Glasgow City Council refuses to advertise trainers on the sides of their taxis because of the word “Bum.”

Oh my god a bum! People have bums?!

Yes, people do have bums, but this isn’t the nub and gist of the argument here. Sexist advertising? That’s okay. The word bum? Not. I think someone has their priorities mixed up around here.

According to the BBC News website, Glasgow City Council refused to let Reebok advertise their new trainers that tone your arse on the side of their taxis. The Reebok ad people claim that there wouldn’t even have been an actual bum present on the taxi, but only a pair of bare legs, but Glasgow City Council still opposed the ads.

HEL-LO?!

Diamond Dolls. Fucking lap-dancing/strip clubs (Or whatever the hell they do in there) are allowed on the side of taxis, yet the word ‘bum’ would be a scandal? What’s easier to explain to a child? What a bum is (And ALL fucking children know what a fucking bum is) or what Diamond Dolls is? “Yes darling, it’s just a place where ladies take their clothes off so that men can look at their private parts,”

The response from Glasgow City Council should have been to tell Reebok to fuck off and take their sexist advertising else where.

Everyone knows that it’s basically the plot of every commercial company everywhere to exploit the vulnerabilities of people, but Reebok don’t hide it very well. They’re basically telling women “You’ve got a shite arse. It’s like a bag of spanners. I know you fucking love Mars Bars and don’t have the money for a treadmill, but here! Here’s some shoes that will basically do the job for you!”

It’s just one of the tiny cogs in the mass media advertising attack on women. It’s all about fixing women. They’re not fucking right, you know? They need fixing! Mitchell and Webb have done a sketch to this effect, which is funny, and painfully true.

The point I’d like to make is that I’m not defending anyone in this horrible, horrible mash-up of awfulness. Basically both Reebok and the council are bastards. Reebok don’t even advertise their misogynistic trainers in a nice way either. One of their adverts features a female speaking about the trainers and inevitably, there are many hillarious (not) moments where the camera man fixes the camera on her bum and she takes it all in light hearted humour. A note to all women. Men who stare at your bum though a lens without your permission are perverts and should be put in jail (Or shot, in my opinion).

And would you look at that, she’s being deliberately provocative, but she doesn’t ACTUALLY want the cameraman to look at her bum. HOH HOH HOH what a slut! (Says the sexist wanker fraternity).

This kind of portrayal of women is actively harmful. It gives out the subtle, but present message that women are all just asking to be ogled, and if they move in a certain way that also means they want you to look at them or have sex with them. Women will simply not follow a rule book of modest actions and curbed expression for fear of being raped. Men will have to live with the fact that just because they THINK they have a right to make moves on a woman, does not make it remotely so.

Reebok probably think that they’re mighty funny. Woman have bums! HUURRR! That is excruciatingly obvious in this tacky sham of an advertisement that interrupted my meal time a couple of weeks ago.

First of all, we women can’t even see our arses most of the time. What fucking benefit would we reap from having it ‘toned’? None. Men, however, who are all too willing to stare, will. And obviously they’d prefer a worked arse to a perfectly normal sized and shaped bum. In other words, they want to make us look a certain way. Shock horror, eh?

“Shake it up make me feel good”? Don’t even get me started on the song.

My closing point is one which I feel true to, and that i think all women in the world should take on as not only a mindset, but a way of life. I’ve thought about it deeply for a long time, and I feel like no other approach could encompass the range of emotions that women feel in an oppressed, male dominated society: ”Fuck off.”

12 Comments

Neldo says:

May 27, 2010 at 9:44 pm

I’d like a toned bum. Do they make these trainers for guys?

TheWorstWitch says:

May 27, 2010 at 9:51 pm

No, Neldo. You don’t need a toned bum. Didn’t you watch the video? You’re already brilliant.

Lydia says:

May 27, 2010 at 9:53 pm

I know neldo. GAWD. You’re already male! What more do you want?

Yer granny says:

May 27, 2010 at 10:00 pm

Brilliant Lydia! You totally call it out for what it is!!

The photo of the wee Chinese boy’s bum is great – in China and Mongolia babies don’t wear nappies they either have nothing on there bottoms or these wee trousers and they just do the toilet and if it is a jobby their mum or dad picks it up like it is a dog pooh in a wee bag – in Mongolia on the steppe you just pee/pooh there and then – bare bums are normal!

Glasgow council are hypocrites!

Danny says:

May 28, 2010 at 2:49 am

I agree that Glasgow City Council are hypocrites on this matter, but I don’t see what’s wrong with Reebok’s advertising campaign. There’s nothing sexist about it. It’s an advert for a fitness product marketed towards women, and I’ve always been under the impression that the main reason many people (both men and women) exercise, aside from the health benefits or for enjoyment, is to achieve better muscle tone so that they appear more attractive. Being attracted to people who are physically fit is an innate response that all animals have had for thousands of years, as physically unfit mates would be more likely to produce weaker children. The benefit of having a toned bum is that you may appear more attractive to other people that you might actually want to have sex with. Correct me if I’m wrong in assuming that there are some women who enjoy having sex.

And I strongly disagree that the adverts give out the message that all women want to be ogled. It’s more like women who wear incredibly revealing skin tight clothing are seeking attention. People who wear sexually provocative clothes do so to get noticed, otherwise they would wear more modest clothing. Once again, this applies to both genders.

There will always be some element of sexuality in advertising, as sexuality is a large part of the human psyche. There will always be a large market for products which enhance physical attractiveness, because many people want to be more attractive. In my opinion, this article confuses demographics and sexuality with male chauvinism and sexual objectification. That being said, I still agree with the core point that Glasgow City Council are wrong to consider these adverts too offensive to display on taxis, when the Diamond Dolls adverts are allowed.

Sarah says:

May 28, 2010 at 3:39 am

Sorry Danny, no. 100 years ago people were drawn and attracted to large body types as a signifier of wealth (being able to afford to eat to your heart’s content). Now, near-anorexia and being excessively toned is a sign of wealth, in that you are wealthy enough to be able to escape the reliance on processed foods that poverty creates and are able to afford to pay someone to motivate you to exercise. It’s all about power, there is nothing to do with genetics in it. You are genetically predisposed to fancy whoever the fuck you want to fancy, it’s society that creates constraints on it, like (previously) don’t fancy anyone that’s skinny cos they’re poor, (currently) don’t fancy anyone that’s fat cause they’re poor/weak willed, don’t fancy anyone of the same sex etc.

People don’t wear ‘sexually provocative clothes’ (like as if the clothes are the things to blame when people are sexually assaulted by repulsive people who want to exert their power over others, fucking rubbish) they do it because they are told by society that it’s the way to validate themselves. They don’t do it because of a free fucking choice, they do it because they are socialised into believing that it’s how to make themselves worthy of others and therefore worthwhile human beings. Anything that implies that you are less of a good person if you don’t conform to a made up societal ideal that you can NEVER reach because it is CONSTANTLY changing is fucking bullshit. Advertising is bullshit.

Jack says:

May 28, 2010 at 10:08 am

Well said Lydia and Sarah!

The idea that sexual attractiveness is something that’s purely biologically and genetically determined is an attractive one, but it’s one that falls apart under any kind of examination. The fact is that human beings have lived under socially determined conditions for a very long time now, and it’s very difficult to separate behaviour that has biologically evolved as opposed to been culturally and socially created.

As Sarah said, there’s abundant evidence to show that there’s nothing universal about the standards of attractiveness upheld in western capitalist societies. Loads of anthropological studies on less technologically advanced peoples have shown that many of them still find obesity attractive. But perhaps the most compelling piece of evidence for me are the Venus figurines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

These are little statues found all over Eurasia dating from the upper Paleolithic. They show large women with wide hips. They’ve been interpreted a number of ways, but I think it’s hard not to conclude from them that people in these times found women who had plenty to eat and were equipped for child bearing attractive.

Now, if we accept that sexual attractiveness is something that’s socially and culturally determined, the next thing we need to ask ourselves is, are our cultures equal and fair? No they’re not, there’s an inequality of power between men and women. Hence sexist advertising campaigns that are designed to reinforce the dominant relations of society, in which women must work to make themselves sexually available and attractive to men.

I also think it’s interesting that Danny feels like he’s able to say why women wear certain clothes. I think there’s lots of reasons why people wear the clothes they do – some to be attractive for sure, I think probably many more for the reasons Sarah outlined of feeling like they have to to conform, which is an incredibly powerful force in people’s lives. But can women also not just choose clothes BECAUSE THEY LIKE THEM, because they like the way they look wearing them FOR THEMSELVES? Women (or men) don’t have to dress and display themselves purely for other people. The fact that folk make judgements about “She’s wearing that, therefore wants sex” says more about the social conditioning (in a large part through advertising) that women are constantly sexually available and base all their judgements around what men will think.

I think the use of words Danny picks is particularly revealing: “provocative” clothes vs. “modest” clothes. These reflect hundreds of years of sexist assumptions about women, either being sexually available “sluts” out to “provoke” (provoke what exactly? Sexual aggression?) or they are “modest” ladies, which is essentially what was expected of married women who had become the property of a single man and were not to display themselves as available.

Please don’t take any of this as a personal attack Danny, you’re as much a product of thousands of years of patriarchal society as these ideas are. The point is that SSY tries to promote critical thinking about these issues to try and change society away from sexism and misogyny. That begins with critically examining your own assumptions and ideas.

Btw, I don’t accept that there will “always be some element of sexuality in advertising” because I don’t accept there will always be advertising, just as I don’t accept there will “always” be a market for clothes. I’m fighting for a future where people can get the clothes they need for free along with all the other essentials of life, and there’s no need to push them through centrally directed manipulation campaigns of advertising to wear certain things. I want to see a society where people really are free to wear what they choose, and not only that, design and make clothes and shoes that truly reflect how they feel and what they want to say about themselves, freed from social pressures of how they think they “ought” to look.

This was a great piece Lydia, I really liked it. It’s a bit off topic, but this hypocrisy reminded me how much it annoys me the way song censorship works on the radio. Listening to songs on 1xtra, the words “herb” or “ganja” get edited out, when it’s deemed perfectly acceptable to talk about being a “pimp” (aka a man who through violent force and manipulation makes women become prostitutes and then take their earnings, or in the wider sense now seen as OK, to be a man who treats women he has sex with or is in a relationship with as if he were their pimp). I mean honestly, which causes more harm to the world, cannabis or violent and manipulative men?!

Sorry for monster comment.

LydiaTeapot says:

May 28, 2010 at 10:46 am

@Danny:

Yeah, basically what Jack said. I don’t condemn you for thinking that way(after all, this is how patriarchy works!), but i have to disagree entirely. Some women enjoy sex/sexual attention. I for one, fucking love it – Off liam. My boyfriend. I do not want sexual attention off any one else in the street or around my life. So does this mean i should donn a polo neck, a pair of corduroy trousers and some man boots? No. Since it’s my body, I’m permitted to adorn it in any type of cloths i want, be it to provoke attraction from my partner or just because i think the cloths are pretty.

The advert (As much as i oppose advertisement of any form) could have taken a non-sexist approach (Even though the product IS sexist) by simply making an info-mercial about exercise and how the trainers could potentially help you (which i doubt anyway tbh). They didn’t have to put a whole advert showing exclusively women’s arses – an part of the body which men enjoy to look at and touch – waving about all over the place. I mean, you can’t disagree that it was pure entertainment for men. “look at these women! Look at their perfect bums! Look! Men, wouldn’t you want your woman’s bum to look like this?! Women, wouldn’t you want a bum you can allow your man to see?!”

In all honesty, I would like to gain more muscle mass, but to have a super trimmed arse? Not even on my list of priorities. I want to get a decent amount of muscle mass not to look sexually attractive, but to be able to send people down with a single punch. (See not every weight change is motivated by sexual attractiveness)

And i also like to think that i pick all of my clothes based on how pretty I think they are. I’m artistic and i like things with nice patterns on them. I like cloths which have nice colour combinations etc etc.
If i want to put out the suggestion that i want sex (From a partner) I’ll make this clear physically and vocally. It really has nothing to do with the shape of my body or what i’m wearing.

That pretty much goes for if i was single too. Men must realise that because they THINK a woman is giving out a message with the kind of clothes she is wearing, that it probably ISN’T so. I a lady is wearing a short skirt, who’s attention is she trying to attract? Yours? Jack’s? Mine? Her partner’s? No one’s? Is she a lesbian? Is she straight? We never know these things. It is completely wrong to assume that clothing sends out a message at all.

Also, you may well be thinking of the women you see on a Friday night in town. They wear a certain type of clothing often slated by the masses as “Slutty” but you’ve got to remember the terrible amount of media influence that is unknowingly projected on to them. Music videos, celebrities, porn etc etc. They are very vulnerable and susceptible to brain washing by that giant god of theirs, The Media. These women may have no self confidence in their personalities or natural beauty, so they plaster themselves in make up and flaunt the only assets they think they have, which are their breasts, legs and genitalia (Or the prospect of). If there wasn’t so much pressure for women to look this way (Or indeed none at all) then women wouldn’t do it.

Sorry for the giant comment, and i hope you can see it this way too.

–Lydia

Neldo says:

May 28, 2010 at 8:48 pm

What do you mean what more do I want? I want a toned bum! I’m really self conscious about my appearance, I want to look good so people will like me