FIGS ad: Popular scrubs company generates backlash from women in medicine and DOs after insensitive video
In the now-deleted video, which was meant to show how one of its pairs of women’s scrub pants looked in action, a bespectacled model played a DO and pretended to scan through the book “Medical Terminology for Dummies,” which she held upside down.
On Twitter, a handful of women health care professionals and DOs quickly criticized the video’s contents and FIGS for producing it.
Brenna Hohl, a first-year medical student from North Carolina, told CNN she found the ad disrespectful, particularly as health care workers face the brunt of coronavirus exposure.
“In the midst of a pandemic, we should be supporting and building up our health care workers, not bringing them down like this,” she said.
After addressing the video briefly in two now-deleted tweets, FIGS co-founders Heather Hasson and Trina Spear apologized for publishing the video, which they said was “offensive” and “particularly disparaging” to women in medicine and DOs.
“Our mission at FIGS has always been to empower medical professionals,” the co-founders said in a statement to CNN. “Beyond a lapse in judgment, the bottom line is — our processes at FIGS failed. We are fixing that now. It will never happen again.”
Some women in medicine say video was harmful
But some women in health care said they are turned off by the brand after the video.
“The ‘silly and dumb, but sexy’ look in ads and other media contributes to harmful gender stereotypes,” she told CNN. “When girls see this, they start feeling like this is what is ‘cool,’ and start yearning to be like this.”
YouTube influencer and family physician Dr. Mike Varshavski encouraged medical students to stop wearing scrubs from the brand.