There is an ongoing debate about what is extremely racist, sexist, or offensive to women’s and human rights in general. It is usually easy to spot the really offensive material as little effort is made to mask it, but sometimes, the negative material works only on our subconscious minds, and it would require putting the knowledge gained through analysing gender roles and thinking critically beyond the simple obvious to spot it. The BabyBotte ad by [...]

Picture a society ruled by its complexes and taboos. Imagine that some of its major complexes are related to women, especially women having sex. The women of this society cannot be sexual creatures; it is not uncommon or shocking for a woman to be killed – a victim of an honor crime – due to having acted upon her sexuality and had pre or extramarital sex. The women of this society cannot discuss sex and [...]

I’m looking for someone to explain to me how a pair of jeans can be translated into something so different between men and women. This musing was brought about by DT and their incessant advertising. I find it fascinating how DT jeans can turn a regular man into someone that can take on the world, and on the other hand turns a regular woman into nothing but some sexy “piece of ass.” In the advertisement [...]

When I first saw these ads, I was infuriated. Really? This is what human beings have boiled down to? Are we really nothing more than a walking army of mannequins? We live in a society where we are not defined by our personalities, nor  thoughts, nor beliefs, nothing that “pointless.” It is what we wear and how we wear it has become our identity. This ad has so many subliminal messages that have become so [...]

“Beauty is rare and hard to achieve.” This is the message the Nader Saab Clinic conveys to women in Lebanon. Billboards announcing this slogan span the Beirut roads, all the way from the airport to the hospital itself in Adonis. Nader Saab is a plastic surgery clinic that whose major profits are a result of the social pressure on women to look “beautiful,” and this specific ad is the perfect reflection of that. “Beauty is [...]

By Sahar Mandour   I remember the day I gave mom an orange juicer for Mother’s Day. I hadn’t reached maturity yet, and I did not have confidence in my ability to pick out presents. I asked around within my surroundings, and those surrounding me based their thoughts on the ideas that advertisements were flooding the country with, and threw their consequent suggestions at me. I didn’t feel particularly creative while buying the juicer… Still, [...]

Listen to McDonalds Sexist Ad “Mjaddra” is traditionally eaten during Christian Lent because it contains no meat and no dairy. I guess McDonald’s wanted to let their customers (straight males only, apparently!) know that they also have a variety of fish (which is OK to eat during Lent), brown or blonde available. And I guess someone at their ad agency had the genius (NOT!) idea of associating fish with mermaid, et voila, an equation is [...]

Four different “retro” women have taken over the streets of Beirut, and have headed all the way out of the capital to the northern city of Tripoli. On billboards. Each of these ladies bears a description over her head: “Tasty,” “Entertaining,” “Sweet/Good-looking,” “New.” Despite the fact that the teaser advertisement gave the impression that the product being marketed was a woman herself, we decided not to be biased or prejudge, and wait to see who [...]

This is tragic. This is not comic. According to Communication Sciences, every sentence, every image, carries one specific meaning, or several meanings. Daily, we are exposed to a large number of different messages on the television, radio, internet, billboard advertisements on the street, and conversations we partake in, among others. Generally, we are most exposed and prone to being affected by and processing messages, whether consciously or subconsciously, when our minds are in states of [...]

Within sociology, ‘discrimination’ in general, is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. Discrimination is the actual behavior towards members of another group. It involves excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to other groups.(1) Moral philosophers have defined it as disadvantageous treatment or consideration. Currently, discrimination based on sex is defined as adverse action against another person, which would not [...]