Protein World "beach body" adverts

Well mamapants I guess we just have to agree to disagree

Showed my 10 year old dd the ad yesterday and asked what she thought the message was, her thoughts were

"Look at this girl, she has a good body, use these weight loss collection items if you want a body like hers because people will look at you on the beach."

She thinks it's a wrong message and that replacing meals with tablets/shakes isn't a good idea. That people can go to the beach however they look and if someone stares at them, for being fat or thin, they should "keep their beak out" and just enjoy the beach.

Sorry shaska my point wasn't that it is the same thing but more that super thin being the ideal is a recentish phenomenon and that body shaming of all sorts is prevalent in response to the stupid piece by the guardian acting as though fit or thin people are never shamed.

Apparently people are going to protest in Hyde Park. What absolute idiots.

The fact that Protein World's twitter feed is full of misogyny really shows the place that they are coming from.

"In fact I was told only last year in work in an office full of people that their cat had more meat on them than I did. "

Look, I've had stuff like that said to me as well. I also get a lot of the more passive aggressive version which is the head-tilt and 'how do you stay so slim you must eat like a bird' and then trying to force burgers down me or whatever.

I do not for a second think that that compares to how someone who has been, let's say, a size 14 since puberty must feel given the messages they receive, day in, day out, without them even wanting to see them, about what 'attractive' looks like.

That's if you want to be specific about it. If that makes it clearer.

an excellent response, if it hasn't been posted here already

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/protein-world-beach-body-adverts-only-prove-body-shaming-feminist-issue

Following this 'debate' on twitter a bit and even though I wouldn't say the original advert/s necessarily struck me as the worst example of how women are portrayed in the media/objectified etc (although I completely agree that they are an example of a wider issue with regards to this) but the portrayal of people who have issues with it as hysterical leftist/feminazis/radfems who are just jealous of 'gorgeous, fit women' has just infuriated me.

As has the smug arrogance of Protein World's CEO Arjun Seth (ref. his twitter feed).

Well I actually think that being thin has only just become socially acceptable in maybe the last ten years. Certainly when I was in school the general consensus was that thin was bad- the words used were skinny, skin and bone, flat chested, no meat, men like curves, men like something to hold on to blah blah blah. In fact I was told only last year in work in an office full of people that their cat had more meat on them than I did.
I don't see any shaming as being less important Because it's less frequent. And I would say that maybe media images might tell us every day that being thin is better but

I don't agree this image is telling anyone how they should look.

If you honestly can't see that this is exactly what it's doing then you are either willfully blind or....

Yy shashka

People are made to feel shit for all kinds of things it's true.

The difference is in the specific versus the wider cultural norms, the pressures applied, and who is applying the pressure.

It's a bit like when people use the example of the one black man they know who says awful things about white people to say that 'racism works both ways'.

There is a massive difference between an ingrained and pervasive system designed to put down people of colour over hundreds and hundreds of years, and one shitty attitude.

Just as there is a massive difference between some dick telling a thin girl to 'eat a sandwich' and the fact that women have eg been told for decades that to be chubby is to be undesirable, and in fact often, quite disgusting.

Neither example is ok, but they are not at all the same thing.

"I still don't see why a health supplement slimming product company is going to advertise it's product with anything but a slim woman, it is what they are advertising afterall." Well yes they are. Along with all the other images of women doing the same thing.

IF this image was just one of a whole variety of images for women or dietary products etc were aimed equally at men and women for health benefits rather than body image benefits then I think you'd be right.

You are right mamapants, it really doesn't take a lot to shame women about their bodies. It happens all the time. In the hundreds of women's mags, men's mags, newspapers, in sports.

Women are their viewed as a sum of their bodies or what they look like. That is objectification. That is what I'm objecting to.

While I agree that different representations of beauty should appear in the media I still don't see why a health supplement slimming product company is going to advertise it's product with anything but a slim woman, it is what they are advertising afterall.

That article is completely daft.
Of course women (people) can be shamed for all kinds of reasons.
People are shamed and criticised for being thin all the time. Women are shamed for being muscular. Women are shamed for buying into beauty ideals and for not buying into them. For having large breasts and for having small breasts.

You've got it all wrong, scallops. They're saying you should feel confident. They're not selling weight loss products AT ALL.

I never said it was OK shewept. I said the structural imbalance wasn't the way you describe it.

And of course the advert is telling you how you should look. They are saying this is what a beach body looks like. What else are they saying? When a plus size woman models they are saying this is what a plus size woman can look like.

But when you are looking at yet another image of a young, tall, slim, pretty, white model it adds to the systematic promotion of a narrow definition of how women should look. I'm not sure why you don't think that is significant. Do you think it doesn't actually happen? Or it's just a coincidence that advert companies/Page 3/media images of women/actresses have so many images of women that fit that criteria?

Just because it happens to men sometimes doesn't make it OK or doesn't mean that the bombardment of images isn't happening to women.

It's a bit ridiculous to accuse me of trying to shut down argument, shewept, when I've been making the same points over and over again on this thread for the past week.

Amethyst thank you for that link :)

Yes of course, someone writes a poor article for the guardian. End of discussion.

I don't thnk it sums up the thread at all.

This sums up this thread rather well I feel www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/apr/28/fit-shaming-fat-shaming-exact-opposite-protein-world-beach-body

scallop that's where I disagree. I have known many women who feel it's ok to touch up a man. I have even worked with them. I would say the stats show 98% because men generally don't complain. They didn't in the offices I worked in.

I also don't think double standards should be ignored because one group has it worse. Women's rights have been ignored for too long, but allowing it to happen to men or participate in it is not ok, in my opinion. I have a son and a Daughter and want their world to be one of equals. Not 'ah well, it's tough because you are a man or a woman's.

I don't agree this image is telling anyone how they should look. When a plus size model does a photo shoot, they aren't telling all women 'you should be plus size' so I don't get why it isn't the same when the woman is lean.

It does not say you must look like this.

"However I am uncomfortable with the double standard." There is a double standard but it's not in the direction you describe it. It happens far more often to women for a start. All the time. To the extent it isn't even noticed any more. When men speak up e.g. Daniel Craig and say how uncomfortable they feel about the attention they are listened to and sympathised with. Women are told to suck it up. What do they expect?

There is also no pattern of women intimidating and sexually harassing men to the point where they change their behaviour or men (as a class) fear them (98% of sexual violence is committed by men). That dynamic is very much at play when men ogle women.

Again, this advert is just one of many many images telling women how they should look, that how they look is the most important thing about them. I agree that adding to the objectification by commenting on the specifics of this model's body isn't helpful and buying in to the patriarchal norms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her body - it is her body. It is the how the advert company uses that image to sell a standard to women. Again. And again. And again.

frosty its a funny one. Because I don't see anything wrong with admiring someone find attractive. You can do this without making someone unconformable or feeling harassed. However I am uncomfortable with the double standard. A lot of women, in general, have crossed the line Imo.

Also no one is complaining poldark is making men feel inferior. Although I am sure he probably is.