Yesterday, I was discussing our feminism unit with my mom. Our conversation went something like this:
I of course believe in equal rights. But I was reading the blog Mr. Heidkamp showed us, and they had an article about how sexist a Swiffer commerical was - in part because it depicted a woman mopping."
My mom replied, "I think that you're fine with feminism and just hate that they blame the media."
It was like the "lightbulb" moment of a psychotherapy session. I like TV, and news, journalism - media as a whole. It annoys me when people blame the media for things. Sure, it over exaggerates news all the time. They lie, and are biased. However, I feel that people should try to be aware of this themselves and look at the information they are being sold. I always ask myseld, "Do I buy this?"
To be fair, the article was also talking about the sexism behind a woman being in love with a mop. And here's me answer to that: Advertisers know their consumers.
In 2006 (old, but the most recent statistic I could find without hacking into Proctor and Gamble's computer system... which I lack the knowledge to do, and not because I'm female) Swiffer's parent company spent $3.5 Billion on adversiting. You could feed 29,166,666 hungry children in Africa for a year with that much money. They don't throw that money away. Big companies hire the best advertisers they can get and a lot os research goes into what they put out there.
The ads reflect what pleases Americans. I'm sure that they had many, many test groups watched and responded to the commerical before it was put out. They liked it.
Media refelects our society's values and preferances. We should think about what we take in, and not blame the media for putting out seeminly (or overtly) sexist things. We should be more worried about society's acceptance and favortisism towards the things that the media refelects.
EDIT: If you care about women, show your support by coming to V-Day on March 18!
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