Distracted Boyfriend meme is sexist, rules Swedish ad watchdog

perplexedm · 2018-09-26T10:31:15+00:00

It also shows degrading stereotypical gender roles of both men and women and gives the impression men can change female partners as they change jobs.”

Blame it on men, problem solved!

Rudi150594 · 2018-09-26T12:07:11+00:00

Yeah, about a year ago, one of the admins of a local university math Facebook group posted this meme in that group * and some people complained about it heavily, stating they find it sexist because it objectifies women. They insulted everyone who disagreed with them, made sneak edits to their posts after getting replies, added replies after locking their own thread and blamed sexist men for making women in academia uncomfortable.

(Due to the tone of the offended woman that started it all and kept replying, that admin defended himself and out of spite didn't delete the post. But now they're probably much more careful about not offending anyone...)

Some argued that it's just a joke and others that if it it's sexist it's sexist towards men because men are portrayed as dumb / not trustworthy / always horny, but of course they continued ranting about it.

What do you think, can jokes be discriminatory? Or would it be more discriminatory if we refrained from making jokes at the expense of groups that get offended by it, because it makes these groups more invisible in comedy? Should stereotypes really not be allowed to be joked about because they reinforce them?

* The guy was "(a + b)² ", his girlfriend "a² + 2ab + b² " and the girl passing by was "a² + b² ", making fun of a common mistake in maths.

thrway_1000 · 2018-09-26T10:30:56+00:00

Archive -- https://archive.is/5qVpF

betadan · 2018-09-26T14:00:33+00:00

So is this also sexist?

https://goo.gl/images/bWAVbH

Maito_Guy · 2018-09-26T23:27:31+00:00

The slightest expression of male sexuality is disgusting and sexist didn't you know? Perving over male window cleaners whilst they enjoy a nice diet coke or peeping at a man getting changed and applying aftershave from behind a two sided mirror is perfectly fine however.

omegaphallic · 2018-09-26T18:44:52+00:00

Censorship, disguisting.

antilopes · 2018-09-27T05:11:15+00:00

I don't agree with the watchdog's reasoning. There are other issues one could mention but they are just a reflection of our society not a reason to complain about the ad.

It would help if someone makes some gender-flipped examples for comparison. If they can't be made exactly symmetrical, that is worth thinking about.

I'd be looking at how ready we are to identify with the distracted party, who in the advert is the jobseeker.

Title	Distracted Boyfriend meme is sexist, rules Swedish ad watchdog
Author	perplexedm
Upvotes	87
Comments	20
Date	September 26, 2018 10:29 AM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/9j1a87/distracted_boyfriend_meme_is_sexist_rules_swedish/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/distracted-boyfriend-meme-is-sexist-rules-swedish.893332 https://theredarchive.com/post/893332

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