What is a Woman? Advert. The tide is truly turning...

[Appalonia]

"Florida-based watch manufacturer Egard Watches has created an ad spot in defense of biological women’s rights.

What are the details?
The video opens with footage of accomplished women, including female athletes and others, and shows women through the decades and even centuries fighting for equal rights.

"What is a woman?" the female narrator says. "Is women's history of achievements quickly being erased? Is a woman a feminine force of nature? Is a woman a sister, a daughter, a mother? Is a woman the wonder of childbirth?"

"Is a woman a caregiver?" the narrator continues. "Is a woman a warrior who fought for her place?"

The video continues, "Is that now being taken away, soon to be forgotten? Is that not worth protecting? And how long do we sit idly by and not stand for the sacred value of womanhood as it loses all meaning?"

"Because we believe that womanhood is a birthright," the narrator concludes.

What else?
In a statement provided to Blaze Media, Egard CEO Ilan Srulovicz said, “The overwhelming majority of Americans are appalled by Big Tech, Big Business, and Big Government’s coordinated campaign to erase the hard-fought gains earned by untold millions of amazing women in our society."

"Yet, almost nobody is speaking for them," Srulovicz continued. "We crafted an ad campaign that celebrates our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and daughters, and everything they represent to paint a stark contrast to the lies we are all being told."

Srulovicz added, "The push for transgender rights is no longer about equality, it’s now a cleverly-crafted lie that comes at the expense of women. We ask all Americans to join us to speak truth.”

This is a VERY powerful advert

Can any of the women on this thread who love the advert explain to me, please, what you think the words "Gender Critical" mean?

I'm also interested to hear how this advert aligns with gender critical views.

All I see is the same old gender stereotyping (sacred caregiver! feminity on a pedestal!) that I've been fighting against for years now.

And that's without starting on the racism - the first image of a black woman in that video is a negative one. The fact that the couldn't show Serena Williams or Simone Biles as an example of female sporting achievement tells you a lot about where this is coming from politically.

These people are not interested in women's rights, and they are also not interested in the rights of other oppressed classes. This is all about maintaining a status quo in which chaste, caring, feminine white women are held up as the pure ideal of womanhood' and other women despised. In other words - the exact same status quo that feminists should stand against. Women don't win under that status quo, not even the ones who meet the impossible standard.

These people do not have your back.

The TRAs are having a field day on twitter with this picture

While it’s great to see an advert celebrating women’s historical achievements and speaking out against the self-ID nonsense, the advert frames womanhood in stereotypes.

I’m suspicious which ‘women’s charities’ they support, as this reads a lot more pro-life, anti-black than progressive. But I don’t always pick up on US contexts.

Still nice to see womanhood acknowledged, though.

Does anyone know of any left wing Democratic Party aligned groups in the US who have concerns about trans ideology? Or is the issue split very much down party lines?
there much be some surely.
Like many here I’m really uncomfortable with concerns about trans ideology getting conflated with anti abortion and anti gay Republican religious right feeling over there

I don’t think the concern here is whether people want to buy a necklace or watch, that’s nobody’s business but your own.

What does bother me is the hostility some are showing to the idea of providing any kind of critical media analysis. I want to remind people that it is largely feminists who taught us how to analyze media/advertising for sexist messaging, and when women started pointing out how ads sent constant messages about male power/rape culture/beauty myths etc., it was considered hysterical and “it’s just an ad,” and “you’re reading too much into it,” and “get a life, aren’t there more important things,” and “you sound like a man hater,” etc. The idea that any ad should be uncritically absorbed without thinking about political context, and that to point out what the narratives are in an ad about race/stereotypes/the current political climate etc., is somehow offside and that those doing so are “TRAs” really goes against a whole feminist history of understanding media and images.

People can disagree on how this ad is interpreted, but surely it’s not unreasonable to apply some kind of critical lens. It’s not “purity spirals” to do so.

@User0610134049 · 20/04/2022 12:49

Does anyone know of any left wing Democratic Party aligned groups in the US who have concerns about trans ideology? Or is the issue split very much down party lines?
there much be some surely.
Like many here I’m really uncomfortable with concerns about trans ideology getting conflated with anti abortion and anti gay Republican religious right feeling over there

I think there are. I have found this. Perhaps you could get some idea from this.

In 2021, where do Americans stand on transgender rights? | YouGov

today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/09/23/americans-transgender-survey

Re: today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/09/23/americans-transgender-survey.

Interestingly, according to this poll, women are more likely to agree with transgender rights than men.

If this is true, I wonder if, ironically, this is perhaps because women are fulfilling their stereotypical role and are more kind and caring than men.

What does bother me is the hostility some are showing to the idea of providing any kind of critical media analysis.
Because we are finally getting some pushback and you are diluting the effect by squabbling.
At the moment, I don't care why they are backing women. I'm just glad that someone thinks that GC spending-power is worth pandering to. Let's bed this idea in first; you can dance on the head of a pin later.

👏👏👏

Yes, some posters could do with shutting up and letting us enjoy the ride now that the tide is turning.

Not all women are 'gender critical' in the way it's used on these boards.
I'm not.

I think gender roles are in general linked to biology, and the insistence that they are totally socially constructed, and that apart from biology women are exactly like men, and that the aim of feminism is not equal rights but equal outcomes is hugely damaging to women.

I think the strengths & essential roles of women (in general) are undervalued or ignored in feminism, or worse ridiculed & belittled, and I think this is making many women unhappy.

But I do agree biological sex is a reality no matter what gender role or interests you have, & women is the word for your sex not your personality.

I don't mind the media studies critique, but the suggestion that women who think like me or those who made the video, are anti women, and even people who agree we us that biological sex is reality, mustn't say they agree, as we disagree on some areas of feminism, so tiresome.

Something much more important than your narrow view of feminism is at stake here.

When the court cases start piling up is when REAL push back on this nonsense will happen. I just hope that the damage already done by then won't be too much

America doesn’t have a grass roots, feminist movement like we do.

As an American woman who has been involved in grass roots feminist causes for the last 20+ years, bullshit. ‘Grass roots’ either means something very very different over there, or you have no freaking idea what you’re talking about.

We have grass roots feminist movements all over the fucking place, but you don’t see them because we ALSO have a long and storied history of being shot for being outspoken.

Hell, over on this side of the pond we have to worry about being shot for the high crime of existing in public, so we keep our heads low and don’t stand around shouting about what good works we are doing.

I have a whole rant just waiting, but it’s really not worth getting into with someone who seems to think that if they don’t see a thing being honked on about on the news then it must not exist.

you have no freaking idea what you’re talking about

Then don't come over here and tell us we're doing feminism wrong!

😒

Some posters could do with shutting up? That’s sounds a little #nodebate to me.

Surely posters are free to point out flaws in the advert and company, they don’t just have to blindly agree that anything surface level GC is good? Equally, posters are of course free to support the company and think the ad is good.

I do think some posters are a little naive about the religious far right in America, especially given how much power they have. But I’m aware a lot of things in America don’t translate well to be British context and vice versa.

As Spider said too, I’m skeptical about what charities are being donated to - what most of are think are pro women is very different to the American religious far rights idea of pro women. I did have a look around their site, the terms and conditions, and also their SM but couldn’t find any named charities. Which actually made me more suspicious that it was just a lie. Don’t suppose anyone was able to find the name of a charity being donated to? Especially those who bought a product, as it’ll be your money going somewhere potentially harmful.

You do understand that black women are also women? Telling women to shut up about the racist undertones is exactly why people then come on this board and wonder “why don’t black women say they’re feminists” as we had this weekend.

And this is also why the Trans movement uses black women to point out “black women are also seen as outside womanhood” to then pretend that they are the same as black women. It’s insulting but it’s also insulting to have people completely dismiss the idea that talking about race matters to women who also experience racism - from the same people selling you this watch and defending police shootings of black people.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how this advert is gender critical.

It seems to be pro-biological sex, yes. But gender critical? It's promoting gender stereotypes, not challenging them.

And it does come across as racist.

Being against TWAW is not the same thing as being gender critical, and it's also not the same thing as being pro-women/feminist

I welcomed and cheered this advertisement because it seemed so positive in affirming that women as females exist in their own right and that trans men are not women.

But I have been feeling very uneasy that the inclusion of the black judge because she wouldn’t answer the what is a woman question, was in fact bullying and racist. She is not the first person who hasn’t wanted to answer, so why choose her in particular? If there had been an equal mixture of black and white - some for positive some for negative - it might not matter but there weren’t. She is the first black woman ever appointed to that position but the message undermined her achievement.

Also, as another poster pointed out, why were there no black women athletes?

I like the message but I have real doubts about the messenger. Clearly there is dangerous institutional capture of the US Democratic Party by the Trans Privilege Lobby ( I refuse to call it a ‘right’ for any male athlete to compete in women’s sports, for any male police officer to strip search a woman in custody, etc.). But, the Supreme Court clip was political theatre designed to get more Amy Coney Barratts and Brett Kavanaghs onto the Supreme Court.

If anyone is an even greater threat to women’s rights than the Trans Privilege Lobby then I think it’s the ‘conservative’ politicians who espouse the agenda of the ‘religious right’ and are currently removing women’s reproductive freedom in the US through changes in law and appointment of ‘conservative’ judges.

Finally I think it’s worth pointing out that the ad could fairly be accused of having truly transphobic innuendos by calling out Quinn, a talented female who plays on a women’s football team and identifies as transgender and I have not heard any suggestion that Quinn has started taking male hormones. Being trans should therefore not have any bearing on Quinn’s accomplishments. I don’t agree with Quinn’s perspective on bathrooms, but I think that any trans person should be free to compete in a sports team that matches their physical sex, provided they aren’t getting a benefit from hormones that would otherwise be banned (so a transman taking testosterone should not be allowed to continue competing in female sports, in my view, since testosterone is a banned performance enhancing substance).

Gender critical is "The stance that it is sex, not gender, that should categorize people as men and women". So this advert is gender critical as it is saying that TWANW. It is not critical of gender stereotypes which you might expect if it were trying to take a gender critical feminist stance but that does not mean it is not gender critical. Some women will be feminists. Others might not be. I think it is wrong to say that you have to be anti-gender stereotypes to be gender critical. Crucially though, to organise in any meaningful way as a feminist, we first have to know who is a woman and have the language to properly talk about who is and who is not a woman.

Yes, some posters could do with shutting up and letting us enjoy the ride now that the tide is turning.

I think I've seen it all now. Shut up, feminists, and be grateful that a conservative, racist, anti-Vaxx, motherhood, church and apple pie watch company flogging cheap watches made in China has seen a marketing opportunity in sacred womanhood. We're radical feminist dinosaurs. Our whole point is that we don't shut up. We never switch off our BS detectors and our critical faculties.

I can understand why they included the black judge - her refusing to define a woman was a pretty critical moment as she will fill a vital seat on the very powerful Supreme Court. It was reported on and discussed at the time. Another black woman was shown (neutral). I've had a look at the company's video about men, and a large number (I suspect the majority, but didn't count) of men on that are non-white. It's a very different ad though, focusing on poorer working men.

I'd also mention that there seem to be a lot of photos of black models and black celebrities on the company's website, wearing the watches.