International
Women’s Day is an important day for not only women, but for all of us in the
quest for human equality. In a case of terrible timing, a Halifax radio station
contest has unfortunately lined up the closing date for an offensive contest
with this past Mar. 8, which happened to be this year’s International Women’s Day.
In terms of radio prizes, this is a far cry from Nickelback tickets – and
somehow even more objectionable – with the winning contestant slated to “win a
mail-order bride.” Yikes.
Halifax’s
Q104 FM (or “the almighty Q,” as they call themselves) is the predominant hard
rock station for the city, with mainstay artists ranging from Metallica to
AC/DC. The contest, organized by the station, is cleverly dubbed “The Male is in
the Czech”. The contest promised to reward the winning male contestant with a
trip to the Czech Republic in which he is treated to a plethora of dates with
the local Flying Hearts International Dating Service in Prague, potentially
leaving with a mail-order bride of his choice.
QFM
Program Director J.C. Douglas says, “There's obviously no sexual connection
with the dating. If a date is not successful, it won't go any further. If a
date is successful, it could lead to matrimony.”
Halifax
activist Derrick Dixon got word of the contest and was immediately appalled: “I
knew immediately that something wasn't right, I felt it in my gut,” he says. “I
passed the link onto a few other friends and they were completely appalled. We
decided to try to do something about it.”
Dixon
went online and called for like-minded individuals to arrange a protest that
asked for the station to end the contest, issue a public apology, and to donate
the contest’s funding toward a local women’s group. The station refused to back
down.
Dixon
elaborates: “I felt even more strongly about it once I realized that the closing
date of the contest was Thursday, Mar. 8, International Women's Day. This contest
is in contrast to everything that International Women's Day stands for.”
The
protest was arranged for Mar. 8, in which several dozen people raised awareness
against the campaign outside the station.
Dixon
certainly has a point, and the offensive content of the entire image surrounding
such a contest is more than alarming. If humans are still being raffled off as
prizes, perhaps our human equality progress isn’t nearly as progressive as we think
it is.
The
problem, he says, is embedded more in the idea of the contest than what is
actually being won. Technicalities from the station’s side insist that they are
not giving away an actual woman (even though their actual tagline promises “the
Male is in the Czech, win a mail-order bride from the mighty Q!”), but an
option for the man to pick a woman after his string of pre-organized dates. However,
even the possibility of leaving with a woman and having that be part of the
prize package is a pretty scary one at that.
Says
Dixon, “It promotes the idea of a woman as something to be won, bought, and sold.
Women are still fighting for equality in many ways in Canadian society and
elsewhere in the world, and contests such as this reassert and normalize sexism
rather than making an effort to combat it.”
It
appears that a standoff based on technicalities is what kept the contest going,
and kept Dixon’s protest in full force. Even with a major media backlash, QFM is
marching on without looking back.
Perhaps
it’s a state of stubborn branding identity, but ultimately, it is shocking that
the contest ever saw the light of day in the first place. Surely there is at
least one person in power at the station that would take the contest out of
circulation for bad press alone, nevermind the whole human-rights-violation-thing.
Though
the station did go through with the contest, the protest was effective in getting
at least one major advertiser, the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission, to pull ads
from the station based on the press. Douglas states, “It's somewhat
disconcerting, because we really think it's been misunderstood … It seems like
some of these people have taken a look at the icing and decided they don't like
the cake."
The
issue of gender is important here, as Dixon explains: “It is highly important that
more men engage in this conversation, as the majority of media in North America
is controlled by men, for men and is geared toward their desires.”
Really,
nobody wins here, ironically despite the fact that this is all stemming from a
‘contest'. But that’s just it – it’s a contest that historically rewards a
material prize to a winner, be it a good or service. What QFM is saying with
this message is that a woman – a human being – is a fit prize to be exchanged for
currency.
//JJ Brewis, art director
//Graphics by Chris Dedinsky
//JJ Brewis, art director
//Graphics by Chris Dedinsky
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