Last year, one such example of this sexism was revealed when behind-the-scenes footage of the Spice Girls on the set of a 1997 Polaroid commercial was leaked on Twitter.

Dressed in school uniforms for their parts as Harrow schoolgirls, the band can be seen losing their tempers when a misogynist director demands they show their cleavage and midriffs.

Marching up to him, Mel B asks: “Was it you? Why did you ask that [we show cleavage and midriffs]?”

“It’s every man’s fantasy,” he replies sleazily, before adding: “That’s showbiz.”

However he didn’t bank on the rest of the Spice Girls turning up to back Mel up.

Geri, pointing a finger in his face, slams him (accurately) as a “chauvinistic pig”. Meanwhile Posh Spice, appearing out of nowhere, does what she does best; schools them in fashion.

“It’s not sunny,” she says, pulling his sunglasses from his head. “Stop trying to look cool.”

She then walks off to try and pawn them, offering them to anyone willing to pay a “quid”.

As Ginger Spice says, the director really should “know better” at his age – and we love that, at the end of the clip, both she and Mel refuse to shake his hand as they do the rest of the crew. Naturally, he looks more than a little abashed; could it be that he’s finally learned his lesson?

Best of all, it seems as if the Spice Girls’ complaints did not fall on deaf ears; in the final cut of the advert, their cleavage and midriffs remain firmly off show.

Check it out:

The depressing reason the Spice Girls started up the ‘Girl Power’ movement