Sexist advertising? As long as men are the targets, why not?

posted by Eivind on May 16, 2010, at 10:42 am

I caught this ad at the movies yesterday (I don’t have a TV so that’s the only place I see them).

I’d like to see the same ad with the roles turned reach the public eye. Let’s be honest – it wouldn’t fly. The guy is having an existential crisis – the woman thinks he is pathetic and “recycles” him. There are a couple of implications here:

  • Men who try to connect with their feelings/get through an existential crisis are undesirable (further emphasizing the macho “man up” attitude which propagates weakness among men)
  • Men are trash (literally)
  • Women are higher value than men

There would be hordes of feminists crying outrage if this was a movie with a man recycling a woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same people laugh when they see this.

Other dubious pieces of advertising

And here’s one that describes the fate of modern men in a pretty accurate way

The women answered with a spoof, which shows that we are in big trouble. Not only is the pay wage talked about in the spoof a myth  propagated by false statistics – women do plastic surgery and botox mainly for other women, not for their men. Shockingly, men are actually capable of loving their wives and girlfriends even if they are not perfect. I’ve seen Pelle Billing report statistics showing that, for many women, the same isn’t true. Why? Perhaps because women are privy to all kinds of special treatment that men never get access to, thus making them think they are more deserving than men.  Anyway, I am concerned that there is not a shred of empathy to be had from the makers of this movie. Just more of the same hateful “men are pathetic” scorn.

Finally, this is worth a look. It’s a brief overview of misandry in advertising.

I would be happy to see the feminists stop fighting a war they won a long time ago. The evidence is in how we don’t bat an eyelid when men are targets, but when women are targets, whole nations rise in fury. That is starting to change, however, and now it’s up to the men’s movement – guys like you and  me – to discover the inner freedom and love on the other side of anger and bitterness. Fortunately, the numbers of good women wanting us to succeed in this epic undertaking is ever increasing.

Thanks to Jessi Fischer, the woman whose blog I found some of these ads on. “Stop the hate”, she says. I agree.