The following report highlights the Unstereotype Alliance’s progress in 2020. It encompasses tools produced across the Alliance to address inequalities within advertising content, a deep dive into the 76% growth in membership during 2020, the programmes and initiatives rolled out by national chapters, and more milestones from across the four Unstereotype Alliance workstreams.

2020 was set to be a landmark year with the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the 20th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325, and two Generation EqualityForums planned to galvanize progress for gender equality. Instead, we witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic, the most discriminatory crisis we have ever experienced.

With that came heightened inequalities and regression on hard-won gains, a brutal reminder of the criticality of our work. We saw a ‘shadow pandemic’ of reported increased violence against women at home during lockdowns, as well as in the streets and online. We are still facing a burden of care that is disproportionately borne by women and a widespread loss of jobs, with most being women’s jobs. A resurgence of gender stereotypes including ‘traditional’ household roles reappeared and we saw inequity and discrimination reflected directly back in our advertising.