WUNRN
USA-CHICAGO - "UGLY TRUTH"
CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRAFFICKING & PROSTITUTION USES PUBLIC ADS ON SERIOUS
REALITIES
June 05, 2013
What
has advertising done for women lately?
Not
very much, according to feminist theorists, cultural critics and "Mad
Men," a show that winks, nods and with every episode reminds us that the
more things change in the ad world, the more they stay the same.
The
consensus opinion — at least for those not working in advertising — is clear.
Advertising propagates an unattainable beauty standard. It relies on tired
gender stereotypes (an industry favorite is the ever-competent mother married
to the father confused by everything). And it turns women into objects instead
of subjects, visual accessories in a beer-drinking, luxury-car-driving man's
world.
Yet for
those of us passionate about issues affecting women and girls, the answer isn't
less advertising. It's more of it.
More of
the work we've seen from the creatives behind the latest Dove campaign,
which reminds us that the negative ways women often see themselves are at odds
with the ways other women see them.
More
digital efforts like the Girl
Effect, created through a partnership with Nike, which
makes the case that young women aren't just a force, they're the world's
greatest untapped resource.
And
more advertising like the End Demand Illinois' Ugly Truth campaign,
which addresses common myths about sex trafficking and prostitution, and
challenges those myths with cold, hard facts about the damage done to those in
the domestic sex trade. The ads are spread throughout the city at rail stations,
on the sides of trash cans, on bus shelters and elsewhere.
Created
through a partnership between End Demand
Illinois, a national nonprofit documentary initiative known
as the Voices
and Faces Project and the Chicago office of media agency Kinetic Worldwide, the Ugly Truth is
a public-awareness campaign urgently needed in our city, because sex
trafficking, widely recognized as a global problem, is more local than many
think.
On any
given day, more than 16,000 women and girls are prostituted in the greater
Chicago area. The vast majority of these women entered the sex trade after
fleeing abusive homes, often while still in their teens. The average age of
death for a prostituted woman? According to a comprehensive mortality study
funded by the National Institutes of Health, it's a startling 34 years old.
Yet
the demand for prostituted and trafficked persons is ongoing, even as the
public remains largely unaware of the damage done to many in the local sex
trade. Media
representations of prostitution play their part in our
cultural denial. Think films like "Pretty Woman," or reality TV
programs like "The Bunny Ranch," which glamorize what is more often
than not a "risky business" for those bought and sold.
One of
the most effective ways to counter these false media representations is to tell
another story — a more truthful story — about the experiences of those who are
prostituted and trafficked. And one of the most effective ways to tell any
story is through advertising.
Good
advertising can make us think, feel and — most important — act. And advertising
can do all of this on a scale that is difficult to replicate through community
organizing alone: The Ugly Truth campaign will make more than 200 million
audience impressions during its three-month run in Illinois. These impressions
are creating debate and public conversation, those vital elements of democracy
that make possible the changing of minds, hearts and public policies.
................
Anne K. Ream is co-founder of CounterQuo, a
national initiative that aims to challenge media and legal responses to
gender-based violence. She is founder of The Voices and Faces Project, which is
based in Chicago. And she is a former group creative director and senior
vice-president at Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett.