Can’t we talk about shoes? CAN’T WE?!

Can’t we just talk about shoes? CAN’T WE?!

From Capital News Service correspondent and graduate student Lucy Westcott comes this horrifying but not at all shocking bit of casual sexism courtesy of Metro.

In an ad for its Metro Forward campaign, located at the Metro Center station, one woman informs another about the reliability of buses. The other woman responds, “Can’t we just talk about shoes?”

“We get it,” a blurb underneath the women reads. “You’re probably not talking about our increased reliability. Why would you?” Why would we indeed, when there are so many shoes to discuss! Pumps! Flats! High heels!

The Metro Forward public relations campaign was launched in 2011 to raise awareness about its capital improvement plan. Metro “passed” on DCist’s request to speak to the person or group behind the ad.

Update: The parodies have begun.

(That’s Metro General Manager Richard Sarles below.)

Second update: Here’s a note from a Metro spokesperson on the ad: “The point of the ad is to get people talking about Metro’s massive rebuilding effort by juxtaposing technical facts with a variety of light responses in conversation between friends.”

Third update: Here’s the male equivalent with 100 percent less sexism.

Fourth Update: Here’s a statement about the ad from UltraViolet, “a new and rapidly growing community of women and men across the U.S. mobilized to fight sexism and expand women’s rights, from politics and government to media and pop culture.”

“These new ads by Metro Forward are not edgy, they are sexist, stupid and offensive. The PR failure shows just how little Metro Forward thinks of its everyday passenger, and highlights how out of touch the system is with the DC-area residents that they serve,” Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet, said in a statement. “Metro Forward needs to take these ads down, apologize and plan an advertising campaign that doesn’t play on sexist tropes.”

Filed Under: ladies love shoes, metro forward, sexism, wmata,