{"id":12679,"date":"2009-08-23T12:30:17","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=12679"},"modified":"2010-12-25T02:58:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-25T07:58:23","slug":"discrediting-merkel-by-focusing-on-her-breasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/08\/23\/discrediting-merkel-by-focusing-on-her-breasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Discrediting Merkel by Focusing on Her Breasts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Etan B. sent in this ad (found <a href=\"http:\/\/humorslaysme.blogspot.com\/2009\/08\/uh-my-policies-are-up-here.html\">Etan&#8217;s blog<\/a>) that the CDU<span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">, a conservative German political party, <\/span>is using to compare its candidate, Vera Lengsefeld, to Angela Merkel. The ad shows a photo of Merkel on the left and Lengsfeld on the right. Both women are in dresses that reveal cleavage (the photo of Merkel generated a lot of discussion when it first appeared about whether she was dressed too sexily):<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12680 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2009\/08\/merkel.jpg\" alt=\"merkel\" width=\"303\" height=\"202\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The text on the left, across the image of Merkel, says &#8220;We have more to offer,&#8221; <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">the implication being, of course, that the conservative party has more to rely on than cleavage.<\/span> Lengsfeld explained the ad this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span>If only a tenth of them also look at the content of my policies, I will have reached many more people than I could have done with classic street canvassing.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>UPDATE: Now I&#8217;m confused. Elena says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Merkel is the chairwoman of the CDU. Both women belong to the same party, and according to the ad both have &#8220;[more] to offer&#8221;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I apologize for the confusion about Merkel&#8217;s party&#8211;I read in two different places the account I gave above. So I guess the CDU is basically saying you should vote for it because it has candidates that are sexy? I kinda think that&#8217;s actually worse than what I originally thought it was. Elena, thanks so much for the clarification!<\/p>\n<p>You can also read an article about the controversial ad at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=111850751\" target=\"_blank\">NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span>As Etan points out, it&#8217;s reminiscent of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/07\/19\/AR2007071902668.html\">scrutiny Hillary Clinton receive<\/a>d after she wore this outfit on the Senate floor:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12681 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2009\/08\/PH2007071902669.jpg\" alt=\"PH2007071902669\" width=\"305\" height=\"201\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>As far as men go, in 2000 <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> was accused of airbrushing this cover photo of Al Gore to make his crotch bulge bigger (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bartcop.com\/0306.htm\">via<\/a>):<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12682 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2009\/08\/gorepak3.jpg\" alt=\"gorepak3\" width=\"332\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>So there are lots of examples of efforts to delegitimize political candidates by focusing on their looks or sexuality, but the Lengsfeld one is the most blatant I&#8217;ve seen recently.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Etan B. sent in this ad (found Etan&#8217;s blog) that the CDU, a conservative German political party, is using to compare its candidate, Vera Lengsefeld, to Angela Merkel. The ad shows a photo of Merkel on the left and Lengsfeld on the right. Both women are in dresses that reveal cleavage (the photo of Merkel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,55,2103,2094,1777,85,120],"class_list":["post-12679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-politics","tag-nation-germany","tag-politics","tag-sex"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12679"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31528,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679\/revisions\/31528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}