16710: Ripping Off Candy Bar Campaign To Fight Hunger And Poverty Is Nuts.

 

Quiet Storm in the UK is responsible for this Women’s Equality Party advertisement parodying the popular candy bar campaign. Sorry, this concept induces snickers and fails to satisfy.

16043: Iranian Women’s Rights Wronged By Adland…?

 

The latest Digiday confessions series installment featured a provocative perspective from an anonymous Iranian-American advertiser who wonders why Adland—particularly in the U.S.—has not spoken out in support of Iranian women’s rights.

 

“I’ve watched every agency step up and speak up about Black Lives Matter, [Asian American and Pacific Islander] hate and feminism,” the confessor confessed. “For me, watching a feminist revolution happening in Iran, it’s like: ‘Where is everyone? Why is no one speaking up?’”

 

MultiCultClassics can offer opinions/answers for such inquiries.

 

First, the BLM and Asian-American and Pacific Islander rhetoric-riddled routines were performative, short-lived gestures—aka box-checking bullshit.

 

As to why backing Iranian women’s rights is not a part of Adland’s feminist cheerleading, well, it’s about intersectionality. That is, feminism from the industry’s point of view exclusively focuses on White women.

 

BTW, why did Digiday introduce a new illustration (depicted above) for its confessions series? The confessor looks like a male detective.

 

‘Fear of saying the wrong thing is eating us alive’: Confessions of an Iranian-American advertiser on the industry’s silence on Iranian women’s rights

 

By Kimeko McCoy

 

The current push for Iranian women’s rights started with Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police for wearing her hijab improperly in September, according to reports. Since then, what started as a rumble in protesting her death has erupted, galvanizing Iranian women in what’s being called a women’s revolution.

 

Iran’s unfolding feminist movement has overshadowed the country’s World Cup performance as Iran’s players reportedly didn’t sing their national anthem nor celebrate their goals. Fans in the stands did the same, standing in solidarity with the protests. Major brands like Gucci and Balenciaga have taken to social media to show their support.

 

Meanwhile, US-based marketers and advertisers have remained quiet. At least one Iranian-American advertiser is asking the industry to speak out and make good on the diversity, equity and inclusion promises made at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

 

“I’ve watched every agency step up and speak up about Black Lives Matter, [Asian American and Pacific Islander] hate and feminism,” the advertiser said. “For me, watching a feminist revolution happening in Iran, it’s like: ‘Where is everyone? Why is no one speaking up?’”

 

In this edition of Digiday’s Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for candor, an advertiser at a global ad agency talks about the industry’s silence on Iran’s feminist revolution and how it speaks to Iranian erasure in America.

 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Why do you think it’s important that U.S.-based ad agencies speak on Iran’s feminist movement?

 

We work with the biggest brands in the world, our influence is endless. We work with the brands that dictate culture. And we, as an industry, tout ourselves as culture makers. Right now, we are actively behind culture. Culture is at the point where Iran’s resistance is being bolstered, seen, talked about and supported by brands. Yet, those who allegedly create culture aren’t. They made a choice. Right now, it feels like a choice has been made not to say anything.

 

It can be a touchy subject. Do you think that’s why advertisers haven’t spoken up?

 

Iran is complex and the government is very bad. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. People, when they think about Iran, think about the negativity. So they’re scared to speak in solidarity because in doing so, you’re speaking up against, in a way, Iran’s enemies. I’m understanding of why that’s difficult. I’m understanding of why that’s hard. But we’re fighting against that machine. We’re fighting against the Iranian regime, that’s an extremist regime. There’s a lack of understanding and knowledge that’s played into it.

 

[Taking] it back to June of 2020, fear of saying the wrong thing is eating us alive. It’s a cycle. People want to say something, but won’t say something because, “I don’t want to lose my job.” So, if I don’t say something and nobody says something, then nothing gets said. You’re left to yourself and that’s a scary thing — having no one to talk to about it.

 

This is a feminist revolution. It’s complex, of course. It’s just women wanting equality. That’s the baseline of what’s happening in Iran. It shouldn’t be hard for anyone to stand in solidarity with them. It should be easy for all of us, particularly in the West, who embrace feminism, to be able to stand up and [support women].

 

What do you think is the difference between advertisers speaking up for the war in Ukraine vs. what’s happening in Iran?

 

Because it’s a war. There’s a clear enemy in Putin. There’s an ability for industries to speak up against it. Whereas, in this example in Iran, it’s extremism. We’re fighting against extremist Muslim-Islamic rule and that can be challenging. I don’t want to minimize that challenge. The singular enemy of Vladimir Putin is a lot easier to rally [against] than extremist Islam.

 

How would you like to see advertisers and brands use their voice?

 

Right now, it’s about educating, it is about understanding that the Iranian people don’t have the reach that they need to get the message to the world, and brands do. Brands right now do have the power and do have the opportunity. We need to see it as an opportunity in the way that we have historically other DE&I initiatives. There’s an opportunity now to stand up for feminism in a new way. That part is getting lost. That’s an opportunity that people need to embrace. In doing so, it opens the door for people like me to feel more welcome to the space, and for people who otherwise might not have seen themselves in the industry can say, “Oh, there’s support here. There’s a place here for me. If I go there, I’m not going to be seen as other in a negative way.”

15692: Menstrual Campaign Sucks. Period.

 

Here’s the official explanation for this campaign from India:

 

Menstruation and puberty solutions in India is not often spoken about. Brands normally tend to approach the subject of menstruation by being indirect and vague. The campaign was designed to bring these topics out in open and make it conversational. For a D2C brand, we needed to aid discovery of brand by being new age and sensitive.

 

Sorry, the attempt to be “new age and sensitive” about menstruation is a bloody mess.

 

13715: ESPN BS.

This Brazilian campaign for ESPN is bullshit—especially considering the fact that the sports network likely presents a disproportionately higher amount of men’s sports coverage versus women’s sports coverage. Plus, the amount of coverage has nothing to do with gender bias. Rather, it’s all about audience appeal and advertising budgets. Finally, it’s common knowledge that women’s sports will gain greater audience interest when there’s greater mob interest; that is, when spectators are placing serious bets on scores and outcomes.

13214: Displaying Hypocrisy.

This American Apparel window display announces, “Women represent only 12 percent of engineers in all major tech companies.” Um, American Apparel advocating for women’s equality is like the advertising industry advocating for diversity.

12333: Pulling Women’s Hair Not Nice.

Not sure it’s right for this Lebanese campaign to beat up women over their hairiness.

From Ads of the World.

11636: Shhhhit From Special K.

Special K produced this lame video that comes off as a poor woman’s Dove Real Beauty concept, examining how women “fat talk” about their figures. Um, if women are indeed obsessed about their bodies—and incidentally, there are different cultural attitudes about body image not being acknowledged by the Special K video—it’s mostly fueled by advertisers like Special K and Dove. After all, these brands have historically depicted female models reflecting ideal White beauty standards. Plus, The video feels forced and staged, with “real” women that resemble advertising agency account executives.

11084: Gender Bias Is Not Rocket Science.

From The Huffington Post…

NY Times Changes Yvonne Brill Obituary After Criticism

The New York Times responded to a chorus of critics on Saturday after it published an obituary about a famed female rocket scientist that led with her accomplishments as a wife and mother.

Yvonne Brill died on Wednesday at the age of 88. President Obama awarded her with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2011. Under the Times’ headline, “Yvonne Brill, Pioneering Rocket Scientist, Dies At 88,” the lede read:

She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. ‘The world’s best mom,’ her son Matthew said.

Some readers tweeted their dissatisfaction, making fun of the Times’ inclusion of her cooking skills and wondering if an obituary for a male rocket scientist would lead with anything but his professional accomplishments. The Times’ public editor Margaret Sullivan even chimed in, saying that she agreed with the criticism and linking to a CJR article about how news coverage of women scientists often leads to gratuitous gender profiles.

Later, the Times dropped the beef stroganoff reference and changed the lede of the online obituary to:

She was a brilliant rocket scientist who followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. ‘The world’s best mom,’ her son Matthew said.

The Times did not attach a note to the online article notifying readers of the change.

10807: Seeking Binders Of Women.

From The Chicago Tribune…

A woman’s place is in the House

Where are those binders full of women when you need them? The Republican Party could sure use a few.

This week, Republicans in the U.S. House approved a slate of 19 committee chairmen chosen by a GOP steering committee. White males, every one.

They’re all fine statesmen, we’re sure. All eminently qualified. But come on. We thought one lesson of the 2012 election was that Republicans could stand to work a little harder at that whole diversity thing.

The House power lineup is especially glaring because the number of female members will be at all-time highs in both chambers of the 113th Congress: 81 women in the House, 20 in the Senate.

Over in the Senate, the sisterhood has been feeling downright giddy about those numbers.

Two weeks ago, during a new-member orientation, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., tweeted about “our first-ever in U.S. history traffic jam in women senators’ restroom. #somerecordsmustbebroken.” She later explained that there were five senators in there, and only two stalls.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., tweeted about a “power meeting” with newly elected Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Nebraska Republican Deb Fischer in the same setting. “Gonna need a bigger bathroom,” McCaskill quipped.

The problem for Republicans in both chambers is that most of the women are Democrats. Roughly 90 percent of the House Republican caucus is white male. Most of the GOP women lack seniority, a big factor in committee leadership calculus. The 113th House actually will have fewer Republican women than the 112th.

House Speaker John Boehner is being lobbied hard to appoint women to chair two remaining committees: the Ethics Committee and the Committee on House Administration. Those are lesser assignments, not subject to a steering committee vote, and there currently are no GOP women on either committee.

Democrats don’t seem to have so much trouble finding qualified women: Recall that when they held the House, a woman was speaker. At least five Democratic women are expected to be named ranking committee members in the House; those are the members who, if their party was in power, would likely be the chairs. Women are expected to chair as many as seven committees in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

That happened in part because Democrats made it their business to recruit strong female candidates. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says women were central to the party’s strategy to hold on to its majority in that chamber.

Note to Republicans: It’s on you to diversify your ranks. A little less emphasis on seniority — can you say “good old boy”? — could help get things moving. But it’s hard to find women for your leadership team when there are so few of them in Congress to begin with.

Ever wonder why Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” remark in the second presidential debate rubbed so many women the wrong way?

His point was that as governor of Massachusetts, he had gone the extra mile to find qualified women to serve in his Cabinet after noting that all the candidates were men. “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ and they brought us whole binders full of women,” he said.

The problem is that after decades in business, Romney didn’t already have his own list of capable female candidates. Neither does Boehner, apparently. He needs to get cracking on that.

Fun fact: One of Boehner’s first actions as speaker was to order a new women’s bathroom built steps from the House floor. Before that, female representatives had to exit the chamber and hike through Statuary Hall to get to the restroom — a 10-minute round trip — while men barely had to leave their seats. “Love the new ladies room off the floor of the House,” tweeted Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md. “Three cheers to @SpeakerBoehner.”

Parliamentarian John Sullivan, whose office was moved to make space for the new restroom, didn’t object. “I know one day the House will be half women,” he told a Politico reporter. If the Republicans know what’s good for them, they’ll get some more estrogen on their side of the aisle.

10353: Milking A Lame Concept.

Our Breast Issue Ever sounds like a headline better suited for Juggs magazine.

10199: Batgirl Faced Workplace Discrimination…?

Sociological Images pointed out a vintage PSA starring Batgirl, Batman and Robin for the Equal Pay Act of 1963. In the spot, Batgirl confronts Batman and complains, “I’ve worked for you a long time, and I’m paid less than Robin. … Same job, same employer means equal pay for men and women.”

Not sure Batgirl’s argument really holds up, as she actually experienced benefits not extended to Robin. The professional Batperks included:

Batgirl enjoyed Batflex hours—her work schedule did not come close to matching Robin’s routine. Longer hours meant Robin faced grave dangers more often than the female caped crusader too.

Batgirl had exclusive housing accommodations—featuring high-tech gadgetry nearly on par with the Batcave. One might claim that Robin received free room and board at Wayne Mansion, but that was the result of being a foster child/adopted child versus an employee.

Batgirl cruised with a company-provided ride—the Batgirl Batcycle. Robin played the passenger on most Batvehicles, and was even forced to occupy the humiliating sidecar on the Batcycle.

Batgirl took advantage of the Batfranchise—right down to displaying the corporate identity and logo. She was an official Batrepresentative, which provided greater recognition and credibility. The lesser half of the Dynamic Duo was named after a cheery bird.

Batgirl had access to extra Batoffice supplies—like a fully-equipped utility belt. Robin’s belt appeared to be ornamental at best.

Sorry, but Batgirl did not deserve compensation similar to Robin’s salary. Although she could have legitimately griped over being referred to as Batgirl instead of Batwoman.

9977: The Male-Only Masters Mess.

The Chicago Tribune offered an opinion on the Masters Tournament and Augusta National Golf Club’s male-only membership policy. Hey, somebody should get a comment from Tiger Woods.

Will ‘she’ don the green jacket?

IBM’s Ginni Rometty reduces the Masters to ‘no comment’

As the Masters Tournament eased into its 76th competition on Thursday — the course looked as impeccable as it ever has — a boorish little smudge crept up again.

Tournament host Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., faces an unusually pesky public relations problem this year. While the club regularly incites, and even thrives on, criticism of its male-only membership policy, the issue is generating particular melodrama due to an important tournament partner.

IBM is one of the Masters’ most dedicated and generous sponsors. As a “thank-you” to the global technology and consulting firm, Augusta National traditionally gives the company CEO membership privileges and, of course, the bodacious green jacket.

Ah, but there’s a problem. IBM has a new CEO and it’s a “she.”

Virginia “Ginni” Rometty, who boasts Chicago roots as a 1979 graduate of Northwestern University’s engineering school, oversees IBM as the company’s first female president and CEO. Her predecessor, Sam Palmisano, told The New York Times she got the job last fall “because she deserved it. … It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.”

So, what about the Augusta membership?

Despite protests and severed sponsorships over the years, the clubhouse maintains its men-only protocol. Reporters grilled Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne this week during his annual news conference, asking whether the club would make an exception for Rometty. Payne offered “no comment” on JacketGate. Club matters are private, he said.

IBM, too. A spokesman told us the firm would not be discussing the membership issue.

Perhaps Rometty is too busy, and savvy, to respond to an anachronous, obnoxious clubhouse policy that doesn’t impact her life, her company or her employees. Yet IBM was one of several corporate sponsors to pull its television ads from the 1990 PGA Championship, which took place at an Alabama golf course that had white-only membership rules.

At what point do corporate CEOs stop looking the other way?

At the very least, Rometty should consider ending IBM’s deeply embedded relationship with the Masters and Augusta National if they don’t offer to her the same courtesy and respect extended to the CEOs of Exxon Mobil and AT&T, the tournament’s other corporate sponsors, both led by men. Closing ceremonies and the hallowed jacket-donning take place Sunday.

If Rometty is not included, or chooses not to participate, she can take comfort in the fact that she won’t have to wear one of professional sports’ homeliest garments: the Easter-egg-hue, brass-buttoned Masters jacket with a Girl Scout-reminiscent badge fastened to the left breast.

As tradition goes, the donning of the jacket is certainly more noble than the winner of the Indy 500 dribbling through a bottle of milk.

But in case you were wondering, yes, even the Indy 500 allows women to drive.

How radical.

9192: Black and White TV.

Do these ads—which literally appeared side by side in the latest issue of Essence magazine—show how race, culture and stereotypes work on primetime TV? The White actress portrays a smart and strong character in the series’ lead role. The Black actress plays a sexual object.

9100: Rosa Parks Revelation.

From The New York Post…

Rosa Parks’ essay reveals neighbor’s rape attempt

The Associated Press

Long before Rosa Parks was hailed as the “mother of the civil rights movement,” she wrote a detailed and harrowing account of nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931.

The six-page essay, written in her own hand many years after the incident, is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey’s Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive.

The Associated Press was provided with some samples of the documents in the archive, including portions of the essay. Archivists had reviewed the documents for Guernsey’s and provided descriptions of their contents.

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find among Parks’ papers astounding.

It helps explain what triggered Parks’ lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire, whose recent book “At the Dark End of the Street” examines how economic intimidation and sexual violence were used to derail the freedom movement and how it went unpunished during the Jim Crow era.

“I thought it was because of the stories that she had heard. But this gives a much more personal context to that,” said McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her book recounts Parks’ role in investigating for the NAACP the case of Recy Taylor, a young sharecropper raped by a group of white men in 1944.

Of her own experience, Parks wrote, “He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused. He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now.”

“He liked me. … he didn’t want me to be lonely and would I be sweet to him. He had money to give me for accepting his attentions,” she wrote.

“I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.”

Most people know the story of Parks, a black, middle-aged seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. Guernsey’s President Arlan Ettinger said her personal papers reveal a much more complex individual, one who spent a lifetime fighting for racial equality and against the sexual violence of black women.

Parks is credited with inspiring the civil rights movement with her solitary act of defiance on Dec. 1, 1955, that led to the Supreme Court outlawing segregation on buses. She received the nation’s two highest honors in her lifetime, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.

She died in 2005 at age 92, leaving the trove of personal correspondence, papers relating to her work for the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, tributes from presidents and world leaders, school books, family bibles, clothing, furniture and more — about 8,000 items in all.

“It is wonderful and breathtaking,” Ettinger said. “It will be up to the institution that ends up with it to make this material known to the world.”

Proceeds from the sale will go to resolve a dispute over her estate, divided between her relatives and the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development that she created in 1987.

Guernsey’s, known for its sale of iconic and celebrity collections, took an inventory of Parks’ homes in Detroit soon after she died and is looking for an institution to buy her archive, which Ettinger described as the most complete he’s ever seen.

The only thing missing, he quipped, is the bus itself. The bus is in The Henry Ford, a museum in Dearborn, Mich.

The archive reveals an infinitely complex individual, Ettinger said.

Parks worked on many cases with the NAACP, including the Scottsboro defense of nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. She was involved in the black power conventions in the 1970s and the anti-apartheid movement in the 1990s.

Parks wrote on anything she could get her hands on. The backs of church pamphlets and NAACP flyers are filled with her thoughts and observations.

There are detailed notes on how African-American citizens should comport themselves during the bus boycott following her arrest that lasted 382 days and about the organization that led it, the Montgomery Improvement Association, headed by a young pastor named the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Elsewhere, she laments about life under the oppressive Jim Crow laws and asks what is wrong with the world when her jailer refuses her a drink of water.

She also vividly recalls an incident when she was 10 years old involving a white boy who threatened to hit her. Demonstrating some of the determination she exhibited on the bus decades later, Parks writes “I picked up a small piece of brick and drew back to strike him if he should hit me. I was angry. He went his way without further comment.”

Parks’ memoirs include one with author Jim Haskins and another with one of her attorneys in the early 1990s, but by then said McGuire, “her story was pretty much well-rehearsed, and limited to her time in Montgomery and the bus incident.”

“Her story had become mythic and iconic … I can’t imagine what that felt like for her to have a whole history of activism and political work erased and turned almost into a cartoon character,” said McGuire.

Guernsey’s has talked to about 20 museums, libraries, university and churches about buying the archive over the past three years.

“There hasn’t been a group that didn’t desperately want it but had to face the reality whether they could afford it,” Ettinger said, adding that he was currently in discussions with three separate entities — an institution and two individuals who could buy the archive with the intention of donating it to a museum or other cultural institution.

He declined to give an exact figure but said $8 million to $10 million was in the “ballpark.”

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research library of the New York Public Library, was among the interested institutions.

Its new director, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, said the center has very little material on Parks and would love to own some of her papers but because the archive is being sold as a single collection, it took the Schomburg out of the running.

“She is a witness to the beginning and the maturation of the civil rights movement. . She walked as close to Martin Luther King Jr., as you can get at the beginning of the movement,” Muhammad said.

McGuire wondered why Parks omitted the attempted rape incident from her memoirs but included the story about the little boy who threatened her.

“It shows some kind of conscious effort in shaping her own legacy but also, I think, speaks to the issue of respectability. She doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable telling the world about what happened,” she said. “But she’s contemplating telling people about it because she’s written it down.”

9097: Women Control Purse Strings. Not Much Else.

According to Nielsen, “Women control almost $12 trillion of the $18 trillion in global consumer spending.” Yet women barely control 3 percent of the creative director roles on Madison Avenue. This miniscule figure seems really wrong. Or maybe not. Regardless, the currently male-dominated creative departments are growing increasingly inept at effectively communicating to women—as any talking vagina hand will tell you.

9070: The Breast Doll Ever.

From The Chicago Tribune, here’s a companion piece of sorts to an earlier post on breastfeeding.

Is America ready for Breast Milk Baby?

Doll sparks debate ahead of debut

By Erin Meyer, Tribune reporter

Debate about a toy doll is brewing as its maker, a Spanish company called Berjuan Toys, prepares to start marketing the Breast Milk Baby in the U.S.

Designed for children 2 and older, the interactive doll simulates breast-feeding. It comes with a special halter top for the child to wear, featuring two flowers in the chest area that represent nipples. When Breast Milk Baby comes in close proximity with the flowers, it makes a suckling sound as though imitating a nursing infant. The doll also cries when it’s time to eat and burps after the meal.

The doll, known as Bebe Gloton in Europe, could be available in the U.S. soon if things go well for Berjuan Toys at a Las Vegas trade show July 31-Aug. 3.

“Acting just like ‘mommy,’ girls can learn another natural nurturing skill about taking care of a baby. Just like changing, bathing, swaddling, singing, rocking to sleep, and cuddling for a healthy baby,” company spokesman Dennis Lewis said in a news release.

In anticipation of Breast Milk Baby’s debut, supporters and opponents are weighing in.

“Children learn their adult roles through play,” said Seana Huizenga of the Lincoln Park chapter of La Leche League, a breast-feeding advocacy group. “It’s a cinch to find a toy bottle, but it’s impossible to find a breast-feeding doll.”

But Gigi Williams, owner of Gigi’s Dolls & Sherry’s Teddy Bears in Chicago, said she won’t stock the doll.

“You can put me down as a no thank you,” said Williams, who has been in business for 39 years. “I think they’ve gone too far, and I don’t think the children need that.”

Another Chicago toy store owner said she would jump at the chance to sell the doll at Galt Toys + Galt Baby.

“I will carry this one,” said Minya Oh, adding that she does not often stock interactive dolls.

“The child doesn’t attach the feelings to the interactive dolls,” she said. “But this one — I think it’s a very positive thing for the child to pretend with the mother.”

Huizenga said outcry by opponents of Breast Milk Baby is a reflection of a culture that stigmatizes breast-feeding.

“You realize how much the culture is against it still,” she said. “I am glad to hear there’s a doll like that out there.”

According to thebreastmilkbaby.com, the doll is intended to allow young girls to “express their love and affection in the most natural way possible, by simulating natural nursing.”

Dr. Larry Gartner, professor emeritus of pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago, suggested that the breast-feeding doll could be an effective teaching tool for children.

“It is something that children often do themselves … to imitate the mother,” Gartner said from his California home. “It’s the adults who are making it a sexual issue. I wish some psychiatrist would delve into why some people have negative responses to breast-feeding and figure it out.”

The controversy, company officials say, is evidence that the U.S. could benefit from more breast-feeding education.

“In Europe, it provoked some surprise, but not the controversy that it has caused in the States,” Lewis said. “The attitude that breast-feeding should be hidden illustrates why (the doll) is important.”

9002: Got Cluelessness?

In addition to picking up some White bread, Jeff Goodby also shopped for milk. His wife must be suffering from PMS. Not sure what was going through the minds of the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners staffers responsible for this campaign. But they’ll likely need jugs of milk to calm down the outraged women who view these ads.

8904: G.I. Jane Makes General.

From The New York Post…

Historic Marine base gets 1st female general

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — For the first time in its 96-year history, a female general is taking charge at the famed Marine Corps training depot at South Carolina’s Parris Island.

Brig. Gen. Loretta Reynolds, who is also known as the first female Marine to ever hold a command position in a battle zone, takes charge Friday at the installation south of Beaufort.

Parris Island graduates about 20,000 Marines annually and is the only site where female enlisted Marines are trained to enter the service.

Reynolds is a native of Baltimore and a 1986 graduate of the Naval Academy. She has worn the Marine Corps uniform for 25 years.

She is taking over from Brig. Gen. Frederick Padilla, who is taking charge of the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan.

In her new position, Reynolds also will be in charge of the Marines’ Eastern Recruiting Region, which covers the 23 states east of the Mississippi River.

As a one-star general, Reynolds becomes only the third female general officer in the more than 200,000-member Marine Corps. The service has two two-star female generals, one in the active duty ranks and another in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Overall, there are 12,339 enlisted females in the Marines, 108 warrant officers and 1,224 officers, according to Marine Corps figures. On its Parris Island website, the service said training for men and women is identical, and that roughly 2,400 female recruits go through it every year.

Reynolds trained as a communications officer and commanded Marines from platoon to battalion levels in her more than 20 years in uniform.

She has been posted in Okinawa, Japan; Quantico, Va., Iraq and Afghanistan, and was in command of the Marine Recruiting Station in Harrisburg, Pa.

She also worked with at the headquarters of the Marine Corps in its communications and computer division in Washington, D.C.

Reynolds’ last posting was in charge of the Headquarters Group for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

While serving a yearlong tour of duty in Afghanistan, she oversaw five Marine battalions and military company from Bahrain. While there, she took a base that had “fed, housed and equipped more than 10,000 Marines and expanded the base to handle an additional 10,000 Marines and sailors,” the website for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said. The site added that the command slot position meant she was “recognized as the first female Marine to command battle space.”

Before her time at Camp Pendleton, Reynolds was a division chief with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

Reynolds also has attended the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va., the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

8898: You’ve Come A Longer Way, Baby.

Wanted to add a few notes in response to Tiffany Rolfe’s perspective on the dearth of female creative directors.

First, the post generated a handful of comments, and it’s interesting to see how other female creative directors work for shops targeting women—just as many minorities wind up landing in minority agencies. The career opportunities for anyone who isn’t a White man appear to be quite limited. Why, there are actually organizations dedicated to spotlighting the lack of ladies in charge on Madison Avenue.

Second, it must be reiterated that minorities still trail even women on the industry food chain. Consider the 2010 study conducted at the request of the NAACP and the Madison Avenue Project that spotlighted the rampant exclusivity in the advertising field. Of 52 commercials aired during the Super Bowl, 94 percent of the creative directors responsible for the spots were White men. Women accounted for the remaining 6 percent. Minorities were not represented at all. Additionally, while Rolfe may be correct in pointing out the low number of female creative directors, it seems safe to say that women are filling departments like account services, media and research quite well—a sharp contrast to minorities filling stereotypically menial roles such as receptionists, security, mailroom attendants, janitorial services and Chief Diversity Officers.

Again, the absence of female creative directors has not yet inspired anyone to search the underserved and impoverished communities for fresh talent.

8760: The Single Mother Of All Colleges.

It looks like Westwood College is the preferred school for single mothers. Although Christina is wearing a wedding ring, she only talks about her daughter—and hubby is nowhere to be seen. And what’s up with depicting two Latinas who have the same first name? Araceli S. was motivated to create a better life for her daughter and herself, while Araceli H. wanted to do likewise for her son and herself. Maybe the institution should write a new tagline: There’s Welfare, Or There’s Westwood College.