The subway system has plenty of ads that focus on women’s breasts, butts, and mostly-naked bodies in general.
But when a women-run company that makes leak and stain-resistant underwear for women having their periods tried to launch a subway ad campaign, the company that sells the MTA’s ad space rejected them, saying they were too provocative, according to Slate.
Miki Agrawal, the CEO of THINX, reportedly said an Outfront rep told her that the ads — which feature women in shirts and underwear and images of a peeled grapefruit — were "inappropriate."
Here's the ad:
As all commuters know, subway trains and stations are no stranger to images of scantily-clad women, many of them telling women to change their bodies.
BUTTOCK ENHANCEMENT, one ad blares. BREAST ENHANCEMENT, bleats another, showing a pouting woman with clementines held to her chest besides a grinning version of herself holding busty grapefruits.
ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY? shouts an ad marketing “THE WEIGHT LOSS COLLECTION” (caps lock theirs).
Some critics have taken to amending the ads with stickers that say "This Oppresses Women," prompting the hashtag #thisoppresseswomen on Instagram.
This is an ad Outfront is apparently OK with.
Agrawal told Slate that Outfront also said that the women in THINX's ads “seem to have a bit too much skin.”
One of the women is wearing a turtleneck.
Here is another ad Outfront apparently does not think has ‘a bit too much skin.’
When THINX’s marketing director suggested Outfront was being hypocritical in approving other ads featuring mostly nude women in sexual poses and taking issue with her very tame ones an Outfront rep told her not to make it a “women’s issue.”
And another.
Agrawal told Slate that a rep for Outfront asked her to consider the plight of a mother who might have to explain the ads to her 9-year-old son.
If the most difficult thing life in New York City forces you to explain to your child is menstruation, who are you? Where do you live? What is your life?
Outfront also likes this one.
Instagram/@emmyloufyou666
Look, it’s true. Periods are gross. (To most people, and hey: no judgment to the rest of you.)
That’s why the women who founded THINX were inspired to create leak and stain-resistant underwear geared at sparing women “embarrassing moments, anxiety and ruined clothes.”
The women who founded THINX explain in this video how three years of research and hard work led them to create their product.
"Like many of you, we’re active girls. We work hard, play hard and have fun."
PREACH, LADIES.
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