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Thursday
7 February 2008
A number of national women’s organisations have joined forces to condemn a
Melbourne fashion store’s violent advertising depicting the body of a
murdered woman in the boot of a car.
The full page colour ad for the women’s fashion company Loula, appears in the
January edition of Harper’s Bazaar. It shows the legs and one arm of a woman
hanging from the boot of a Mercedes-Benz. Her legs are bound with rope, tied
in a bow. She is wearing heavy lace-up boots which appear to be the product
being advertised.
Loula’s European shoes and clothes are sold in its South Yarra store, with a
new store to open in Little Collins Street in March.
Women’s Forum Australia (WFA), the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Australia (CATWA), the Anti-Slavery Project, Project Respect, FINRRAGE,
Enlighten Education, Kids Free 2b Kids, R♀AR Feminist Collective,
the Sex Trade Opposition Project (STOP) and WOMENS Healthworks have urged
women to boycott the company.
WFA Director, Melinda Tankard Reist, said it was offensive and dangerous to
glamorise the murder of women to sell shoes.
"Perhaps Loula’s executives have forgotten about what happened to
Melbourne woman Maria Korp, who was strangled and left for dead in the boot
of her car," Ms Tankard Reist said.
"We don’t think the Korp family wouldn’t find this add clever or
amusing. Since when did it become OK to make violence against women sexy?
"What were Harper’s Bazaar thinking? Harper’s offers readers 'the
hottest trends you don’t want to miss out on.' Are full page ads featuring
women as corpses part of some hot new trend?
"So much for corporate social responsibility."
According to the 2005 Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety
Survey, at least one in 17 Australian women are victims of violence every
year and at least two in five have experienced violence at least once since
the age of 15. This ads up to 3.1 million women.
In the age group 18 to 24, just over one in 10 were physically assaulted in
the year before the survey. They were four times more likely to be physically
assaulted and eight times more likely to be sexually assaulted than older
women.
VicHealth says that intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to
death, disability and illness in Victorian women under 45.
"These statistics should make Loula and Harper’s pull these ads
immediately."
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