Tennessee Gets Heat for Sexist Anti-DUI Campaign

According to a recent story from USA Today, Tennessee is gaining negative attention after a highly controversial anti-DUI campaign was pulled for sexist overtones. The campaign involved a serious of slogans aimed at likening the decision to drive while drunk (over the .08 legal limit) with the decision to sleep with an unattractive woman. The story describes the campaign:

“Coasters and fliers for the ad campaign started popping up at bars across Nashville, Tenn., this past weekend, boasting slogans that refer to girls looking “hotter” when guys are under the influence and finding out ‘a marginally good-looking girl’ later is ‘chatty,’ ‘clingy’ or ‘your boss’s daughter’ as signs that maybe a man has had too much to drink.”

Kendell Poole, director with the Governor’s Highway Safety Office, said that the office “would like to apologize for any offense caused by the 100 Days of Summer Heat Booze It and Lose It Campaign… The marketing is often edgy and designed to grab the attention of the young male demographic. It was never the intent of the GHSO to be insensitive or insulting to women.”

Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, commented, “I believe this is an inappropriate campaign that distracts from the real message: communicating to young people that they should not drink and drive.”

Though the campaign was pulled almost immediately, it is still receiving heat online. Tracy Moore, a writer at Jezebel, lashed out in an article criticizing the campaign’s negligence of the hard facts about drunk driving.

“Why not use facts about drink limits, how long it takes to process one drink, or how to do any number of things to pace yourself and drink responsibly or decide when you’ve really had enough?” she wrote.

Maybe next time, the Governor will encourage you to find a DUI defense attorney before making a huge mistake.