“When you’ve had it up to here with the old ball and chain”

Yesterday, we received this image of a pizza box from Bubba Pizza, a Melbourne-based pizza franchise.  

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The Ultra Tune brand has become synonymous with misogyny and sexist portrayals of women in its advertising over many years. We have documented the company’s use of degrading gender stereotypes, its vilification of women resulting in multiple Ad Standards’ rulings against it and the engagement of known perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence in the production of its ads. 

Ultra Tune's sexist ads were broadcast during the Australian Open, including the women's matches, serving to undermine the public's celebration of women in elite sport. 

Last month, we wrote to Craig Tiley, CEO of Tennis Australia and Tournament Director for the Australian Open, who is also a Male Champion of Change to "end everyday sexism", and asked him to inform Channel 9 that he did not want Ultra Tune to be represented as a sponsor of his tennis-related events. We have not received a response. 

Click here to read the full letter. 

See also:

SLAMMED! Sexist Ultra Tune ad broadcast during women’s tennis condemned

Why is a rapist fronting a major TV campaign?

Sexism, plastic surgery pressure, strip clubs and other reasons to boycott Ultra Tune

 

 

British lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, known for its sexualising ad campaigns, has released a commercial featuring elite female athletes in lingerie. The ad includes gymnast Georgia-Mae Fenton, climber Sasha Digiulian, pole vaulter Alysha Newman and hurdler and sprinter Queen Harrison Claye.

The ad shows slow panning shots of the women’s g-string clad backsides, close ups of women’s bouncing breasts and bodies, as well as footage of the women competing, still wearing lingerie. 

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"In a world where lesbians are harassed and attacked for our sexuality, for not being available to men, this is a dangerous game to play with lesbian lives."

Honey Birdette have released their latest advertising campaign, set to coincide with the Sydney Mardi Gras festival. The campaign depicts an orgy, featuring naked men and women whose bodies are painted in the Pride colours. Many of the women included are headless, but their naked breasts made it into the frame. Below is a censored image of the campaign:

Honey Birdette has consistently delivered sexist and pornified representations of women to flog their overpriced lingerie and sex toys, ignoring 42 Ad Standards rulings against it for violating the code of ethics. But far from promoting equality, the company’s long history of porn-inspired depictions of lesbian sexuality further entrenches sexist and harmful stereotypes of lesbians as male entertainment, and these latest images will likely be enjoyed by men. 

Lesbians condemn Honey Birdette rainbow-washing

A number of lesbians have responded to Honey Birdette’s ad campaign, calling the company out for tokenising and fetishising lesbians to promote their brand.

“If there's no difference between a female nipple and a male nipple why are all but one of the visible nipples female? Using lesbians as titillation is not unusual, the pornographers have been doing it for decades. But in the real world real lesbians are tortured for our activism; real lesbians are subjected to corrective rape; and in the real world when a lesbian is raped or tortured she doesn't get to say stop. Not only are you continuing the sexualising of women, you are giving mixed messages with images of a mixed orgy.”

-Susan Hawthorne, lesbian activist and writer

“Lesbians have fought for centuries for society to understand that lesbian sexuality is not for or about men, resisting the harassment, fetishisation, corrective rape and physical attacks that lesbians here and around the world have experienced. Honey Birdette has developed a campaign that is heavily reliant on the sexualisation of lesbian bodies and the presentation of lesbian sexuality. The argument that there is no difference between male and female nipples is meaningless in a world that sexualises women so consistently.

“Calling the campaign ‘Fluid’ combined with the presentation of objectified, sexually available lesbians clearly communicates to the men watching that lesbian sexuality is fluid enough for lesbians to be sexually available to them. In a world where lesbians are harassed and attacked for our sexuality, for not being available to men, this is a dangerous game to play with lesbian lives.

“Framing opposition as conservative is to miss the point of our concerns. It is neither puritanical nor conservative to want to carve out space for lesbians to exist free of tokenism or sexual objectification in a deeply sexualised society. This campaign sells out lesbian sexuality for profit, which is not excused by the fact that Honey Birdette’s founder and her partner are the women in the shoot.

“We all want to live in a world where lesbians are safe, where lesbian lives are celebrated and where lesbian representation gives hope and strength to young lesbians working out their sexuality. Honey Birdette’s Fluid campaign takes us further away from that world.”

-Liz Waterhouse, Listening2Lesbians https://listening2lesbians.com/"

"This type of advertising further entrenches the straight-male fetishisation of lesbians, which is a huge problem. Lesbians are seen as sexual objects who are still sexually and romantically available for men (largely as a result of the pornification of lesbians and their romantic relationships) and this type of advertising only reinforces this. It also plays into homophobia by reducing gay and lesbian relationships to sex without any meaningful emotional connection - a long-held homophobic view that assumes only straight relationships can be 'real' or 'meaningful."

-Felicity, lesbian

Another poorly received PR stunt for Honey Birdette

This is not the first time Honey Birdette has attempted to capitalise on a social movement or political issue for PR purposes. In 2017, the company staged a pro-same sex marriage demonstration- a lingerie flash mob featuring models wearing Honey Birdette products and holding signs like “I heart HB”. The move was rightly slammed on social media, with one user describing the stunt as a “money grab” that was “worse than the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad”. ABC’s Media Watch described the apparent marketing ploy as “a pretty obvious attempt to hijack an issue for commercial reasons”.

Comments on Honey Birdette's Instagram account indicate the campaign has not been well received. Commenters have questioned the company's motives, labelling the marketing ploy as "insincere" and "disingenuous", and accusing the company of 'rainbow washing', a term which refers to corporates using rainbow colours or imagery to indicate support for the LGBT community but with a minimum of effort or pragmatic result. 

"This is more selling sex than solidarity."

"If you swapped the homosexuals for heterosexuals I am positive you could still not this image in your Australian stores. #notaboutlgbti"

"Orgy, perfect body's, white race, no underwear. What the f*** is this? Diversity? LGBT? Doesn't look like it at all. I think it is more a slap in the face to the community." (sic)

"I don't think this shows anyone wearing honey birdette so I don't get why you have it as an advertisement other than to hope on the bandwagon of attempting to profit off pride when you can't be bothered to do anything else for equality or diversity with your company" (sic)

"...this seems very insincere and a fake attempt at selling equality. I'm seeing through the bs." (sic)

"Meanwhile you donated a measly $10,000 to QueerStories? A HB bra costs around $140. This feels much more like HB attempting to hijack a social movement to boost their own image."

"They aren't promoting true diversity since everyone just seem to have western facial features and they all have certain body figure...this isn't a promotion of diversity, it's just one of mere commercials." (sic)

See also:

Female Empowerment? Why Feminism Deserves Better than Honey Birdette- ABC Religion and Ethics

Collective Shout responds to common defences of Honey Birdette sexploitation- Collective Shout

Honey Birdette's crusade to pornify the public space- Collective Shout

Honey Birdette falsehoods exposed : A Current Affair publishes our statement correcting baseless claims- Collective Shout

Racist, sexist: why porn mags had to go

The last issue of the Picture magazine to ever hit shelves

On September 26 2019, I walked into the Park Street Sydney offices of Bauer Media Group, to meet with its CEO.

This moment had been a long time in the making.

In 2010 I wrote an expansive piece on the nature of porn titles in convenience stores - and the failure of our classification system to regulate them - for the ABC.

That same year as part of Collective Shout’s campaign against lad’s mag Zoo, I wrote this piece, ‘Because all women must be brought to their knees’, also for the ABC. Our campaign saw Zoo pulled from Coles five years ago – thanks to the help of a young Coles employee who, with support of her union, told Coles it was creating a “hostile workplace environment” by requiring young women like herself to sell the magazine and to see boys ogling the magazines in store. Coles subsequently pulled the title, which was “catastrophic for sales” and saw publication cease in 2015 (Zoo  devoted its final cover to us).

In 2019, we revived the campaign, this time focusing on The Picture and People Magazine.  The renewed campaign was prompted by my colleague Melinda Liszewski walking into a 7-Eleven store to get a Coke, when confronted with the headline “X-RATED AUSSIE TEENS 18 & 19-YEAR OLDS STRIP”  on the cover of  People Magazine. Our campaigns team spent many hours going through the titles. We discovered the fetishizing of schoolgirls, encouraging sexual fantasies for “fresh young flesh”, the extolling of nurses and female tennis players as existing for male gratification and pleasure and racially eroticized Asian women.  We asked how content like this could be permitted in a society that claimed to care about the status of women. We made the point that a sexist culture was grooming sexist boys and that these titles were normalizing that idea.

Our rapid-fire social media campaign highlighting the content and the failure of 7-Eleven to exercise corporate social responsibility, along with correspondence with the CEO, resulted in 7-Eleven pulling porn titles Picture and People from 700 stores three weeks later. BP soon followed, removing the titles from 350 servos. Then Bauer Media Group’s CEO Brendon Hill offered a meeting. He had good news. Only in the role a few months, he agreed with our views that these titles were inconsistent with Bauer’s core values and pro women position statements. It was a positive exchange. We commend Brendon for his actions.

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Ultra Tune has launched its latest "unexpected situations" TV ad to advertise its roadside assistance service. The ad, a knock-off of 1990’s action drama Baywatch, opens with Warwick Capper ogling Pamela Anderson who starred in the series from 1992-1997.

This is the latest in a long series of Ultra Tune ads routinely depicting women as vacuous, incompetent and sexually objectified for men’s entertainment.

Collective Shout was inundated with complaints about the ad and have compiled a list of reasons to boycott Ultra Tune. 

Women whose cars break down- especially at night or in regional locations- don’t feel secure knowing some employee whose company oozes sexism is the one turning up to help.

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After a decade of Collective Shout campaigning against Wicked Campers sexist and degrading slogans and imagery, we are excited to announce our calls for uniform legislation across the country to deregister offending Wicked vehicles have been heard. Wicked Campers with offensive slogans will be banned from registration in all states and territories under a new plan signed off on at a national meeting of transport ministers.

According to The Advertiser, each state agreed to deregister vans that did not remove offensive slogans following a complaint, and to ensure the van could not be re-registered in another jurisdiction. This national approach would ensure this problem would be solved once and for all.

Katrine Hildyard, Labor’s shadow spokeswoman for the Status of Women said in a statement:

“together with women’s advocacy organisations including Collective Shout and the YWCA, domestic violence services and a range of other groups, we have been campaigning for a long time (for) the Marshall Liberal Government to pass our legislation to rid our roads of Wicked Camper Vans which promote violence against women. They have to date refused to do so.

“Whilst their actions are long overdue, I am glad to hear that Stephan Knoll has finally listened and is beginning to understand how wrong it is to use language which disrespects women and promotes violence against women.”

Thank you for standing with us and speaking out. We couldn't have done it without you!  

Not sexually suggestive, but is sexually suggestive. Just two women posing in their underwear, but also two women in sexy lingerie expressing their sexuality.  

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General Pants has a long history of using sexist and sexually objectifying advertising to sell its merchandise. Their latest ad campaign, in store windows across the country, shows that nothing much has changed.

This is not the first time General Pants has sexually objectified women, or used topless women to promote their products. The youth retailer first came to our attention after featuring pole dancers in their shop window display in Melbourne's Bourke Street store.

In 2011, General Pants management instructed underage staff to wear “I love sex” badges that made them feel embarrassed and uncomfortable.

General Pants then displayed large images of topless women being stripped from behind by an unseen man. Some of these images were framed as large keyholes to suggest the women were being spied on.

 

A short time later, a supporter alerted us to the store’s change room wallpaper, featuring an array of images advertising pornography and prostitution.

In 2014, General Pants window displays featured sexualised images of young, bikini clad women in the bath alongside the slogan ‘Wet Dreams’.

In 2016, their advertising featured topless and semi-naked women alongside fully clothed men.

The research is clear- exposure to these sort of everyday sexualised images of women has a range of negative impacts, including greater body dissatisfaction and self-objectification in women, greater support of sexist beliefs and a greater tolerance of violence against women, as well as leading both men and women to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality and humanity.

The ongoing sexualising and objectifying treatment of women by companies like General Pants contributes to real-world harms for women and girls- why is this advertising still permitted?

Ad industry self-regulation in Australia is a failure. In the lead up to the election, we are calling on supporters to contact their local candidates and ask them to support a new regulatory regime to ensure public spaces are free from sexualised and sexually objectifying images that harm women and children.

See also:

Write to your MP

General Pants sexploitation undermines anti-violence against women initiatives

25 Reasons Why Ad Industry Self-Regulation is a Disaster