Duke and Duchess of Sussex back calls for adverts to ditch gender stereotypes

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have thrown their support behind a report by the American charity Equimundo which wants adverts to ‘show men doing cooking and cleaning and women doing tasks like mowing the lawn’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have backed calls for adverts to “break the gender binary”.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have thrown their support behind a report by American charity Equimundo which aims to reduce the care-giving equality gap and wants commercials to take the first step.

The World's Fathers 2023 report - which surveyed nearly 12,000 people in 17 countries about household care - stated: “Media should break down gender stereotypes and show men doing cooking and cleaning and women doing tasks like mowing the lawn or fixing the sink.”

The creation of the report was supported by Meghan and Harry’s non-profit organisation The Archewell Foundation.

A statement from the organisation added: “The 2023 data shows that men are increasingly involved in caregiving and would like to increase their care work at home, although deeply ingrained social norms and a lack of supportive policies and power structures discourage them from doing so..

“The report recognises care work as the bedrock of society, and calls for continued advancements towards gender equality. It also emphasises the need for media representation that normalises men’s caregiving roles.”

The statement concluded: “The Archewell Foundation is proud to have supported this report, as well as Equimundo’s continued work to promote gender equality around the globe.”

Meghan and Harry are parents to two children - Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, two - and the prince previously opened up about his thoughts on fatherhood in his autobiography ‘Spare’.

Harry wrote: “He wrote, "A husband and a father — first and foremost — as well as a veteran, environmentalist and mental-health advocate. I know that I want to live my life in service of others and that I want to live by example for my kids.”

He added to NBC: “What do I love about fatherhood? All of it. The chaos, the learning, the reminder of just every element of yourself, your soul, right?

“When you are not a parent you can get sucked into all sort of different stuff and you can maybe sometimes forget who you are.

“And suddenly as a parent, especially now, Archie is at the age he is at, asking all the questions. 'Why this? Why that? Why that? And instead of just trying to move it on, I give him the most honest answer I can. And then it goes on and on and on until he's satisfied. And then that's it. It's done. Otherwise it ends up with - because the world is round and that it is the way life is.”