Look at the Lebanese Highways and especially at the huge billboards everywhere!
Women, teenagers, Men, children are harassed by pictures and advertisements using the women body and brain as a housewife, as a sexy doll, as a bimbo.
the examples in Lebanon are numerous. ( here are some previous examples taken from my blog : My body is not to be used for your crap ads! women’s body are sacred and not objects!
Salons de Beaute pour ENFANTS! au Liban tout est travaille pour Arranger l’image de soi
You can be Seduced by a Taouk…. or a warak arich on a women body… , for more info also do check Kherrberr website: here are great examples from it Mothers Are Not Washing Machines , Scholl’s Babybotte: Influencing Children’s Gender Roles ! )
The problem is that me and other Lebanese and non Lebanese women living in Lebanon and bombarded by such pictures and adv will integrate them in our mind and we won’t be able to see the prejudice and discrimination they create after a while.
The small boy and the small girl are definitely influenced by those ads such as the “Babybotte and Barbie Adv! To the boy we will find it normal to buy and offer a Lego game that will help him use his brain, as for girls, we will find it normal to offer a doll, for her to pamper and integrate as an image of the mother she will once be!
I will always and always repeat that we live in a world were stereotypes related to gender role division are very difficult to overcome, but WE can do it!!
we have to be able to discern gender biased images, games and advertisements!
is it normal for media to use My body to market a car!?! I understand that women bodies are attractive but we have to stop using them and Instrumentalising them as objects for marketing!
The gender division is so normal that when we go to a shop in Lebanon for children you’ll have a part in pink with lots of dolls and dentelles, and carrycots, and small kitchens and other part with cabs, construction games, army clothes, superman clothes for boys.
This is from where gender stereotyping begins! Malls, and shops for children!!!
Images and social Roles (women as a housewife, and men as house caretaker, and a society saviour ( the superman) ) are so commonly engraved in our sub conscience we usually reproduce and replicate them over and over! I was so glad when my Brother in Law wrote to me, “let your husband help you Iron your future new born clothes , this task is not just for women!!”
That is how we go out of the vicious circle of reproducing social roles and reinforcing social stereotypes!
I am working on it, Are you???
I loved this flyer that we (my husband and I found at the gynecologist, a Men bottle feeding his child) …. Do you think that this is common in Lebanon?? it is rare to find husbands helping with the education part of the children, why? again social roles, manly roles, patriarchal culture, and all those big issues we have to try to fight and overcome!
Rita Chemaly
I agree. Very nice ad.
But unfortunately in Lebanon once such ads start, I’m afraid advertisers will exploit this opportunity to the maximum. Using charm/image just for commercial and selling reasons and forgetting that it should be natural.
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But the ad for the bottle is illegal and there are so many other ways of eliminating stereotyping without damaging the health of others and at the same time contributing to leaving the negative image that bottle feeding is normal! I would much prefer, for the health of the baby and the mother, to see the mother breastfeeding her baby and the daddy doing all the tonnes of other stuff the daddy can then help with, including but not limited to) changing nappies/diapers, washing the dishes, putting on washing machines and hanging clothes, tidying up around the house, cooking, etc. so that mummy doesn’t have to worry about it and can concentrate on doing the oh-so-important job of feeding their baby the best food that can ever exist for the baby. Stopping gender discrimination? Absolutely! And I love your article, but be careful it’s not taken too far as to negatively affect the health of baby and mum.
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why the ad of the bottle is illegal ?
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Because bottle feeding (whether with pumped breast milk or formula milk) can cause nipple confusion for the baby, who might end up preferring the bottle to the breast and may reject the breast completely. This is a risk of bottle feeding that some mothers have to take, but if they are informed properly they can take certain measures to try to minimise that risk. However, most people don’t realise this when they start using a bottle and some time later it’s common that the baby will stop nursing altogether, with the loss of all the benefits that breastfeeding provides for the mother and baby. Also, the view of a mother, father or anyone feeding a baby with a bottle has become very normalised, whereas the natural and most normal way to feed a baby is directly from the breast. As so many decisions we make are based on a perception of what is normal, it is important to stop normalising bottles and rather normalise breastfeeding directly. Other choices parents make to feed their babies should always be informed decisions and the aggresive marketing that bottle companies, formula companies etc. regularly do make it very difficult for parents to make such informed decisions that can completely alter the health of babies and mothers (formula-fed babies have a higher risk of diabetes, obesity, childhood cancers, asthma, allergies and more to name a few, while mothers will have a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, and others).
For this reason, the World Health Assembly approved in 1981 the text developed by the World Health Organisation for the International Code for Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and the Lebanese Government approved in 2008 Law 47 for Organising the Marketing of Infant and Young Child Feeding Products and Tools, which prohibits ALL marketing of formula milk, cereals and other foods for 0-3 year olds as well as bottles, teats and pacifiers (which can also cause nipple confusion in the early weeks especially).
I hope that explains it OK. 🙂 it’s great you asked because the vast majority of people are completely unaware of this Law and Code and the importance of stopping all the marketing of those products, so any chance is good. 🙂
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Oh, and here’s a link to a page that can give indications of how to minimise the risk that introducing bottles to a breastfed baby could lead to them stopping breastfeeding: http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/
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[…] Biaised Women Image…. using sex and charm of women to sell products and reinforce social roles […]
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[…] was super glad to see the advertisement of a dad giving a bottle to his child. In Lebanon, dad’s are seen are the ones who work outside the house and just get the cash […]
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