interesting
I was linked to this yesterday.
While I’m not a huge, raging feminist there are limits. Either way you slice it, its a personal choice whether or not to shave or be shaved and this is just, to me, entirely annoying advertising. I think the interesting thing here is the fact that it is another example of how women’s bodies are controlled. We are told what to cover and how to do it, making sure that we follow these standards are words like “slut” and “whore” and with this particular commercial we’re told that we need to keep ourselves perfectly neat and trim or we just won’t feel good about ourselves.
I think that men really reproduce these standards. Most of the time without noticing it. Pornography is usually the first thing that men experience in terms of sex and they are met with the sight of these woman who are much like pre-pubescent girls and thus that becomes The Norm. They don’t want to see a woman the way that they actually are because it seems wrong to them. Yet at the same time this is a pure example of the infantilizing of women which I can’t stand.1 Or the men who pride themselves on their fathers raising them to be sensitive and caring, being able to cook and want kids2 but it hinges on if the woman wants that. If the woman dare say that she doesn’t want that perfect suburban lifestyle that your father has so dutifully prepared you for, it is the end of the world. The immediate response is to change her, guilt her, anything to make her fit into your perfect world. Its not even that she should want it. It seems that the big deal lies within the idea that women should want to want to have that.
I get told a lot of the time that I’m different from other girls. Things are different and then the first thing the guy tries to do is change it. Whether it be forcing me to settle, telling me that they prefer something and I won’t be as attractive if I’m not like that or whatever. My thought is, find a guy who doesn’t want to change me and I’ve finally found my match.
In the meantime, stop telling women to have your children, settle down, and shave their bodies for you. Especially if you make comments about how its important for women to have equality. There will never be full on equality until the body is controlled less. Just the same as there can never be equality until women stop treating men like they are stupid and lesser. Why is it so hard to wrap your head around a women who doesn’t conform to what men think they should conform to?
Hmmm, interesting. I, myself, saw it in a similar (although far less subtle) vein to those viagra-esque ads, where sexuality is juxtaposed against ordinary life, in order to have the big reveal at the end where, *gasp* you learn that the couple was actually bumping uglies. The problem is, then, this ad tries to do too much at once by beating us over the head with the Paris Hilton stick… I mean, god, she even has a stupid little dog! Are they saying that women, instead of living their boring, suburban life, should suddenly act like some floozy sex symbol (and I use that very loosely… bad-um-pish)?
Oh, I just went back… it’s not a chihuahua, it’s a hairless cat… well played Schick.
In the end, I guess, I really have to wonder who they’re actually trying to sell their product to. I don’t know why woman would want to identify with the type of person they’re portraying. “Why yes, I’ll buy something that will make me feel like, in the eyes of men, I am just a piece of meat.” I suppose we’re just seeing things differently; you see it as a message that women should conform to this Burton-esque role, while I see it as a confusing statement that women need to act like bimbos in order to be accepted sexually…
My last question… what the hell does the blatantly phallic leaf-blower represent? I was kind of blown away by that scene…