Sexy Legal Advertising

By a 2L at NYU School of Law

Back in November, a minor controversy erupted in Boston over an ad placed by Jiwani, a maker of custom-tailored suits, in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (here is a link through Abovethelaw.com to the picture

Is this ad in the same vein as the Clinique ‘cum’ shot discussed by Frank Herbert in the New York Times (see his October 16, 2006 editorial “Why Aren't We Shocked?” discussing wide-spread misogyny in our society)? Is the woman in this ad a mere sexual plaything?

Sexist Advertising in Legal Magazines

[The following focuses on an advertisement in Massachussets Lawyers Weekly, which featured a naked woman, covered by a man's suit coat, pulling a professionally-dressed man toward her by his tie, with the words, "A custom tailored suit is a natural aphrodisiac." Several female attorneys wrote in to complain, and a handful of "feminist" defenses of the ad followed. This is a response to some of those arguments.]

If this ad is somehow represents the idea that women can be sexual, then that idea isn't really new at all, is it? Women's bodies have been used in advertising to sell goods and services for decades. Highly sexualized images of women are nothing new -- and I don't think they're particularly empowering, given that the women in these ads are not sexual subjects (her pulling him doesn't change thousands of years of gender dynamics and decades of sexist advertising).