18
May
Mr. Clean: A Woman’s Best Friend?
by Amanda Montei
0 Comments | Posted by thatgirl in Making Waves
Picture this: a couple is throwing a dinner party when (gasp) the sloppy husband spills on the white tablecloth! The wife, put together in a flattering but demure dress, wastes no time. She rips the tablecloth out from underneath the plates ala Houdini and, nauseatingly thrilled, rushes to the laundry room to show her husband and her guests the incredible power of Tide! Sound like something from the 50’s? It’s actually a 2008 commercial featuring Kelly Ripa.
The gender bias here is clear: men are slovenly, careless and inactive in the household and women are all too excited to pick up where their hubbies leave off. And this commercial does not live in isolation. This regressive sexism exists in ads for all things homey, from Palmolive to Pillsbury. Every night these archaic ideals splash across our TV sets, oft unnoticed. Somehow, household product commercials seem to exist in a vacuum. Like many marketing schemes directed towards women, TV ads are still a medium for quiet suppression. According to the vast majority of these commercials, it appears a woman’s greatest joys in life are doing laundry and washing dishes. And we just get giddy over Glade!
Consider the 2008 Clorox commercial jingle. Remember that little ditty that reminded us that “mama’s got the magic of Clorox,” and daddy is nowhere to be found? Not only do these commercials insinuate that women are somehow defective if they don’t get all warm and fuzzy over shiny linoleum and spotless glasses, but they also imply that men are consistently absent in the household. What has changed since the 1950s Tide commercial that captured a young housewife prancing, elated, through clotheslines on a beach? The gender discrimination has become a more subtle, but the message is the same.
The analysis of these commercials becomes complicated when we consider who is influencing whom. What came first? The supermarket shopping housewife in the cleaning aisle or the super absorbent Brawny paper towel commercial that shows her using them so gleefully? Naturally, these companies are aiming for a demographic, but is their research accurate? Are women still the only ones buying Mr. Clean? The most terrifying thing about these commercials is that they may serve as a social mirror. If women are the stars of these ad spots, then they must be the biggest spenders at the grocery store.
What recourse do we have? Demand more. Stop buying products that tout outdated messages. Purchasing power is one of the most underrated vehicles for change. Regardless of advertisers’ intentions, these commercials are detrimental to our society’s ability to overcome sexist stereotypes.
Am I any less of a woman if I loathe doing laundry, if my heart doesn’t skip a beat as I’m cleaning the toilet bowl or if I think my education is more important than bright white sheets? Am I the only woman who thinks it’s sexy when a man doesn’t mind doing the dishes?
In 1963, Betty Friedan wrote, “The image of woman that emerges… is young and frivolous, almost childlike; fluffy and feminine; passive; gaily content in a world of bedroom and kitchen… babies and home.” It’s time to think of women as more