No Comment 5

Occasionally I come across a particularly egregious example of sexist commercial advertisement and as a courtesy to my feminist readers, post it under the rubric of No Comment.  I thought that I reached the nadir with the Yorkie chocolate bar video but now the previous post seems pretty tame to this French anti-smoking campaign poster from the Les Droits des Non-Fumeurs, a French NGO dedicated to the rights of non-smokers.  From Wikipedia:

Droits des Non-Fumeurs (DNF) or Non-Smokers' Rights Association is a recognized non-governmental organization which has been working since 1973 to protect the rights of non-smokers in France. DNF also works to ensure proper implementation of the Evin law.  The association has eight regional offices which provide local contact information and help to anyone wanting more information about tobacco control legislation. DNF helps users in their efforts and answers their questions about France's tobacco legislation. Meanwhile, DNF is also working on three major projects in the part of the Cancer Plan, launched by the President in March 2003. On 17 December 2009, DNF issued a report addressed to the Minister of Health and Sports regarding the growing tendency of smokers and establishment owners to flout the smoking law of 15 November 2006, which entered into full effect 2 January 2008, following a transition period in 2007.

For those of you who don’t speak French, the caption at the bottom of the poster says, “Smoking is to be a slave to tobacco.” This is the sort of Gallic sexism that the French feminist group, Les Chiennes de Garde, with their motto “contra les insultes  sexistes publiques” have been fighting against since  their founding in 1999 by Florence and Isabel Alonso Montreynaud. Smoking among French youth has been increasing in the last few years but the solution is not these kind of ads.