Video shows just HOW over-sexualised women are in ads (and it's gotta stop)
It’s not news that ads we see on the telly, on billboards and in print over-sexualise and objectify women.
In fact, if aliens were to come down to earth and take a quick look at how women are represented, we have a feeling they would think we were mostly naked, highly-sexed and empty-headed.
Now a video created to show this objectification of women in advertising has sparked a global debate on the issue.
The two-minute long video is part of the #WomenNotObjects campaign, and shows many popular brands using suggestive, offensive images of women to sell their products. A naked woman to sell a bag, a woman lifting up her dress to promote a designer brand, a woman simulating oral sex to sell a burger.
And the ads shown in the video are just a few in a sea of millions.
Now here’s the funny things about ads – we HAVE to see them. Unless we’re living under a rock, through no fault of our own we’re going to be exposed to ads. They’re on billboards on our streets, plastered across buses and bus stops and on our television screens. We can choose what books to read and what films to watch, but we can’t choose what ads we see.
And do we want our daughters – who are great at maths and love football and want to be scientists when they grow up – to feel like the world sees them as sexual objects? What effect will this have on their self-esteem? Their body image? Their relationships?
And our boys – is it healthy for them to see women degraded in this way too?
As the video powerful sums up:
I am your mother.
I am your daughter.
I am your sister.
I am your co-worker.
I am your manager.
I am your CEO.
Don’t talk to me that way.
We are delighted to see a debate open up on the issue, and we hope both brands and the advertising world will listen up and realise the full effect of their power and the responsibility it engenders.