Friday, March 8, 2013

Fiat celebrates International Women's Day with an ancient sexist joke


Oh, Fiat...

The text reads "Fiat celebrates women: For one day only, the third, fourth and fifth gears are included for the normal price".

My friend and Osocio colleague Marc shared this via Facebook, via the Italian language Viralmente page. I was a little suspicious, so I did some searching. While there is no evidence of the post on Fiat's Italian page now, this screencap is still in the "posts by others" section:


You don't need to speak Italian to understand the outrage. Italian women and men are not amused by the 1950s-era joke about women's driving skills. They took it down and replaced it with this:


The car manufacturer has been accused of sexism before. Last year, they personified their sportier models as sexy (and slightly crazy) Italian women. They even managed to get ranked as the "second most sexist Super Bowl ad of the year" by Fem2.0. They even managed to draw fire from radical women's group Femen by appropriating their semi-nude protest tactics to sell cars in Brazil.

Which is odd, because recently Fiat has made a big effort in the UK to attract certain women drivers by empathizing with their demographic. Remember the Mother Hood?

Get out of the Cinquecento...



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