The other day while watching TV, a commercial for a laundry detergent caught my attention. The commercial centered on three moms comparing the detergent in question with their old detergents to determine which was better. A question along the lines of "can these moms see the difference between x and y detergents?" moved across the screen.
What caught my attention in this commercial was not the miraculous properties of the new detergent, rather the fact that the question was asked of three moms. Why did it have to be moms? Why weren't there any men among the candidates? Had it been just one commercial, it might not have caught my attention. No, what caught my attention was that this seems to be a common theme among these types of advertisements.
It seems to me a little strange that in our society we have made so much progress in erasing stereotypes, and yet still cling to certain stereotypes like this one - this commercial, for instance, seemed to say that women always do the laundry. Others suggest that women are responsible for all the grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Have you ever seen a commercial where a woman did the barbecuing or fixed the shed? I've been on the lookout since then and I can't say that I have.
Of course, they're just commercials. No big deal, right? Wrong. Commercials have a big impact on our self-image and on how we see others. I recently watched a video of Jean Kilbourne, a woman who has been collecting ads since the 1960s that are demeaning to women in a variety of ways, while she talked about the fourth edition of her movie series Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women that came out this year. It was eye-opening for me, and I definitely recommend it! At the very least, I urge you to watch the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY
