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Ads that I like #53



As someone who does most of the cooking in this household, pulls his weight with the children and is far more inclined towards OCD with regards cleaning than my wife, I wonder what role the modern wife plays. Casting my gaze over these vintage advertisements, one can see why conservitive talk show hosts and former Australian Prime Ministers long for the 'golden age' of sexual politics.

Why, this little old blog has featured women cooking, cleaning, reclining in a bikini, preparing multiple salad dressings, ensuring clean drains, helping the war effort, being pleasantly useless, ensuring their 'feminine hygiene' is adequate, unable to resist arseholes, pushing men to the end of their tether, gardening in uncomfortable-looking shorts, taking a beating and enjoying it and entertaining the troops.

So I ask again, what role the modern woman? Surely not that envisaged by ad number fifty sums it up? Say it ain't so ladies!

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Debbie Courson Smith said…
I think the modern role is do what you do best, hire someone else to do the rest.
5 August 2008 at 10:38
USelaine said…
Kris, I think you are still the exception, not the rule when it comes to the role of men. For many women, the simple "personhood" of a fair share of everything (both drudge and creativity) isn't yet available. I'm a generation older than you, and like myself, many of my women peers opted not to marry and have a family, perhaps because the men hadn't come along as far as ourselves in changing ideas. Who could blame them? Who could blame us?
5 August 2008 at 12:34
USelaine said…
Further, I think your sample comes from an age where each sex has been infantilized in a different way. Nobody was portrayed as a complete human being. It's just that men could get bank loans and mortgages without a co-signer. And higher paychecks, just because.
5 August 2008 at 12:42
USelaine said…
Nope. Nevermind. I've said enough.
5 August 2008 at 12:44
Kris McCracken said…
USelaine, I had hoped that people could see my tongue firmly wedged in my cheek!

For the record, I agree with everything you say, and think that Betry Friedan nailed it in The Feminine Mystique. These old ads illustrate it clearly, as well as some not-so-old ads!
5 August 2008 at 14:14
USelaine said…
Didn't mean to sound strident, heaven forbid. 8^) I know you know, and I hope you know that I know that you know... I think I have some dishes to wash...
5 August 2008 at 17:42
freefalling said…
Where do I get me one of them wives?
5 August 2008 at 17:53
Priyanka Khot said…
Feminism is such a big issue all over the world and I guess with enough reason. Your ads actually throw enough light on the gender bias. It is widely believed in India that the feminist issues are a western influence. Elders go as far as "Our girls are being corrupted by the Western ideas". The weight of feminist movement is such that women here are forced to comply with all the duties that the women of previous generations shouldered and also compete with men on the professional front.

On a cheeky, yet slightly profound note: the idea of Feminist movement must be of a man. He certainly gets a better deal.

Kris, you of course, by your own admission, are an exception to the rule. :-)
5 August 2008 at 20:56
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