I just caught the new “Stone Age” GoCompare advert on TV and it hit me like a bag of rocks.
The advert features a cavewoman character driving a rudimentary car, claiming to have just invented the wheel and shortly after, crashes the car.
Her caveman friend then comes along and states that he’s “just invented car insurance”.
Now is it just me or does this advert have sexist undertones?
The advert, to me implies that women drivers are more likely to be involved in car accidents even though statistically male drivers have been in more accidents than female drivers. Here’s another statistic.
Since GoCompare is a car insurance comparison site, I feel compelled to mention the huge legal battle that took place earlier this year to out rule insurance companies being able to charge male drivers a higher premium to reflect that they “are more likely to have serious accidents”. This was in a bid to make things more equal for male and female drivers (not that I agree with the ruling; men and women drivers are inherently different and insurance policies should be allowed to reflect that, plus I like my lower premium).
In terms of the GoCompare advert, I think it’s outright sexist to have the cavewoman crash the car rather than her caveman counterpart. It’s outrageous for GoCompare to sign off an advert that reinforces old and incorrect streroeotypes that women drivers are worse than males when it’s just not true. To go along with Gocompare’s caveman theme, there is “overwhelming evidence that propensities towards certain types of behaviour, including less-safe driving, are ‘hard wired’ in men” due to their hunter gatherer minds and high testosterone levels. Ug.
Can anyone tell me why the male caveman wasn’t the one crashing car and it had to be the female cavewoman?
theoneandonlycindy 
I prefer to hate the ad because it is terrible on every single level of advertising merit, but tomato tomayto etc… 🙂
If I’m honest, I think actually prefer the campaign to other similar price comparison site campaigns just because they’ve tried to keep it evolving. I hate the Confused.com (*switch channel as soon as first 2 bars of the song comes on*) one and Comparethemarket’s not much better either.
Despite Gocompare being voted for the worst advert of the year-twice..2009 2010
But it hasn’t evolved at all really. They stick the same concept in a different place and annoy you there…!
At least Compare the Market has evolved the characters and creates something you can smile at, GoCompare is just about ramming the brand in your ears in a painful manner. CTM is being told a bad joke in a bar, GoCompare is being punched in the face and then glassed.
Can you tell it annoys me??
Isn’t that the definition of evolving? They’re sticking with their jingle and changing the style of it. Still the same recognition from their “fans” (like me;)) but we get a silent movie style, a female accompaniment version and the rock cover of our beloved tune to keep things fresh (yet nice and annoying for you!)
I don’t think it’s sexist – it just happens to be a woman in the car, but I don’t think that makes it sexist. It doesn’t come across that way to me anyway…
If it was a black guy driving the car and a white guy offering car insurance would it be racist?
It’s not just a woman driving the car, it’s the fact that she crashes it creates the sexist feel to it. I get that it’s a car insurance comparison site, but why was it necessary for the woman to crash the car, surely we’d still get the message if she was just cruising exclaiming, “I’ve invented the wheel”. To answer your question if a black man was driving the car and crashed it I’d say it’s racist. If he didn’t crash it, then no implications, it’s just a black man driving a car.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence that it was a woman in the car, but that doesn’t stop it from revealing a subconscious mindset. If we were more aware of these subconscious mindsets maybe Go Compare could have put a man in the car and crashing it.
I totally agree that this ad is sexist. I think the thing that gives it sexist undertones is the way it states “Woman invented the wheel” (and then she crashes) and “Man invented car insurance”. As if the silly women who can’t drive need the men to come to their aid.
The fact the women dance around in skimpy “cavegirl” outfits for the rest of the ad doesn’t help either.
My jaw dropped when I first saw it. I can’t believe it was allowed to air.
Indeed! Even if it was mentioned that the cavewoman inventing the wheel, no emphasis was placed on it. It’s over casted by the fact that she crashes it and fudging it up and the man ultimately has to fix it.
Who could crash the car without it being racist and sexist judging by your criteria?
White man crashes – racist against whites, sexist against men
White woman crashes – racist against whites, sexist against women
Black man crashes – racist against blacks, sexist against men
Black woman crashes – racist against blacks, sexist against women
Hopefully reading this, if you ever do, will shine a light on just how ridiculous your theories are. Happy learning.
It’s just a different execution rather than evolving really. The silent one is the only one i watch without muting or changing channel, without the singing it’s far more bearable.
To be honest the woman also invents the wheel so yes, very sexist as we all know a bloke invented the wheel.
You might also want to note that the guy is very seedy and does not infact solve the problem, it’s more of a knight in shining armor style of advert with Gio Compario being the saviour. Which would not have really worked if the driver had been male.
Next time you go searching for something to find offensive make sure you know what it is you’re looking for 🙂
Big thumbs up.. some people just feel the need to moan and blow anything out of proportion these days, people like you who have made it so any little comment or so on is seen as socially unacceptable… also this is just meant to be a fun advertisement so there is no need for the all the statistics, if it was a man crashing car you would moan about that no doubt, some people just like to instigate things like this…
sexist ads…….errrrr maltesers especiallly the one where the girls put the two guys in a provocatitive position ….any boots ad involving”here come the girls”,the oven pride ad (so simple even a man can do it) i forget the name,.
if you want me to fix your car then can you fix me a sandwich……
Shut up you small minded idiot. Why does everybody cry racism/sexism as soon as anyone but a white male is seen to do anything negative?? Grow up.
If a man crashed the car with a woman offering him insurance would that be sexist???
All men do in adverts is play the oafish father with the clever mum showing him the right way in the end. That is sexist
So if a man crashed the car…would you say it’s sexist?!? Because that’s what your saying. They only had 1 of 2 sexes to use. They used the 2 women because they’re attractive. Not sexist. And the whole making insurance equal is fair. It’s fairly hypocritical for you to say otherwise. Again, if it was the other way around would you say it’s fair?
They used the crash to show they’re on about car insurance. Not sexist. If that’s sexist, then scrubs must be sexist is the focus of the program is JD who is a male…
Stop making something out of nothing. It’s your idiocy that causes problems in this world. I disagree with sexism, but not EVERYTHING is sexist.
Would anyone have mentioned this if the caveman had been the one driving? men have always been portrayed as idiots in adverts (think soap powder) not only is that extreme sexism it’s blatant gender bashing and has reinforced a seriously damaging, negative, false stereotype which is rife in tv/media.
This is usually involving products aimed at women or tv programmes/soaps with a predominantly female audience. Not only is this sexist to men this blatant patronising to women seriously undermines their intelligence and is therefore equally as sexist toward their gender.
“Can anyone tell me why the male caveman wasn’t the one crashing car and it had to be the female cavewoman?”
It didn’t have to be the woman at all, there was a choice and they chose the woman. If the advert had been for a predominantly male product then i could possibly see some validity in the argument but then i’d have to see a soap powder advert where a woman can’t work out how the washing machine works long before i gave it any serious credibility.
hey guess what? women have accidents too!
Women may have less accidents than men because they drive less miles per annum…but this is not because they are better drivers.
I think it’s entirely sexist. The woman’s just invented the wheel but then (silly her) she goes and crashes the car! It implies that she has invented one of the most useful things in the world!… and then crashes into a rock. The two girls then prance about with their jebs out. That’s beyond the point however, and just makes me wish that the majority of advertising companies would stop using sex as their main selling point. Surely we’re past that by now…
I find it disheartening that some of the men who have commented on this have seemingly taken it to heart and proceeded to insult the author of this article. Why must so many people immediately roll their eyes when any woman mentions the word sexist..? I can’t imagine anything I’d rather than behave negatively towards a man who felt a woman had treated him in a derogatory way due to his sex…
Antony, I understand your point that political correctness has been taken to a ridiculous new level in recent years, however I don’t think it’s constructive to react in such an aggressive and belittling way. How is calling people small minded and idiots going to achieve anything positive? I also think this particular advert IS a case of sexism against women. I know you use racism as a parallel, however there exists no stereotype that black people are bad drivers. One does exist however about women being bad drivers, and many of the driving males I know have voiced it at a time in their life (including my father and cousins, which is a bit upsetting, considering I’ve never crashed or caused a crash, but they all have the beasts! This is not me saying that all men say women are bad drivers, and not implying that all men have crashes and women don’t, so please don’t think it is my intention to do so). Therefore I don’t think racism can be used as a parallel to the particular derogatory nature of this advertisement. Haha, it just came on on the television, it must be a sign.
just because men are apparently statistically more likely to crash then women men should not have to pay a higher premium then women from the get go it should be based on weather you crash or not, not weather men crash more then women, if it had been a man driving the fake stone car and said “i just invented the wheel” people like you would have said its sexist because women might have invented the wheel. its not sexist its saying women invented the greatest invention ever so to me that’s not really sexist at all and at the end of the day its and advert get a grip.
Maybe people just shouldn’t make such shite ads in the future. But I think you ones that have made such nasty comments towards others on this forum should re-think how you go about arguing your point.
Not sure about sexist. But that blonde girl has a cracking pair. I’d smash her!
She’d probably smash you if you asked nicely
I’ve just stumbled across this, and coincidently the advert has come on as I started typing. I think that perhaps arguing whether the cave girl driving and crashing the car is sexiest is reading a little bit to much into it. It’s likely that it’s a young attractive women driving for the simple reason that it is more likely to grab people’s attention than a man driving.. ok, fine, argue about whether using a women because it’s more likely to get peoples attention is some kind of evidence of the underlying sexism in society or the like, but the fact that in 2009 there were 3.7 million more male drivers than female drivers in the UK,(a fact that has not likely changed by much) and as stated in the original post, that statistically male drivers have been in more accidents than female drivers,(and therefore need to claim on their insurance more), and that (like it or not), men like attractive women, it just makes good business sense to target advertising in this way. But anyway, with regard to the cave women crashing the car. I think it’s more likely that it was just an obvious and easily understandable way to link the invention of the wheel to car insurance. Not evidence of the subconscious sexism of the advertisers.