We’ve all trolled the internet for some heavy quotes to accompany our display pictures. This time it was a Pakistani clothing brand that resorted to the aforementioned shortcut, found a random quote by Lauren Bacall on how ‘a woman isn’t complete without a man’, used some really fancily twisted font and felt that was such a perfect message to give for their new Eid campaign for men’s clothing.
Except that the quote was err… really sexist and didn’t at all go with the campaign.
This extremely offensive quote was posted earlier this week and then quickly taken down after the sudden, and obvious, backlash
Matlab kasam se, bohat unnecessary thi.
“A woman isn’t complete without a man. But where do you find a man – a real man – these days?”
Ethnic by Outfitters is a generally respectable brand and for them to be endorsing such casual sexism is rather appalling, to say the least.
The post has been taken off their official Facebook page (which is a commendable step that they realized their mistake and took it down) but God bless the technology, we’ve got screenshots.
Also, the brand hasn’t apologized or given any official statement so far, regarding this rather offensive misstep
'A woman isnt complete without a man'…so says brand Ethnic by Outfitters. Seriously? Pakistan is still living in the…
Posted by Pakistan Votes on Dienstag, 20. Juni 2017
The reactions from people who did see the offensive quote show how people feel about sexism in our society
There were some very obvious self-contradictions
Some steered away from the conversation and felt men (and women) need to dress and look a very specific way
This person makes so much sense when they talk about what masculinity really is
One would think, with the conversations being such public and everyone being consciously aware of them, that misogyny and sexism must have taken a back seat by now but turns out that’s not the case.
It can all even be taken lightly and ignored because, hey, the quote is basically targeting both the genders in a way but the fact that in a society where everyone is already looking for chances to put women down, this nonchalant attitude by a brand as respectable as this cannot be sidelined.
Such actions from respectable, influential brands and personalities just subconsciously embed within everyone that casual sexism is nothing wrong. Eventually everything and anything sexist is ignored on account of humor, light-heartedness and ‘ yar har bat ko serious lena band karo‘, leading us back to square one.
Cover Image Via: Pakistan Votes/Facebook