The Same Old Shit in 2006
November 24, 2006 at 9:51 am
Anyone seen this month’s Business Plus magazine? It’s a disgrace. The ‘Top Ten 2006″ issue – the usual top 10 entrepreneurs, top 10 mishaps, etc etc. Included in all of this is the Top Ten PR Shots – or more accurately models in bikinis. And that’s pretty much all that Business Plus has to say about women for 2006.
Flick past the 4 men on the cover, peruse the contents and you’ll see a shot of Peter Stringfellow and his girls, one of the bikini beauties on the left, and lots of hard hitting serious men. Turn the pages and your heart will sink. It’s all about the lads. There’s another ‘lovely lady’ on page 35 but she’s the girl from the Fas ad… Page 37 we finally get to see a woman in business, but she’s with her husband, she’s an ‘ambitious robson’.
It’s very sad that the only representation us women have in that magazine is of the PR girls holding other people’s products. Disbelieving, I actually looked hard to see if the PR shots were published for some other reason – like the photography, or the product, branding…but no. It’s just for the flesh in the shot.
This is the same magazine that Siobhan O’Connell works for. She is the Advertising Manager who regularly features on the breakfast show on Newstalk. She’s bright, articulate, and a breath of fresh air. She’d be a good role model for any young woman who is starting out in business, media, whatever. It’s sad that this piece of ‘journalism’ that is more akin to 1976 has come from the publication she works for.
And it’s the same everywhere. I’ve just started reading the amusing and well written ramblings of The Swearing Lady from the Arse End of Ireland and in one of her rants about coked up tiger Ireland, she says “I know a lot of young fellas who had trades before they were twenty-one, setting them up for at least ten years in the concrete boom of Celtic Tiger Ireland (less luck if you’re a girl, though. I hope you like the smell of till receipts!).”
Comments (2 responses)
Most Irish business editors prefer their gadget shots served up by women fondling them in the photos accompanying the articles. It’s tabloid page-turning manipulation and until male CEOs stop commissioning the practise and male PR consultants stop proposing the shots, the bikini-clad models will continue in mainstream Irish business media.
I thought the ubiquitous model in bikini in St. stephen’s Green was tabloid fodder … disappointing to hear that a business mag is peddling it too.
On the up-side, congrats to Ann Heraty for winning the Ernst&Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award!
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