Move over, Brawny Man. The Brawny Woman is taking over.
For the month of March, Brawny brand paper towels have removed their iconic Brawny Man logo and replaced him with a woman as part of their #StrengthHasNoGender campaign. It is the second year the company has run the campaign, but the first time they've replaced the guy on their packaging.
For #WomensHistoryMonth, we're proud to celebrate the strong women everywhere who break barriers and inspire us all. #StrengthHasNoGender pic.twitter.com/4yN6Z6x5DG
— Brawny® (@Brawny) March 1, 2017
"There are women and girls everywhere who exhibit strength and resilience in their lives, and that's the inspiration behind the Brawny #StrengthHasNoGender campaign," Frances Morgan, senior brand manager at Georgia-Pacific, said in a statement.
Not going to lie, I think it's cool to see a powerful-looking woman in a plaid shirt on the front of Brawny's paper towels. However, even cooler would have been if the woman had a face instead of being mostly headless, as images like that are a way of reducing women and other marginalized groups to just their bodies. Imagery that reduces people to body parts actually serves to dehumanize them, which is the opposite of what the brand is going for here. And while it's great that they have a diverse array of women pictured on the other promotional campaign images, it would have been nice to see a non-white Brawny woman on the packaging itself (hint for next year, Brawny).
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Another pretty amazing part of the company's campaign is that they will be featuring short films on their website that highlight women in STEM. "STEM is among many areas of society that are underrepresented by females, and we felt this would be a powerful platform to address this issue," Morgan said. Not only that, they'll be making a $75,000 donation to Girls Inc., which is an advocacy group that hopes to inspire young girls to enter the science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
Of course, not everyone is happy about the change and #BoycottBrawny tweets are starting to pop up.
.@Brawny I will #BoycottBrawny over your ill-conceived ad campaign #StrengthHasNoGender and urge others to do so. Here's why. pic.twitter.com/mvHWAIcQZc
— SCLaw (@_SCLaw_) March 4, 2017
But anyone who is going to be threatened by a woman on their paper towel packaging is not someone whose opinion is worth listening to anyway. Keep on keeping on, Brawny.
Learn more in this video, below.
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