Sexual Violence in Advertising

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Posts • Tags: Advertisement, Advertising, Elli, Elli Wilson, Gender-based Violence, Sexual Violence, VAWG

Trigger Warning

Another day, another dozen stories about violence against women and girls. Often complete with sensationalised headline and a hyper-sexualised photo of an objectified female body. The forms this violence takes are myriad – sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault, FGM, childhood sexual abuse, ‘honour’ crimes – but it is all rooted in a deep societal misogyny that people are loathe to confront on an individual and an institutional level. For myself, and countless others, these stories are not just statistics or isolated incidents that can be forgotten by turning the page and shrugging off the uncomfortable thoughts that they provoke. This is our lived experience. It’s the guy groping you in a club, or harassing you when you dare to go out and be a woman in public. It’s the boyfriend who doesn’t think no means no, and the pupils at your school who shove their hands down your tights and then laugh.

And then suddenly it’s the advert making a joke of the sexual violence that you have suffered. Whether it is the coffee company using groping to sell their product or the female model surrounded by men in what looks suspiciously like a ‘fashionable’ gang rape, for a survivor of sexual violence, it is repulsive to see it used as a tool to maximise profit. This is capitalist misogyny at its extreme; women’s bodies are used to sell products and so is their abuse. This is what rape culture looks like and it has got to stop.

Thanks for Defining What it Means to Be a ‘Dude,’ Veet

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Posts • Tags: Advertisement, Advertising, Body hair, Choice, Commercialism, Femininity, Gender, Hair Removal, Lies, Masculinity, Veet

By Christiana Paradis

Oh geez I didn’t shave AGAIN last night? Well actually, if we’re being honest, I haven’t shaved all winter! I call it winter insulation. It helped keep me cozy and warm during the Polar Vortex! But apparently I’ve misunderstood what I’ve been doing; I thought I was doing what I wanted to, as a woman, but Veet has shown me the light. My decision to not shave my legs has exposed me to a whole other category, a category they’ve so cleverly named “dude.” As they’ve expressed in their commercial series the very act of not shaving makes you at risk for ‘dudeness;’ it is an act of warfare against your femininity. Though this idea has been resonated over and over again and shaving conglomerates have always tried to make women feel like their bodies were wrong if they didn’t shave, this new ad campaign sinks to an all-time low.

It implies that even the smallest amount of stubble turns you from a beautiful woman into a hairy man and that should offend you! First of all, what’s wrong with a little stubble…or a forest!? Secondly, what makes me less female for having Yosemite National Park on my legs or under my arms for that matter? Thirdly, why did you think this was funny, Veet? Hold on, I’ll answer that for you… you thought this series was funny because any time we make men appear “less manly” and more feminine it’s automatically hilarious! A man getting a pedicure? Hahahahah. Laughing for days on end. A guy in a dress who can’t get a cab because of armpit hair? Fantastic! Pure comic genius! Not only do you insult one day stubble, but you insult anyone who exists outside of specific gender stereotypes. Gender is a spectrum not a dichotomy. Maybe after marketing execs realize this, we can stop telling people their bodies are wrong, because that is a cruel, tidal wave of a lie.

*Due to a strong public reaction these advertisements have now been dropped - yay!

Yet more offensive ads…

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Artwork, Posts • Tags: Advertisement, Advertising, Cars, Female Body, Golf clubs, Guest blog, Guest Post, Kate Parsons, Objectification, PBG this ad

By Kate Parsons

The media is constantly treating women’s bodies as objects. Here buyers equate buying a truck with having the power to “drive over” or control women’s bodies. These images suggest to women that their bodies are objects and worse, objects for others to use. Women and women’s bodies are not meant to be controlled or “driven over.”

More often than not, companies use women’s bodies to sell their product. In the case of this ad, the company makes the product into a body of a woman, thus taking objectification to a whole new level.

Three Cheers for Aerie

by yasthatannoyingfeminist • Posts • Tags: Advertisement, Aerie, Body image, Brands, Kara, Kara Chyung, Photoshop, Real, Real bodies, Retouching, Underwear

By Kara Chyung

Aerie, the lingerie and apparel branch of American Eagle, has recently announced their “Aerie Real” campaign, promising no retouching and “no supermodels.”

Their recent ads, which echo Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and Seventeen’s Body Peace petition, claim that it’s time to be real, because “The real you is sexy.”

Aerie models are saying that while it’s nice to have Photoshop to hide minor imperfections, the Aerie campaign showed them that they really don’t need the retouching.

Three Cheers for Aerie

Some people wonder whether this campaign is necessary, questioning how much girls are actually influenced by the images in ads. But I’m glad that more and more brands seek to make girls feel good about themselves by breaking down the image of an idealistic body. In a country where so many young girls suffer from eating disorders, it’s about time companies are publicly addressing the body image issue. Hopefully Aerie’s decision to eliminate Photoshop will help to create change in the rest of the industry.