University of Michigan's

Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center

2008 SEXISM IN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

SAPAC’s sexism in advertising campaign is meant to educate and to allow all of you who are as angry as we are about sexist advertisements to let your voice be heard!

Check out our ads for 2008 (and 2007)! Contact the companies! Write your own letters or print ours!

Why does SAPAC find some advertising problematic? Because it…

* Objectifies women in a way that reduces them to body parts, implying that women solely exist to physically satisfy men. Objectification of women also dehumanizes them.

* Creates a limited standard of beauty - young, white, thin, and airbrushed - that is impossible for most women to attain. When women of other races or ethnicities are used, their differences are often eroticized or ridiculed by the ad.

* Uses sex-role stereotypes to portray women as submissive and subordinate and men as controlling and dominant, or displaying violence against women and children. Advertisements that use slogans and pictures that depict women being physically attacked glorify the violence that occurs against women every day.

* Promotes gender-based violence by portraying women as lifeless and doll-like, with incredibly pale skin and emotionless expressions. This condones violence against women by implying that women are dolls to be played with or that women are sexy when dead.

Ads for this year that...

EMPOWER

DISGUST

Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness : : Phone (734) 998-9368 : : MRC 800-649-3777: : email SAPAC
Division of Student Affairs