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• Re-radicalized intersectionality provides transformational potential to firms • Diversity programs require intersectionality and context-specific perspective • Standardization of implicit bias tests neglects intersecting identities • Diversity training overlooks deep systemic issues and glocalized conditions • Depth and breadth are key to managerially useful intersectional understanding

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Purpose To date, the cultural and societal effects of controversial advertising have been insufficiently considered. This study aims to investigate how advertising that uses violent representations of women transgresses the taboo of gender-based violence. Design/methodology/approach This study encompasses a visual analysis of the subject positions of women in five violent advertising representations and a critical discourse analysis of the defensive statements provided by the client organisations subsequent to the public outrage generated by the campaigns. Findings The authors identify taboo transgression in the Tease, Piece of Meat and Conquered subject positions, wherein women are represented as suggestive, dehumanised and submissive. Client organisations seek to defend these taboo transgressions through the use of three discursive strategies – subverting interpretations, making authority claims and denying responsibility – which legitimise the control of the organisations but simultaneously work to obscure the power relations at play. Practical implications The representational authority that advertisers hold as cultural intermediaries in society highlights the need for greater consideration of the ethical responsibilities in producing controversial advertisements, especially those which undermine the status of women. Social implications Controversial advertising that transgresses the taboo of violence against women reinforces gender norms and promotes ambiguous and adverse understandings of women’s subjectivities by introducing pollution and disorder to gender politics. Originality/value This paper critically assesses the societal implications of controversial advertising practices, thus moving away from the extant focus on managerial implications. Through a conceptualisation of controversial advertising as transgressing taboo boundaries, the authors highlight how advertising plays an important role in shifting these boundaries whereby taboos come to be understood as generative and evolving. However, this carries moral implications which may have damaging societal effects.

By speaking up and fighting back, individually and collectively, we affirm and ensure that #MeToo is a strong and diverse movement, not simply a historical moment whose gains can be erased. From boardrooms to the music industry, from classrooms to elevators, we must challenge misogyny whenever it rears its violent head. To those who accuse us of going too far, we say: we will go as far and as long as it takes to demand respect, equality and justice! (Sharoni, 2018, p. 150) Unfortunately, too many centers of power -from legislatures to boardrooms to executive suites and management to academia -lack gender parity and women do not have equal decision-making authority. The struggle for women to break in, to rise up the ranks and to simply be heard and acknowledged in male-dominated workplaces must end; time's up on this impenetrable monopoly.