Ruth writes:
Everyday sexism at a Dart station [yesterday]. Advertising frozen pizza by inciting casual mysogyny is to be expected apparently.
Clear endorsement of rude and abusive verbal treatment of women.
Women & ‘getting stuffed’ has explicit, sexual undertones.
Implies that girlfriends do the shopping and should be the ones to buy this for you.
Suggestive neon ‘stripclub girl’ lighting is appalingly chauvinistic.
Reams of school kids – boys and girls – pass this advertisement everyday, and that’s just this one station. This shouldn’t be their ‘normal’. But then I’m just uptight and need to buy more stripclub pizza for my boyfriend.
Sponsored Link
They have a series of them with multiple potential purchasers. There may actually be a boyfriend one. There’s certainly a “tell your mates” and “tell your dad” one.
The difference between a boyfriend one and a girlfriend one is that men have dominated women for all of time so the bar is set at different levels.
What Ruth saw
http://i.imgur.com/MubzBoK.jpg
Whats wrong with a stripper exactly Ruth, isnt it her choice
Haha!!!
LOL
hahahaha
The snowflakes are out early this morning
bout the same time ruths boyfriend got in from the stripclub
You can see her indignant pursed lips in the bus shelter reflection.
Nice one Bertie.
Funny, you can also read a tag that says “”Burt”
Hehe true Bertie and probably more tutting than that time Skippy tried to tell the young fella his Dad had fallen down the well.
Guys shouting women down for sharing their subjective experience.. how novel! Men commenting on something that women find offensive is like women belittling the pain of a crotch kick. “Big babies – nothing there to hurt sure!”
Oh, and since it’s ok in your book to say: get stuffed.
Is your bra too tight dear?
jesus christ it’s an ad get over it
The only one that applies is the stripper neon lighting.
Everything else is you reading waaaay to much into it.
“The only one that applies is the neon lighting. ”
Why is it ‘stripper’ lighting? It is an outline of woman in a dress/skirt. There is no connotation of stripper.
But that’s the thing about connotations, isn’t it? They’re subjective.
And at first glance, yeah I would have made that connection and thought ‘stripper’. Not sure how far up on my high horse I would’ve gone, but I would have felt that was the implication it was attempting to make.
It’s only on a second glance, that I can say the figure of the girl doesn’t so much resemble a stripper but just the figure of a girl.
However, the ad is clearly tongue-in-cheek, for all that it is utilising a stereotypical vision of the woman as a nagging girlfriend. I would find it funny, but I suspect the target audience do, and that’s the whole aim of the ad.
Do the companion adverts (for friends etc) also use neon lighting?
If so what is it implying?
Is it also implying that our friends shop for us?
I haven’t seen it. But that’s the point I was trying to make. Connotations are different for all of us. External influences are bound to affect how we interpret these things.
I’m not personally offended by these ads, just to throw it out there. Not really to my taste but I don’t find it overly offensive.
Fair enough Mildred. You’re right that different people have different connotations (it’s why dog-whistles work) but to step back from the ridicule for a moment, there are times where somebody’s somewhat unqiue interpretation of a neutral event leads movements like the #everydaysexism movement towards farce.
Incidents like this remind me of the moral panic that occurred in the US over comic books following the publication of Frederick Wertham’s book, “Seduction of the Innocent” in 1954. Batman and Robin were clearly promoting homosexuality you see. And to be fair to Wertham, in the books that he read there were depictions of Batman and Robin sharing a bed, being in various states of undress together and dressing up in tights. If you want to read Batman and Robin’s relationship as a homosexual one, it’s easy enough to find evidence that it is implied (and provided that you’re willing to ignore the wider context).
That is the problem with the kind of approach Ruth adopts. On the one hand, she finds things that are implied that most of us would never think of. Then she asserts that the implied thing is promoting something bad for society and in particular our children. It takes the advert out of its context within a wider campaign and then claims an authorative interpretation of the advert.
You can take the same approach and find evidence for homopobia, misandry, racism etc. We can look back and ridiculue the moral panics about Dungeons and Dragons and Satanism, comic books and homosexuality, rap music and violence, various drug panics etc. but these silly interpretations have consequences and lead to counterproductive bans, the masking of real problems, drops in sales of real products which in turn results in job losses etc.
I don’t want to see people like Ruth denied an opinion. We live in a (mostly) tolerant society where we respect people’s right to have an opinion but when you’re opinion is “out there” and your arguments are nonsensical and/or overstated, the most responsible response is ridicule.
Are people complaining about adverts really that much of a problem for you?
Sorry Accountant! Didn’t mean to give you that impression. Let me try to make it more concise and understandable for you.
Ruth say silly thing.
Silly thing funny because Ruth so sure preconceived notions be correct and she no do research. This be confirmation bias.
Ruth mistake – make laugh but no big deal. All do it.
Reason Ruth make mistake be problem for world because make people go panic. Confirmation bias bad. Sometimes people make silly law and decisions because they be all panicky.
Also Ruth make problem for people who make mediocre ad because some people think they be big bad sexist baddies. Maybe cost them job if many people listen to Ruth.
Hope that makes it clear. I wasn’t sure if it was better to express the opinion in the style of Yoda or Jar Jar Binks so I tried for a mashup. Hope it helped!
Post of the week for Ivor.
Both of them.
“Also Ruth make problem for people who make mediocre ad because some people think they be big bad sexist baddies. Maybe cost them job if many people listen to Ruth.”
LOL. Ivor make funny. Yes, mate, Women complaining about misogyny in advertising is a real problem for society we should all write long whiney posts on blogs about. I mean, whatever about misogyny, it’s the Ruths of this world that are the problem.
Okay, so, I’m at a loss.
Given that he has replied to a few of the replies to the article, I’d assume that Accountant has actually read where people have pointed out that the neon lighting is common to all of the ads and that the same tagline is used for the male versions etc.
And yet, and yet, he somehow seems to think that Ruth has uncovered an example of “misogyny in advertising” and has not jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Since not even the wisdom of Yoda and the all-ages appeal of the ever-loved Jar Jar Binks can help him, does anybody have any ideas of how we can get these relatively simple points across? And no, suggesting we give him a midichlorian injection up the jacksy is not helpful.
An “In the Night Garden” style video? An introduction to what real “Misogyny in advertising” looks like narrated by Bosco? Maybe we can reform S Club 7 and write them a little ditty that explains why it is not such a good idea to jump to conclusions and publish them online without doing a little research.
All suggestions welcome.
“And yet, and yet, he somehow seems to think that Ruth has uncovered an example of “misogyny in advertising” ”
Ah, I see the problem. You can’t read. No need to apologise.
Thank you for your graciousness.
But please, by all means, feel free to point out the results of problems caused by my illiteracy. We all agree that Ireland needs to do a lot of work when it comes to our literacy rates and having good examples of actual problems caused by the failings in our system will help to solve that problem.
I look forward to your post on the subject, but if you’re short for time and cannot write two posts, I’d prefer to read your post on the subject of the cognitive dissonance caused by complaining about people sharing their opinions and analysis of somebody else’s opinon while defending somebody’s right to have an opinion without having people share critical opinions about that opinion.
Calm down, dear. You’re getting hysterical. Although that was my point to begin with. You’re outraged at her outrage. I was merely asking you to sit back and think if your outrage was warranted. That post talking about Batman and Robin was a sight to behold. You’re complaining about her seeing an ad as being part of a trend, before claiming her outrage is part of a trend and 1954 and Batman or something. It’s just….mad.
Anaccountant, I’m not actually outraged. I’m amused. In fact, this whole thread has so many layers of humour, it’s hard not to laugh.
There are real examples of sexist advertising campaigns. For example, Sprite’s #BrutallyRefreshing campaign seemed to have come from the brains of a group of marketing types who though that the best way to appeal to men was talk about Sprite being akin to an “easy” woman.
Ruth offered a few arguments for why the ad was sexist. All of these points have pretty much been debunked. Her arguments do not hold water. I believe there is a trend but this is not advert is not part of it.
Part of the problem is that when people talk about neutral adverts or TV storylines etc. as sexist, homophobic or whatever, they undermine moves toward solving the problem they set out to fight against. People become obsessed with a particular societal problem and see evidence of it everywhere. Paedophilia is a problem and people, fed on a diet of sensational stories of actual, exaggerated and non-existant, start to see paedophiles everywhere.
The teenager outside the primary school with his phone playing Pokemon Go? Probably a paedophile. The dad walking his adopted kid through the park? Probably a paedophile. The male carer of a disabled kid assisting them to go to a swimming lesson? Probably a paedophile. It’s not that paedophilia is not a real problem or that being vigiliant against it is not a problem, it’s that during a moral panic, people interpret neutral events as suspicious and make dumb decisions that impact on other people’s lives.
The solution is simple. Think twice before jumping to conclusions. Do a little background research before publishing accusations.
“I’m not actually outraged. I’m amused.”
When you’re trying to give off the impression that you’re not angry about this and it’s just a little amusing tale, sentences like this;
“Part of the problem is that when people talk about neutral adverts or..”
And this;
“Think twice before jumping to conclusions.”
don’t help your cause. Neither does writing borderline essays. You really do see the likes of Ruth as a serious societal problem. Her complaint has quite obviously offended you. Considering the context, that’s pretty funny.
Ah here Moy!
If I deny I’m angry, you’ll say it’s evidence that I’m angry. The phrases you quote don’t imply anger but hey, if you interpret them that way, there’s little I can do. Confirmation bias wins.
Which is the reason a thread like this exists. It’s Trolling 101 as described by South Park. Post something that pisses people off (I.e an unfounded accusation of sexism), get some Trollish responses (any sort of gender directed “get a sense of humour” comment will do) then watch as other people come in and call the first commentators who disagree with the original post sexist (rightly and wrongly) and watch things escalate.
It’s ridiculous and hilarious. And the original post is about as sincere as the Unilad articles that speak in sympathetic terms about the victims of revenge porn but lead with Facebook photos of the victim that show maximum clevage. You’d be mad to take it too seriously. You can make serious points here and there but best to roll with the ridiculousness of the situation.
Some people got no sense of humour…
id say there was nothing else on those poor kids malibal brains allday
I never ate pizza in a strip club
Never eat from the buffet at a bukkake show.
“Clear endorsement of rude and abusive verbal treatment of women”
Yes, if only the frozen pizza companies of the world would leave us all alone finally violence and abuse against women would stop.
Please frozen pizza companies of the world, PLEASE, cease and desist this insane abuse.
Give me a break and get a sense of humour.
A) It’s not funny
B) Get stuffed
C) why aren’t you laughing at funny B?
waah waah waah
Get stuffed.
It’s funny, see.
“Women & ‘getting stuffed’ has explicit, sexual undertones. ”
No it doesn’t, pervert!
Ad here comes the sunshine crew to show the snowflakes how sneery outrage really works.
do you really, truly believe this is some sort of hate crime against women? why is objectivity so difficult?
What’s so objectively difficult about dealing with an analysis of an advertisement for sexism? It isn’t as if sexism in advertising is rare and unheard of. One might even go so far as to say it’s everyday, but to even mention it as such brings out the real outrage merchants.
but it’s complete utter bullpoo, no women were harmed in the making of that advert, and no women will be, I know that, you know that, the glass blower knew that.
She said nothing about women being harmed i the making of the ad, she was analysing the content of the ad, nothing more. She may be right, she may be wrong, but you can’t even engage with what she said, you have to keep making stuff up.
Why are you so upset that someone women you never met got offended by an ad?
Yes! Finally.. some sense.
Ruth is telling us how she feels about the ad. The automatic response of a lot of people in the comments is to jump all over her without asking any follow up questions.
Whether the ad is objectively sexist or not is only part of the point.
The fact that a woman feels that it’s sexist and feels the need to tell people about it should be a pointer towards the larger issue which is that there is sexism in the world and men who care about that and want there to be less sexism in the world need to be extra careful about identifying it.
On balance I don’t see anything wrong with the ad but then I’m a guy and not sensitive in the right way to sexism.
When women are saying something about this topic maybe we should listen.
Well ironcorona, I really, really hope your post is attempting to be ironic. I sincerely do. Although, it’s still (relatively) early and I have not yet consumed a gallon of coffee- so my radar may be off.
In any case, I’m a woman (last time I checked), and I think her analysis smacks of a 20-something college student completing a weekend assignment. AKA bullpoo
I wasn’t saying people shouldn’t have an opinion, I was saying that they shouldn’t attack her for saying something subjective.
I was responding to the lovely comments such as:
LennyZero: The snowflakes are out early this morning.
Nick: Some people got no sense of humour.
Dave: waah waah wahh
Broadbag: No it doens’t, pervert!
Turd Ferguson: I honestly feel sorry for Ruth. She has so little going on in her life that she has to get morally outraged by wordplay in pizza adverts.
Evenprime: Ruth is obviously very weird and feels a failure and wants to blame everything on others.
Dancost: Oh I’d say Ruth is some craic! It’s an ad Ruth.
Nope. You said that the fact that she feels it is sexism points to it being the case, which it just doesn’t. (Feeeeellllliiinnngggsss)
It points to many other things- some of which the above mentioned posters crudely outlined.
We can all have opinions, making a reasoned argument for said opinions is another thing. Clearly, those of us who were crude didn’t bother with that logic, but , she made the broad and sweeping generalisations-so really the burden of proof is on her.
She didn’t male a broad and sweeping genralisation about anything – she thinks the ad is sexist and explains why. To this rather typical set of responses none of which addressed what she actually said. Her critics here seem to FEEL that she has misread the subtext and the iconography of the ad incorrectly, but none of them have actually been able to explain why they think so. They just FEEEEEEEEL it.
Yes I feel she is wrong. I also could explain (at length) why I believe she is, but frankly I couldn’t be ar*ed.
I didn’t go and post my outrage on what is, to be fair, a tongue-in-cheek ad.
You did post your outrage at an uppity 20something year old college student having an opinion you didn’t like though. Your poor feeeeeeelings.
Well, no. Plenty of people got incredibly outraged abut her rather straightforward reading of it, though. A lot of words spent on how awful and silly she is. Like yourself, none of them seem to have the wherewithal to explain why, despite her being so supposedly obviously and ridiculously wrong.
Who said anything about a hate crime? Don’t be ridiculous, nobody is accusing anyone of a hate crime. Pointing out casual sexism isn’t accusing someone of a hate crime, its just…you know… pointing out the obvious.
Fight ridiculousness with ridiculousness.
Ridicule will set us free!
That’s a fleg I’ll follow.
I enjoyed your post earlier too. Very well made points up above.
Cheers!
troll
Quiet news day?
I honestly feel sorry for Ruth. She has so little going on in her life that she has to get morally outraged by wordplay in pizza adverts.
I honestly feel sorry for you that you have to get outraged by Ruth. Women are so annoying. Why can’t Ruth keep her observations on the society in which she lives to herself. Sad!
Is Broadsheet trying to corral all the trolls in one place?
If that’s true, I believe it would be a public service.
Oh yes.
“everyone who calls bs on an obvious clickbait article is a troll”
hmmmm…. really makes you think
Not sure you know what the word clickbait means.
Ruth is obviously very weird and feels a failure and wants to blame everything on others.
Obviously. I bet she herself is a pizza or worse, a pizza with no toppings.. a stripper if you will.
Can you even have explicit undertones? Surely that’s an oxymoron?
I have a photo of Feargal Sharkey in the nude if that’s any good to you.
*Doffs cap*
;)
Ba-dum-tish! :)
I like it. I also now want the picture.
Cough up Bertie
I have it here somewhere, you’ll like it, he has a great bum….
Now where did I put it?…
No sorry, apparently a good arse these days is hard to find
* books one way ticket to Bolivia *
Wow. Two perfect cousins in the same family
Exactly!!! Sounds like somebody took cultural studies 101
If somebody told me to “get stuffed”, I hardly think ooh er, sexual harassment!, I’d think ” what a ponce!”
Of ffs!
Here’s the thing, it’s about as unethical as clickbate and this article is clickbate designed to attract trolls and gain traction as people react to the trolls.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into this article and the writer is reading too much into this ad.
It’s all in the mind. We are Freudened.
Oh I’d say Ruth is some craic! It’s an ad Ruth.
And it’s Friday.
Chill.
Ye mysogomy takes Fridays off, chill!
…I suppose extra pepperoni would be out of the question?
Pizza is the theory; getting stuffed is the practice.
like something from a 1990’s English lads mag
The lads need cookery lessons on how to make their own pizzas and share them considerately so nobody gets stuffed.
Oh look!- it’s snowing!!
“…Implies that girlfriends do the shopping…” and wives should be included also – that’s the way it should be. It’s the law of nature.
Why isn’t this lady getting upset at those ads for sanitary products…now they are offensive! They also give the impression that women’s parts stink and they can’t go up the stairs without leakage. Just saying, those ads are way more offensive than a harmless ad for pizza! Also, the author may have missed or forgoten to get offended at the tagline at bottom ‘Get the ultimate stuffed pizza HIT in the freezer aisle’…this to me suggests drug use…for the love of god…call the cops!!!
She’ll be on CAKE next !
For desert like.
This is a troll surely?????
Relax babe xxx
Chicago Town getting great free advertising here. ..that particular pizza isn’t my bag- but they do a new thin crust version which is mighty tasty …mmn. Pizza
Man… that was damn funny! :)
Thanks Ruth
*I wouldn’t find it funny, but I suspect the target audience do.
To “get stuffed” means to go away.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/get-stuffed
The implication, I thought, was that the pizza was more attractive.
More attractive than a lady?!you pig!
I mean – ape!
That’s what’s written on the poster, but then I am very hungry.
The bit of skirt in the neon doesn’t look like she eats much pizza, wha?
I’ve done some extensive research on this advert ( I.e. googled the hashtag) and in the spirit of whataboutery, I have to say I’m appalled that Ruth – who clearly researched this well before taking to Twitter in a storm of righteousness – did not point out the terrible sexism in the other version of the adverts.
The “lads” are clearly shown as sexual neon objects and their emotional abuse is promoted. It also promotes slavery by implying that men (undoubtedly working class men) should pay for the pizzas of more privileged people. Come to think of it, the lads were clearly gay (just look at their exaggerated poses) so this advert was promotes the bullying of gay people. School children, including boys, girls and non-gendered minors, could see it and rush off to see chipndales before going out to push young gay men to suicide.
You may disagree with my analysis or point out it faults but if you do, it clearly indicates that you are a homophobic, who loves misandry, sexual exploitation and slavery, so your reply will only prove my point.
Now go buy me a pizza!
Bravo sir.
The pizza is en route via carrier pigeon.
oh no! the women are getting uppity! calm your t1ts, ladies, the menfolk say if you think too much about this ad you’re wrong!
“The ad for the pizza place made me do it”
Boyfriend
Stuffed
Strippers
FFS
There reality is
That pizza is yuck
I’d rather ate the dogs gawk
fhey arent particularly nice pizzas.
I’m glad all the men rushed to this post to tell the woman that something she felt was sexist isn’t sexist and to dismiss her as a whiner with no sense of humour.
That’s her put back in her place. Good job, lads.
Jesus this place is a sewer, hey Broadsheet when did you decide you were cool with being the Irish branch of r/redpill? Either moderate or close your comment section
Maybe it’s not just Broadsheet. What if this is how we really all are nowadays, at least online?
Ruth’s obviously not getting a pizza the action….
It is a sexist ad but I wouldn’t allow it to rile me. Their pizzas are poop anyway.
I like Ruth. I bet she’s opinionated but good fun.
You know what I mean. Food for thought. PM me.
Saw these ads plastered inside a Luas yesterday. She has a point about the ad she isolates, maybe reaching here and there, but in context if anything it’s even more uncomfortable, It’s an incredibly misanthropic campaign. I’m sure the triple word-play was irresistible, and the dominant meaning is presumed to be taken as bants, but it’s like being in the cross-fire in a sixties kitchen sink drama about social and familial disintegration with everyone roaring ‘get-stuffed’ at each other. Though given some of the comments here, maybe they’re more in tune with the zeitgeist than I give them credit for, but that’s not how I like my pizza, with a side order of verbal abuse.
Wow. What. The Fupp.
know. It was also kinda grim and drab, surrounded by all these pictures of cheap neon figures and invocations to tell people to get stuffed. Unpleasant.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Agree unpleasantness in general is being “normalised”. Sad when you come in here and you see “nice guys” jeering at the likes of the girl in this post because they can’t bear someone having an opinion they differ with.
What bothers me most about it is they way they consistently refuse to engage with what she actually said in comment after comment. There’s a whole process of deligitimisation and dismissal at work there.
White maleness whatever the fupp that is under threat or perceives itself to be. And who can blame women- they don’t fupping need us for anything any more other than semen which you can buy online if you’re not too icky about where it’s come from.
Then you have all the mostly male gobspoos arguing with them telling them ( still) what to do with their bodies etc – the same kind of creeps who won’t let Muslim women wear hijab if that is their choice. I’m sick to death of these freaks