BACKGROUND

On August 9^th, 2015, to celebrate Women’s Day in South Africa, pen manufacturer BiC South Africa posted this advertisement.

Pictured above is a smiling South African woman wearing a business suit. The text beside her reads, “Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a boss, #HappyWomensDay.”

This image sparked immediate outrage internationally and the company took down the image. However, instead of admitting to being sexist, BiC tried to explain that the advertisement was only meant to empower women in a positive way. Naturally it received further backlash and BiC finally deleted everything. It then issued an official apology.

THE ISSUE

In my opinion, the overarching problem with this advertisement is its blatant sexist depiction of what a successful woman should supposedly be like. BiC’s view is traditionalist, toxic, and echoes a deeply rooted bigoted social framework.

BiC firstly infantilizes and sexualizes women by dictating how they should manage their physical appearance. To be attractive and thus successful, one must look young and naïve “like a girl”. However while the outside of a woman needs to appear innocent, BiC also implies that a woman’s personality, aka the inside, must exude matureness to “act like a lady”. These disgustingly out-dated social expectations imply that women do not own themselves and that they should be constantly striving to fulfill what is anticipated of them both physically and mentally.

“Think like a man, act like a boss” suggests that men are better, stronger, and more capable than women. It pushes the idea that men dominate this world and that it would do one good to be like them and appeal to them. Otherwise, a woman will not get far if she relies solely on looking like a girl and acting like a lady – she is, essentially, weak. The fact that “work like a boss” comes after “think like a man” seems to highlight that without thinking like a man, women cannot rise to power; men are the C-suite level executives and without their mindset, women cannot hope to hold onto leadership.

To make matters worse, the South African woman in the advertisement is smiling and looks as if she accepts this treatment. The advertisement is demeaning and instead of empowering women, shames their existence.

Note – There may be subtle racism in this advertisement: a jab at women of colour seeming to say they should be the ones trying the hardest to change themselves to fit in. However the advertisement was initially meant for South African Women’s Day and thus, I could be reading too much into it.

AFTER CULTURE JAMMING

My jamming philosophy was to mock the advertisement thus exposing the sexism behind it. The overall idea of the original image was that women should shape themselves to please others and to think like men for their own benefit. Therefore, I made the sexist meanings very blatant by revising the text up top to reveal what BiC truly wanted to say. “Women don’t own the way they look, women don’t own they way they act, only men can own and do things for themselves because they’re superior.”

To add to all of this, I included a picture of a man holding a thumbs-up. The words “certified by sexists” floats near his head to “give credit” to the text above about women not owning themselves. This is mainly to highlight the previous “think like a man” sentence and the ridiculousness of the people behind it; no self-respecting woman would approve of such a demeaning line so it had to be the work of sexists. To contrast with the happiness on the man’s face, I transformed the South African woman’s face into a forced smile to indicate her distress and but professionalism. She now symbolizes what women have to go through on a regular basis in their battle against out-dated social norms.

The hash tag at the bottom was altered to say “HappyWomenShouldBeLikeMenDay”. I wanted to invoke feelings of exasperation because woman can never seem to celebrate themselves for a bit without someone coming in to yell about men, sexism, and expectations.