The Lionesses collective, which defends women in the advertising and communication sector, is launching a campaign calling on stalkers to answer for their actions. With a daring process: go straight to the source.
The advertising and communication industry is not spared neither by sexism nor by harassment (or even by racism, validism, grossophobia …). The Instagram account Balance Ton Agency has been denouncing for a month the very serious abuses of the environment, and poses a direct observation: where the good words should be king, the salacious sentences are carving out the lion's share. But women no longer let it go. Les Lionnes, a collective founded in 2019 by employees in the trade, even decided to strike a blow. On Monday, October 19, 2020, they covered the facades of the premises of various advertising agencies with posters. The goal ? Invite men in the middle to think about their degrading practices and promote season 2 of their podcast, Roar.
On Twitter, the association announces: "Because Lionesses have a plan, they invite men to reflect on their toxic behaviors, their silences and their inability to question these facts." The principle of the campaign: to show men who suffer in silence (one hidden behind a steamy window, the other sadly slumped on his desk …) because they no longer have the right to act as they see fit. , and regardless of labor law. An ironic tag (#DurDurDetreUnHomme) accompanies everything.
A profession that influences all of society
We could find the annecdotal approach, centered on a small Parisian environment. On the contrary, it concerns everyone, and not just employees who suffer violence. Indeed, advertising influences the practices of consumers as well as their way of seeing the world in general. It is up to the actors of the sector, therefore, to fight against gender stereotypes, racists, classists etc. And in light of the actions denounced by Balance Ton Agency, there is work.
A mission which therefore continues on the walls of the agencies themselves, and is part of a political tradition brought up to date by the "feminist splicers". If the Lionesses campaign calls out to us, it is above all by its audacity, since the activists went to put up directly on the desks of the people concerned, exploding the message in the face of the accused of gender-based and sexual violence. The reproaches can no longer be ignored, the violence minimized. We know some who will r (o) ugir!