...or artistic, or cutting edge
The image pictured above is an ad for a hair salon.It depicts a woman with a black eye sitting on a couch in a dress with her hair done up, and her apparent abuser standing behind her, holding out a piece of jewelry (presumably to make up for inflicting the black eye).
The implication of this ad is that, as a woman, your desire to be beautiful should extend to any situation, even when you’re being beaten by your partner.
It’s tired, offensive, and disgusting, and it’s rightly inspired a number of people to speak out (see comments here).
When I come across such glibly sexist and unambiguously violence-apologist media, I’m often left with frustration that my feeling of rage and indignance aren’t enough. Why do people continue to make light of a topic that has brought about so much violence, pain, and death? Why don’t they understand how they are contributing to the problem?
Instead of asking “Is an ad featuring a battered woman offensive or artistic?”, as this article does, we should ask “is an ad depicting a woman’s black eye as a glamorous accessory and her violent perpetrator as a jewelry-bearing lover creepy, disgusting, offensive, or all three?”
