Sri Lankan women take on 'body shaming' barrel ad

A health club inside the sri lankan capital colombo triggered outrage after it positioned up a billboard featuring a picture of a barrel with the textual content "this is no shape for a lady". The bbc's ayeshea perera reviews on the combat to get it taken down.

The hoarding for osmo gymnasium went up in a colombo suburb last week and the row nearly instantly made it directly to social media.

Each ladies and men shared pics of the billboard together with expressions of shock and disgust on the "blatant sexism" and "frame shaming" depicted.

Some began a hashtag marketing campaign entitled #boycottosmo, at the same time as others tagged the business enterprise on facebook asking them to take down the hoardings and apologise. However the fitness center did now not respond, and a publish proposing the pix used within the billboard stayed pinned to the top of their facebook page.

"the advert turned into not anything very specific from the everyday objectification and sexist utilization of girls through the ad enterprise, which has been selling some thing from vehicles to perfume by way of sexualising ladies and their our bodies," marisa de silva, an activist, told the bbc.

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"but this ad additionally tried to frame shame through dictating to women the perfect shape they need to resemble, nearly as although it is the sole foundation of their well worth."

So, in conjunction with a set of women who have been discussing the billboard on social media, she determined to do something about it.One among them, who did no longer want to be identified, tried calling osmo's advertising supervisor to whinge, and was instructed that the hoarding had used an picture that had no longer been "permitted" by means of the company. He did now not offer to take it down.

Some others decided to approach harsha de silva, the minister in rate of the kotte constituency where the billboard turned into put up.

He replied with the tweet: "i requested the colombo mc commissioner to dispose of this unapproved offensive hoarding. I might no longer tolerate this in kotte."

So the billboard become protected up on the premise that it did not have the important permissions, and the colombo municipal council allowed the ladies to apply the space to show a message in opposition to sexism for 2 days.

Ms de silva, who became one of the girls who spoke to the minister, canvassed opinion on social media for the text of the brand new banner, before settling on "no more space for sexism" in sri lanka's three main languages - sinhala, tamil and english.

A neighborhood graphics organisation stepped in with an offer of sponsorship and the banner went up a day later.

However whilst many cheered the initiative to take down the billboard and replace it with a banner in opposition to sexism, a few men on social media warned that this type of move set a "risky precedent" against loose speech.The banner did not closing long either. It was taken down after a day, and its whereabouts are currently unknown.

Meanwhile osmo also responded with an reputable assertion at the marketing campaign, saying that it had "withdrawn" the advertisement, which became now not meant to "degrade, offend, insult or undermine any one person or women in popular".

It further defined that the advert were stimulated by way of a "worrying" who file that stated there had been higher fees of diabetes, being obese, obesity and bodily state of no activity among sri lankan girls than men.

But ms de silva says she hopes that some instructions have been discovered from the incident.

"this activate a sequence response which i hope may make the advert industry at the least assume twice earlier than subscribing to sexist advertising and marketing inside the future," she said.