Recently, I’ve been looking through a lot of different ads. Many of the ads were interesting, bright, thought provoking, and some were even downright strange. However, this print advertisement below from Association of Women for Action and Research really caught my attention.
Today, more people pay attention to domestic violence than ever before. This issue is no longer considered to be out of sight out of mind. This ad, however, takes another perspective on the role of domestic violence in everyday life that goes beyond the common perception of what violence is.
When thinking of domestic violence, an image of a husband beating his wife or a woman with bruises on her body usually comes to mind. However, domestic violence, according to this ad, is more than just physical abuse. It’s verbal as well.
For one, the ad is strictly black and white. This indicates that there is no gray area in abuse. Verbal abuse is still abuse and is not less threatening than physical harm. This image also indicates that verbal abuse is just as horrendous as physical abuse by using a man’s fist pulling a woman’s hair to represent spoken words. His clenched fist juts out of his mouth which represents the words he is speaking to her. The woman’s face screams pain and suffering from the man pulling her hair which plays on pathos of the audience. The audience can actually see the pain that the woman is in from the words the angry man is directing towards her.
This advertisement seems to be directed towards a female audience, especially those who are in an abusive relationship. It seems as though many women don’t recognize abuse unless it is physical, and this ad tells otherwise. I believe that it is also directed towards women who are being verbally abused because there is a hotline for women to call if they are in this type of situation. In addition to providing a hotline number, the advertisement also is sponsored by Association of Women for Action and Research, which adds to the ethos of this domestic violence awareness ad.
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