(original ad)
The above advertisement is from a man’s magazine called “Ché.” This ad is targeting a male audience and seems to provoke sex and an unrealistic fantasy. Automatically, the paper skirt is noticed, with the women’s number ready to be taken by whoever wishes. This is very degrading and sexual. By having these number tags hanging of the women, it shows that she is simply an object to be used whenever someone likes at their convenience and how easy it is to obtain her. This simply ties in with “consent,” by having these numbers available to whomever guy wants her; she is essentially being forced to consent to anything that comes her way.
Looking at this advertisement closer we can notice next to the word “Ché,” the magazines logo, which is “Let us keep on dreaming of a better world.” This sentence alone suggests that having women at the tip of your hands, any time you want and can treat them as objects is something that is needed for a “better world.”
Upon further investigation, I looked up this “Ché” men’s magazine, and came across some very vulgar and sexist advertisement. To which all of the ads included women wearing very revealing to almost no clothing, and men enjoying the presence of them. The goal of this magazine is to target men and help them dream and envision a “better world.”
The ultimate problem with this advertisement is that it devalues women, objectifies them and sexualizes them. For many feminist, such as myself, this advertisement has no respect for women by saying lets keep on “dreaming of a better world,” suggesting that women should be seen as objects and essentially shouldn’t hold any rights. If this magazine dreams for a better world, should they not dream for equality of human beings, no discrimination and no dominance over a certain sex?
(Jammed ad)
After altering the ad, as shown above, I only hope to make people aware of the offensive message this magazine is trying to provoke. The obvious change I made would be from “My number” on the skirt to “Never OK.” I wrote this in particular because I wanted to emphasize the importance of how wrong it is to envision this world where anyone could take this women’s number and use her as an object, with no verbal consent from the women herself.
Another important change I made was rewriting the magazines logo. Instead of saying, “Let us keep on dreaming of a better world,” I rewrote it to “Maybe a dream, but not reality.” I wrote this to keep in mind that this “dream” they have is their dream and yes, everyone is entitled to their own personal dreams but to keep in mind that even though maybe that’s someone’s dream, it is certainly far from reality, and that should be made explicitly known to everyone. This dream the magazine is trying to reach tailors to men’s fantasies and disregards the respect that women deserve and should have. For feminists and many other people, this ad devalues women, and objectifies them. So, by writing this new logo, that this may be a dream for some, it is definitely not a reality and never should be.
Overall, this ad brings up unrealistic fantasies and goes against all feminist ideals. It objectives, sexualizes and materializes women in a very degrading way and it is an ad of many that need to be banned.