Sunday, July 24, 2011

Feminist Foot Soldiers Fire on Rogers Cup Ad

An Ad agency for Rogers came up with the slogan "Come for the Ladies.  Stay for the Legends."  to promote the fact that there was a Legends game with four retired legends of men's tennis after the women's tournament.  I'm sure that they went over this a million times before they released the ads.  I can imagine the conversation in the executive meetings:
"Are you sure that this is making it clear that the women's game is the focus?" 
"Of course!  It's clear that we want people to come to see the ladies, but they get to see a friendly legends game as a bonus."

It should have come as no surprise that the legions of the feminism industry would jump up at any misconceptions they might have and cause an uproar.  It is clear that they are simply looking for something to be angry about instead of giving serious thought to the issue.  But, like any standing army, they are constantly looking for a battle to test there mettle. 

The Rogers Cup quickly backed down from the clearly unwinnable war.  I would have been impressed if a corporation as big and important, at least in Canada, stood behind its campaign, but the trigger-happy feminist army is not one to trifle with.  Rogers has plenty of female clients whose money it truly cares for.

The company, apparently has no qualms about offending its male clientele - nobody does.  OneSTDV has a post about male-bashing commercials with plenty of examples to choose from.  Rogers has run similar adds for its wireless division that depict women as know-it-all-leading-edge-tech-savvy while their male counterparts are bumbling juvenile morons.  One ad that sticks out in my mind, shows a girl on a bus-trip sharing videos with her friends on her wireless devices.  "The guys laughed at me for bringing my devices on the trip,"  she explains.  It depicts the guys on the trip as goof-balls, laughing hysterical at the mundane movie on the bus's video screen, while the clever girls lap up the latest entertainment on her Ipad.  I can't find a video link but here are a couple of mentions I've found, so you don't think I'm making it up.

So, on one hand, you have blatantly bad images of men ubiquitously strewn about the world of advertising, and barely a peep.  On the other hand, one message that can be deliberately misinterpreted and spun into something marginally sexist causes an uproar. 

Recently, I posited that one reason that it is ok to blame parents for awful crimes perpetrated against their children is the lack of a "childrenism" movement.  Obviously, children do not have the ability to speak up for themselves, so, they rely on child advocates who basically shame parents into becoming helicopter parents.  Feminism has legions of soldiers ready to shame society into behaving in whatever manner feminism suggests is acceptable and believing that their mantras are gospel.  Corporate advertisers are constantly attacked for any slight that may be perceived (real or imagined).  But, the Men's Rights Movement(MRM) has been slow to recruit members, so, there are no campaigns waged and no fearful advertisers.

I, for one, have been slow to identify myself with the MRM because it seems to devolve into women bashing a little too much for my tastes.  When I discovered the-spearhead.com, it was a revelation.  But, after awhile, I realized that some of the notions were as biased against women as gender-feminism is against men.  I value the opinions expressed and the free exchange of ideas that the site and its founders enable and I fully support the many good opinions expressed.  However, things are just not bad enough for men to create a group of MRA's large enough to cause a stir in the media.  I hope the pendulum doesn't swing that far.

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