Good to know sexism is dead and we can all move on n shit.
Via Peter Cohen on Twitter –
Me? No. No, you’re not.
Butterflies and Wheels
Gnu atheism, women's rights, internationalism, universalism, and gossip
Good to know sexism is dead and we can all move on n shit.
Via Peter Cohen on Twitter –
Me? No. No, you’re not.
That picture must have been taken in 1965, right? Cuz’ no ad executive in the 21st century would propose such a thing, and no corporate executive would sign off on such a campaign, right?…Right?
I cannot recommend this collection of reader stories from Jezebel enough. It should put to bed the myth that sexism is a thing in the past because feminism has “won” in the West.
But none of these are worse than FGM, so I guess they should all quit whining!
I, myself, would prefer a hairy, muscular “manly” leg. But I guess we silly women don’t know anything about electricity. That really is a juvenile ad
What’s even weirder to me is that super-pointy-toe super-spike-heel black shoe isn’t even a turn on in a situation where a turn on would be appropriate. I mean, who nowadays doesn’t hate porn where the producer makes the actor leave on their black high heels, just for the off chance some fetishist will like it better that way. Well, it’s cheap, so why not? No, everybody (except the fetishist) hates it. But they don’t know how to leave it out, because it’s now an expected “porn” signal, like the come shot, so they keep doing it.
Makes ya wonder what kind of weird sexual desires the ad agency exec and the Gulf exec who approved this ad have in common. How could they think this is interesting / attractive / provocative, instead of just plain boring, ugly, and a turn off!
That’s leaving aside a question of who thinks it appropriate to use (detached) female body parts as an icon for a public utility. Why aren’t those men (and of course, it was all – or mostly – men who designed and approved this) afraid that they’ll be reprimanded for trying to use a porn image on a public billboard? They obviously did get away with it, but what made them think they would get away with it before they tried it? Who are they, and what else are they getting away with?
And that’s also leaving aside the question of why any public utility needs to advertise itself to begin with. Are they afraid we’ll forget to turn on the electricity if they don’t have billboards to remind us? But that’s truly a subject for another rant … sorry …
Personally I think the man in the picture has a very shapely leg and I applaud his choice of hosiery and footwear. Good to see Gulf promoting a positive image of the TV community.
What?
I’m going to get greedy here and go beyond the leg. I’ll take a well-built man-ass in tight baseball pants please. High socks.
Soooo…Is Gulf going to email me that ad-copy or do I have to actually go out and find the billboard?
I would have preferred a picture of a lit spliff.
Obnoxious advertising works well enough that it isn’t going to disappear any time soon. Criticizing obnoxious ads for being obnoxious is like criticizing sports cars for being fast.
While it is possible that the people who authorized this ad are oblivious, I think it is more likely that it was chosen because it is sufficiently obnoxious to be noticed, but not obnoxious enough (they hope) to trigger mass protests.
Yeah, yeah, and how does that explain why this — and thousands of other “obnoxious” ads — just happen to be obnoxiously sexist towards women and just happen never to be sexist towards men?
Gee, do ya think it might have something to do with the ingrained misogyny of our society which Ophelia was highlighting here?
Think it through next time!
hotshoe: Paying attention fail. There are adverts that are obnoxiously sexist towards men – loads of them. More to the point, when they get complained about (and they do get complained about), the advertising watchdog allows the ads anyway.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1184633/Its-official-Youre-allowed-mock-men-adverts-Just-dont-try-doing-women.html
Despite 673 complaints, an ad mocking men as unable to perform basic domestic tasks was “unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence”.
See also http://www.cracked.com/article_19758_the-5-most-insulting-ways-products-are-advertised-to-men.html
However, there’s a difference. I see plenty of ads that portray my gender as worthless, incompetent, lazy dullards, or as character-free eye candy (Diet Coke break ladies?), and I think “pffft, whatever”. It really is unlikely to cause widespread offence, because privilege – and most men know that perfectly well. Of course, those 673 MRAs who complained about the ad don’t understand or perhaps believe privilege exists, but that’s not the point. The rest of us see an ad mocking us and think “yah, whatever.”, because it’s against a background of us being on the winning team in almost every other context.
Don’t pretend that the mocking, sexist adverts against men are not there, because if you do you instantly lose the argument completely when five seconds with Google produces a mountain of evidence proving you wrong.
It’s not even well done. It looks like it was slapped together in photoshop, about two minutes before the deadline.
Not only are they sexist, they’re lazy about it, too.