Sri Lankan women take on 'body shaming' barrel ad

a gymnasium inside the sri lankan capital colombo triggered outrage after it placed up a billboard featuring a picture of a barrel with the text "this is no form for a woman". the bbc's ayeshea perera reports on the combat to get it taken down.

the hoarding for osmo gym went up in a colombo suburb ultimate week and the row almost right away made it on to social media.

both ladies and men shared snap shots of the billboard at the side of expressions of shock and disgust on the "blatant sexism" and "body shaming" depicted.

a few commenced a hashtag campaign entitled #boycottosmo, at the same time as others tagged the company on facebook asking them to take down the hoardings and apologise. but the fitness center did no longer respond, and a post offering the photographs used inside the billboard stayed pinned to the top of their fb web page.

"the ad became not anything very extraordinary from the standard objectification and sexist usage of girls by means of the ad industry, which has been selling something from cars to fragrance via sexualising ladies and their our bodies," marisa de silva, an activist, told the bbc.

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"however this ad additionally attempted to body disgrace via dictating to women an appropriate form they need to resemble, almost as even though it's miles the only basis in their really worth."

so, along with a group of girls who had been discussing the billboard on social media, she determined to do something positive about it.one of them, who did now not want to be diagnosed, tried calling osmo's advertising manager to bitch, and become told that the hoarding had used an photograph that had not been "accepted" through the business enterprise. he did now not provide to take it down.

a few others decided to method harsha de silva, the minister in price of the kotte constituency in which the billboard was placed up.

he answered with the tweet: "i asked the colombo mc commissioner to cast off this unapproved offensive hoarding. i'd not tolerate this in kotte."

so the billboard became covered up on the basis that it did no longer have the important permissions, and the colombo municipal council allowed the ladies to apply the gap to display a message towards sexism for 2 days.ms de silva, who became one of the girls who spoke to the minister, canvassed opinion on social media for the text of the new banner, earlier than selecting "no extra area for sexism" in sri lanka's 3 principal languages - sinhala, tamil and english.

a local pix organisation stepped in with a suggestion of sponsorship and the banner went up an afternoon later.

however at the same time as many cheered the initiative to take down the billboard and replace it with a banner in opposition to sexism, a few men on social media warned that such a circulate set a "dangerous precedent" towards unfastened speech.the banner did now not ultimate lengthy either. it turned into taken down after an afternoon, and its whereabouts are presently unknown.

meanwhile osmo additionally responded with an respectable declaration at the campaign, saying that it had "withdrawn" the advertisement, which become not meant to "degrade, offend, insult or undermine any one individual or ladies in preferred".

it similarly defined that the ad were inspired through a "stressful" who document that said there have been higher costs of diabetes, being overweight, weight problems and bodily state of being inactive amongst sri lankan women than men.

but ms de silva says she hopes that some lessons had been found out from the incident.

"this set off a series response which i am hoping would possibly make the advert enterprise as a minimum think twice before subscribing to sexist advertising and marketing within the future," she stated.