Obama Campaign’s Sexist Ads are Setting Women Back

Julie Borowski

11/5/2012 9:15:00 AM - Julie Borowski

Oh, but I was wrong. Dunham’s Your First Time ad was posted on the official Obama for America YouTube channel. Obama donors paid for an ad featuring a young actress who says she “became a woman” after she voted for the president. As a young woman about Dunham’s age, this video made me cringe and sent a chill up my spine.

I was even more horrified when I discovered that the ad echoes a Vladimir Putin campaign video, which roughly translates to Beauty Wishes on First Time, released earlier this year. It depicts a young blonde hair who visits a fortune teller to find the man of her destiny—which turns out to be Putin. She then goes to the polling station to presumably vote for the first time for Putin.

Dunham called her video “light” but the undertones of the ad are sexist and demeaning. Everyone should be appalled that the Obama campaign has sexualized women’s participation in the political process. It’s hard to believe that women are still being objectivized in this day and age.

Dunham’s distasteful ad isn’t likely to appeal to potential young voters. Judging by the fact that the video has accumulated more dislikes than likes, many people are equally disturbed by the sexually suggestive Obama ad. It’s unfair to judge based on the comments since Obama’s YouTube channel moderates comments before they appear below the video.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised since the Obama campaign’s official Tumblr did approve an e-card that instructed women to “vote like your lady parts depend on it.” That graphic is not cute or creative—it’s beyond insulting to reduce women to the sum of our reproductive organs.

Women should vote with their brains, not what is between our legs.

The left often accuses the right of being anti-woman while hypocritically treating women as sexual objects or helpless victims. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Obama’s ads targeted at women is the underlying assumption that women need the government to succeed. The prime case in point is the Obama campaign’s paternalistic Life of Julia storybook ad that depicts a fictional woman who is dependent on the government from cradle-to-grave.

Is this really the message that we want to communicate to our daughters? Julia is no role model for young girls. She is not strong or independent. Julia is an example of what not to be. She is a hopelessly dependent woman who is defined by her interactions with the government.

When she is 31 years old, Julia “decides” to have a child. Who is the father? No one knows. There is no man in her life except for Uncle Sam also known as her sugar daddy. She is more than willing to trade self-reliance for a big government that will take care of her.

The Life of Julia rightfully received negative reactions from most women. All too often, Democrats wrongly act like women only care about birth control and abortion. That is simply not the case.

Birth control is hardly the most important issue this election cycle. Despite all the scare tactics from the left, there are no serious proposals from any GOP lawmaker to ban birth control. Just because someone does not want the government to subsidize something with taxpayer dollars, does not mean they want to forbid it.

Women of childbearing age are more likely to be concerned with finding and keeping a job than who is going to pay for their birth control.

Millions of women are deeply concerned about the stalled economy, the exploding national debt, and the attacks on our civil liberties. Unemployment among women has risen from 7 percent to 8.1 percent during the Obama administration, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The national debt has risen by more than $5.4 trillion over the last four years. Obama has extended the unconstitutional Patriot Act, signed the horrendous National Defense Authorization Act, and allowed the groping from the TSA to continue.

Women have come a long way. The Obama campaign’s sexist ads that reduce women to nothing more than our private parts are setting us back decades.