by Imran Siddiquee

This morning Hyper posted this blog, in response to the #NotBuyingIt campaign we began last week, in which they claim we tried to profit from the outrage to their booth at CES featuring lifeless nearly-naked women. Here’s a quote from their blog:

What is offensive, however, is that an organization (aka Miss Representation) based on civil rights and allegedly focused on “the greater good” has taken it upon themselves to leverage their opinions and instigation by reaching out to our company to gain our business.

The idea in that final sentence, that we wanted their business, is based on this message I sent their customer service last Friday:

We’d love to work with you in releasing new ads promoting the quality of products without offending our community. And we’d love to champion your agency as receptive to change and the voice of women.

To be clear: MissRepresentation.org is a non-profit organization and we definitely were not soliciting Hyper for any kind of business here. I was hoping to offer them some (free!) advice on how to create marketing that is more inclusive of women and girls. I made this offer because our belief is that it’s not enough to simply call out companies on sexism, but we need to offer to guide them forward as well. Because often they are unaware of how problematic their marketing is and/or are unsure of how to improve. We want to be available to companies interested in understanding a concept like objectification, why it is so harmful to society, and how they can create successful marketing without relying on it. And again, this is not done with the intention of making any money.

MissRepresentation.org is serious about shifting media culture to a place that values women’s voices for more than their youth, beauty and sexuality, and one where we are all equally represented. If you have any questions, please contact me directly: imran@missrepresentation.org.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of this movement!

Written by Imran Siddiquee at MissRepresentation.org. Follow him on Twitter @imransiddiquee