WUNRN
Via Pro Feminism Women's
Organization - Russia
RUSSIA
- CAMPAIGN AGAINST SEXISM IN ADVERTISING
"Your Favorite Dumplings"
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"Emergency Accessories for
Life"
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On
September 23, which is Advertisers’ Day in Russia, there was a public
demonstration against sexist advertising on Gogol Boulevard in Moscow
organized the pressure group Pro Feminism.
Sexist
advertising in Russian Federation dominates the market. It uses outmoded images of women and supports patriarchal
stereotypes.
Images of women in advertising tend to be associated with
children and housework, and even in this area the women are mostly helped by
highly experienced men. For example in the advert for ‘Tide’
washing powder a woman berates her child for having a dirty
t-shirt. But when a male expert arrives with some Tide, the
woman becomes a good mother and stops shouting at the child.
We rarely see women in advertisements for cars. Women in
this kind of advertising are, in the best scenario, passengers or more commonly
they act as a supplement to the car, as one of the options available to be
expensively purchased by a successful man.
The female body is portrayed as propaganda for pornography,
violence and prostitution. Advertisements use images of attractive women to sell beer, car tyres, gyms or construction materials.
Any product designed for heterosexual men will be sexualized, using images of
conventionally attractive women wherein the woman's body
is positioned to show that she is easily available and cheap.