Sir, – I am one of the worthy, po-faced, sanctimonious women who don’t find humour in the Sydney Sweeney advert for the “prediction market company” (aka betting shop) she is promoting (“Spare me the fury about Sydney Sweeney. What I see here is a sense of humour”, Opinion, September 17th).
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in an era where women’s naked bodies were used to advertise men’s shoes, men’s shirts, men’s socks, car oil and cars among others; images that were as common as they were inappropriate. In those days, however, the women in the advertisements didn’t have a stake in the businesses doing the advertising, which seems to be part of the reason why some people feel that Sweeney’s participation is in some way feminist and empowering.
It was not empowering to walk into a wholesale suppliers in the 1970s and be confronted with pictures of naked women cavorting with power tools. It was not empowering in the 1980s to sit in a client’s office and see a calendar with a naked woman on the wall behind his head. It was not empowering in the 1990s to walk into a garage and see the Pirelli calendar proudly displayed in multiple locations. (The Pirelli calendar continues to be promoted as empowering because it uses famous photographers and “top” models. It eased back on the naked models for a while but in 2025 announced it wanted to return to “sexy classic”.)
Regardless of how advertising people want to spin it, I can assure you it was definitely not empowering to work in a financial institution in which it was perfectly normal for my male colleagues to have screensavers of semi-naked women on their computers, while they referred to the “men’s magazines” they left on their desks as “research”.
RM Block
Finn McRedmond is wrong to think that just because a woman is a willing participant and has a financial stake in the company involved in an advertisement that objectifies her body that the advertisement is, in itself, harmless and playful.
Sweeney’s ad objectifies women in sport who work hard to be acknowledged for what they have achieved. Research has shown that objectifying women normalises harassment.
The fact that sexist advertisements provoke comment today is because in those years of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s women worked hard to show how inappropriate they are. Reviving them in the name of humour simply isn’t funny. – Yours, etc,
SHEILA O’FLANAGAN,
Clontarf,
Dublin.
Sir, – I disagree with Finn McRedmond’s article. Having seen the ads for the online betting company Novig, it is reasonable to assume the purpose is to target young people (males in particular) whilst distracted by the virtually naked body of Sydney Sweeney.
The perils of online gambling have been well flagged, so there’s nothing humorous there or about the use of an attractive woman’s body to encourage people to part with their money. – Yours, etc,
ROSARY COX,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
