In Pakistan the National Council for the Status of Women has called for a strengthening of the law in order to deal more effectively with sexual harassment at work. 1 The commission, which was set up in 2000 has recommended that the only way to address the current ineffectiveness of the law was to further explain sexual harassment at workplace, with strict provisions in the law to curb the menace. The amendment they have proposed suggests that terms of upto 6 months in jail or a fine could be given for anyone who harasses women employees by uttering any word, making any sound or gesture or overture with sexual overtones. It also suggests placing responsibility for those in positions of immediate authority to take adequate preventive measure to avoid occurrence of such incidents.

Women in another country have also been challenging current standards of acceptable behaviour. The group Concerned Women of America (CWFA) 2 have been involved in a campaign against department stores across the USA calling for companies to remove the fashion products of French Connection UK from their shelves. The campaign, echoed by various other lobbying groups in the USA, has been driven by a new product range and associated marketing material bearing the distinctive "fcuk" branding. The CWFA accuses stores that stock the French Connection products of "eagerly joining (fcuk) with the hopes of making millions by exploiting our children". 3 Meanwhile, in Nicosia, Cyprus, the first campaign in the country by French Connection (with the strap-line "Christmas Shopping: FCUK It") has lead to a number of citizens to calling up the municipality with complaints. The owner of the local franchise, Soula Messiou, had to explain the campaign to mayor who apparently saw the funny side. She suggested that "whenever we have FCUK t-shirts they sell faster than anything else." 4

Tom Riechart at the University of Alabama has recently launched the "Erotic History of Advertising". 5 Riechart suggests that the fad of using sex in advertising is not recent adding that Americans "continue to respond to the lure of provocative marketing and, most important to business, they buy." In the 1890s, advertisers would use erotic images, primarily of almost or partially nude women to sell products from cigarettes to soap. Subsequently numerous brands have built their reputations upon sex and sexuality. For example in the 1940's Springs Cotton Mills ran an advertising campaign for their cotton sheets in the USA that became infamous. The series of adverts was initiated during the early 1940s. The campaign then came to a head in 1949, when an advert showing a sleeping native American man sprawled out in an attitude of exhaustion in a hammock made of their company's Springmaid cotton sheets. The sheets at the time cost $1 and the strap line read "A buck well spent on Springmaid Sheet." 6 Although briefly experimenting with the riske style of advertising campaign again in the 1990's, the company which now owns the Springmaid brand - Springs Industries Inc. - has reverted to far softer form of persuasion suggesting that the company after 50 years "still stands for quality and value today". 7 However, others still seek this form of enticement, because it sells well. Malaysian Airlines have recently reported that passengers want airline hostess who are "young and pretty". And as we wandered around the shops in the UK and Switzerland in run up to Christmas there is much evidence of the on-going value of sex to sales. Items from the marginally sensuous bar of milk chocolate to the more mundane sticking-plaster were using images of sexuality to boost profile and sales (if not our health).