Nothing 'perfect' about sexism

By Kerryn Williams

SYDNEY — While waiting for the train to the city, I caught sight of the new addition to the landscape: an enormous billboard advertising Kayser "Perfects" underwear.

The main image was of an extremely thin woman, wearing only her underwear. But what incited my particular outrage was the message across the centre of the billboard: "Your girlfriend hates me? Perfect!"

The insidious message is not only that how women look is more important than how we think or what we do but also that we should engage in hatred and jealousy and compete with each other as we starve and mutilate ourselves in the quest to achieve the Barbie-doll physique.

Such a classic example of how this profits-before-people system attempts to divide and rule brought home to me the urgent task before women today. We have to swim against the tide and reject the fundamental premises of the Kayser advertisements.

Women hating other women is "perfect" only for a small group of people — the owners of companies like Kayser who directly profit from the continuing subjugation and division of women.

From GLW issue 384