Column Yes, we just discussed our irritation with sexist ads last week, but there’s another advertising offender this week. And it’s a real gem. Er, rather, pear.
Through the years, many corporations have thrived by shaming women about their natural body shapes. So, we’re assuming the owner of this franchise thought this tactic would work that “magic” this time, but luckily, we now have Internet shame police.
The ad
Gold’s Gym Egypt recently ran an ad that’s sexist on two fronts. First, it makes fun of a very common female body type, the “pear” shape. And two, it calls women girls. Cute.
Here’s the original ad. We had to snag the screenshot from Scary Mommy because the Gold’s Gym franchise that originally posted it has since removed the post.
Yeah, my face turned red with anger when I saw the ad, too.
How long will it take people to realize that comparing women’s natural body shapes to fruits or vegetables isn’t helpful? This type of hurtful and totally useless form of body comparison went out of vogue a while ago, so, it’s kind of surprising—only kind of—that a gym franchise marketing team thought the pear visual was a good idea.
And similar to how fruit/body comparisons have gone out of style, so has calling women “girls.” Women talking to their girlfriends, and moms talking to their daughters are the only groups of people who should call women girls, people. Men, businesses, bosses, co-workers—everyone else should stick to women, ladies, or how about a good ol’ gender neutral term.
The apology
Once the Gold’s Gym franchise caught wind of the uproar, it issued a public apology that was… really bad. Like, it’s probably one of the worst apologies of all time. And again, this screenshot of the original apology comes from AdWeek—the franchise deleted this, too.
Yikes.
Although this ad doesn’t come from Gold’s Gym’s corporate office—as we stated previously, it was posted by a franchise in Egypt called Gold’s Gym Dreamland—it does reflect the ridiculous sexism that tends to saturate the fitness world. After all, it’s not like Gold’s Gym corporate was all that concerned about what people thought when it launched its “Say No to Cankles” campaign in 2009… Yeah, that really happened.
We truly wonder if anyone who markets wellness to women will learn from this goof, but, hey, we can dream with are tiny women minds that reside in our pear-shaped bodies… Eye roll.
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Image of woman working out via Shutterstock