For as long as I've been reading FEMINISTING, I've been consistently amazed, bewildered, and -- in rare cases -- darkly humored by "vintage sexism" ads.
I don't mind, necessarily, the vintage ads that cater to this sort of anti-feminist nonsense. After all, one cannot change the history of this country -- we can only improve upon it for future generations. What I take exception to, however, is the blatant sexism in today's modern advertising -- this after all our so-called "progress" made over the past 40 or so years.
Now, with the new media that's out there -- Internet, wiFi, iPhones, etc. -- it seems that there are new ways to play on the old anti-feminist theme. Consider, then, the case of this Swiss company (thanks to Neatorama.com for this):
I love how the store (Migros) plays upon the insecurities of the single women who agreed to model for this embarrassing campaign -- that their inability to find their Wun Twoo Wuv can be solved by prancing around in their underwear -- and I love even more that over 700 women across Switzerland signed up for this mess.
This, to me, illustrates the final point: at this point, feminism is at the "hearts and minds" stage. As strong, independent, empowered women, it is up to us to educate the next generation so that they don't fall for this obvious trap. It's incredibly crude, sexist, and just plain wrong for companies like Migros to play up to archaic sexism, but the fact that so many of our sisters have played into their hand is equally disturbing, if not moreso.


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