The history of sexist advertising is being flipped. It's amazing, but it's not enough.

The NSFW ads are unlike anything you've seen ... or are they?

 Parker Molloy
10.10.17

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.

gender roles advertising suistudio women in media women in advertising gender in advertising nsfw
Most Shared

Florida city forecloses on man's home after fining him $30,000 for not mowing his lawn.

Youtube

Should a man lose his home because the grass in his yard grew higher than 10 inches? The city of Dunedin, Florida seems to think so.

According to the Institute of Justice, which is representing Jim Ficken, he had a very good reason for not mowing his lawn – and tried to rectify the situation as best he could.

In 2014, Jim's mom became ill and he visited her often in South Carolina to help her out. When he was away, his grass grew too long and he was cited by a code office; he cut the grass and wasn't fined.

France has started forcing supermarkets to donate food instead of throwing it away.

But several years later, this one infraction would come back to haunt him after he left to take care of him's mom's affairs after she died. The arrangements he made to have his grass cut fell through (his friend who he asked to help him out passed away unexpectedly) and that set off a chain reaction that may result in him losing his home.

The 69-year-old retiree now faces a $29,833.50 fine plus interest. Watch the video to find out just what Jim is having to deal with.

Mow Your Lawn or Lose Your House! www.youtube.com

florida dunedin lawn mowing jim ficken
Cities

Michelle Obama named 'most admired woman in the world,' because of course she is.

The world can't get enough Michelle.

Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube

The world officially loves Michelle Obama.

The former first lady has overtaken the number one spot in a poll of the world's most admired women. Conducted by online research firm YouGov, the study uses international polling tools to survey people in countries around the world about who they most admire.

In the men's category, Bill Gates took the top spot, followed by Barack Obama and Jackie Chan.

In the women's category, Michelle Obama came first, followed by Oprah Winfrey and Angelina Jolie. Obama pushed Jolie out of the number one spot she claimed last year.

Unsurprising, really, because what's not to love about Michelle Obama? She is smart, kind, funny, accomplished, a great dancer, a devoted wife and mother, and an all-around, genuinely good person.

She has remained dignified and strong in the face of rabid masses of so-called Americans who spent eight years and beyond insisting that she's a man disguised as a woman. She's endured non-stop racist memes and terrifying threats to her family. She has received far more than her fair share of cruelty, and always takes the high road. She's the one who coined, "When they go low, we go high," after all.

She came from humble beginnings and remains down to earth despite becoming a familiar face around the world. She's not much older than me, but I still want to be like Michelle Obama when I grow up.

Her memoir, Becoming, may end up being the best-selling memoir of all time, having already sold 10 million copies—a clear sign that people can't get enough Michelle, because there's no such thing as too much Michelle.

Don't like Michelle Obama? Don't care. Those of us who love her will fly our MO flags high and without apology, paying no mind to folks with cold, dead hearts who don't know a gem of a human being when they see one. There is nothing any hater can say or do to make us admire this undeniably admirable woman any less.

When it seems like the world has lost its mind—which is how it feels most days these days—I'm just going to keep coming back to this study as evidence that hope for humanity is not lost.

Here. Enjoy some real-life Michelle on Jimmy Kimmel. (GAH. WHY IS SHE SO CUTE AND AWESOME. I can't even handle it.)

Michelle & Barack Obama are Boring Now www.youtube.com

michelle obama michelle obama birthday obama barack obama
Most Shared

France has started forcing supermarkets to donate food instead of throwing it away.

via EarthFix / Flickr

What will future generations never believe that we tolerated in 2019?

Dolphin and orca captivity, for sure. They'll probably shake their heads at how people died because they couldn't afford healthcare. And, they'll be completely mystified at the amount of food some people waste while others go starving.

According to Biological Diversity, "An estimated 40 percent of the food produced in the United States is wasted every year, costing households, businesses and farms about $218 billion annually."

There are so many things wrong with this.

First of all it's a waste of money for the households who throw out good food. Second, it's a waste of all of the resources that went into growing the food, including the animals who gave their lives for the meal. Third, there's something very wrong with throwing out food when one in eight Americans struggle with hunger.

Supermarkets are just as guilty of this unnecessary waste as consumers. About 10% of all food waste are supermarket products thrown out before they've reached their expiration date.

Three years ago, France took big steps to combat food waste by making a law that bans grocery stores from throwing away edible food.According to the new ordinance, stores can be fined for up to $4,500 for each infraction.

Previously, the French threw out 7.1 million tons of food. Sixty-seven percent of which was tossed by consumers, 15% by restaurants, and 11% by grocery stores.

This has created a network of over 5,000 charities that accept the food from supermarkets and donate them to charity. The law also struck down agreements between supermarkets and manufacturers that prohibited the stores from donating food to charities.

"There was one food manufacturer that was not authorized to donate the sandwiches it made for a particular supermarket brand. But now, we get 30,000 sandwiches a month from them — sandwiches that used to be thrown away," Jacques Bailet, head of the French network of food banks known as Banques Alimentaires, told NPR.

It's expected that similar laws may spread through Europe, but people are a lot less confident at it happening in the United States. The USDA believes that the biggest barrier to such a program would be cost to the charities and or supermarkets.

"The logistics of getting safe, wholesome, edible food from anywhere to people that can use it is really difficult," the organization said according to Gizmodo. "If you're having to set up a really expensive system to recover marginal amounts of food, that's not good for anybody."

Plus, the idea may seem a little too "socialist" for the average American's appetite.

"The French version is quite socialist, but I would say in a great way because you're providing a way where they [supermarkets] have to do the beneficial things not only for the environment, but from an ethical standpoint of getting healthy food to those who need it and minimizing some of the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that come when food ends up in a landfill," Jonathan Bloom, the author of American Wasteland, told NPR.

However, just because something may be socialist doesn't mean it's wrong. The greater wrong is the insane waste of money, damage to the environment, and devastation caused by hunger that can easily be avoided.

Planet

Single dad asks his daughters for fashion advice before a date and strangers on social media responded with some helpful suggestions.

The world is dark and full of terrors, but every once in a while it graces us with something to warm our icy-cold hearts. And that is what we have today, with a single dad who went viral on Twitter after his daughter posted the photos he sent her when trying to pick out and outfit for his date. You love to see it.




After seeing these heartwarming pics, people on Twitter started suggesting this adorable man date their moms. It was essentially a mom and date matchmaking frenzy.

Keep Reading Show less
Family