By Alexandra Brodsky • @azbrodsky • 11 years ago

Friday Feminist Fuck You: Barilla pasta

Barilla pastaFuck you, pasta.

Guido Barilla, the chairman of (you guessed it) Barilla pasta, hates the gays. Grub Street writes:

[Barilla] went on a Radio24 program to explain the company’s apparent position against depicting gay couples or families in its advertisements. “I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don’t agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role,” Guido Barilla said. The executive also told the program’s hosts that “if the gays do not agree, they can always eat pasta from another manufacturer,” which prompted a swift boycott from advocacy group Equality Italia.

The world’s largest pasta manufacturer later “apologized,” explaining Mr. Barilla has nothing but “the utmost respect for homosexuals.”

Dig yourself deeper, pasta.

Washington, DC

Alexandra Brodsky was a senior editor at Feministing.com. During her four years at the site, she wrote about gender violence, reproductive justice, and education equity and ran the site's book review column. She is now a Skadden Fellow at the National Women's Law Center and also serves as the Board Chair of Know Your IX, a national student-led movement to end gender violence, which she co-founded and previously co-directed. Alexandra has written for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Nation, and she is the co-editor of The Feminist Utopia Project: 57 Visions of a Wildly Better Future. She has spoken about violence against women and reproductive justice at campuses across the country and on MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, ESPN, and NPR.

Alexandra Brodsky was a senior editor at Feministing.com.

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