Sri Lankan women take on 'body shaming' barrel ad

A gymnasium inside the sri lankan capital colombo precipitated outrage after it put up a billboard presenting a photograph of a barrel with the textual content "this is no shape for a lady". The bbc's ayeshea perera reviews on the fight to get it taken down.

The hoarding for osmo fitness center went up in a colombo suburb remaining week and the row nearly right away made it directly to social media.

Each ladies and men shared pix of the billboard at the side of expressions of concern and disgust on the "blatant sexism" and "frame shaming" depicted.

Some commenced a hashtag marketing campaign entitled #boycottosmo, at the same time as others tagged the agency on facebook asking them to take down the hoardings and apologise. But the health club did now not respond, and a publish presenting the pix used in the billboard stayed pinned to the top in their fb page.

"the advert become not anything very exceptional from the standard objectification and sexist usage of ladies by means of the advert enterprise, which has been promoting whatever from vehicles to perfume with the aid of sexualising girls and their bodies," marisa de silva, an activist, told the bbc.

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"however this ad additionally attempted to body disgrace by dictating to ladies the ideal form they should resemble, nearly as though it is the sole basis of their really worth."

So, along with a set of women who were discussing the billboard on social media, she decided to do something positive about it.One in every of them, who did now not need to be identified, tried calling osmo's marketing manager to whinge, and turned into informed that the hoarding had used an picture that had no longer been "accepted" via the company. He did now not offer to take it down.

A few others decided to approach harsha de silva, the minister in charge of the kotte constituency wherein the billboard turned into put up.

He answered with the tweet: "i requested the colombo mc commissioner to take away this unapproved offensive hoarding. I'd no longer tolerate this in kotte."

So the billboard turned into protected up on the idea that it did no longer have the essential permissions, and the colombo municipal council allowed the women to apply the distance to display a message against sexism for two days.Ms de silva, who become one of the women who spoke to the minister, canvassed opinion on social media for the textual content of the new banner, earlier than deciding on "no greater area for sexism" in sri lanka's three major languages - sinhala, tamil and english.

A local pics employer stepped in with a proposal of sponsorship and the banner went up a day later.

But at the same time as many cheered the initiative to take down the billboard and update it with a banner against sexism, some guys on social media warned that one of these flow set a "dangerous precedent" against unfastened speech.The banner did now not remaining lengthy both. It changed into taken down after an afternoon, and its whereabouts are presently unknown.

In the meantime osmo also replied with an respectable statement on the marketing campaign, announcing that it had "withdrawn" the commercial, which became no longer intended to "degrade, offend, insult or undermine any individual person or girls in general".

It further explained that the advert were inspired through a "worrying" who report that said there have been better fees of diabetes, being overweight, obesity and physical inactiveness among sri lankan ladies than guys.

But ms de silva says she hopes that some classes had been found out from the incident.

"this set off a series reaction which i'm hoping would possibly make the ad enterprise at the least suppose two times before subscribing to sexist advertising and marketing within the destiny," she stated.