Anachronistic beer advert

I READ with absolute disbelief Sylvia Lee's letter in defence of her agency's Carlsberg beer television commercial (South China Morning Post, June 23).

She maintains that the advertisement is in no way sexist as 'why should legs make the woman a sex object more than the nose or hands, when women can casually walk around in shorts?' Ms Lee does not understand that women do not object to the sensationalisation of the legs, as such, but to the non-recognition of a woman as more than just a body.

Justification that the actors in the advertisement admire 'the way a woman carries herself' as being non-sexist is ludicrous. If the way women think, understand, work and live was equally admired, I myself would be partially satisfied.

I feel, however, that the use of a woman to advertise beer is anachronistic and incongruous, in the same way that the use of bikini-clad models to sell sports cars is out of date and chauvinistic - and downright sexist.

I realise that the idea of the advertisement was to be controversial, to draw the general public's attention, but its producers have failed miserably in their intentions, relegating the campaign to contention and ultimately harming the said product. I, for one, will not be drinking Carlsberg.

LORRAINE MULHOLLAND Discovery Bay