So Easy a Woman Can Do It

What do you see when you look at this ad? For the young and naive, it's an advertisement for a sandwich. For the rest of us, it implies a woman performing oral sex. This is made even more obvious by the use of the euphemism "It'll blow your mind away." While it may be a more subtle than sexist ad's of the 'Mad Men' era of the 60's, it still is very implicative. When I see this ad I see the implication that the only thing women are good for is oral sex and providing pleasure for men. When asked what she thinks of this ad, my girlfriend said, "That is despicable. How could that possibly published in this day and age?"

Advertisements in the 40's, 50's, and 60's were known for being generally sexist towards women. One of the best examples I could find is this:

The '40s were a very different time. In order to be seen as successful in society, you had to be a white male. It didn't matter what job you had. If you were a white male, you were successful. Woman were thought of as helpless and inferior. Society thought that a woman was only good for cleaning and cooking. They thought that women needed a man to help them with everything. This mindset of the helpless and fragile woman was heavily portrayed in advertisements of the time. In the 1950's and 1960's, a group of men in advertisement were known as the "Mad Men." They worked on Madison Avenue in New York. They were well known for their derogatory and sexist ads towards women. They were thought of as the most successful men in America due to their demeaning attitude towards women. This is one of their many ads:

"It's nice to have a girl around the house." This is an advertisement for Mr. Leggs slacks. It was well known at this time that women were not treated equally. Men walked all over women, that's just the way it was. This was an easy thing to incorporate into advertisements. The idea behind this ad is that if you buy a pair of Mr. Leggs slacks, you'll be able to walk over women with ease. This is just one of the many sexist ads that were common in the 50's and 60's.

The "Mad Men" weren't the only advertisement group to use sexism in advertising. Sexism and the idea of being derogatory towards women was commonly used in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Women were seen as objects rather than people. They had to exemplify sexuality while being the perfect housewife who cleaned and cooked. They had to be perfect. They had to have no flaws. One of the most well known advertisements involving sexism was for Schlitz beer. It reads:

This advertisement is truly one of the most sexist ads I have ever read. The picture shows a woman who clearly burned something in a pan with the husband saying "Don't worry darling, you didn't burn the beer!" The general implication of the ad is that the common housewife is helpless and cannot help but to burn everything she cooks. The husband tries to console her by telling her she didn't burn the beer at least. Which, of course, can't be burned in the first place. The idea that the woman is inferior in this advertisement was pretty common back then. While this seems like a horrible ad to us now, it wasn't out of place when it was published.

While the role of women in our society has changed drastically, the thought that they are only good for cooking, cleaning, and looking good is still a popular one today. I constantly see advertisements to help women "look better for their man" or to help them cook or clean better. Women are professional athletes and CEOs of major corporations, yet much of society sees them as the inferior housewife. Their bodies are plastered on billboards across the country and are judged simply by how skinny they are or how big their "thigh gap" is.

What does it mean to say something is "so easy a woman can do it?" The implication, of course, is that women are inferior and helpless. My question, is why do I still hear that phrase today? Many of the most powerful people in the country are women. Women have fought for suffrage and won. They have taken great strides to earn the respect they were not given years ago. Why are they still being treated like they were 50 years ago? The idea that women are only good for cleaning, cooking, and sexuality needs to come to an end.

Works Cited

Jacobsen, Michael F. "Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society" Westview Press. 1995.
<http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/CS/Marketing%20Madness.pdf>
Edwards, Jim., Jacobs, Harrison. "26 Sexist Ads of the 'Mad Men' Era Companies Wish We'd Forgot" Business Insider. 8 May, 2014.
<http://www.businessinsider.com/26-sexist-ads-of-the-mad-men-era-2014-5>

http://www.tekilaklub.com/inspyre/you-mean-a-woman-can-open-it/

http://sites.stedwards.edu/socialmedia-joliver3/2013/02/24/hathaways-man-in-the-hathaway-shirt-campaign/

http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/15chungm/2013/09/05/stereotypes-in-the-media-schlitz-dont-worry-darling-you-didnt-burn-the-beer/