Controversial Snickers Ad On Street Harassment and Gender Stereotypes

These construction workers yell anti-sexist slogans but the ad's message is more complicated.

Tags: gender, intersectionality, australia, commercial, misogyny, objectification, sexism, stereotypes, street harassment, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2014
Length: 1:19
Access: YouTube

Summary: This interesting Snickers ad starts by showing a group of male construction workers and asks, "What happens when builders aren't themselves?" The rest of the ad is men yelling various things at women who pass by on the street below. But instead of sexist catcalls, the hardhats yell, "I'd like to show you the respect you deserve!" and, "A woman's place is where she chooses!" and "Want to know a filthy word? Gender bias!" Best of all: "You know what I'd like to see? A society in which the objectification of women makes way for gender-neutral interaction, free from assumptions and expectations." They chant their final words in unison: "What do we want? Equality! What don't we want? Misogyny!" At the end, the Snickers tagline appears: "You're not you when you're hungry," thus implying that men are not naturally themselves when they're hungry and that they are naturally sexist. In other words, these men say anti-sexist things because they're not hungry, and that oddly, Snickers can both cure their hunger and return them to the natural order of things. So it simultaneously draws upon gender (and class) stereotypes and suggests they are natural, while it critiques them by exposing the everyday workings of misogynistic behavior. It can also illustrate an intersectional perspective. By using construction workers, it stereotypes working class men in particular for these sexist comments as being natural. In the American context, the fact that the (Australian) workers are all white is interesting because of the focus on street harassment by black and Latino men. For additional videos on street harassment, see this undercover video of a woman getting harassed in New York City (which is also critiqued in the previous link) and this problematic video on decentering and recentering the conversation on street harassment.

Submitted By: Anonymous

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