You're reacting against trolls who have a shtick. I don't want to give you the impression I am one. Yes, I do think that being overly offended at this ad is an exaggeration; it does not offend women so much as you seem to think. And I would be ready to discuss that with you (starting perhaps with the idea that the old cars=women metaphor is actually antropomorphizing cars more than it is objectifying women). I'd even like to discuss why ads are not as immoral as you seem to think they are.

But I can't do this unless you give me the right to also have a mind and speak out arguments. I feel sad when I see you answering so angrily, because I fear you will treat whatever arguments I might come up with as also just proving my attempts at trolling the site, or my commitment to the 'you feminists hate men and marriage and family' shtick gang. I see you were hurt by your interpretation of this ad, and by objectification of women (and maybe men also) in general, just as I was hurt by the ad that Doppelganger had mentioned (http://www.hisside.com/verizon_100kbps.wmv) before I thought a bit more about it. Believe me, as brightstar also said, men are also unhappy with the current state of gender relations; it's just that we may disagree with some of the points, and we'd like to say why and invite your own arguments back.

By dismissing the 'Trolls of Broadsheet' so angrily -- as if none of them had made any points worth answering -- you are behaving exactly in the way that feminists tend to criticize men for: dismissive, anti-dialogue, with unwarranted assumptions about who 'they' are and what 'they' want.

Let me try one argument -- which I offer here sincerely, for real discussion, not as evidence of my belonging to any 'gang'.

You decry "ads that make us feel like our lives are lacking, like we should be striving for more beauty, more money, more! More!".

When I was 6, I remember sitting near a tree and watching birds flying from their nests and coming back to them in that little hurried-but-happy way that birds seem to have. At one point, I felt really bad thinking that I wanted to fly like them, but I could not, because I lacked wings. I felt my life was lacking (or I might have said something like this if I already thought in these terms at such a tender age), and I felt really angry, so I started throwing stones at the bird nests. Fortunately my older brother saw me and stopped me before I could do them any harm. But I was still quite angry at them, and I stayed angry for a while. After all, why should birds be awarded for free something -- wings -- that I felt I needed in order to -- in today's language -- 'make my life whole'?...

Later on, I of course grew up and understood that birds and humans are both OK, in their own way, and that it was not wrong of the bird to 'flaunt its wings' in front of me, not caring for what I felt. I was wrong to assume that I 'needed wings' to be whole, when in fact all I need to be whole is already in me.

So, my point: I don't protest against the ad because it's the individual (say, the woman -- or man, too -- who no longer looks as youthful and desirable as the girl on the ad, or the poor person who cannot buy even a second-hand BMW) who has to look inward and see that everything s/he needs is already there, including a great potential for growth, transformation and development. In that sense -- the internal sense -- I even think that we should always strive for more, more, more: more awareness, more inclusiveness, more knowledge, more growth. The ad is simply using old metaphors (cars=people, cars=satisfaction, relationship-with-car=sex) to sell BMWs. It can't do anything to me unless I choose to give it this power by interpreting it in a bad way.

That is not to say that there aren't really bad and offensive ads. There are. But this one is, to my taste, far from being one of them.

Any thoughts?