Bad Ads

The milk industry has been heavily advertising all around me for all of my life. I remember the huge "Got Milk?" posters hung in the gyms of my elementary and middle schools and the multitude of magazine ads with celebrities endorsing milk as their go-to source of calcium. All of these campaigns were relatively harmless, but there was one set of ads released in 2011 that received dramatic backlash and personally offended women everywhere:

This approach paints women as irrational, hysterical beasts who can only be sedated by milk. The men in the ads look terrified as if they were about to be eaten alive by these estrogen-fueled monsters. The ad campaign even had a corresponding website, everythingidoiswong.org, which monitored "global PMS levels" and encouraged consumers to buy milk for PMS. The fact that the ads and website target the significant others (or, as the ads insinuate, victims) of women with PMS adds an extra level of offense and condescension. I have no idea why advertisers thought this approach was appropriate, but it was nothing but upsetting to me and millions of other "irrational" women.