Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Women are dumb, dangerous and not interested in science or technology.

At least, that is what I feel like when I look at some of the sexist advertising that I've seen recently. We're heading back to the days of advertising where women being baffled by science and technology. And I'm at a loss as to how this tactic benefits anyone.

There are so many examples of this type of crap.

A couple of recent offensive campaigns just for starters:

Washing machine ad touts that "steam thing" that women need.

Canon PowerShot E1: We will build the woman-proof camera.

Sexist "cellphone for the ladies" ad, annotated
(this has a "mildly" sexist verizon ad which has been hilariously annotated by a third party.)

(links via boingboing)

At the same time, there are a lot of people out there who are fighting back with my favorite weapon - humor.

Check out Target: WOMEN.
Sarah Haskins has some hilarious tongue-in-cheek videos making fun of marketing tactics directed at women.


chick flicks


yogurt

4 comments:

hermione danger said...

"Oooh, yeah, I'm gonna shit my pants!" Best quote ever. I think its kinda weird that Boing Boing commented on sexist marketing, 'cause the tone of most of their articles are pretty sexist. I feel like just recently they had an article recently about some other "women-proof" gadget, so its kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.

L.T.L. said...

shit, dude. really?
i'd be curious to hear what you have to say about that since i read that blog fairly frequently.

i'm usually pretty sensitive to that kind of thing, but maybe there is something that i have been missing?

the tech world is still so f'ed.

hermione danger said...

Okay, I swear there was an article that mentioned something about "a dead wife is a good wife", but I can't for the life of me find it. I remember being like, WTF!? Either its all in my head, or they realized it was fucked up and took it down. I'm sure they were being sarcastic, but I still thought it was not okay. Maybe I'm just sensitive after they posted the lightbulb/tranny video and didn't really comment on how it was fucked, but just that it was "weird". Here it is: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/12/video-bizarre-light.htmlf

Of all of the tech/gadget blogs I've seen, I really like Boing Boing Gadgets the best, and I think they do try to call out advertising companies on being sexist. Of course they're not perfect, but they are maybe the best we've got right now. I do have pretty high standards, and in the dude-tech world I am even more hyper-sensitive to that kind of shit. I just want everyone to be as brilliant as the ladies (and dude) in feminist club...

ERFette said...

"who's on first? yogurt is!" man, that lady is first class funny. and personally, i find my camera to be so confusing with all of those settings and knobs and buttons. plus, it's not even pink. usually i end up just throwing it at the wall and crying because i can't figure out how to use it. but then i realize i'm just premenstrual and i eat some chocolate in a way that mimics orgasm, and everything's cool!