In a politically correct age, they seem like outrageous anachronisms. And there is no doubt these adverts - many taken from the first half of the last century - reveal just how much women used to be caricatured as downtrodden housewives or hair-brained office girls.
If these adverts were released today, they would surely cause a howl of protest.
6 comment(s):
"Ah...the good old days"...! :o)
I totally disagree with your take and think you are the one sounding sexist. It is a brilliant target ad. Any woman who has fought the cap of a ketchup bottle or struggled to get a tight lid off a jar can appreciate this ad and appreciate that the company is designing products with her needs in mind. To spin this as somehow adding to a negative stereotype is taking p.c. to a crazy extreme. Men and women are different, in case you haven't noticed.
PS: A while back, I wrote to Coca Cola complaining that they needed to change their bottle caps on Diet Coke because they were impossible for women less than Godzilla, to get off the bottle. I told them that they needed to change to cap and then advertise the heck out of the change, targeted to women and seniors. Just last night, I had to get my son to take the cap off a new 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and was very grateful I had a man with strong hands in the house to do the job.
And now men are portrayed in advertisements as oafs, idiots, and clueless, oversized children.
Perhaps one day a book will be put together about these adverts and people will realize how sexist they really are.
Unfortunately, they are all around us now, and no one seems to think there is a problem.
I can appreciate the physical differences between men and women and do believe that providing products to accommodate those with less strength the opportunity to utilize a product. That being said, and I am not a proponent of the whole "PC" movement, the gist of this post I don't believe was to focus on mundane mistakes in advertising, but rather blatant sexism. If you click the link provided, you'll see an array of ad's that I'm sure some liberal women and conservative alike might find demeaning.
My theory is that taboos evolve over time. I'm sure there's things we accept now that will be considered backward or mean spirited by future generations.
That being said, those adds were pretty funny.
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