WMATA Metro Ads: Small Strides Towards a More Inclusive Society

To my surprise, the metro has many of ads highlighting diverse individuals that are often left out of mainstream media.

This is in part due to a new campaign by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to decrease sexual harassment. For this campaign Metro has partnered up with two non-profits to help them gather research about harassment and make their campaign better informed.

Among these ads, is one with a transgender women of color. This kind of representation is important because not only are Black women often left out of mainstream media, they are also more likely to experience harassment, especially transgender women.

In addition to WMATA’s anti sexual harassment campaign, they also have an ad for their new metro shop that just opened featuring an individual on a wheelchair dancing. Seeing this ad made me realize how little I have seen individuals in wheelchairs in the media.

While on the Metro, I also saw a different ad by the FDA recruiting individuals to apply for employment.

If you look closely, the individual on the left is using a crutch to hold up their right arm. While it was not an ad sponsored by the WMATA, it was on the metro just like the other previously mentioned ads in this post. It is not common that we get positive representations of individuals with disabilities in the media, if they are even represented at all.

This is the very definition of symbolic alienation. Many individuals are not represented in the media which creates the false illusion that they do not exist and are not members of our society. This then leads them be unnormalized and stereotyped. Therefore, I am optimistic about Metro’s efforts to foster an environment where these individuals voices are heard and to create a more inclusive environments.