Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sriram on November 13, 2015, 09:27:50 AM
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article of today about some ads in the US that are controversial......
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/12/what-a-creepy-bloomingdales-ad-tells-us-about-americas-understanding-of-rape/
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A woman is laughing, head tossed back, focused on something over her right shoulder. A man stares at her, unsmiling. The caption reads: Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking.
This advertisement, part of Bloomingdale's new holiday catalog, inspired instant backlash on the Web.
“And what is this?” she asked. “Some kind of business function they’re attending? This is the way we’re going to treat women in the workplace?”
The photo is perfect, she said, for a lecture about consent.
“It’s sending the message that it is it okay to have sex with people who are incapable of consent," she said. "These are decisions that should be made consciously and willingly.”
The conversation around America’s rape problem roared this year, as the Department of Education investigated at least 106 universities for their handling of sexual violence reports.
Following pressure from activists nationwide, California recently became the first state to adopt an affirmative consent policy, requiring students on public campuses to get permission at every stage of a sexual encounter. Roughly 1,400 places of higher education, now use some type of “yes means yes” standard in their sexual assault policies, according to the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management.
Bloomingdale's is the second large company this year to face accusations of promoting rape. In April, an ill-fated Bud Light label went viral: “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.”
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Cheers.
Sriram
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Not sure how American ads are moderated - is it on a state-by-state basis?, but I'd be surprised if the UK's Advertising Standards Association would allow such things to be shown more than once or twice; the outcry would be so strong.
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In response to Op:
Wtf? >:(
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I don't watch any ads, but I am sure they are not intended to promote rape in the US or anywhere else! ::)
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Did you look at it? It's difficult to conclude anything else.
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Did you look at it? It's difficult to conclude anything else.
It is in bad taste, but I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as promoting rape!
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It's saying that it is ok, Floo. That it's ok to roofie the drink of a friend or colleague, and implied in that is that it is ok to then rape her. Do you think that is right?
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It's saying that it is ok, Floo. That it's ok to roofie the drink of a friend or colleague, and implied in that is that it is ok to then rape her. Do you think that is right?
What's roofie?
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Adding a date rape drug such as rohypnol.
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I am going to agree with Floo on this one. If you rink Sriram's link, it goes on to say:
Jean Kilbourne, the filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary series "Killing Us Softly: America’s Image of Women," said the catalog "shows how deep these attitudes run and how subconscious they are, really."
She added, "I doubt the person who created this was consciously thinking about sexual assault. Male or female, whoever it was who came up with this — and the many people who okayed it — just don't get it.
Essentially Jean Kilbourne is stirring up offence & trouble where none was intended.
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I am going to agree with Floo on this one. If you rink Sriram's link, it goes on to say:
Jean Kilbourne, the filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary series "Killing Us Softly: America’s Image of Women," said the catalog "shows how deep these attitudes run and how subconscious they are, really."
She added, "I doubt the person who created this was consciously thinking about sexual assault. Male or female, whoever it was who came up with this — and the many people who okayed it — just don't get it.
Essentially Jean Kilbourne is stirring up offence & trouble where none was intended.
Accidental or not, unintentional or not "spiking a drink" has only one meaning and no-one should be stupid enough to claim that using it was accidental!
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Agreed.
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Did you look at it? It's difficult to conclude anything else.
It is in bad taste, but I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as promoting rape!
It's not that it' promoting rape, it's the apparent normalisation of rape.
In fact, spiking somebody's drink with alcohol just to get them a bit drunk so you can have a laugh is bad enough. Spiking somebody's drink so you can have sex with them is totally unacceptable and joking about it shouldn't happen.
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Spot on, Jeremy.
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Did you look at it? It's difficult to conclude anything else.
It is in bad taste, but I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as promoting rape!
It's not that it' promoting rape, it's the apparent normalisation of rape.
In fact, spiking somebody's drink with alcohol just to get them a bit drunk so you can have a laugh is bad enough. Spiking somebody's drink so you can have sex with them is totally unacceptable and joking about it shouldn't happen.
Agreed - but the pictrure on this ad does not suggest "hav[ing] a laugh."
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Rape and India.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/india-rape-documentary-udwin/index.html
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Rape and India.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/india-rape-documentary-udwin/index.html
I suppose it would be inevitable.
It seems whenever Sriram posts anything, somebody else has to post something about how its so much worse in India as if that makes the thing Sriram posted about excusable.
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Rape and India.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/india-rape-documentary-udwin/index.html
I suppose it would be inevitable.
It seems whenever Sriram posts anything, somebody else has to post something about how its so much worse in India as if that makes the thing Sriram posted excusable.
indeed, it is sad that someone would use rape in this way to pursue some irrelevant personal vendetta.
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Rape and India.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/india-rape-documentary-udwin/index.html
I suppose it would be inevitable.
It seems whenever Sriram posts anything, somebody else has to post something about how its so much worse in India as if that makes the thing Sriram posted excusable.
Agreed
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Rape and India.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/india-rape-documentary-udwin/index.html
I suppose it would be inevitable.
It seems whenever Sriram posts anything, somebody else has to post something about how its so much worse in India as if that makes the thing Sriram posted excusable.indeed, it is sad that someone would use rape in this way to pursue some irrelevant personal vendetta.
Agreed
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Thanks... Jeremyp and NS! Nice of you to point that out. :)