Hardly a week had passed since Siena College students gathered in Newtonville to protest the Teakwood Builders billboard before news of the protest went national.
The billboard from the Saratoga-based building company pictures a kitchen with the message “Your wife wants me” and has been up since early this year. While some Siena students took issue with the billboard’s message since the beginning, it was not until Tuesday, March 24, that a protest was organized. It has since sparked debate around the country.
“We were at first offended because we felt like the billboard was speaking for us. As women, we feel like the media speaks for us and tells us about what we want. It’s just a very obvious example of sexism in the media near us… It’s almost like the joke used on the billboard is used as the sandwich joke, so it was infuriating to see it so close to us,” said one protest organizer, a mathematics major.
“(The billboard) has been talked about on campus, but I think students didn’t know what they could do about it,” said another student protestor, Delaney Rivers, an advocate for sexual assault and domestic violence victims.
She said that students at Siena’s Academic Community Engagement office called Teakwood, spoke to an assistant, and were told they “were being over sensitive and it was just a joke.” Rivers said the students never heard back from Teakwood officials.
Tuesday afternoon, students stood in front of the billboard holding signs that read “I prefer an office,” “I can buy my own kitchen,” and “Whisk away gender inequality.” One male student held up a sign that said, “I am more than a checkbook.”
Teakwood officials later reportedly told news organizations the “Your wife wants me” campaign, which includes a contest for bathroom or kitchen remodeling, was meant to be “tongue in cheek” and “appeal to women with a sense of humor” and a “sense of history.” The company also reportedly thanked the Siena protestors for drawing attention to the campaign.
The protest has since been picked up by women’s interest blog Jezebel.com and Daily Mail, a site based in the United Kingdom. The students said they were surprised at the amount of media attention, but also excited at the chance to bring more attention to the issue.
President and owner of Teakwood Builders Jim Sasko also said that he did not expect the widespread attention.
“It’s intriguing to me, and I’m really surprised that it’s reached the attention it has,” he told The Spotlight. “It started with the Siena students who chose to target the billboard. I appreciate their efforts and applaud them… It takes a lot for some to come forward and speak their minds.”
Sasko said the campaign was not intended to cause offense, but was started as a marketing campaign. He said the campaign received mostly positive feedback.
Reaction on social media sites have garnered comments such as “Thank you Siena students for caring enough to devote time to this conscious-raising efforts,” and “Thank you for organizing and taking a stand! It’s important to build an inclusive community by breaking down gender stereotypes and sexism.”
Other reactions include, “I went by this weekend, and they weren’t there…perhaps off partying, but they didn’t even care enough to protest on the weekend. Weak…very weak,” and “These ladies need direction and leadership… Desperately. The disservice they have done to the community… is repulsive.”
The backlash the protest has brought made the students reluctant to share their names with the public. Students whose personal Instragram or Twitter accounts have been found encountered bullying and “trolling,” said another student, an anti-human trafficking intern.
“It’s not just feedback, like disagreeing with us, because I could respect that, but… calling us ugly or idiotic, or just things that had nothing to do with it. But that’s why we need feminism. That’s why we do this,” said Rivers.
Rivers, who has been the one publicly speaking for the protest, said that in interviews, she was sure to say none of them were against cooking, or using kitchenware.
“I said, explicitly, that it was a beautiful kitchen. We just felt it should be marketed to both men and women, because we’re moving into an era where it’s not just women who are cooking,” she said.
One senior staff member for the Sister Thea Bowman Center for Women said that, at first, fellow Siena students were unsure about the protest, but after seeing the backlash on social media, more support has been shown.
The students said that much of the backlash has been people telling them to concentrate on “more important issues.” Rivers said many of the protestors have traveled abroad to study human trafficking, and gender violence and bullying. She said sexual assault survivors have reached out to commend the Siena students for the protest.
“A lot of people don’t understand the connections between us protesting this and the larger issues,” said Rivers. “But when you look at gender stereotypes and how they’ve been constructed over time, they set up a power imbalance in relationships. This easily translates into domestic violence relationships…. Anywhere where it’s expected that a woman depend on a man for her survival.”
The students said they also wanted to dispel the vision of women as “gold diggers” and “materialistic,” and the expectation that men should be the breadwinners.
In response to the media attention, the students made a collage outlining their accomplishments to dispel the mischaracterization that they are not fighting real issues, said the anti-human trafficking intern.
“It’s just a better representation of the people standing on the sidewalk than just the idiots holding signs,” Rivers said.
