I don’t want to be about censorship but at some point, some things deserve to be thrown in the garbage. Commercials that exploit and objectify women aren’t only offensive and disgusting…but they’re dangerous.

First, some background:

Who watched the Super Bowl? Perhaps, a better question might be: “Who didn’t watch the Super Bowl?”

In 2011, the game drew the largest audience ever in history:

Last year’s Super Bowl drew the largest audience in American television history, averaging 111 million viewers. All total, 163 million people watched at least part of the game. That’s more than half of the population.

Yesterday’s game likely drew about 120 111.3 million viewers. This – in part – explains why the cost of a 30 second commercial was set at $3.5 million dollars.

Wow.

And while there were some good, funny, witty, and brilliant commercials, there were (and have been for some time) a growing number of commercials that are just downright offensive. It’s not new but each year, they seem to be getting worse and worse – so much that the commercials are the things I least look forward to. After noticing couple of those commercials, I couldn’t help but send this tweet to Go Daddy:

Dear @ GoDaddy: Your objectification and exploitation of women disgust me. # HopeAnElephantStompsAllOverYourServers

Because my wife and I were watching the game with our three young children, we had to switch channels constantly and only heard about the repulsive message of Teleflora. So repulsive that I’d rather not link their commercials on YouTube.

But here’s my question:

How is it that there were so many companies (aka Wikipedia, Craigslist, ICanHasCheezburger, Reddit, etc) and grassroots support to stop SOPA and PIPA and yet, these companies (and others) don’t give a darn about these overt objectifying and exploitative commercials from Go Daddy and others.

What we’ve learned in recent years is that money talks. Numerous companies threatened to boycott and move their domains from Go Daddy because of their support for SOPA and after some additional threats, Go Daddy backed down.

Why? Because they were afraid to lose clients.

Translation: Money talks.

And yet…none of these companies ever speak up about the crass and disgusting objectification and exploitation of women via these Go Daddy commercials (and others).

We have to do our part:

While we can do our personal part to not support these businesses, we also need to put pressure on these companies that simply don’t believe it to be important to make a fuss about these kind of ads. Sure, there’s fury over SOPA and PIPA but the objectification and exploitation of women? Not that much.

How about the church?

I have no idea but is it possible that many churches host their domains via Go Daddy? Can you imagine the impact that we could make together by saying and demonstrating: “Enough is enough?! We must fight and turn tables for the dignity and value of women – because it impacts all of us.”

Why is it important? Read this.

It’s becoming increasing dangerous to be a woman. And this impact everyone: boys, girls, women, and men.

I’ve contended before on my blog, the treatment of women is the oldest injustice in human history. It’s so old and so taken for granted, that we don’t quite understand what’s at stake – not just for women, but really, for all of us. In more nuanced and simultaneously graphic ways, women are objects to be objectified and marketed and packaged for consumption. And these messages start early and often in human development and identity.

“Girls are taught at a every young age their worth is dependent on what they look like. Their body and not their mind.”

Watch this. Please watch this: