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Is this homeless charity appeal perpetuating the objectification of women and the invisibility of male victims?

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A Christmas campaign for a youth homeless charity ignores male rough sleepers and glamourises homeless women writes Glen Poole.

A strange thing happened to me this week. The charity Centrepoint started pushing what I can only describe as “rough sleeper porn” at me via facebook.

It began quite abruptly with this image of a dead woman bearing her sole, presumably designed to attract any necrophiliacs who also happen to have a foot fetish.

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Next up was the lovely Gemma with her big Disney-esque eyes and luscious lips, looking more like a grunge glamour shoot than a realistic portrayal of a young homeless woman.

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All that was missing a Sun-style caption saying “how’d you like to take this tramp home for a spot of rough sleeping fellas?”

http://youtu.be/WCT47ZUQMIQ?t=21s

Next up was the very sexy Sally who spent last Christmas without a roof over her head and to prove that a girl can look both hot AND homeless, Centrepoint shared a sultry picture showing Sally begging for it on the streets of London:

This year Centrepoint is pleased to show us that Sally scrubs up well and will be spending Christmas at their place. You can almost hear them gloating “I bet you’d love to pull this cracker wouldn’t you lads”?

And just when I was about to complain about the lack of men in the Christmas campaign, up  popped a new image to prove me wrong. First there was Emma rolling her “come and give me a bed for the night” eyes at me:

Secondly there was a man hanging out with Emma. This shouldn’t be surprising as around nine out of ten rough sleepers are male. But this wasn’t a homeless man, no this was a graffiti version of a man who seemed to personify pure evil—everything that horny homeless girls like Emma, Gemma, Lucy and Sally need protecing from.

Next up in this sidewalk cat walk was the teenager Lianne whose step dad made her do things she didn’t want to do.

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Her step dad appeared to be the same evil figure who was haunting Emma—why are men such bastards? Why can’t we leave sexy homeless girls alone?

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Poor Lianne told me that she was homeless at 17 and there were lots of scary people about.

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Look closely at the images on the video and you’ll be left in no doubt that all of these scary people were men:

http://youtu.be/97mf2-5olMo

If you look in more detail at the Centrepoint website you’ll find they do actually help young homeless people who are both female AND male—and no doubt they do some great work for their clients.

But why are they using such sexy, sexist advertising to try and get people to give them money at Christmas—does pushing rough sleeper porn raise more pounds than telling the truth?

The truth is nine out of ten rough sleepers are male and men are nine times more likely to die homeless than women. So why are homeless men so invisible in Centrepoint’s Christmas campaign?

It seems like a ruthless way to treat the roofless.

Is it because we’re collectively more tolerant of men being harmed?

Is it because we’re all more likely to help and protect women?

Is the reason Centrepoint are raising money by objectifying homeless women and making homeless men invisible, the same reason more men are homeless in the first place?

Men are invisible, disposable, unworthy of our help. There’s no point putting men at the front of your fundraising appeal because men make terrible victims.

Much better to use female victims to promote your cause, even if they represent a tiny minority of the problem you’re trying to solve. And if your female victims look fit, well that’s great news because you can pimp them in your advertising campaign and watch the charitable donations roll in like tips at a Vegas titty bar.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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  • CitymanMichael

    The answer to Glen’s question is easy – it is the same answer as why adverts portrait men as stupid or bad and women as smart and sexy? – they want our money.
    So this question needs to be directed not at Centrepoint – but the people who give them their card details – society, basically.

  • karen woodall

    cos women don’t deserve to be homeless and men do presumably…if women are homeless it’s because of a man, if men are homeless it’s because they are men. So to get your money as Cityman says, best deploy the stereotypes…….would be interesting to see how their gender budgeting works though.. do you think that 90% of their funding goes to supporting men? Would love to know.

  • Inside MAN

    Yes how much goes to helping men is a good question Karen. There are different levels of “homelessness” that confuse matters—-from rough sleeping to being roofless to being in a temporary residence (eg sofa surfing) to being in insecure living circumstances.

    Imagine a teen with violent parents constantly threatening to throw him out (insecure) who leaves and sleeps on friends’ floors (temporary) who tries their patience and ends up in a night shelter (roofless) who ends up on the street (rough sleeping)

    The percentage of men gets bigger the closer your get to rough sleeping—-it’s easier for men to slip into and harder for men to slip out of.

    I think this charity deals will all levels and they don’t publish (or i can’t find) how many men and women they’re helping but what’s sneaky is they’re doing that old charity trick of highlighting the worst scenarios and presenting them as typical cases and worse still they promoting women as the primary “victims”.

    The death of a young woman being the prime example when 90% of the deaths of homeless people are male.

    And yes it’s a very good question —- what % of their funding is spent helping men?

  • Nigel

    Well I read this and shortly after saw the Salvation Army Advert on TV . interesting. Sadly Centre Point appear to have gotten an advertising agency to do this. With the result that the usual charitable advert concentration on the “deserving” appears to have tipped over into melodrama.  
    I have sympathy for all the charities supporting homeless people as I get it that most of their clientele are not attractive to the public. Being male, generally relatively young and with a load of additional problems . Personally I always support the Sally Army as I’ve never known them turn anyone away. But all deserve support especially over winter. It’s a shame this ad.  is so poor. 

  • http://tamenwrote.wordpress.com Tamen

    Nigel: “Personally I always support the Sally Army as I’ve never known them turn anyone away.”

    Then you might want to read this: http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/27481410/salvation-army-revisiting-shelter-policy-after-family-turned-away-due-to-age-of-son

  • Kelly

    The most concerning aspect of this article seems to be the perception of the writer that the images are “sexy” & these young women have “come to bed eyes” for him. I’m really baffled as to why those are the messages he would take. They’re not the messages I took from this campaign, that whilst not perfect, certainly doesn’t suggest sexy glamour to me.