Blog 1

A couple of days ago I was watching TV, and an advertisement that I saw really grabbed my attention because I'd just finished doing the readings for class. This ad reminded my about the essay titled "Denials of Inequality" because it was for Clorox Bleach and it presented housework, or more specifically, laundry as being almost strictly feminine.

The ad starts off showing a woman from probably the early 1930's doing laundry and it talks about how your great grandmother did laundry with Clorox your grandmother, mother, an occasional man (1), and now You. The ad was so rooted in typical gender stereotyping that it kind of caught me off guard. It seems like it's only a minor thing, but it does have broader implications. It carries on the "tradition" of women being servants to men and families and it seeks to legitimize the notion of separate male and female tasks. I also find it interesting as a man because the gendering of the task makes it implicit that a male doing laundry is in some way atypical, or should be.

Overall though I just found it to be interesting because pretty much everyone, female or male, has to do laundry so why does it need to be considered a gender specific role? In an age where gender equality is supposedly so prevalent, why do such blatant stereotypes still permeate the airwaves? It’s probably true that women statistically do actually perform more household duties, even today, than males do, and that advertisers are trying to tap into the largest possible consumer pool. That in itself is one reason that the ad is so aggravating – it’s, in a way, reflecting what people still believe and want.