Britain's advertising watchdog says commercials depicting hapless husbands and housework-burdened moms may be bad for the nation's health.
The Advertising Standards Authority said Tuesday it would impose tighter regulation on what it called harmful gender stereotyping.
The regulator said a "tougher line" is needed on ads that feature stereotypical gender roles, including those which mock people for not conforming. Such ads restrict "the choices, aspirations and opportunities of children, young people and adults," it said.
The watchdog, which has previously banned ads for suggesting it was desirable for young women to be unhealthily thin, said it won't ban all stereotypes, such as women cleaning or men doing home improvement jobs.
But ads that depict a woman having sole responsibility for cleaning up the family's mess, or showing "a man trying and failing to undertake simple parental or household tasks," could be banned.
So could commercials suggesting a specific activity is inappropriate for boys because it is stereotypically associated with girls, or vice versa.
The report cited several ads viewers had complained about, including one for baby formula Aptamil in which a girl was shown growing up to be a ballerina and boys to be engineers and rock climbers.
The standards authority does not have the power to impose fines, but British broadcasters are bound by the terms of their licenses to comply with its rulings.
Ella Smillie, lead author of a report for the watchdog, said gender stereotypes in advertising "can limit how people see themselves, how others see them, and limit the life decisions they take."
Last month a group of firms including household-products giant Unilever launched the Unstereotype Alliance, a United Nations-backed campaign to banish gender stereotypes in advertising.
Nintendo reports lower profits as demand drops for its aging Switch console
Nintendo, the Japanese video game maker behind the Super Mario franchise, said Tuesday that its profit fell 60% in the first half of the fiscal year, as demand waned for its Switch console, now in its eighth year since going on sale.
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. reported a 108.7 billion yen ($715 million) profit for the April-September period, as sales slipped 34% from the previous year to 523 billion yen ($3.4 billion).
More than 74% of its sales revenue came from overseas, according to Nintendo, which didn't break down quarterly numbers.
Global Switch sales during the period dropped to 4.7 million machines from 6.8 million units the previous year.
But Nintendo said in a statement that Switch sales were still growing and vowed to stick to its goal of selling a Switch console to each and every individual, not just one Switch per every household.
Nintendo stuck to its earlier projection for a 300 billion yen ($2 billion) profit for the full fiscal year through March 2025, down nearly 29% from the previous fiscal year.
Annual sales were forecast to drop 23% to1.28 trillion yen ($8.4 billion).
It also lowered its Switch sales projection for the fiscal year to 12.5 million units from an earlier forecast to sell 13.5 million.
Nintendo and other game and toy makers rake in their biggest profits during the Christmas shopping season, as well as New Year's, a holiday celebrated with fanfare in Japan, when children receive cash gifts from grandparents and other relatives.
Nintendo has not yet announced details on a successor to the Switch.
Among its million-seller game software titles for the fiscal half were "Paper Mario RPG," which sold 1.95 million units since going on sale in May, and "Luigi Mansion 2... Read More