Rush Limbaugh, the king of right-wing radio, is also the master of placing himself squarely in the middle of public debate. My guess is that he was starting to see himself slip out of the national dialogue, but like the Kardashians, he knows exactly how to get himself front and center again.Â
This time he called student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and "prostitute" for publicly protesting the fact that her school's heath insurance policy does not cover her contraception, and his name is now again on the tongue of every news outlet in the nation.Â
What isn't being scrutinized in this endless coverage, however, is how much money the companies which posture against sexism by pulling their ads from a sexist show -- or which proudly proclaim that they never would have advertised on such a show in the first place -- Â are wasting creating their own sexist ads, because advertising firms lack women in their upper ranks, especially as creative directors.
Because of this dearth of female voices, companies are spending billions creating ads that can be nearly as offensive or clueless as Limbaugh's remarks. Marketing companies need to catch on. Having more women's voices higher in the ranks would be better for both the advertising companies and those they serve.
For example, ads with babies and animals were much more popular with consumers this Super Bowl, but that didn't stop advertisers from using naked women. According to the USA Today/Facebook ad meter, Go Daddy's female-objectifying "Cloud" commercial was ranked the lowest at 56, followed by its equally offensive "Paint" commercial at 53. That's a seven million dollar mistake.
Number 1 on the ad meter was Doritos' baby in a sling. According to Kat Gordon, founder of Maternal Instinct, a marketing agency focused on helping brands connect with the mom market and the force behind the 3 percent Conference -- a first ever event for female creative directors -- women make up only 3 percent of all creative directors in advertising agencies.
There are over 8 million women-owned businesses in the United States, with, says the U.S. Census Bureau, women overseeing over 80 percent of consumer spending in the US. We oversee the majority of the spending --Â about $5 trillion dollars annually -- on the goods being advertised, but we are not represented in the creation process.
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This is particularly confounding when we see that the numbers show that women make for good business. According to a White House Project Report, "Fortune 500 companies with high percentages of women officers experienced, on average, a 35.1 percent higher return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than did those with low percentages of women corporate officers."
Facebook, which has the loudest champion for women in leadership, Sheryl Sandberg, as its COO, has harnessed the power of women. She showed advertisers how to reach its majority of female users and helped grow Facebook from 70 million users and almost no revenue to 600 million users and $3.7 billion in revenue since her arrival.
Another example of the power of women in business is the Best Buy's Women's Leadership Forum (WOLF), a program that brings together female customers and female employees at all levels in the organization. WOLF created an increase in revenue from female customers of 11 percent, or $4.4 billion in less than five years.  Â
Yet, surveys show more than 90 percent of women -- women who, incidentally, spend the money -- think that advertisers do not understand them. Considering that $171 billion was spent on advertising in 2011, this is a number that companies should be alarmed about.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that women are inherently more noble than men when it comes to advertising. If 97 percent of creative directors were female you'd probably see David Beckham not just selling underwear (spanking Go Daddy with a rank of 26 on USA Today's ad meter) but naked in bed, covering himself in Birkin bags to lure Victoria away from her tough job for a romp in the bedroom. Â
But the point isn't about gaining a majority, it's that smart businesses see the value of having more gender balance in decision-making positions.  Then maybe we would see fewer ads that seem just as sexist as Mr. Limbaugh himself.
Follow Christine Bronstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/abandofwives
80% of suicides, 25K a year are men.
85% of homeless are men.
More men than women are unemployed.
95% of workplace death and injuries are men.
3 out of every 4 health dollars is spent on women even though men die 7 years earlier. Out of the top 15 disease killers, men lead in 12, are tied in 2. Women lead only in breast cancer.
More women than men get college degrees.
After divorce men sue for equal custody 96% of the time and lose 84% of the time and are turned into walking ATMs with no rights to their own children.
Women recieve only 40% of the criminal sentence for the same crime.
Yet virtually all private, corporate and State charities are womens only charities. There is no help socially, economically, educationally or politically for men, even though at the bottom it's a virtual mens only club.
Perhaps oppression should be redefined to mean those who are neglected at the bottom, rather than comparing those who aren't neglected to those at the top.
That is why they believe in feminism, rather than equality.
Boy, are you correct on this, Christine.
Look at all those ads on TV and radio where the woman is ALL-KNOWING and the male portrayed as a simpering idiot whom the female needs to educate. Those comments belittling and demeaning men are the NORM!
I'm just not sure how increasing female executives will help alleviate those "males are morons" ads? Will female writers prove to be "male friendly"?
The advertizing media knows women spend 86 cents of every dollar in America, so they cater to female ideals of empowerment.
Somehow, I'm not thinking more females in advertizing is going to change who the commercials and shows are directed at.
Have you been forced to sign up for the draft (or been drafted)?
Have your kids been taken away from you after divorce?
Have you been forced to pay alimony?
Have you been forced to pay into Social Security, even though women draw 80% of the benefits while paying in only 35%?
As a student in college, are you forced to give up your Constitutional Rights due to the "Dear College" letter?
Although men were 85% of the layoffs during the "mancession", fully half the $777 billion dollar stimulus went to women's programs.
This isn't 1820 anymore, times have changed. Time to explore the real world and update your data base.
misleading data.Most of the homes in usa are owned by women because they get it in divorce.
And I worry because advertising targets women relentlessly-- and has ridden the awave of the empowerment mantra.
Meanwhile our world is filling up and our quality of life is decreasing and consumerism seems unstoppable... none of this will be solved by focusing gender, salaries, how many women are in charge, etc...in a word divisiveness
Generalizing about Feminism is as useful as generalizing and labelling men.
And YES feminism more often than not groups all men together-- and then it groups all women together- an unavoidable affect of choosing to focus solely on one characteristic gender. Since most feminists dont expect other feminists to demonstrate/prove that gender is a critical factor to be considered in wahtever context, we see all sorts of unethical use of statistics.... look carefully and you might find them too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tigeUlB0aDQ
Too bad she's fighting for the wrong team
It is SOOOOO bad right now that Premier Radio (Rush's syndicator, wholly owned by Clear Channel) told its news/talk affiliates not to run its barter spots for 2 weeks. today's memo:
"Attention Traffic Managers of Premiere News/Talk Affiliates:
"We are suspending the requirement to run barter spots for two weeks, March 12th and March 19th, for our News/Talk affiliates only.
"Please replace/re-traffic any Premiere barter spots immediately. Contractual requirements to run barter spots are being suspended for these two weeks only. Replace them with Lifelock and Lear Financial or a local spot of your choice.
"This suspension does not apply to in-program commercial provided by Premiere within any of its live news/talk programming."