Have you ever heard the phrase “There’s an app for everything?”
Sadly, there’s more truth to this than we might realize as a controversial app has been creating quite a stir by turning plastic surgery into a game and promoting some pretty horrible ideas of what women are “supposed” to look like.
And the worst part? It’s aimed at young girls!!!!
The game’s description reads:
“This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her. In our clinic she can go through a surgery called liposuction that will make her slim and beautiful. We’ll need to make small cuts on problem areas and suck out the extra fat. Will you operate her, doctor?”
If you can believe it, the game is actually targeted toward girls as young as 9-years-old, and for obvious reasons this struck a chord with Everyday Sexism, a volunteer-based group that asks women to share their experiences with sexism.
Founder Laura Bates spoke out about the app, saying:
“This was something that just raised a real red flag with us. To send those messages so blatantly to girls as young as 9 seemed really damaging.”
Everyday Sexism immediately took to Twitter to start a social media campaign, urging their followers to voice their frustrations to iTunes for promoting such a horrible game.
It didn’t take long for people to respond, and the very next day both iTunes and Google Play removed the app from their stores!
Laura opened up about the campaign, saying:
“I think it’s really affirming to know that there’s enough public sentiment on these issues to force big organizations to listen.”
Amen, sister!!
The fact that the app was even approved in the first place is still quite the head-scratcher, but the fact that public outcry urged these two huge companies to remove it completely is pretty amazing!
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