It all started with domestic ads in the 1950s. “Honey, I want to get your shirts whiter! But how do I do it?” It was a serious quandary women appeared to face at the time.
These days, there’s no question those old ads are sexist. But woman-bashing is far from over. It has only taken on a different, more sexual guise. According to these ads, women are built for male satisfaction. If problems arise–too much talking, disobedience, ugliness–simply deflate them, drink a lot of beer, or appease them with diamond jewelry.
These ads say it all. Here are ten of the industry’s finest:
10. This ad depicts a plain-looking woman getting more attractive with each sip of a beer. When the beer runs out, she’s–gasp–plain again.
9. “Made by hand?” Wishful thinking.
8. They mean kicking from the inside, right? Not her abusive boyfriend kicking her belly from the outside?
7. According to this ad, it’s easy to buy her good behavior:
6. Do not get married. Your wife will become a hideous grandmother with pinned-up hair. Your mistress, however, will always remain hot and available.
5. England’s Sun newspaper ran this billboard ad on the sides of buses. She looks like she’s for sale—and not for very much.
4. Notice the double meaning of the word. American Apparel’s entire ad campaign is based on borderline ads like these.
3. This Australian commercial has been dubbed the “Smartest Man in the World” commercial. Moral of the story: women always trap you into large, messy family situations, and they never use birth control.
2. This Czech ad starts with a couple on the beach. The woman is complaining about something. The man, thirsty and tired of her yapping, deflates her and goes to have a beer with his buddies.
1. This notorious German Heineken commercial created the ultimate Fembot. She’s a hot, roboticized, self-cloning Christina Aguilera lookalike who serves beer out of a keg in her uterus. They call her “Minnie Draughter,” and she’s the ideal beer wench-cum-hot dancing chick.
I can understand some of those, but the tights? Do guys buy tights? And their logo just makes me want to buy a plane ticket..
And the second one (#8) – Isn’t that an empowering message? Doesn’t it convey the exact opposite – that women are the masters of their own bodies, that gaining weight (albeit through pregnancy, if the message is taken literally) is not a negative, and that women can endure great pain and willingly do so for the benefit of the human race?
I concur that there are some sexist ads being made today but really none of these ring terribly true. Sure, they harp on stereotypes, such as nagging, but is that sexist? My boss is a nag, but my boss is also a man, and is wealthier, more powerful, and more intelligent than me.
I would argue that there are far more pro-woman (women shown in powerful, non-”traditional” roles) adverts than sexist ones.
To the extent that women are seen as sex symbols, I don’t see that as sexist per se. To portray them as nothing but an object of sex is wrong, but then again, what advert is designed to accurately sum the entirety of humanity? Must a 30-second spot give a backstory, that the beautiful girl in the bar is a successful patent attorney?
Companies are now far more likely to show men as sex symbols when selling products to women (a recent Bud commercial comes to mind, where a woman can see through the clothes of a male construction worker outside). This perhaps isn’t a positive trend but illustrates a growing equality between the sexes nonetheless, and shows that selling sex is not necessarily a bias against women, but an appeal to the most primal of urges in both men and women.
My mother is someone who is extremely intelligent but got shoved into a subservient role by my father. After they divorced, she went to law school and became extremely successful. I got to see that as a boy and, frankly, always saw my mom as the rock, anyway. I’m a man with great sympathies for the rights of women and am not blind to the continuing inequalities they face.
However, I also think energy in combating sexism should be well focused. The above appears to be a poorly-researched report of sexism in advertising, which only lends intelligent people to conclude that the problem has been solved, and unintelligent people to reinforce their belief that sexism never existed in the first place.
Surely you could present a list of far better examples, and point to the specific negative issues reinforced by the particular ad. A man treating a woman as subservient, a scenario making light of unequal pay in the workforce, or of a woman’s inability to get promoted over a lesser qualified male counterpart, or a woman having to deal with sexual harassment . . . show how these and similar issues are reinforced in advertising and you will do a great service to the cause.
I’m curious if you will include a top 10 Male-bashing advertisements? There is one over at askmen.com (http://www.askmen.com/toys/top_10_300/327_top_10_list.html) but it does not really address the serious issue of women who abuse their power over men.
Why do we hear so much about “misogyny” (hatred/contempt for women) but never “misandry” (the hatred of men) which is at least as common in the general population. Has anyone seen “Sex in the City”?
When will we put stereotypes behind us and recognize most advertisements for what they are… poor attempts at humor.
An interesting quote…
In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor.
—Warren Farrell, Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say
Sorry, but I’m not really sure these ads are men-empowering. I mean, women are shown on a very diverse light, but men? Beer-loving pervert, or beer-loving pervert, or pervert, or beer-loving pervert. If I was to take the 10 worst man bashing ads, there probably would be some over-lap too — although I would include on of those car ads where a “female” car can only be driven by a superior being.
And regarding #5, “The Sun” check their editorial line: you might understand that it is far more literal then that.
[The Sun is a working class daily in the UK who has been showing naked pin-ups on page 3 (the one you see when you open the paper, page 1 was never possible) for a decade now. Thank you Rupert Murdoch: nothing like cheap porn to empower the masses! Whether that is woman-bashing, you bet; the advertising is just adapted.]
I agree that these are definitely objectionable. There’s so many more that are worse, though. Seen the new Canadian Club ads (”Your mom wasn’t your dad’s first”)? And the worst of them all? Not advertisements, but the sites in which ads are placed. Women’s magazines are more misogynistic, self-esteem killing and downright deadening than anything else.