Sexy or Sadistic? Sexist, Actually

March 19, 2007

By Diana Price, Young Feminist Programs

Fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) recently announced they were pulling their print advertisement which portrays a woman held down at the wrists by a man kneeling over her while four other men watch. NOW was part of an international outcry against the sexist and violent nature of the ad, which was to be printed in publications worldwide.

The designers maintained even as they pulled the ad from print that they "do not feel [they've] ever gone too far." On this ad, Stefano Gabbana said, "it does not represent rape or violence, but if one had to give an interpretation of the picture, it could recall an erotic dream, a sexual game."

NOW President Kim Gandy commented in Newsweek magazine, "There's a difference between being insulting and portraying women as less than human—as people to be raped or assaulted." The ad's image, Gandy said, is "a stylized gang rape."

When the ad first appeared in late February 2007, the Spanish government was the first to demand its removal. By early March, thirteen Italian senators, both women and men, had joined in a bipartisan protest. D&G complied by withdrawing the ad from circulation in both countries, but opined that Spain is "behind the times."

If anything, though, Spain's response was uniquely with-it. The D&G ad made its debut just as Spain was dealing with a rise in violence against women—ten women had been murdered in the months of January and February, one on the same day the ad hit headlines.

The Spanish government recently introduced a law protecting women from violence, as well as a law against sexist advertisements. Both of these initiatives fall in line with recommendations made by the United Nations in 1995 and echoed by the World Health Organization (PDF) in 2005 to all countries committed to ending gender-based violence. The recognition that representations of violence against women in the media are inextricably tied to how women and men perceive, accept, internalize, and otherwise relate to actual violence against women is unquestioned by the international community of development and human rights organizations and experts. Evidently, D&G missed that memo.

One fewer ad in circulation that is demeaning to women is a small but important victory. The protests and media controversy that led to its removal demonstrate to women and girls around the world that we can take action against disturbing and dangerous images, and we can win. And that is one key step toward ending actual violence against women everywhere.