‘Porn underwear’: Fury at ‘sexist’ ad campaign with rugby stars in lingerie
A bold ad campaign featuring British rugby stars wearing lingerie has received backlash, with athletes and fans describing it as sexist.
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Three former Olympians have slammed a “sexist” advertising campaign featuring Team GB rugby stars in “porn underwear”.
Former tennis star Martina Navratilova, ex-swimmer Sharron Davies and former British distance runner Mara Yamauchi have voiced their discontent over Bluebella’s #StrongIsBeautiful campaign.
The lingerie company’s ad features rugby sevens stars Ellie Boatman, Jasmine Joyce and Celia Quansah on the playing field in lingerie.
The campaign says its aim is to change stereotypes that “strong female form is not ‘feminine’”.
While the website for it adds: “The idea that strength and femininity are mutually exclusive is problematic even beyond sports, we seek to demonstrate that they can go hand in hand.”
It comes with a damning study from Women In Sport finding that 64 per cent of school girls drop out of sport in their teen years, with one of the main reasons cited for this being a fear of being judged.
Watch the ad campaign in the video above
However, despite its stated intentions, the campaign has been hit with backlash led by Navratilova.
The 18-time Grand Slam women’s singles champion said the campaign “feels really regressive and sexist to me”.
Davies, who won silver at the 1980 Olympics in the 400 metre medley, took to social media to say: “What the actual - this is an utterly shameful campaign, whose braindead idea was this?
“Oh yeah let’s get professional female sports women in porn underwear! Extremely regressive … stereotypes yet again.”
Long-distance runner Mara Yamauchi added on her own page: “WT*F?! This is exploitative, demeaning, sexist, regressive rubbish.
“Of course the intended audience is men. Portraying women as sex objects will not encourage teenage girls into sport.”
While the campaign has been blasted by some, it’s won the support of others.
One person tweeted: “Love the celebration of a greater variety of body types; these women look strong and powerful!”
Bluebella’s #StrongIsBeautiful campaign has run for the last eight years and included athletes who competed at both the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, with this year’s Paris games the latest edition.
The players who fronted the ad shared their own experiences of growing up playing rugby.
Boatman, 27, said: “Not many girls were playing rugby ten years ago when I started and it was tough being the only girl on a team.
“Often our opposing teams would think, ‘they’ve got a girl they’re going to be weak’.
“Sometimes you would even hear parents telling their boys to target the girl because she would be the weak link in the team.
“It was also definitely the case that the boys were celebrated a lot more and all the effort was focused on them.
“’Little or no expense would be made for girls’ facilities and I would be given a boy’s kit which would absolutely swamp me.”
Joyce, 28 is set to become the first British rugby player to appear at three Olympic Games following her inclusion in the Team GB’s women’s sevens squad.
Speaking on her experience, she added: “I started playing rugby at seven-years-old at my local rugby club, but it was always tricky playing as a girl, as there weren’t as many clubs with girls teams so I had to take a few years out here and there.
“But it’s getting so much better now, there are clusters and hubs everywhere for girls and women to play rugby.
“The one thing I’d say to girls regarding body confidence is to enjoy who you are.
“You’re never going be perfect and there’s always going to be parts of your body you’re self-conscious of but embrace it all.”
Despite being one of the stars of the campaign, Quansah failed to make the cut for Team GB’s women’s sevens squad.
The team finished fourth in both the 2016 and 2020 games.
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
Originally published as ‘Porn underwear’: Fury at ‘sexist’ ad campaign with rugby stars in lingerie
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