by Tyler Budge
The image in question is an ad from the Los Angeles Times in 1979. At first glance, the ad appears to be a good thing, with a large advertisement presenting job opportunities for engineers. This ad includes a lengthy explanation of what the jobs would entail, and what kind of opportunities await them. There’s even an ad for awareness of the sexual assault of women in the workplace. Also on the ad is a health infographic about Cancer. At first glance, and even to the casual reader, there seems to be no issue with this advertisement. All it takes is a closer look to see the issues at play here. The job advertisement takes up half of the page. There are large numbers, bullet points and an extensive list of hotlines to contact about the job opening. The clip creating awareness for sexual assault in the workplace is compressed to only take up about a quarter of the page. The passage is limited to a few sparse paragraphs. The clip about sexual assault seems to be no less urgent than the infographic about cancer just above. It is specified that more than half of women report that they have been the victims of sexual assault in the workplace. In the description of the workplace sexual assault awareness, it gives several suggestions for what women can do to avoid sexual harassment and also keep their job. It is treated in the same way as cancer in the infographic above. The attitude that it's not preventable, so here are some tips to deal with it. This advertisement is from 1979. The way they talked about Sexual Assault in the workplace was in line with the way they talked about cancer. Something that is also painfully obvious is the irony in the fact that an ad for jobs dominates the advertisement, while a major issue in the workforce for women is simply
brushed to the side.
The bottom left.
Somewhere people seldom bother to read.
Ad 82 [Advertisement]. (1979, February 12). Los Angeles Times, E16-E16.