A new, very NSFW ad campaign is turning one of the most played-out advertising tropes on its head in a brilliant way.
The campaign, by women's suit-maker Suistudio, is called "Not Dressing Men." The ads consist of sharply dressed, suit-clad women striking powerful poses while naked men lounge in the background, reduced to the role women have so often played in advertising: objects.
Photo courtesy of Suistudio.
According to Suistudio USA vice president Kristina Barricelli, the company is simply filling an empty space left by advertising's very one-sided history of objectification.
"There is nothing wrong with sex, the naked human body, and the inclusion of that in a campaign. Sex is a big part of fashion," she writes over e-mail. "The problem is that in recent history, we haven’t seen a naked man objectified in the background. How strange! Why not?"
Photo courtesy of Suistudio.
Barricelli is careful not to call the campaign an attempt at gender-flipping, but instead, it's a call to viewers to reconsider the rigid gender roles reinforced through advertising over the years. That the campaign has to do with suits — clothing that is more typically coded as masculine — buoys Barricelli's vision.
Filmmaker and activist Jean Kilbourne addressed the role ads play in objectifying women during her 2015 TEDx Talk.
"Women’s bodies are dismembered in ads, in ad after ad, for all kinds of products, and sometimes the body is not only dismembered, it’s insulted," said Kilbourne, outlining some of the many dangers of objectification.
Examples of objectification in advertising from the 1970s: An ad for Mr. Leggs trousers via Adweek (left) and Weyenberg Massagic Shoes via NY Daily News (right).
"When women are objectified, there is always the threat of sexual violence, there is always intimidation, there is always the possibility of danger. And women live in a world defined by that threat, whereas men, simply, do not," Kilbourne explained. "The body language of women and girls remains passive, vulnerable, submissive, and very different from the body language of men and boys. Probably the best way to illustrate that is to put a man in a traditionally feminine pose: It becomes obviously trivializing and absurd."
But simply flipping the role of which gender is being objectified won't solve advertising's sexism problem alone.
In 2016, ad agency Badger and Winters launched the #WomenNotObjects campaign to highlight some of the most absurd and ongoing examples of sexism in advertising. In the campaign's powerful launch video, models hold up copies of objectifying ads and offer sarcastic commentary.
In a 2016 interview about the campaign, Badger and Winters co-founder Madonna Badger explained how she came to realize that this decadeslong practice was neither good for the well-being of women nor the brands themselves.
"Agencies create advertising that promotes not only the product, but also the people who make it," Badger told CNN. "Ads should never 'use people' or take advantage of women and men in any way, shape or form. It should never show people as objects that have NO power NO possibility and certainly are NOT equals."
So while the Suistudio campaign does a great job of shining a light on the one-sidedness of advertising objectification, the ads aren't a solution in themselves — and to be fair, they don't claim to be. Maybe in the course of selling suits via an eye-catching campaign, however, these ads will have the pleasant side effect of encouraging people to get involved with groups like Women Not Objects, the Women's Media Center, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and The Representation Project in their fights for gender justice.
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An actual beaver dam on the now-thriving Price River
Not just coworkers—family, friends, strangers, kids…
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Urgent dash to the bathroom! 🚪🏃♂️
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."