Photograph: Leonie Thomas
Construction hoardings on a hotel site in Manchester have been condemned as “insulting” and “naff”.
The Malmaison project on Piccadilly is using images of scantily-clad female construction workers and bare-chested male models to screen off construction work.
But the hoardings around the boutique hotel project have been criticised for sending a damaging message about gender stereotypes in construction.
Kate Lloyd, fairness, inclusion and respect manager at the Construction Industry Training Board, slammed the images. She said: “The picture on the hoarding of Manchester’s Malmaison hotel was shocking, depressing and highly insulting to women working in construction.
"The picture on the hoarding of Manchester’s Malmaison hotel was shocking, depressing and highly insulting to women working in construction."
Kate Lloyd, CITB
“Images like these are extremely powerful because they send damaging messages about women’s roles and their ‘place’ in the industry, never mind the fact that they are being used to represent an industry that is working to challenge the stereotypes.”
Leonie Thomas, a marketing professional working in construction who lives near the site, said: “It looks as though the hotel has tried to combine its perceived ‘sexy’ image with its construction works, and it has backfired spectacularly.
“The images are naff, but I’m not particularly offended.”
The images will add further embarrassment to the industry after last week’s Construction Manager of the Year Awards 2014 had no female nominations out of 95 finalists.
Chrissi McCarthy MCIOB, managing director of Constructing Equality, said: “For me the saddest thing about these highly sexualised images of women is how commonplace they have become, what should shock us and have us shielding the eyes of our children so they don’t view women in a hyper sexualised way simply has us uttering a sad sigh and mumbling something about lazy marketing.
“The fact that they are adorning an environment that has been unable to retain the low percentage of women it does attract only reinforces the message that not just women, but builders also, are seen as objects, not three-dimensional people with thoughts, skills and, dare I say, feelings.”
I call it good marketing! It’s got everyone talking about it!
This island mentality of a number of our citizens still contributes to spending a disproportionate amount of time on trivialities when we should be addressing the “pipeline bulge and skills crisis” .
Nothing wrong with lifting the image of the construction industry.
Females dressed in proper safety wear, could enhance the industry bad image of male dominance
Can’t see all the images, only the two on this site, but basically – Get a Life! For goodness sake does everyone have to complain about anything these days? Let’s face it sex is all around us, in every corner you look to market goods or services. What’s wrong with a good looking bloke or woman- it’s art!
In western world society we have resolved sexist mentality since the 1960’s. We carry the flagship to equalize men and women in professional life. There is nothing wrong with a spice of our natural instinct as living being to advertise ourselves in a sexy way.
The construction industry really doesn’t do itself any favours with images like this HOWEVER I think Malmaison are more to blame. I stayed in “the Mal” in London recently and apart from over priced average food it had the ambiance of a Russian brothel. A few years ago it was a good hotel now sadly not the case. Sorry about the stereotyping?
In (about) 1992 the Hong Kong Construction Assoc. sponsored two of the first (cartoon style) site safety posters ever used in HK, one of which depicted a fit looking bloke, suitably clothed and in safety gear, the other of a “fit” young(ish) lady, rather skimpily dressed. Outrage ensued about the later and they were withdrawn. but not before the site workers grabbed as many safety posters of the lady as they could lay their hands on. One way or another, message delivered at a time, however briefly, when the official reportable accident rate in the HK construction industry was about 30% per year.