As if milk weren't bad enough, now it's sexist!

[Zizzle]

From Change.org:

The California Milk Processor Board has come up with some of the most popular and trendsetting advertising of the last 20 years, i.e. “Got Milk?” and “Milk does a body good.”
But recently the board has started publicizing a new ad campaign that promotes sexist stereotypes about women.
The premise of the new “Got Milk?” campaign is that men should buy milk for their girlfriends and wives because it helps reduce the symptoms of PMS -- a medically tenuous claim. The ads make women look irrational and crazy.

Each ad features a disheveled, confused man holding cartons of milk. The captions are lines like “I apologize for not reading between the right lines” and “We can both blame myself.”
The web site associated with the ad campaign offers a “vocabulary sensitizer,” tracks the “current global PMS level,” and lets men make sarcastic “apology” videos for things they “did and didn’t do.”
Marketing magazine AdWeek even covered the ads in an article titled “Got PMS? Have a Glass of Milk, You Crazy Bitch.”
If these ads stand, they’ll send a high-profile message that advertising based on sexist and offensive stereotypes is acceptable and gets rewarded.

So far, the chairman of the California Milk Processor Board, Steve James, has dismissed criticisms. He responded snidely, claiming that these ads are "like a public service, providing tools and abilities to talk about" PMS.

Widespread public outcry can push the board to pull the ads -- just as it did in 2005 when the board first tried to float a similar PMS-centric campaign.
It’s time to let the California Milk Processor Board know their new “Got Milk?” campaign’s got a problem.

Sign here to let the board know that sexist ads are bad for business:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-go ... d-campaign

[sarkin]

The sexism is awful, but the Sheer Stupidity almost overshadows it.

Actually, the stupidity is overwhelming. (Either that, or my dairy-free life has allowed me to mellow to the point where I'm kind of enjoying the dope-slap these buffoons have coming.) Who does most of the grocery shopping in America - if we were to be so crass as to divide things up along sexist lines? A trivial search pops up - "men are shopping more, but women still make the grocery decisions" (that's less than a week old); of course there's more, but let's just say "good luck with that, milk processin' fools!"

--Sara

(You know I think they'd be smarter if they'd get the casein out of their systems, right?)

[Zizzle]

It may backfire even more...men may stop buying milk for themselves because it's for female problems!! It'll be like going to the grocery store for tampons!! I'd love the meet the ad exec who made this one up!!

[sarkin]

Great point, Z. It makes me foolishly happy to think how much money they spent shooting themselves in the foot, esp. now that Chairman Snidely has responded snarkily. I'm guessing most of the "tools and abilities" for talking about PMS that he's referring to will be primarily used by late-night talk-show comics. Way to turn a gaffe into an overnight Internet sensation, Chairman Dairy Guy!

Just smiling, and shaking my head,

Sara