and that using the term “girl boss” implied that the gender of the person was relevant to their performance in a managerial or entrepreneurial role.

The watchdog said it was also a well-established stereotype that women were not skilled at using technology and the sentence “We’ll do the SEO thing” was likely to be understood to mean that female “bosses” in particular needed help with IT matters.

“We acknowledged the steps taken to rectify those issues by removing the word ‘girl’ from the ad and issuing an apology,” the ASA said.

(PA: People Per Hour)

“However, for the reasons given we concluded that the ad had the effect of reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes and that it breached the code.”

In June 2019, the ASA introduced new rules regarding advertising that endorses harmful gender stereotypes.

The rules mean that companies are no longer able to depict scenes that promote gender stereotypes, such as women doing household chores, school girls being shown as less academic than boys, women struggling to park a car and men having difficulty changing a baby’s nappy.

At the time of the announcement, Ella Smillie, gender stereotyping project lead at the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP), said that offending adverts can “hold some people back from fulfilling their potential, or from aspiring to certain jobs and industries, bringing costs for individuals and the economy”.