Goodwill to all women? I don't think so.

I first saw this advert from the window of a train and immediately felt my fists clench with anger, annoyed that there was no one around to whom I could express my disgust. Surely it was a boardroom full of men that came up with this 'clever' play on the traditional Christian Christmas greeting, 'Peace on earth and goodwill to all men'? Actually to say 'men' is unfair to all the men who find this billboard equally distasteful...so I will correct myself and say, 'non-gender-specific misogynists'. I wouldn't want you to liken me to Dworkin after all.

Now, I'm not going to start a rant about the political correctness of the original phrase (given the time at which it was written - about a bazillion years ago at biblical o' clock - we can understand, if not forgive, the use of the gender specific label of 'men'). However, I find it incredibly offensive that, in 2008, after the suffragettes and the women's rights movement and the Pill and Margaret Thatcher, in an age where we have established that women play an equal part in war and peace and sickness and health and the general turning of the world on its axis, we are STILL being oppressed, not by the government or the law, but by bloody advertising companies!!!!!! The pure audacity of it gets to me more than anything. The assumption that if you are a woman, you must be concerned about dieting, weight gain and your appearance, because you are so bloody imperfect and must conform to this ridiculous society-enforced Agyness Deyn-style waif-like beauty.

For one thing, the assumption is ridiculously untrue. For every woman with a body hang-up, there will be a man who feels the same - they are just better at hiding it because society has made it unacceptable for a man to munch on a Kit Kat Senses bar rather than a Chunky. This is just the latest in a long line of campaigns, which aim to make money off the back of people's insecurities. As much as this is very much a part of 21st century life, at least make it about EVERYONE'S insecurities and stop forcing it down women's throats 24/7. No wonder eating disorders are rising year on year - we need to stop making gender specific propaganda like this socially acceptable!

As much as I would like to think that this idea was created by a boardroom full of sexist pigs, the likelihood is that is was an intelligent woman who realised that this was going to be so massively offensive that it would create far more publicity than something which did not outrage half the population. Clever it might be, socially responsible it definitely is not.

Tempted?

So you might have seen this advert around...



And although the guy's eyes made me scream in fear the first time I saw it, I'll admit that despite it's incredibly sexist connotations (hey, Lynx have got to stay true to their roots, right?), it's pretty funny and an excellent bit of advertising - certainly better than most of the drivel that get pumped out in between programmes.

However, what puzzles me is the ideas that it pushes - basically, women love chocolate - and often say it is 'Better Than Sex', so why not make men smell like chocolate so women will want to shag them? There seems to be something missing here - they idea of a man smelling of sugary cocoa makes me want to vomit, and although I'm not the biggest chocolate fan in the world, this product seems extremely similar to the chocolate scented room spray that they sell in Thornton's, which is a less-than-appealling prospect.

Chocolate is what women (supposedly) turn to in those times when men have let them down, or maybe they want some self-indulgent time alone. In my experience, men and chocolate rarely go together - except perhaps as the buyers of said chocolate. It's a mystery to me where Lynx did their market research, and although I wouldn't say this was a 'badvert', if my boyfriend turned up smelling like chocolate I'd feel a bit sick .

On a more serious note, this is just one of many Lynx adverts that are so excellently executed that people laugh and ignore the extremely sexist ideas within - if you watch the above, you will notice that women in this advert, as in most Lynx adverts, are simple beings that are easily netted by a 'nice smell'. Interesting.

Anyway, in spite of all of this, enjoy:


Edit: I watched it again and now have a niggling 'this is racist' feeling in my tum...

'So advanced, it's simple'. And apparently, so are you.

Apparently, 1 in 4 women can misread a traditional pregnancy test, so they invented this one. It says 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant' on the screen so there are "No more lines to interpret." (www.clearblueeasy.com). I'm sure you've all seen the advert.

Hang on, let's rewind for a moment, shall we?

One in four women can't tell the difference between one line, and two lines. Or line and no line. Or a line and a cross, depending on the test. Apparently the first wave of feminism never reached those nice folks at Clear Blue - maybe we should inform that, astoundingly, women have the same - yes, exactly the same - level of intelligence as men. Although, if the men in question are advertising executives, perhaps the human race will soon be riddled with unwanted pregnancies and stupid people being born thereafter.