Monday, February 8, 2010

2/8; There is never a shortage of grease in space.



This woman wants you to know that in the future, everyone will have a space suit and a bottle of Lestoil. Not only that, the Moon will be colonized. And with all that new land that humans will be living on, oh yes, there will be cleaning. The women will do it, in full evening attire. Their nails will be flawless and their eyes will be smoky. Billowing lashes and pouty lips will complement their lemony fresh all-purpose cleaners. She is not a mere woman. She is a space-woman from the future, where it is possible to be dressed to the nines and still capable and willing to get on their hands and knees to scrub the space-grease from the space-house.

This ad is not just selling a cleaner; it is selling a narrative. The future will be exotic, but social roles will remain the same. “Gendered norms and expectations” will remain the same on the Moon. (Lorber 65). The ad also presents a confusing message of femininity. Not only is the woman expected to clean (with Lestoil, no less), but she has to do it completely done up. She has to do it in order to still be called a woman. The ad perpetuates “gender inequality” and the “devaluation of ‘women’ (Lorber 67).

The ad, although it is selling a product intended for women, is aimed at men. The woman is not shown in a practical outfit to clean. She is in a spacesuit, with exotic features accentuated by her long eyelashes and smoky makeup. Her nails are immaculate, and her lips are perfect. The woman in the advertisement becomes exotic, releasing the message to its male viewers that if they were to buy Lestoil, their 1960s- women will become just as exotic as space-women from 3052.

The largest problem with the ad is the text at the bottom; “Women of the future will make the Moon a cleaner place to live.” This blanket statement forces an identity onto women. They have to be the domestic, cleaning up the messes of the Moon. They have to accept this task, because it is integral to their identity. If they do not clean, then they are not real women. This ad employs “social categories…to establish and maintain a particular kind of social structure” (Kirk, Rey 94). By releasing advertisements that attempt to defend the status quo, Lestoil (owned by Clorox) is trying to keep women in the gender roles that are currently defined for them. That damaging line of thinking also affects men. This presentation of the exotic and the domestic at once creates an unrealistic ideal. Only super-women can be dressed for a night in downtown Moonville and still be expected to clean up the Residential Space Pod. And even as super-women, they are expected to be subservient to their man.



Lorber, Judith "The Social Construction of Gender". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey.
Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 64-67.

Lukas, Scott. "Exotics--Surreal." Gender Ads. 04/04/2007. Lake Tahoe Community College,
Web. 8 Feb 2010.
"Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People?". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 91-103.

1 comment:

  1. You mentioned it briefly, but what I find just bizarre about this ad is the model's fingernails. They are long and polished - not how your fingernails would be if you were often in the business of cleaning with Lestoil. The model in the ad has absolutely nothing to do with cleaning whatsoever. The fact that the advertisers apparently did not even make an effort to portray a person who would be using a cleaning product is not only misogynistic and classist, it's just plain weird.

    ReplyDelete