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.