Listen up, ladies
Seen on Facebook – a recruiting poster for the joys of attending the University of Adelaide:
Updating to correct: actually not for the University at all: those are two separate posters.
Tip Jar
Seen on Facebook – a recruiting poster for the joys of attending the University of Adelaide:
Updating to correct: actually not for the University at all: those are two separate posters.
I admit, part of me is snickering at how bored the women all look. “When is he going to shut up and let us get back to work?”
Oh I know, that’s part of what’s so funny about it. First reaction is wo, look at the clueless sexism, and second reaction is wait, they’re advertising how bored all the students are?
I mean even the splainer looks bored.
@Freemage: That was my reaction, as well. And yet, someone looked at this and thought it reflected the exciting, dynamic learning environment they were aiming for?
They’re offering a degree program in Mansplaining? I thought one could get that anywhere. Way to stand out from the pack.
All degree programs include Mansplaining as a mandatory freshman level general ed studies course – for males only. Females are expected to take Obedient Listening, but those classes had to be cancelled since it was difficult for them to make…female students just weren’t signing up for some reason that college administrators were never able to figure out. All the surveys conducted on all campuses just generated rolled eyes and WTF.
The University of Adelaide is one of the “leading” Group of 8 universities, Australia’s version of the Ivy League. As well as the mansplaining, there’s the uniform whiteness of the students, which is very bad PR since Australian colleges earn billions from foreign students, mainly from Asia.
Two own goals in the same poster.
To me it looks more like the group has all been delivered upsetting news by someone offscreen and they’re trying to figure out how to deal with it. The guy looks more like he’s emoting “are you serious?” than talking. Only one woman is clearly looking at him, perhaps because his hand movement caught her eye.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with the university. It’s two separate ads. The university’s ad is just the logo and website. The bored/upset people ad is for some Renewal company or initiative:
Source: https://www.mamamia.com.au/mansplaining-ad/
Yeah, Renewal SA is a Government owned property (re)developer. Hardly a surprise they have such a white and vanilla looking billboard when you look at their Governing body and Executive team (hint: white as vanilla ice cream). Then again, SA is a pretty white State anyway.
Ohhhh – well spotted. I’ll update.
Rob,
How do you know so much about SA, I thought that you live in the Shaky Isles. You are correct, the further west the whiter the population is.There’s an enormous differences in the demographic mix between the East and West of the country.
One would think that regardless of the state’s ethnic mix that the University of Adelaide would tailor its recruiting posters to Asian students.
RJW, I have family in Adelaide (now naturalised). Both my nieces went to Adelaide Uni. We also have a branch office there, so I’ve visited several times. Christchurch was designed along similar lines and has superficial geographic similarities (and of course also a very white city), so I do feel very at home there. Apart from the abundance of poisonousness spiders, snakes and who knows what else you lot have over there. That said, earthquakes have their downsides too I guess…
Rob,
Like most Kiwis you’re exaggerating the dangers from the local wildlife. It’s on record, sometimes an entire 24 hours may elapse without someone being eaten alive, stung to death, dismembered or disembowelled. You forgot to mention our ants, they can be lethal as well.
My alma mater! And city of birth and residence! I shall remedy this near-injustice by showing off how fucking pretty those older buildings are.
Well, what IS ‘renewal SA?’
https://renewalsa.sa.gov.au/
Pretty much a boiler-plate web site. So who picked that vapid, insulting, billboard?
RJW, The ants! I forgot the ants! Dammit. I remember standing on the coast with my brother and commenting that it looked like some good diving out there (you could see an off shore reef). He replied that he’d thought about it, but then a guy got taken by a shark on that particular spot. Turns out it happens just enough to make you think twice.
And Holms, yes, the older buildings are very pretty. The earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 have taken most of ours from that era, so last time I was in Adelaide I took the time to appreciate what was there. Glass boxes with steel frames really don’t compete.
Coming back on topic, sort of, I love my nieces very much. They’re both super intelligent, beautiful, considerate and musically talented. I sometimes wonder where the hell they got it all from. However, it amazes me how accepting they are, or at least appear to be, of the social status quo. Maybe they’ll grow into being more assertive, but despite being far more talented and capable than most young people I know, they’re really quite passive in pushing themselves forward. Their parents are not. I”ve never spent long enough in South Australia to really soak up the culture there, but the vibe I get is that even compared to my town it’s conservative and a bit patriarchal. You locals got any views on that?
Rob,
I haven’t forgotten the ants. I can’t remember if it was a jack jumper or a bull ant that stung me on the inside of the wrist, about 40 years ago. The sting penetrated a vein and injected the toxin directly into my bloodstream, so I had a red line running up my arm which swelled up, it seemed, to about twice its size. Jack jumpers have kliied people btw. I have to point out that, statistically, Australian wildlife is relatively harmless, compared to Africa and Asia the death toll is relatively low, even on a per capita basis. Most large land masses are inhabited by huge dangerous predators in the more remote areas, even Europe. For some evolutionary reason, Australia has more than its fair share of very venomous animals. My wife and I lived in an area with some of the most venomous snakes in the world and managed to survive. If you’re ever back in Oz don’t believe the bullshit about snakes getting out of your way, they don’t.
As to SA. In the 1970s under the premiership of Don Dunstan the state had a well-deserved reputation for social reforms which were quite radical for the time–the decriminalisation of homosexuality is one example. Perhaps it’s returned to a conservative torpor, if the recruitment poster is any indication.
I often reflect on how naive we were in the 1960s, we thought that social progress was written in stone, it wasn’t. Much has been undone by conservative governments. I’ve noticed an apathy in today’s young people, they don’t seem to connect economic, poltical and social conditions with government policies, They definitely need some ‘consciousness raising’.
Ophelia, apologies for wandering OT.
Yes, there’s a lot of that going around.
The ABC reports that the University of Adelaide is ‘distancing itself’ from the ‘mansplaining’ ad.
Typical, though, isn’t it? Finally, an advertisement where the women aren’t outnumbered three-to-one, and the sole male is being all ‘Trump at the G8’.
Hahaha good description.