By Sasha Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 6, 2013
In the hall just outside of the Abbotsford campus cafeteria is a Mazda advertisement. “Get Girls WAY OUT of your league,” it says, with a picture of a sleek car.
The first thing that you’d think is, “what kind of loaded university student could afford a new car, let alone a new Mazda?” To me anyway, the idea is laughable.
The second thing to come to mind is, “Mazda must think university students are pretty stupid at dating if they think that advertisement will work at UFV.”
But maybe we are kind of stupid. Mazda is targeting buyers. I mean, obviously. But hear me out. Think about the heterosexual dating scene. Think about—in the most sexist way—what each gender offers in order to get a date. Then, if you were told that one gender is the buyer, and one is the seller, which would be which?
“UFV men, just a quick warning: if you buy a Mazda with the intent of picking up some hot chicks, you’ll have a very shitty relationship or none at all.”
You would probably conclude that men are the buyers, and women the sellers. You’d think this day and age, there wouldn’t be any discussion about who should ask who out, or about who should pay on the first date – but there is, and that is a reflection of the buyers and sellers dating practice.
The man should be somewhat good-looking (though this isn’t key), assertive, and well off. They pay for stuff, they drive the car, they buy the woman gifts. The woman, on the other hand, should first and foremost be beautiful. She might be moneyed as well—though not more than the man, or that leads to angst on both ends, apparently—but beauty is most important. She’ll be submissive and let the man do the wooing. Because she’s the seller. She has to show her goods, and make sure the male is good enough to buy the wares. Gross, right? But kind of accurate.
So Mazda is trying to convince young men that to get a really hot girl, they have to buy a tricked-out car. Clever advertising. It’s such BS that we have to look at that advertisement every time we want to get a coffee from the cafe.
The buyers and sellers dating practice is sexist at its core. It leads to men thinking of women as buyable objects, and women thinking of men as sources of money to take advantage of.
So, UFV men, just a quick warning: if you buy a Mazda with the intent of picking up some hot chicks, you’ll have a very shitty relationship or none at all.
