An Australian commercial for Snickers is turning the idea of construction workers catcalling at women upside down.
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As many women will tell you, the experience of walking past groups of men in the city can be harrowing. We’ve grown so used to whistles, cat calls, offensive comments about our bodies, and even sexual threats that many of us (especially in the summer) will reflexively stare at the ground or at our phones, or look away, hoping to disappear.
Of course not all groups of guys do this, in fact, most do not (yay good men!!), and more men are speaking out against street harassment, so maybe this type of degradation will soon be a thing of the past.
Now Snickers Australia has turned that stereotype on its head. Women walk by a construction site and the builders yell things out… But not what you’d expect.
Here are my questions: Is it sad that we have this stereotype of construction workers, or is it sad that we’re so shocked to hear supportive messages come in this form… or both?
Also, are we starting to see more serious social change taking place in advertisements?
Also read: Honey Maid’s “Love” Ad Responds To Hate And Makes Me Cry
I agree that this was a missed opportunity. The established pattern in these snickers commercials is that people are all wonky and wrong minded when they’re hungry, and a snickers will set them straight. As others have said, it would have been funny and poignant for the men to be ass***** in the beginning and then act like human beings after eating a snickers bar. Oh well.
If, while walking past a large construction site, you are verbally, sexually harassed, go to the field office on the site, ask for the project superintendent or the E.I.C. (engineer in charge) Some large projects may even have an H.R. person on site. Tell them of the problem, and if you should need to return, you’ll be accompanied by a police officer. I guarantee you, that WILL solve the problem!
So the message here is if you are shouting supportive messages to women it is a sign that you are hungry and once you have a snickers you will be back to your old misogynistic self. Horrible. No more snickers for me.
Teaches bad habits. All construction workers on a building site should be wearing hardhats and reflective gear. What kind of operation do you guys run in Australia? I know you’re used to danger down there, what with so many poisonous creatures all around you (even the platypus has poison!), but give some thought to safety, knowwhatimsaying?
I want to see women to shout to men / the workers … that they appreciate them for donig the hard work they do ( and that no woman wants to do ), that they are really thankfull for risking so much for them and for society etc.p.p !!!
I don’t find this spot to be offensive at all and feel it is quite funny. Humor does not need to be properly aligned to be funny, nor should it be. These gender conversations are getting very tedious in my eyes.
Like others, I think this article misses the point that the ending of this commercial is atrocious. It successfully demeans both men and women and does nothing good whatsoever for the world. Snickers must be happy with the attention but it is simply a superficial attention grabber. Very disappointing.
It would have been so easy to make a vastly less offensive version of this ad. All you’d need to do is start with one of the workers saying something offensive, then have a concerned colleague hand him a Snickers. Once he’s no-longer hungry, the two men go on to yell empowering messages at passers-by. The message is then that the only reason construction workers ever yell offensive messages is because they’re not thinking straight due to hunger and fatigue, and if everyone just ate a Snickers, the world would be a better place. I’m not saying my version is… Read more »
Did they time this for international anti-street harassment week?
http://www.meetusonthestreet.org/
I thought it was funny, but I don’t always look at things through the lens of gender equality. Looking at it through that less, I can see “issues” with the ad. Overall it’s OK. Here is the opposite. A woman going around street harassing men, which I find more problematic on multiple levels. http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/apr/04/everyday-sexism-turn-tables-women-men-video You don’t combat street harassment with street harassment. It assumes that men are incapable of learning about street harassment without being subjected to the harassment. You might be able to justify it if the end benefit is significantly greater than the injustice of the means to… Read more »
Yeah, there was a short film similar to that a couple of months back called Oppressed Majority (well, in French), where it was a MAN who got street harassed and sexually assaulted!
Ha ha! It’s eye-catching because that doesn’t happen to guys, right?! Imagine that, this KERAZZY wacky alternate universe where that doesn’t happen, now let’s make out that this is so unusual in order to show who the *real* victims are -_-
Yeah, I didn’t like that one either, John.
Mostly because of this: Just because I hate it and it’s horrible, doesn’t mean men need to experience it. I don’t want to make men feel what I’ve felt if that has been a bad thing.
That’s why I like this one better. Because it shows how intrusive yelling at strangers is, but it puts some good into the world by saying positive things instead of things that make us feel like worthless pieces of shit.
Neither are perfect, this one is better.
It reinforces the stereotype.
At the end, with the you’re not yourself when you’re hungry, I was seriously disappointed. I’d been smiling all the way through.
Would love if a guy had said something rude in the middle, been fed a Snickers, then joined the positive chorus. That the rude was the guy not being himself.
Yes. Exactly.
YES. That would have been 100% better.
Joanna, how is this not a sexist ad? This ad doesn’t turn cat-calling on its head at all, it actually says at the end that if they ate a snickers and weren’t hungry any more they’d go back to their “normal” selves again. This ad is offensive to men as much as it is offensive to women but for some reason people keep trying to portray it as empowering
Totally agree with Stephen this is a sexist commercial plain and simple.
Yeah, I don’t disagree.
I DO think it turns catcalling on its head but I think it also encourages a stereotype about construction workers. That’s why I mentioned it.
HOWEVER, a lot of women like this because we love the idea of men saying “this is shit. guys have to stop doing this!” and that’s what this ad does in every moment except the last. I agree the last line is terrible.
Wow. Really mixed feelings, based largely on the rest of this campaign. I kinda loved it, until the end, the implication that they were only acting like this because they weren’t “themselves.” It was a mini roller-caster for me. Wanted to hate it, found myself smiling, the, “dafuq?” when the tagline came on.
And yes, the suggestion that construction workers are all like that is way off, though I think it’s just a play on stereotypes that gives “us” a handhold on what experience is being referenced.
All in all, good, but not without its cringe-worthy moments.
I read about this thing a few days ago on Jezebel, and it raised quite a lot of boos and hisses there. The main thrust was that this ad actually does not turn any stereotypes on their head because it does not fail to make clear that respectful behaviour is unnatural for construction workers (which are used as a synecdoche for all men).
In the end some posters pointed out that adressing a strange woman is generally an act of harassment, even if it is merely an inspiring, empowering message.
specifically i* would disagree with you on the specific motif of the construction worker here. all the construction worker is, is someone with total free speech, and they are hungry so they are not themselves. yet there *is a sort of reference to a currently accepted manifestation of that kind of right referenced by this amusing dichotomy