Login to Change.org
Create an Account
Rob F
Stonington, CT
Recent Activity
-
Rob signed the petition | -
Rob commented on the article |Thanks for posting this, Jen. Nothing about rape is funny and celebrities (or anyone else) should be ashamed of themselves for treating it so lightly. I found it interesting how there was a glaring absence of parents with daughters among the signers of that disgusting "free Roman Polanski" petition. It says something about how easily people can compartmentalize and/or ignore reality when it doesn't directly affect themselves.
On a sidenote, someone attempted to rape the high school girl I mentor this past weekend. Fortunately, she takes part in police explorers and was able to use defensive skills to incapacitate him before calling the police. But it still traumatized her, obviously. I worry a bit about what could happen when she goes off to college next year.
-
Rob commented on the article |
My main point, Jen, is that there's a certain "cry wolf" effect that occurs when anything and everything gets protested. Alcohol ads are notoriously ridiculous. There's little to differentiate one product from another, so marketers resort to over-the-top stunts in order to grab attention. It may often be distasteful, but it's generally harmless.
Therefore, if we take even the silliest of things seriously, such as this, it only makes us look overdramatic. And the inevitiable result of being perceived as such is that protests about more meaningful things lose their bite in the minds of the outside world.
-
Rob commented on the article |
This ad isn't any more "dehumanizing" than the plethora of TV shows which portray men as obese idiots, while their wives are both attractive and brilliant. After all, this is the same genre -- alcohol advertising -- that features talking dogs, doltish men who "vent" with their wives (by opening a "vented" can and then ignoring them), etc. Each of these "offenses" clearly occurs within a framework of absurdity which isn't intended to be taken seriously. Thus, getting offended by such material (and especially calling it "dehumanizing") merely diminishes the effect of complaints aimed at material which truly is offensive.
-
Rob commented on the article |
Why do women in the United States even care about an obviously tongue-in-cheek ad campaign that ran in Israel a year ago? To me, this sounds like a case of getting offended for the sake of getting offended.
-
Rob commented on the article |This is spot-on, Jen. The only thing I'd add is a small (but notable) fact to your first bullet point about earning potential: that women now make up nearly 60% of college enrollments nationwide -- with the percentage increasing annually. That trend will undoubtedly have a profound long-term impact spending, since education level obviously affects earning potential.
