Madonna Badger lost almost everything she had in a house fire on Christmas morning in 2011 – including her parents and her three daughters. But rather than just throw her hands in the air, she chose to start a campaign, #WomenNotObjects. But when that turns to objectification in order to sell things like sandwiches and trucks… that’s when we need reminding that women are people, not objects.
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One example is an ad for SKYY vodka, which shows a scantily clad woman lying on a beach while a man stands over her holding a bottle of alcohol and two glasses.
Badger, who in the nineties worked on the Calvin Klein campaign that featured almost naked models, is no stranger to creating campaigns that objectify women, but she’s had a change of heart. In an interview this week, Badger admitted to the paper, “If I said I never did it, I would be a liar”.
In the video, a series of adverts are then flashed up, each accompanied by a comment from the women who appear in the campaign.
The video ends with a powerful message.
Badger told the Wall Street Journal that she’s trying to honor her daughters by raising awareness about sexist advertising and how harmful it can be to young women.
It’s one thing for brands like Always, Dove, and others to draw attention to the way the industry objectified women.
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“I love my job”, Badger said, “but I don’t want to do it if it hurts anyone”. It’s just as useful, if not more so, for an agency like Badger’s to simply stop making those sort of ads altogether.
