In These 13 Ads, Women And Men Have Switched Places To Draw Attention To Sexism In The Media

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by Amanda Froelich at trueactivist.com

 

“If any of these photos of sexualized men make you uncomfortable, then now you know how I, and many women, feel looking at billboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, and all kinds of media every day.”

The issue of sexism in the media is gaining a lot of attention lately. Just last week, True Activistshared some abrupt advertisements exposing how women are commonly objectified in widely seen advertisements.

This week, another artist is speaking out about how women’s bodies are exploited to sell various products and ideas.

In a series shared with Bored Panda, photographer Callie Compton stated:

“The problem of sexism in advertising and media in general is widespread and dangerous. This practice of separating a woman’s body from her mind and making her into individual body parts to be used and sexualized is all too common in our society.

I can respect that advertising is an art in and of itself, however; it is one thing to use the human body for art, and another to use nudity to exploit and demean an entire gender and sell products. Don’t get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with nudity. The human body is beautiful, but should be celebrated NOT sexualized. If any of these photos of sexualized men make you uncomfortable, then now you know how I, and many women, feel looking at billboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, and all kinds of media every day.”

In the advertisements below, men and women have switched places to show how common it has become for popular brands and businesses to exploit the female body.

All the images belong to Callie Compton (2014-2015), who reserves ALL rights to their use.

Based On A PETA Ad

Credit:

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On An Ad For BMW

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On An American Apparel Ad

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On A Calvin Klein Jeans Ad

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On A Tom Ford Ad

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On An Ad For BMW

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On D&G Ads

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On An Editorial Ad

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On The Vogue Shoot w/ Keira Knightley And Natalie Portman

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Concept From Photographers And Models

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On D&G Ads

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On A YSL Ad

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

Based On A Vogue Italia Cover

Credit: Callie Compton

Credit: Callie Compton

What are your thoughts on these ads? Comment below and please share this news!


This article (In These 13 Ads, Women And Men Have Switched Places To Draw Attention To Sexism In The Media) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under aCreative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

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20 COMMENTS

  1. so why should those photos make anybody feel uncomfortable? if you have a problem looking at a male Body maybe you need to check yourself

      • These pictures don’t make me at all uncomfortable either. Most seemed normal and I would have believed if the editor said they were a real ad. Apparently there wasn’t much of a point to make after all.

      • All of the pictures didn’t load, but the rest are just normal pictures of the kind I see every day. I think one of the problems postmodern feminism are facing is that it’s projecting human problems and injustice on only one sex. Objectification of the male body is just as widespread as objectification of the female body.

  2. No looking at the males doesn’t make most people uncomfortable. At least these women models have jobs they don’t seem to mind doing it and i’m sure they are getting compensated better than most Americans, maybe you should go get a real one and contribute to the economy instead of writing more ridiculous articles everyday.

    • Because what’s most important in life is contributing to the economy!…Life doesn’t need to be sad and meaningless you know

  3. Well, since it’s up for open debate…. No way these ads would make it to publication. These men are nowhere near hot enough. Their bodies and positions are not enough. And their bodies are nowhere near good enough. Jeez, whatever happened to photoshop? Where are all the unrealistic depictions of what a mans body should look like? No one is going to be upset by this because they actually look like regular people.

  4. I particularly like how they chose evacuated men. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable it just makes it clear how ridiculous ads make women look and how unrealistic ads are. The ones with women sitting on men reading while they lie around like a lazy ass are fairly accurate though. I think most ads are simply male projections of their own issues. They want women small and submissive because I fact they feel small and powerless.

  5. As a women, I feel it’s also a woman’s choice as to how she may be being portrayed. Advertising & media is a fairyland anyway. What person with any intelligence would take what they are putting out there as anything other than a ridiculous falseness / fantasy? Educating an audience begins with parenting, social circles, and our education system. If as a society we are mounding balanced humans… this sh*t won’t even phase them as anything more than it is. Pictures of pretty people doing silly things.

  6. We live in a society foul of hypocrisy and prudery. Here an example:
    We find nowadays, almost naked women, dressed lightly with bikinis or showing the most part of their bodies as (very) normal, even we say that shows a strong personality of the person, but… we considered the breast of a mother feeding her baby, inappropriate, allowed only in restrooms or foully covered.
    I have nothing against the woman’s body which I admire, respect and love. Simply I don’t understand all the hypocritical view from things that had to do normal with “common sense”.
    Reading the article, what I see is, that the woman today became the man, and the man is castrated.

  7. Sex sell
    men and women like to look at sexy men and women

    The only thing I find slightly annoying is the mock outrage people feel they have to express.

    • Yes sex sells – that’s the catch cry we always hear from people when they are defending the objectification of women in advertising.

      My question to this is – why is it always only one way traffic then? Last time I looked sex involved both men and women, but it’s generally only women, who are constantly being exploited and objectified to ‘supposedly’ sell the products.

      No, when people say sex sells, what they really mean is that it’s the sexual objectification of women’s bodies that sells, female subordination and sexual exploitation sell, and that my friend is wrong on so many levels.

  8. I find this article amazing! I could have written it! This is so true. I am so tired of seeing objectified and sexualized images of women everywhere! The female body is instrumentalized to sell EVERYTHING from cars to scissors and seasonal football tickets! You can find a semi-naked/naked sexualized image of a young woman with sexually pleasing figure (according to our western mainstream standards) pretty much everywhere these days!!

    To point out something though. Many people watching these photos might miss the point BECAUSE unlike female bodies, male bodies are not sexualized in our (mainstream) culture AND exposing a male breast for example hardly causes the same effect in the audience as it does when a woman’s breast is exhibited. The “sexualized” parts of a male body are very few and non-mainstream, maybe the bum, neck & lips and mostly in gay or trans subcultures …

    But in any case, this article does help in making the very important point, which we need to acknowledge in order to stop this circle objectification and its’ negative effects in our Western societies and even world wide.

  9. The only thing uncomforting to me, as a woman, was the mediocre models used.. Men and women are both sexualized, obviously though, women are used more often.. But if they would’ve used attractive and fit men and the pictures were more professional and of a better quality this wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary at all. Sometimes we miss the mark.. The issue isn’t that sex is used to sell things (is it redundant? Omg yes.) but the models aren’t forced to partake- they are paid EXTREMELY well, specifically when you’re referring to the brands that were mimicked. The real issue is that everyone thinks that their opinion still matters when concerning things that have no direct affect on their lives. This personally has nothing to do with me, so if I don’t like it, then I don’t buy what they’re advertising. I vote with my money. Simple.
    And lastly, if you’re crying that the woman’s body and mind have been separated because of risqué ads and men don’t respect women for more than their sexuality and bodies, then that is an issue with how that man was raised and his morals, which is a way bigger problem within our society than what is on billboards and in magazines, just saying.

  10. I wish I knew how to include a picture because I was just having this discussion over a picture of Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr that offended my male friend.

    I said to my friend, “Imagine if you had to see images like this one everywhere every day of your life, like 100 times a day and the message of the images were reinforced by ALL of your female lovers throughout your life who said things to you ‘Male bodies are beautiful. I’d love to see you and another hot guy touch each other. That’s totally normal and natural – the way God intended sex to be. You should be attracted to other guys and their hot bodies. Aren’t you attracted to Tom? Or Mike? They’re both so hot. You would look amazing naked with either of them. So how about it? Wanna plan a threesome sometime?’ How would you like THAT to be the NORM for your life?” He was taken aback to say the least.

    I wish I could show you the amazing photo. There’s no nudity but it’s INCREDIBLY sensual and erotic. It’s hard to believe they’re not lovers. It’s one of the most erotic photos I’ve ever seen of two people in my whole life, regardless of their genders. The photographer got very lucky. Wish I knew who to credit and I hope its not a photo-shopped hoax but I don’t think it is. I’ve been looking for weeks for info about it and can’t find any. It’s strange but it’s great. Sorry I can’t post it.

  11. I think everyone might be a little confused with the difference between sexism and sexy or sensual. There is nothing wrong with sex
    or being sensual. There is something wrong with a marketing strategy that uses the degrading of a man’s or woman’s sexuality. The pictures were supposed to point that out and look somewhat ridiculous.
    What’s really scary is that this seems to be accepted as the norm. People want to comment and argue that these models aren’t sexy or that this is threatening. Rape is not making love, and being degraded is not being sexy.

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