Talking to My Cats: 02-12-08

What's worse: the recent Target ad showing a woman in winter clothing lying on the Target logo, or the subsequent shit storm over Target's policy of not responding to bloggers? This is a real toughie, because both acts are extraordinarily heinous events.

First the ad. Unmistakably, the model's crotch is positioned dead center in the bull's-eye of the logo! This is the most horrific example of the classic sexist objectifying of women in the history of civilization! The art director – obviously a man, of course – is clearly acting out his own violent rape fantasy with this misogynistic piece of dreck – and inviting all other men to indulge in their own sick mind games.

The impact of this crime is likely to be felt for generations. Young girls will be forever traumatized, unable to make eye contact with other women or, most especially, with men, lest they too be targeted in just the same way. It could even drive them into lesbianism, which is just what men want, isn't it – as long as they're permitted to watch, right?

It sickens me as a member of the advertising and communications community that this sort of thing still happens, even now in the 21st century. I thought we were beyond this, liberated at long last from centuries of treating women as chattels, as somehow less then men, as something to be used, wrung out, and then discarded.