Romancing the roles of women in household products like dish washing soap is something that has been around for a while. I found both older advertisements and current advertisement that target women and reinforce their 'place in the home'. Household product companies work hard to incorporate the romancing of women's roles in their advertisements.
The romancing technique in advertisements can be used as kind of the underlying message and it takes a trained eye to pick it out. Here is my first advertisement under critical analysis:
Here it's it obvious the company is using romance to let them women know they should be the dishwashers. The ads uses a pink bottle of dish soap and advertises the special 'rose petal' ingredient that is for her hands. The hands in the ad are obviously a woman's. They are made out to look so smooth, skinny and delicate. She has manicured nails with a shiny pink nail polish. Each hand is holding onto a rose very gently. Roses are a symbol for romance and that seems to by why the company chose to use this particular flower. They advertise the soap as having rose extract to make a woman's delicate hands smoother after washing all the dishes. These typical dishwashing soap ads have chosen to use 'the smoothing' as a selling technique because women are supposed to have soft hands. Women are supposed to care about their skin and look good for their men when they come home at the end of the day. Think about the typical soap operas that show women cooking and cleaning for their husbands. After they make dinner, they must clean up too. But most importantly they must look good while (and after) doing this. Smooth hands are what a women needs to impress her husband and keep him happy. While doing the dishes she must look good like the women shown in the ad. The 'miracle' rose infused dish soap is going to make women feel so good while doing the dishes. She gets a little bit of suds on her lower arm and holds the dirty dishes so delicately so she can impress her husband while cleaning. But after she is done cleaning she has to come out with nice clean, soft, smooth hands. It looks like she will have nice hands to massage her husband after his long day at work. These ridiculous ads remind women their place is in the home. The softener in the soap allows women to keep her skin looking young and please her husband by looking pretty and fresh. It reminds women that they are the dishwashers and they belong in the home. Advertising companies restrict women abilities to be recognizes as just ones in the home (dishwasher, launderer, cooker, etc). Dishwashing is made to look like a womsn's job and a woman's job only. But, being a dishwasher also requires you to be a 'sexy woman' while doing them. This particular ad is suggesting you use roses to scrub the dishes instead of a sponge because its 'sexier'. Household product companies tell women they have to look good while they wash, make it a sensual sense and use nice scents and flowers in the process. Women have to make themselves sexually attractive objects. Soft (white skin) hands are beautiful, and beauty is a huge part of being the 'romantic' women men supposedly want. There is nothing 'manly' in this ad that suggests this dishwashing job could be done by a man too.
I also found a more recent advertisement that came from a magazine. This one also reminds women that doing the dishes is a women's job.
"Send your hands to a spa without leaving the kitchen". The quote at the top of the ads is obviously reminding a women that their place is in the kitchen. Again, we know this ad is directed at women through the use of the hand cut out. It's a silhouette of a women hand; skinny fingers, small wrist and long nails. Inside the hand we see a beautiful scene, the same one we often seen advertised as a 'romantic getaway' (commonly advertised to be taken with your heterosexual husband/boyfirend). Women must purchase this dish soap in order to feel like they are on this romantic getaway. The description at the bottom also includes a few key techniques used to remind women of their place in the home. Not leaving the kitchen to get this feeling- tells women they belong in the kitchen and to stay there. The unique protein improving look and feel of hands- tells women they have to be 'beautiful' to be a real woman. Women need to have soft and silty skin to be a real woman. Thats the beauty of it- using worlds like 'beauty' remind women they have to look beautiful while doing the dishes (and after). Calling dishwashing a beautiful act is reminding women that this is the job for them. Romance has created a ideal women type, and she must be beautiful. Beauty is an important part of romance and women must stay young and look pretty in order to be happy. That happy feeling you can get from being on a romantic getaway is achievable to women by only doing the dished with dawn soap. Dishwashing has been portrayed as a women's job through the use of advertising. Many ads convince women that is is only a job for women, men aren't present in most ads (they are off at work while the woman is at home cleaning). Women need to use specific types of dishwashing soap so that their skin can look younger and fresh. Many soap operas leave women dreaming about that vacation that one day they will get to go on, and this advertising company is telling them they don't have to dream anymore, you can get that vacation feeling from our soap! While the women is at home washing the dishes, her husband is off making the money. That might mean that that vacation dream is only really achievable by men (who have the money to pay for the trip). A women dosen't have the ability to purchase that vacation for herself, so she stays home and has to wash the dishes to get that 'feeling' from her dish soap. That is the best she can do (pathetic).
Both of these ads remind women their place is in the home and achievable by being a romantic women (sexy, pretty, gentle, etc). All these romantic characteristic are used by advertising companies to trick women into believing all of this, and to get them to use/buy their products. This portrayal of women results in the gender roles placed on women and the stereotypical role to stay in the home. The use of this theme is used by all sorts of media and advertising companies. The same message is being repeated to women so many time that it has resulted in them (often) believing it. They have been restricted to the home.
I found other ads that have very similar themes and messages. Take a look:
-romantic theme of women trying to beautify herself
-emotional women caring so much about the dishes
-women showing a bit of leg in the back ground hugging her man (because she didn't use sunlight her man left her and went to another women)
-pink outfit, dressed to impress, jewel, long hair, pretty romantic looking
In the home is not where I want to spend all my time!
-Goldilocks
Goldilocks,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your thorough analysis of dish soap advertisements. You are very right on pinpointing the idea that the main underlining purpose of these ads (aside from trying to sell dish soap) is to keep women in their place - the home. I have to say that I can see that some advertisements have made SOME progress in the right direction over the last few decades. However as far as advertisements for cleaning products go it would seem to me that they are seriously outdated. When I was growing up I lived in a household where my Father actually did the majority of the cooking and dish washing, as my Mother was always working past 6 - a workaholic. I feel as though these advertising companies continue to feed off of patriarchal norms that a large percent of women do not continue to abide by like they did in the 1950's. These ads are not realistic portrayals of modern day families, so why do companies continue to make them? Well my guess is that they still make a decent profit selling these products, but then my next question is why do people, but women more in particular, continue to 'fall into these advertising potholes'? Clearly the use of romance has something to do with it, as I've tried to explain in my post on Canon ads. However I do believe there is more to it. Is it that some women long for the connection to traditional values and norms in a patriarchal society? Do they gain some comfort in knowing that if perhaps they cannot succeed outside the home, then at least they still have a separate sphere to thrive and do well in, to call 'their own'? The domestic sphere has always been one associated with women, and maybe, just maybe, some women are not prepared to fully give up their unofficial "ownership" of the home. What do you think?
Cheers
The Veiled Interpreter
The sunlight commercial (when her husband runs to another women because his wife didnt use the right dish doap) is appauling.. insulting and embarassing. It puts women in their place by saying "your man WILL leave you, so you SHOULD be insecure" oh, unless you use our dishsoap!!! This ad honestly make me annoyed.
ReplyDeleteB-Bloggin'
PS. Im surprised no one used the the newer swiffer commercials!!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to make a comment on the dish soap advertisement referencing the same experience for a women as going to an exotic and relaxing spa. I feel that while it was talked about that women are kept in their place of the kitchen because this ad only targets women and makes doing the dishes a romantic getaway, I feel like it is targeting women in the same manner as romance novels. Hollows describes how romance novels; while they reinforce patriarchal norms of women in domestic roles, they also provide and escape and a fantasy in which women can use to cope with their lives within a patriarchal society, which relates to a dish cleaner being represented as a trip to the spa. 'While you can't go to the spa because you have to clean the dishes, you can go halfway and have silky feminine hands by fantasizing the dish soap as spa treatment'. This may be far out there, but it is a thought.
ReplyDelete-Dougie
With the first ad with the rose I wonder if its a subtle connection to the virgin mary who was considered the ideal woman and the standard that many have to live up to? The rose is the symbol used to represent Mary and her purity. Seems like we'll never escape the ideal of being the perfect chaste women, even while we are cleaning!!
ReplyDeletebakerella