What this is really about is a matter of taste, perportion, and timing. The human body is a beautiful. Beautiful works of art capture that. Trashy planes with trashy models pasted across them degrade it, and the men and women they demean and service. But even more disturbing, is the message this sends to children.
I have always respected Southwest Airlines as not only a fair employer but a good service provider. But this unethical publicity stunt undercuts any respect I once had for it. I think any company has an ethical responsibility for the image it puts out there, especially when they are marketing themselves to families. It's bad enough I have to drive down the street and see signs for half dressed Hooter's "waitresses" (if you can call them that) and drive in beer barns with girls teetering around in heels and bikinis, but there are also small children seeing this and processing these images with very disturbing outcomes. Just in yesterdays news was an article about the negative impact that male TV heroes have on adolescent boys. And I think this is far more over the top, negative and insidious images about women that Southwestern is perpetuating. There's nothing wrong with a women being beautiful and admired for that, but there is something wrong with puting a practically naked women laying seductively on the outside of a plane (on an airline that incidently evicted a women from one of its planes for being underdressed) and suggesting that this is a normal image to see on an outside of a plane, this is what women should aspire to be and that this is appropriate for young girls to see. It's not the lack of clothes but the context. Women in bikinis belong on beaches. Actually, I'd really prefer to put on some board shorts. And it's not because I have something to hide. I'm fortunate to be very petite. I just would rather be enjoying myself than worrying whether I have a string up my ass, or whether some guy is checking me out. But it's these sort of absurd images constantly bombarding women that lead girls to constantly focus on their bodies and minimum, and develop eating disorders at worst.
So you lost me on this one Southwest, in every respect, as a customer included.
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