Peak 2018? Distracted Boyfriend Meme Ruled Sexist In Sweden

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Distracted Boyfriend meme is sexist, rules Swedish ad watchdog

The popular Distracted Boyfriend meme, based on a photo of a man turning away from his outraged girlfriend to stare admiringly at another woman, has been ruled sexist by Sweden’s advertising ombudsman.

The stock image, also known as Man Looking at Other Woman, by Antonio Guillem, a photographer from Barcelona, was named meme of the year in April and was one of the most widely shared memes in 2017, providing comment on anything from music to politics to hit TV shows.

The ombudsman said recruitment advertisements posted on Facebook by the internet services provider Bahnhof, which labelled the boyfriend “You”, the girlfriend “Your current workplace”, and the second woman “Bahnhof”, were gender-discriminatory, the Local reported.

“The advertisement objectifies women,” the ombudsman, RO, said. “It presents women as interchangeable items and suggests only their appearance is interesting … It also shows degrading stereotypical gender roles of both men and women and gives the impression men can change female partners as they change jobs.”

The ombudsman said the image objectified the two women by presenting them as workplaces, but the man as an individual, and added that the “other woman” was clearly a “sex object … unrelated to the advertisement, which is for recruiting salespeople, operating engineers and a web designer”.

At the Breitbart article on this, Jam Hoe notes in the comments

I think it’s great that Sweden will be a grand feminist experiment. After their country becomes an Islamic caliphate, hopeful that will put this nonsense to bed.

Good point in a sarcastic manner. Because the way the nation is going, they’re going to have to choose which they want, and sooner rather than later.

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5 Responses to “Peak 2018? Distracted Boyfriend Meme Ruled Sexist In Sweden”

  1. Jethro says:

    also from the article:

    The Swedish advertising industry is self-regulating, meaning that the ombudsman can criticise ads but it does not have the power to impose sanctions.

    • Dana says:

      At least Mr Bodine read the original article, and spotted that most important paragraph. Sensible people thank the Lord that the government hasn’t given some obsequious bureaucrat any legal power to impose penalties on this.

      But it points out the problem: while Swedish advertising is ‘self-regulating,’ there will be those on the left who would like to change that, to prohibit advertising that Our Betters don’t like. We already do that here, with the long-time ban on advertising for tobacco products.

      The left take things too seriously. Is the distracted husband boyfriend meme sexist? I don’t really care. That the left do shows what insipid busybodies they are.

      • Jethro says:

        Miss Delaney points out that a private industry in one of the most leftist nations on Earth regulates itself, but then complains that someone, somewhere might want to have government regulations.

    • Never said it was Government, Jeff.

      • Jethro says:

        Never said you did, Porter.

        But it does seem strangely coincidental that both you and Breitbart left out that paragraph contained in the original article.

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