Hunky dory billboards

Yeah I'm a humourless feminist and think that the Hunky Dory ads are pathetic, exploitative and sexist. The ads dress women in bikinins so brief that their underwear is shown and adds to the sexualisation. They mock women's participation in sport and posit women as sexualised objects to be used for body parts, primarily breasts and buttocks. Having half naked women on billboards, HD only care about their cis straight male audience.

They reinforce the culturally imposed role for women to perform femininity - No matter where or in what context women must always be beautiful, thin and be available for sex. Such advertising has proved to traumatise girls and provoke extreme dieting. In addition, how can boys learn to have healthy relationships with actual girls when all they see are airbrushed images of perfection.

Obviously Hunky Dorys don't want women, girls or gay men to buy their products and I for one am delighted to never purchase any of their products again.

The standard defence is that it's only a bit of a laugh and that anyone who objects has no sense of humour. It's not fucking funny. The company has also decided that its ok cos the photographer has done Sports Illustration's photoshoots in the past and therefore is an artiste!

Women's sports teams are undervalued in this country. They are rarely lauded on the national sportscasts or given widespread public recognition. Since HD was promoting men's rugby why didn't HD put men in revealing bikinis? If you think that idea is ridiculous, why is it ridiculous? Why are women put in this position and not men. There seems to be a prevailing attitude that people don't want to look at barely clad men. Well, bring it on. Someone should do the exact shoot with male models and plaster it all over the country with suggestive slogans. Would you still laugh and tell men who feel objectified that they are overreacting?

The French rugby team pose for a mostly nude calendar every year. There is nudity, it is very popular and it is a world away from the exploitative ads that Hunky Dory produced.

The usual non apology apology was trotted out by Raymond Coyle, chief executive of Largo Foods:

I’m sorry if some people are offended.... we don’t think the ads are sexist or too provocative. Walter Iooss, the photographer for Sports Illustrated, took the photographs and we think they are very good.”

Classic!

Well portraying women as sex objects contributes to Ireland's rape culture, which has become so evident in recent months.

The difference between these ads and the nudish photographs of the French rugby team could not be more different... engagement with the camera, the gaze and the fact that these are actual players who have chosen to wear few clothes. These two things are not the same. Compare and contrast the following (NSFW)






See the difference?

I write letters

Dear PR person responsible for the "Don't be manipulated" poster and the manager who approved it,

Why are you creating posters that posit women as objects rather than adult humans with full agency?

This poster says "shame on you, you mindless puppet, for not knowing that there are partisan anti-abortion agencies trying to counsel you, you stupid little girl, who cannot tell the difference".

How is a poster like that of any use with the woman-as-object, woman-without-agency, woman-as-child imagery?

You show a shocking lack of respect and a tendency to bullying yourselves.

I suggest a sincere apology, rapid withdrawal of the poster and to commit to not using women as objects in any future campaign.

I look forward to receiving your reply.

Regards,

Mór Rígan

h/t Maman Poulet

Objectification

Top Irish chef, Neven Maguire, of MacNean's eaterie, stepped up to the plate yesterday to launch the 2009 Food and Wine Magazine Edward Dillion Restaurant of the Year Awards but the tasty treat that really got mouth's watering at the event was dishy model Georgia Salpa

Quoted in Liveline regarding the discussion of the PR decision to photo Neven Maguire with Georgia Salpa in a bikini. Apologies but I can't find the actual photo online.

Joe mentioned the normality of half-naked women used to promote events and I fired off an email,

It's not normal to have half naked women on the front of the paper.

Women are commodified in the media as sex objects and this is linked to anorexia, self harm, sexism, rape and rape apologists.

It's not ironic. It's despicable.

and ended up on the radio. I took umbrage at the blatant objectification of the model and tried to link it to the society at large. She is there as an object, without agency, to look pretty in a bikini. Why a bikini? Is it the sunny summer that we are not having?

I spoke about the male gaze, objectification and the patriarchy without using either of those terms as explanation time was limited. Not sure how I came across but a couple of callers dismissed the whole discussion as petty or said that the people who objected were just jealous of the model. I hate the "you're just jealous" meme. It's a straw argument used to derail and silence. It's classic derailing for dummies!

There were suggestions that one of the unreleased pictures was of one of the chef's eating food off the model's body. If so, they literally treated her as an object - a table. How utterly demeaning and sexist. It put me in mind of this post from Sociological Images.

It was a big pile of sexist privileged fail and it was jarring to go from feminist blogdonia to Irish radio. The podcast does not contain the whole discussion but it gives a good enough idea.

Then I saw Maman Poulet has a post on a similar theme - h/t.

Positive Options is a brand created to promote State-funded crisis pregnancy counselling services and to provide information. But in Ireland, this apparently means positing women as objects rather than adult humans with full agency.

To me, it says "shame on you, you mindless puppet, for not knowing that there are partisan anti-abortion agencies trying to counsel you". How is a poster like that of any use with the woman-as-object, woman-without-agency, woman-as-child imagery? I'm going to write to them to ask why they are using such ads to promote their service?

Do not want

To Wilkinson Sword

This is disgusting. The basic message is "your body is horrible so use our product". No thank you. I am not interested in your product and I do not want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Also bonus for ticking the sexual harassment box too. How many times does a woman have to remove a man's hand from her body before she is taken seriously? Does it not occur to you that she has no cause to look ashamed at the end. The man is the one who savagely overreacted to invisible hair on the legs of the woman he just harassed.

I wrote to them. You can too.

h/t Shapely Prose

Been stalked by a giant chocolate muffin lately?

Avoid the Muffin wit..
Watch the ad...

Me neither.

Apparently it's normal to obsess over "bad" food if you are a woman. Disordered eating, much? Eat the damn muffin. It's better than those cardboardy Special K bars -

Kellogg’s Special K Cereal (51%) (Rice, Wheat {Wholewheat, Wheat Flour}, Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Defatted Wheatgerm, Dried Skimmed Milk, Salt, Barley Malt Flavouring, Vitamin C, Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12), Glucose Syrup, Chocolate Pieces (11%) (Cocoa Mass, Sugar, Emulsifier {Soy Lecithin}), Fructose, Dextrose, Sugar, Humectant (Sorbitol, Glycerol), Vegetable Oil, Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Antioxidant (E320).

Yum!