“The advertisement objectifies women,” the ombudsman said. “It presents women as interchangeable items and suggests only their appearance is interesting … It also shows degrading stereotypical gender roles of both men and women and gives the impression men can change female partners as they change jobs.”
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The meme shows a man turning away from his outraged girlfriend to whistle at another woman and text boxes over the three individuals represent them as various humorous combinations.
Bahnof used the meme in recruitment advertisements on Facebook, labelling the boyfriend “You”, the girlfriend “Your current workplace”, and the second woman “Bahnhof” which the ombudsman called gender discriminatory.
The ombudsman said the image objectified the two women by presenting them as workplaces, but the man as an individual, and added that the “other woman” was clearly a “sex object ... unrelated to the advertisement, which is for recruiting salespeople, operating engineers and a web designer”.
The ad was posted in April and itself received criticism from women. “1. You really don’t want to attract women to your company, 2. You really don’t want to attract sensible guys either,” said commenter, Susanne Lahti Hagbard.”
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The company said it was trying “to illustrate a situation that shows Bahnhof is an attractive employer, and that people who have a slightly duller workplace might be interested in us.”
A 2016 study found Sweden to be the worst of the Nordic countries in combating sexist advertising. This year, Stockholm council voted to bar ads deemed sexist or degrading from the city’s public billboards.
This article originally appeared on the Guardian.
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