20 February 2012

Campaign launched against Tui beer ads

Auckland group Feminist Action has launched a campaign to get Tui to withdraw sexist beer ads featuring its all-female brewery.

“These ads are retro-sexist”, says Feminist Action spokeswoman Leonie Morris. “They mimic tired old sexist attitudes in an ironic way. They are funny only to people who are happy to laugh at put-downs of women.”

The Tui brewery ads feature women in skimpy clothes and sexualised poses, who are relentlessly depicted as more stupid than the dorky group of men who try to infiltrate the brewery.

“The ads say that men should judge women just on how they look, that women are stupid and that it’s okay to laugh at them,” says Ms Morris.

Retro-sexist beer ads promote a form of mateship that dismisses women’s concerns and trivialises relationships with women.

“Demeaning women in these ads is harmful whether the ads are funny or not. Valuing women only for how they look has a corrosive effect on women’s sense of self-worth. Men who demean women like this are more likely to be violent to them, and we have a huge problem with violence against women in New Zealand.”

“Women have been protesting against these kinds of ads for decades, and a lot of women feel silenced because they’re now so common,” she says. Young members of Feminist Action particularly wanted to campaign against them. “It’s not okay to make sexist, racist or homophobic jokes.”

The campaign will use Facebook, an online petition and other social media to gain support and put pressure on Tui owner, DB Breweries, to drop the ads.

Auckland Feminist Action is a new group acting on persistent inequalities between women and men in New Zealand.

ENDS

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