FSU Men Measure Up

(The photo above is not the exact photo that prompted this post.  I saw the actual photo, which is slightly different from the one above, on a billboard on my way home from class on Tuesday with this "photo you like" project on my mind.  Unfortunately, they do not have the exact photo from the billboard online or accessible to post here.  The difference between that photo and this one is the male outline- on the billboard it is a white, cartoon-ish form of a whole male (not just the head). If you want to see that photo, it is on the billboard on the right hand side of Pensacola St. if you are driving/walking/uni-cycling away from campus,  above the Los Compadres Mexican restaurant.  I retrieved this one from the campaign website: http://fsumeasureup.com/about/ )

This image really got my attention due to the message it sends, who that message is directed to, and the campaign that it is associated with and directs people toward; or rather, the questions it raises about these topics.  Rape issues and sexual violence are "hot topics" for politics, gender studies, women's rights advocates, religious scholars, etc.  The FSU Men Measure Up campaign aims to "correct misconceptions about male students in regards to promiscuity and sexual violence", and so, it would seem the purpose of the billboard, and the other images associated with this campaign (you may have seen them in buses and other places around campus), is to provide information to people on campus in hopes of turning around the stereotypes of promiscuous, sexually violent college-aged men.  As a part of that purpose, one of it's functions could be to point people toward the campaign's website for more "stereotype destroying" evidence.  (I should add that this function was successful, as I did visit the website to learn more about the campaign, not just in hopes of finding a version of the billboard image to be able to post here.)  Another thing that caught my interest about this image is the depiction of the male in it.  I was pleasantly surprised with the way the man was depicted in the billboard image- it was more of a cartoon suggestion of a male, which did not necessarily suggest any certain race or ethnicity.  This image, on the other hand, particularly suggests a white male, due to the facial features profiled and the hair style outlined.  This particular choice is more troubling to me, as it excludes certain members of the FSU community, and I believe, that exclusion confuses the message that is sent.  Do only certain groups of men on the campus "measure up"? Are the "misconceptions" about campus men and sexual violence focused only on certain groups of men?

On another note, the outline of the male in this image suggests that we "know" or recognize the male figure by a short haircut.  This is a gender schema that we hold in our society.  How would the image/ message change if the person depicted had longer hair?

Besides pointing to the campaign's website, what "misconceptions" are corrected via this image? It doesn't seem that the function works as the intended purpose would hope.   No information from the survey they conducted is included to support the notion that "FSU Men Measure Up".  Even if the main intended purpose was to get people to visit the website in order to learn more about the campaign and see the evidence they have to change peoples' "misconceptions", upon visiting the website, there weren't any survey results or other information about how "FSU Men Measure Up" there, either.  Is this a successfully functioning image (getting people to go to the website) but failing website?  Is the image itself "failing" in the evaluation of the purpose of the campaign?

Who is the intended audience here?  Is it campus men, who see that other men on campus "measure up" and so should they?  Is it campus women, who should stop giving men such a hard time or believing all men on campus are "creeps", because apparently FSU men "measure up"?

What about victims of rape or other sexual violence that happened on campus?  What would/do they think when/if they see this billboard?  That FSU men "measure up" to the stereotypes  and are rapists and sexually violent??  Or that MOST men on campus say on a survey that they wouldn't rape someone, so that particular victim was just extremely unlucky, or did something wrong to cause what happened to them, or perhaps wasn't "legitimately raped"?

 What about other functions ("unintended side effects") of this image?  Is it counter productive for other safety initiatives on campus, such as the blue light pathways and S.A.F.E. bus and encouraging students to not walk alone at night, etc. ?  Would students start thinking campus is safe and that those dangers don't "lurk" in the dark and so not use those safety precautions offered and also think they are a waste of time and money on FSU's campus?

If you think that this image does not successfully achieve the intended purpose, how could it be changed to be more successful?  I think adding the survey results, for example, some of the other images have stats like "80% of men on campus had 2 or fewer sexual partners last year", moves more in the direction of success in achieving the intended purpose, but I still don't find them totally successful.  I think this has more to do with what the overall campaign says it is trying to achieve-"correcting misconceptions".  Perhaps overall that purpose is just not a fitting response to the rhetorical situation?    Would I feel it was a more fitting response if I was a male on campus who felt like the ideas about college men were unfair?