This is The Worst (and most sexist) Ad of 2022

The Xunta de Galicia has won The Worst (and most sexist) Advertisement of the Year, an award that FACUA-Consumers in Action has been organising since 2010. It is an unfortunate campaign with a series of advertisements in which the focus was once again on the attitude or the way of dressing of the victims, blaming them if they suffer any aggression.

These awards are chosen by FACUA members and supporters. More than half, 58%, of the participants chose the Xunta's campaign. Another nominee was the discotheque La Vaguada, in Grao, which came second, but far behind in first place, with 20% of the votes, for advertising a "women's caravan" as a party advertisement.

The other two nominees were the Sevillian gym Galisport, for an advert in which, in the run-up to the April Fair, they urged women to lose weight in order to comply with the aesthetic canons, and the Enerplus petrol station chain, which showed a woman as a prize for men who came to wash their cars.

Blaming the victims

The winner: The campaign of the Xunta de Galicia that says that if you are a woman and you go out running at night in tights, it is your fault if something happens to you. Things that women will still have to put up with in 2022: That an institutional campaign against gender violence continues to focus on the victims, blaming them according to how they were dressed, where they were or what they were doing. "It shouldn't happen, but it does". What undoubtedly did not cross the mind of anyone in the Xunta is that it is only the aggressors who are to blame. And nobody asks them what they were wearing.

Awards since 2010

The association has been organising these awards since 2010 to censure serious abuses in the marketplace and to promote responsible practices by companies towards consumers and in their relations with consumers and the organisations that represent their interests.

Last year, the ad that had the dubious honour of winning the 2021 edition was Services Energía's promotion of solar panels, with 29% of the votes. The advertisement shows a woman in a bikini with the slogan "ponlas mirando pal sur" (put them facing south). The Murcian company advertised its products using, objectifying and commodifying women's bodies to sell, using them as a sexual simile of how their solar panels should be placed.

In 2020, the winner of the Worst Advertisement was the Consejería de Salud y Familias de la Junta de Andalucía, with the votes of 37% of the participants in that edition. The previous year, El Corte Inglés took the prize, with 30% of the votes for a Mother's Day advertisement that read "97% devoted, 3% selfish, 0% complaints. 100% Mother".

The other ad campaigns nominated for The Worst (and most sexist) Ad of 2022 are:

Enerplus petrol stations, for whom women are a prize for washing the car. What better incentive than a woman to finally give your car a watering, which you have made a mess of? That must have been the thinking of the luminaries who designed this advertising campaign for Enerplus service stations, in which they show a young girl as the prize for having a clean car. But the ones who should get into the car wash are them, to see if they can get rid of this sexism…

The Sevillian gym Galisport only wants the bodies they like to go to the Feria. As far as we know, 'Operation Feria' should be about spending a few pleasant days with your family and friends eating, drinking and dancing. And for that all you need is a body, any body will do. But the brilliant minds at Galisport came up with the idea that if you are a woman you have to lose weight to comply with the aesthetic canons of the patriarchy.

The discotheque La Vaguada wanted to put the women in their "caravan" and drive them around like cattle. We can't even think of a joke to soften this barbarity. A women's caravan? What's next? An auction in the square? We'd better not give them any ideas...