I was listening to NPR's Day to Day as I was logging into Blogger to write today's post when my interest was piqued by the mention of the Village of Glenview, Illinois.I grew up in Glenview and my parents still live there so I turned my attention from Blogger to the radio only to shake my head in disbelief.
It seems that some prudish mothers in Glenview objected to this billboard which is located in an industrial/commercial area of the village. After an email/letter writing/petition campaign which generated a flurry of local and national news coverage with its concomitant free publicity, the billboard has been taken down.
The moms got together for a celebratory coffee.
I have a couple of thoughts on this.
First off, images like this are ubiquitous in today's America. Trying to combat their effects by attempting to ban the images is a losing proposition. It is much more productive to create an atmosphere and a dialogue with your children that explains and emphasizes the unrealistic aspects of these images.
Use the existence of these images to become the voice in your child's head.
Second, the owners of these businesses could not, in their wildest dreams, have anticipated how much free publicity their two week billboard investment would generate. I'd love to see their website visit statistics for the last couple of weeks.
The moms are having a coffee to celebrate while the business owners are most likely celebrating with something much more expensive.
1 comment:
I would think the better route would be to talk with one's kids--boys and girls--about the plethora of such images, which as you mention are in so many magazines, TV programs, ads, films. I'd educate my kids about the sexism ("I wonder why there aren't as many male models around town and in the media. What do you think?" "When are these images positive, when negative?")
Talking with one's kids should be primary. Granted I can't testify that the mothers didn't, but having grown up in this area, my guess is making this a campaign was much more exciting for them.
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