#Women Not Objects

Ads using women to promote their products.

Photo+By%3A+Autumn+Olson

Autumn Olson

Photo By: Autumn Olson

Autumn Olson, Staffer

Earlier this year, Madonna Badger, an ad executive, made a YouTube video called, ¨We Are #WomenNotObjects.” About a month later the video had approximately  1.7 million views. The video starts off with Badger typing into the google search bar “Objectification of women” then takes the audience through a two minute and 22 second video that highlights the ridiculous and sexist ways companies promote their products by using women’s bodies. Many of the ads were shown by most well known brands and companies such as Burger King,Tom Ford, Budweiser and many more.

 

¨I’d sell my body for a burger,” one women in the video says while showing an ad for Carl’s Jr. Another says, ¨ Obviously my cleavage can sell anything.¨

 

¨It’s stupid to use someone´s body to sell something,¨junior, Isabelle Milton said. ¨No one should do it. That’s what people’s daughters see and then they will think they need to look like that. You see it, then think you need to look or act like that and it’s definitely not true; it’s just unrealistic.¨

 

Since Badger lost her three daughters and her parents in a terrible fire on Christmas of 2011, she has admitted to being a part of the problem because she is an ad executive and uses women in her ads to promote products. She wants to honor her children and has decided to take action and change the way companies use women in ads, for it is harmful, especially to young children, to view women as nothing but a prop.  

 

In the interview she had with CNN she said, ¨The people who are hurt the most are of course the children. The little girls are growing up thinking that how they look are more important than how the feel, or who they are, or what they do. And little boys are growing up thinking that it only matters how a women looks.¨

 

The creators of the video want people to use #WomenNotObjects to encourage others to join the cause, hoping that creators of ads will stop using women as props for their products.

 

The video ended with a heavy tone, ¨ I am your mother, daughter, sister, co-worker, manager, CEO. Don’t talk to me that way.¨