1
00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:06,920
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports

2
00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

3
00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:20,000
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about advertisements. Yeah.

4
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:23,720
Speaker 1: So we've already talked a lot about women in the

5
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,040
Speaker 1: advertising world, and of course on Sminty we've talked a

6
00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:31,280
Speaker 1: lot about the actual women and sexism that are in ads.

7
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:37,159
Speaker 1: But today we are zeroing in on basically advertising co

8
00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: opting of feminism. Yeah. I thought about this, Caroline, the

9
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:47,479
Speaker 1: other day when I was watching something on YouTube. It

10
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:49,479
Speaker 1: was not a stuff Mom Never Told You video. I

11
00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:52,280
Speaker 1: promise I don't watch videos of myself in my free time,

12
00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: but there was a pre role Secret Deodorant ad and

13
00:00:59,640 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: usually I clicked through them, but I did not with

14
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,240
Speaker 1: this one because I wanted to see what happened. I

15
00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:09,160
Speaker 1: wanted to see if they were doing what I thought

16
00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,759
Speaker 1: they were going to do, and they did. So. The

17
00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:16,720
Speaker 1: campaign is something on the lines of the Secret Stress Tests.

18
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,600
Speaker 1: So they I've seen a few of these commercials where

19
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:23,880
Speaker 1: they all have, oh, a woman who's in some kind

20
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,480
Speaker 1: of stressful situation, but she's got secret deodorant, so it's okay.

21
00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:30,759
Speaker 1: So in this one, it's a guy and a girl

22
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:36,800
Speaker 1: at a dinner. It's a busy restaurant and they're talking

23
00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:40,280
Speaker 1: and you can see the woman starting to get nervous

24
00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 1: and oh my god, she's proposing. She is proposing to

25
00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:51,640
Speaker 1: a man. And I was like, oh ho ho, secret deodorant.

26
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 1: Well done with that empower tizing because you know, liberated women.

27
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:05,600
Speaker 1: And don't we millennial ladies love that. We'll buy that deodorant.

28
00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:10,800
Speaker 1: We will, I know. And it's interesting to watch how advertising,

29
00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:15,880
Speaker 1: of course, is going to follow the money. And historically

30
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: if they see they know advertising, if they see an

31
00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:23,960
Speaker 1: opportunity to be able to sell more stuff there, make

32
00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 1: more money, they're gonna do it. And so as women

33
00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:33,040
Speaker 1: have gained more rights, more of a voice in society,

34
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:37,000
Speaker 1: um and have actually stepped up and said no, this

35
00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,960
Speaker 1: portrayal of women is not okay. We are you know,

36
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:46,160
Speaker 1: three dimensional, hot blooded human people. We you know, deserve

37
00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:49,480
Speaker 1: equal rights. We can propose if we want to, that's right,

38
00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:54,080
Speaker 1: and throw like a girl and have hair that's not bossy.

39
00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:56,040
Speaker 1: I think that was the point of that ad, right,

40
00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:59,720
Speaker 1: the Pantine prov shin strong campaign. Your hair is not bossing?

41
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,880
Speaker 1: Is that apologizing too much? Right? Exactly? Um? So naturally,

42
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:07,639
Speaker 1: you know the way that society goes, so we'll advertising

43
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:12,480
Speaker 1: a little slower and maybe not commit quite as hard.

44
00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:16,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, they'd be foolish to to not

45
00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:19,920
Speaker 1: follow the way that culture is going. Absolutely, And probably

46
00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,760
Speaker 1: the most famous example of this that we'll get into

47
00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:27,080
Speaker 1: later in the show is the nineties seventies Virginia Slims

48
00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 1: campaign of You've Come a long Way Baby. And in

49
00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:36,120
Speaker 1: most articles you'll read about empowertizing, which is also referred

50
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:42,200
Speaker 1: to as fem vertizing within the industry, that's cited as

51
00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:47,040
Speaker 1: the first. But no, no, no, no, my friends, the

52
00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:55,120
Speaker 1: history of brands and companies catering to female consumers with feminist,

53
00:03:55,200 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 1: e liberated ish taglines is extensive. I mean, it really

54
00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:05,120
Speaker 1: has been as old as the ad industry. And the

55
00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:08,360
Speaker 1: question that we're going to look at really today, after

56
00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:11,560
Speaker 1: we sort through how all of this has come about,

57
00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 1: how how we have now gotten to the point to

58
00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:17,360
Speaker 1: where women on deodorant commercials are proposing to their boyfriend

59
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,359
Speaker 1: is whether, as some claim it is, this is good

60
00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:26,719
Speaker 1: that femvertizing, as advocates of it call it, is a

61
00:04:26,880 --> 00:04:30,520
Speaker 1: sign that our society has progressed. And these are the

62
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:33,440
Speaker 1: brands that we should be supporting. It's great right that

63
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:37,240
Speaker 1: feminism is in our commercials. And this is the same

64
00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 1: question basically that we grappled with in our Feminist Fashion

65
00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:43,440
Speaker 1: episode where we talked about how you had brands like

66
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:48,960
Speaker 1: chanel Um and others who are parading feminist slogans and

67
00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:53,920
Speaker 1: signs even and staging fake feminist protests on the runway.

68
00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:57,240
Speaker 1: And there was even one recently was a Dior Dior

69
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:02,400
Speaker 1: that had quote unquote feminist T shirts with just I mean,

70
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:07,240
Speaker 1: it was the same you know, average white models sporting

71
00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:11,960
Speaker 1: feminist slogans on T shirts that you and I can't afford. Um.

72
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:13,560
Speaker 1: But you know, we we had to grapple with that

73
00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:18,400
Speaker 1: in that episode two of Okay, raising awareness and bringing

74
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:24,600
Speaker 1: attention to issues of feminism positive um, but not taking

75
00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: it a step further and actually participating in any sort

76
00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 1: of meaningful conversation not helpful. Well, it's just a fundamental

77
00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 1: question too, of whether feminism and capitalism can kind of

78
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:44,800
Speaker 1: coexist in that way, whether it's okay for you know,

79
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:47,880
Speaker 1: these commercials to be not only selling a brand but

80
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,880
Speaker 1: also allegedly trying to sell us an idea of cultural change.

81
00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:54,919
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the thing I asked myself all the time,

82
00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:58,760
Speaker 1: can feminism exist outside of my coven? I have no idea.

83
00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:03,320
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true. Uh So, let's first talk about

84
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:07,479
Speaker 1: this whole concept of empower tizing. This is something that

85
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,920
Speaker 1: was coined by a former Stuff Mom Never Told You guest,

86
00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:15,960
Speaker 1: Andy Zieesler, who is also a founder of Bitch magazine,

87
00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:17,880
Speaker 1: and she also recently wrote a book that talks a

88
00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:21,960
Speaker 1: lot about this called We Were Feminists Once, and she

89
00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 1: came up with the fabulous portmanteau of empower tizing to

90
00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:32,480
Speaker 1: refer to the use of feminist e choose your consumer

91
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:36,479
Speaker 1: choice messaging to just sell things to women. And she

92
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,120
Speaker 1: doesn't mean this in a flattering way, no, And nor

93
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:43,800
Speaker 1: does she mean that there's anything inherently wrong in buying

94
00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:47,400
Speaker 1: a T shirt or a toebag or whatever that has

95
00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 1: some sort of feminist slogan on it. But she does

96
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 1: take issue with the concept that I just mentioned of Okay,

97
00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:59,440
Speaker 1: well you're gonna walk the walk, but are you going

98
00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:01,680
Speaker 1: to talk the talk? Or is it the other way?

99
00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 1: You're talking to talk but are you gonna walk the walk? Yes,

100
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:10,720
Speaker 1: feminism exactly. There was actually a terrific parody two of

101
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:17,440
Speaker 1: this advertising trend of empowertizing that was made in by

102
00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:24,240
Speaker 1: a Canadian agency called John Sat And there it's a

103
00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:29,360
Speaker 1: spoof of this ad agency that specifically made to like

104
00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:32,640
Speaker 1: sell stuff to women via empowertizing. And there's a poster

105
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:37,440
Speaker 1: in this fake agency that says, if she's crying, she's buying.

106
00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:42,200
Speaker 1: And to me, that sums up empowertizing. Yeah, that's right.

107
00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 1: Whether it's like trying to sell yogurt to women who

108
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,280
Speaker 1: are worried about their weight or selling body wash too

109
00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,800
Speaker 1: women who are worried about their weight, it just seems

110
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:56,040
Speaker 1: like we've got a lot of advertising out there that's

111
00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,400
Speaker 1: trying to tell women what a lot of us already know,

112
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:02,440
Speaker 1: which is that it's okay to accept yourself. Yeah. Well,

113
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:04,920
Speaker 1: and and also in the in the words of it,

114
00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:08,440
Speaker 1: though to put it a little more harshly, the message

115
00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:13,000
Speaker 1: of that st John's spoof was that really at the

116
00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,680
Speaker 1: core of all of this is quote fastening on something

117
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:22,760
Speaker 1: women hate about themselves, emphasizing that self doubt, and then

118
00:08:22,840 --> 00:08:27,680
Speaker 1: presenting this brand as a philanthropic champion of women's healing

119
00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 1: and self actualization, right, which is exactly what so many

120
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,120
Speaker 1: media and cultural critics have brought up about a lot

121
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:40,280
Speaker 1: of the beauty brands that are getting in on this

122
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:42,920
Speaker 1: so called and power tizing these days of like, well,

123
00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:46,160
Speaker 1: you've sold us how we have to be hairless and

124
00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:50,679
Speaker 1: smooth like critters you know that roam through the woods

125
00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:54,320
Speaker 1: only eating fruit, nuts and berries, um, so that we

126
00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:57,080
Speaker 1: can be super skinny in addition to you know, not

127
00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:01,120
Speaker 1: having any smell or hair at all. Um. And now

128
00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:03,200
Speaker 1: you're turning around and saying, oh no, but the way

129
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:06,120
Speaker 1: that you are is okay, so by our soap, right,

130
00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:10,079
Speaker 1: or by our lipstick or whatever it is. And empower

131
00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:14,800
Speaker 1: tizing isn't to be confused with fem vertizing, which was

132
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:16,839
Speaker 1: a term as far as I could tell, that was

133
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:22,400
Speaker 1: coined by She Knows Media, and femvertizing cast all of

134
00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:27,040
Speaker 1: this in the more glass half full perspective that these

135
00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:32,640
Speaker 1: kinds of feel good ads are legitimately empowering female consumers

136
00:09:32,679 --> 00:09:38,239
Speaker 1: because they are challenging negative gender stereotypes. So some examples

137
00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:43,520
Speaker 1: of this would of course be the Dove Campaign for

138
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:45,960
Speaker 1: Real Beauty, which has now been renamed to the Dove

139
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:49,559
Speaker 1: Movement for Self Esteem, which kind of started at all,

140
00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:54,320
Speaker 1: at least in terms of our modern post New millennium

141
00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:58,000
Speaker 1: era of fem vertizing. Yeah, I hadn't realized that that

142
00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:02,080
Speaker 1: goes back to two four that campaign using non model women.

143
00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:04,360
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say real women because that is

144
00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:10,440
Speaker 1: obviously can be insulting and condescending to models, for instance.

145
00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:14,000
Speaker 1: I don't know well, and I remember when those ads

146
00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:18,600
Speaker 1: first came out and it was a refreshing change, absolutely,

147
00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:23,160
Speaker 1: But then I also remember as the campaign went on

148
00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:28,680
Speaker 1: that feminist outlets such as Bitch Media started to become

149
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:32,640
Speaker 1: increasingly wary of what Dove was really selling. And I

150
00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:36,840
Speaker 1: think the turning point for this was the commercial they

151
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:42,320
Speaker 1: made where women came in and described themselves to a

152
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:46,520
Speaker 1: forensic sketch artist, and then a friend of theirs came

153
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:49,320
Speaker 1: in and described, you know, the woman to a forensic

154
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:53,320
Speaker 1: sketch artist in surprise. The way we describe ourselves is

155
00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:58,480
Speaker 1: that we're all like haggard and withered, just awful deflated

156
00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:03,480
Speaker 1: basketballs essentially, whereas our friends describe us is basically looking

157
00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,680
Speaker 1: like Heidi Klum. Women, your self esteem is so bad

158
00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:11,000
Speaker 1: and so on the one hand, it's like yeah, this

159
00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:15,080
Speaker 1: like their their body diversity is great. It has absolutely

160
00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 1: contributed to this broader movement for body positivity. But on

161
00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:23,679
Speaker 1: the other hand, like, what's up with just really insisting

162
00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:26,720
Speaker 1: that no woman has a shred of self esteem whatsoever.

163
00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:30,640
Speaker 1: It's almost like they overcorrected. Yeah, yeah, the went a

164
00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:33,319
Speaker 1: little too far. Um. And you know we already mentioned

165
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:36,960
Speaker 1: the Pantine Shine Strong ad that actually got the stamp

166
00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:42,400
Speaker 1: of approval from Lenan Cheryl Sandberg. Um, but basically in

167
00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:46,680
Speaker 1: that ad did they even mention shampoo until the very end? Yeah,

168
00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:52,440
Speaker 1: and they did the classic Pantine hair slow mole's lego

169
00:11:52,559 --> 00:11:57,400
Speaker 1: hair because it's like it doesn't come apart right right. Um,

170
00:11:57,440 --> 00:11:59,160
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do that. Is there an

171
00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:02,680
Speaker 1: invisible hairnet holding all of that hair together? I need

172
00:12:02,679 --> 00:12:05,839
Speaker 1: one of those. I need one to be the empowertizing

173
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:08,840
Speaker 1: is working on us already, not for their shampoo, unfortunately,

174
00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:13,560
Speaker 1: but for their invisible hairnet. Um, they could be helpful

175
00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:17,120
Speaker 1: the food service industry. I guess seriousic of wearing hairnets. Well,

176
00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:20,600
Speaker 1: here is an invisible one by Pantine. Well in that

177
00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:26,920
Speaker 1: commercial started off saying why do women apologize so much?

178
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:32,880
Speaker 1: And it did tap into the site geysy conversation happening

179
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,920
Speaker 1: around the time with Ryl Sandberg and lean In about

180
00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:39,120
Speaker 1: you know, women not apologizing for themselves all the time

181
00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:43,360
Speaker 1: and not undercutting their own authority, and us recognizing that

182
00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:47,360
Speaker 1: bossi is a very negatively gendered term. All things that

183
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:50,280
Speaker 1: are terrific. But again it's like, did we need a

184
00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:54,040
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble product to tell us this right? I

185
00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:57,400
Speaker 1: remember seeing a magazine ad for you know, don't call

186
00:12:57,400 --> 00:12:59,640
Speaker 1: her bossy or whatever, She's the boss. And I took

187
00:12:59,679 --> 00:13:02,080
Speaker 1: a picture and posted it to our sminty Instagram and

188
00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:04,760
Speaker 1: I just asked listeners. I asked our followers, like, what

189
00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,320
Speaker 1: do you think about this? You know, you know? And

190
00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:10,360
Speaker 1: it was about evenly split, I would say, between women

191
00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,560
Speaker 1: who were just saying, oh, this is obnoxious, you know,

192
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:17,360
Speaker 1: stop trying to sell us shampoo with the feminist movement,

193
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:21,400
Speaker 1: stop trying to take our empowerment initiatives and sell us

194
00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:25,680
Speaker 1: something back. The other half of the people who responded,

195
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:29,480
Speaker 1: we're pretty adamant and saying, if it's got to be something,

196
00:13:29,880 --> 00:13:33,320
Speaker 1: it might as well be feminist. Absolutely, and I think

197
00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:38,040
Speaker 1: that there are completely valid arguments on both sides of it.

198
00:13:38,679 --> 00:13:42,120
Speaker 1: And to maybe help us make a little more sense

199
00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:45,959
Speaker 1: of this and contextualized where all of this came from,

200
00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:50,640
Speaker 1: let's look at a little bit of history, because what

201
00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:54,959
Speaker 1: I at least didn't realize before this was how pretty

202
00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:57,440
Speaker 1: much as soon as women got into the advertising industry,

203
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:02,360
Speaker 1: which was from the get go, they tried to infuse

204
00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:07,240
Speaker 1: a lot of early advertisements with more of that uh

205
00:14:07,559 --> 00:14:13,040
Speaker 1: turn of the centuries suffragist new woman ethos well, right,

206
00:14:13,160 --> 00:14:15,480
Speaker 1: And that has a lot to do with the whole

207
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:19,200
Speaker 1: separate sphere thing. Men were already going out into the world,

208
00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:23,080
Speaker 1: into the workforce, making a paycheck, making money. Women were

209
00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:27,240
Speaker 1: at home, and so in order to kind of open

210
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:33,400
Speaker 1: up the economy, essentially, they had to create the female consumer.

211
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:36,800
Speaker 1: I mean, our economy had to have this female consumer

212
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,240
Speaker 1: and treat her as if part of her wifely household

213
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,560
Speaker 1: duties was to do all of the shopping. And so

214
00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:48,560
Speaker 1: advertising was certainly pitching to this new woman, who, even

215
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 1: if she didn't work outside the home, was still expected

216
00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:55,640
Speaker 1: to leave the house and consume, consume, consumed shop, shop shop.

217
00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:58,920
Speaker 1: And so even if the new woman, so to speak,

218
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,560
Speaker 1: wasn't even in the major already, necessarily she was a

219
00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:08,200
Speaker 1: really strong and important pop culture figure that proved really

220
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:13,320
Speaker 1: powerful to sort of advertise two and around. Yeah, I mean,

221
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,840
Speaker 1: and she also existed completely detached from the home as well.

222
00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:19,840
Speaker 1: This is really the first generation of women who could

223
00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:24,280
Speaker 1: potentially leave the house without any intent of marriage, go

224
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 1: to college if they you know, typically if they were

225
00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:30,680
Speaker 1: white and could afford it, and then get into a

226
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:36,560
Speaker 1: profession like advertising. And this is coming from h ad

227
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,680
Speaker 1: ages Encyclopedia, and I gotta give a shout out to

228
00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:43,360
Speaker 1: ad Age. They have been covering women in advertising for

229
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,640
Speaker 1: quite some time now. Um And if you want more

230
00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:50,480
Speaker 1: background on the ins and outs of women in the

231
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 1: advertising industry, I highly recommend you going back and listening

232
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:58,120
Speaker 1: to our two parter on that Mad Women, parts one

233
00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:02,320
Speaker 1: and two, in which we talked about how in the

234
00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:08,000
Speaker 1: nineteen tens and twenties there was this feminist badass named

235
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:12,160
Speaker 1: Helen Lansdown Razor, and she was one of the first

236
00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:15,800
Speaker 1: ad women. She worked at an agency called j W

237
00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:20,400
Speaker 1: T and her claim to fame was creating a women's

238
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:26,760
Speaker 1: editorial department with the goal of cornering gender based marketing,

239
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:30,720
Speaker 1: which really didn't exist before them, because obviously, like marketing

240
00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:33,000
Speaker 1: in general, was still kind of in its infancy in

241
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: the way that we think of it today. But Razor

242
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:43,440
Speaker 1: recognized that the growth of advertising depended on female consumers

243
00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:45,800
Speaker 1: and that you've got to reach those women. And Razor

244
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:47,520
Speaker 1: was pumped about this because she was one of those

245
00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:50,720
Speaker 1: new women out like making a living for herself. Yeah,

246
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:55,040
Speaker 1: So under her guidance, they end up hiring a team

247
00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:58,920
Speaker 1: of white, middle and upper class college educated women to

248
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 1: serve as copywriters, because who better to pitch products to

249
00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:08,880
Speaker 1: women than women themselves. Women, women get women. You know

250
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:12,720
Speaker 1: you need that dishwashing detergent. That's easy on your hands,

251
00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:17,280
Speaker 1: don't you, ladies. Uh. And they did primarily work on

252
00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:23,960
Speaker 1: things like soap, food products, drugs, toiletrees, basically things that

253
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:29,160
Speaker 1: were considered part of that home sphere, like here's your responsibility.

254
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:31,040
Speaker 1: You better be buying all of this soap and all

255
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:34,640
Speaker 1: of these little medical tinctures well, and even just your

256
00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:38,200
Speaker 1: personal upkeep, whether you even just had like a small

257
00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:40,879
Speaker 1: apartment to yourself, a woman still had to put on

258
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,360
Speaker 1: a face. And we've all seen if you've ever been

259
00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:46,159
Speaker 1: on Pinterest. Those ads from a couple decades later, I

260
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:49,080
Speaker 1: believe they're from maybe the thirties, but definitely the forties

261
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:53,800
Speaker 1: for lis Al douches of like ladies, ladies, ladies, your

262
00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:56,080
Speaker 1: man is gonna leave you if you have an olf

263
00:17:56,200 --> 00:18:00,560
Speaker 1: of smell on you anywhere. So yeah, licel was a

264
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:02,320
Speaker 1: real two for one back in the day, where it

265
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:06,880
Speaker 1: will clean your floors and your vagina you're inside. And

266
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,600
Speaker 1: by the way, don't put licel on your vagina, it's

267
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:12,320
Speaker 1: not good for you. And because you were wondering, yeah, no,

268
00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,959
Speaker 1: we're not promoting um. But here's the thing. Those women

269
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:21,600
Speaker 1: who raised are brought in also had kind of activist backgrounds,

270
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:23,680
Speaker 1: and that was one reason why some of them were

271
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:27,439
Speaker 1: even hired. Because these women were all active in the

272
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:31,760
Speaker 1: suffrage movement. They were all coming with experience from organizations

273
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:35,119
Speaker 1: including the League of Women Voters, the Consumers League of

274
00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:38,840
Speaker 1: the National Women's Party, and all of that amounted to

275
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,480
Speaker 1: in raisers eyes of someone hiring, that was publicity experience,

276
00:18:42,560 --> 00:18:44,800
Speaker 1: like these women knew how to run a campaign get

277
00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 1: people's attention, and that experience was crucial because, especially in hindsight,

278
00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:55,280
Speaker 1: this group of women was considered the most influential and

279
00:18:55,400 --> 00:19:00,199
Speaker 1: advertising at the time because they were literally shaping this

280
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:04,000
Speaker 1: earliest construct of what a female consumer looks like and

281
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 1: also defining normative femininity. Yes, things that haunt us even

282
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:15,080
Speaker 1: still part of the reason we have a podcast and

283
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:19,320
Speaker 1: try to contextualize and dismantle some of these things. Advertising

284
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,800
Speaker 1: is powerful. It is so powerful, I mean because really,

285
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:25,600
Speaker 1: what before they could sell women's stuff, they had to

286
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:29,600
Speaker 1: even teach women how to consume it. So you remember again,

287
00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:32,639
Speaker 1: like if you go on Pinterest, all of those vintage

288
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:39,159
Speaker 1: advertisements had so much copy because they were having to say, listen, ladies,

289
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 1: just between us, friends, here's your problem. You don't know

290
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 1: that you have a problem up, but I'm gonna tell

291
00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:45,120
Speaker 1: you've got a problem, and this is how it can

292
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:49,160
Speaker 1: make it better. But there was this whole catch twenty

293
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:51,640
Speaker 1: two with us because a lot of these women who

294
00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:55,760
Speaker 1: were these earliest copywriters, you know, they were all for

295
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:58,280
Speaker 1: a liberated woman. And so they're like, well, we don't

296
00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:01,040
Speaker 1: want to, you know, box up women into just one

297
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:05,679
Speaker 1: size fits all. Not everyone is just a housewife, you know,

298
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:10,080
Speaker 1: chained to her kids and her husband. But at the

299
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:15,200
Speaker 1: same time, in doing that, they just divvied up women

300
00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 1: into a bunch of smaller stereotypes like the socialite or

301
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:22,879
Speaker 1: the working woman. Yeah. So in other words, you can't

302
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,240
Speaker 1: be a mix of these things like we have to

303
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:28,000
Speaker 1: in order to and I get that if you are

304
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,679
Speaker 1: trying to market a product to somebody. You've got to

305
00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:33,440
Speaker 1: know on your on your chalkboard, You've got to be

306
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 1: able to write who it is that you're marketing to

307
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:39,080
Speaker 1: so you can tailor that campaign. And I get it.

308
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:43,720
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it's you know who knew boxes were limiting well.

309
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 1: And this is also the first time we kind of

310
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:52,800
Speaker 1: come to that crossroads of can our feminism and our

311
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 1: capitalism coexist? How can we make all of that work together? Um.

312
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:03,480
Speaker 1: And one prominent method that you see come up in

313
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties when you start having more of these

314
00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: women's editorial departments coming up, is the personal approach that

315
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 1: ads took, where selling a brand of the time was

316
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:23,639
Speaker 1: more about selling the potential of leisure, labor saving goods,

317
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 1: you know how it was going to really improve your life,

318
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 1: not so much the quality, but just the thing of like,

319
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:31,679
Speaker 1: listen between those scales, this is what you need to

320
00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 1: be doing. It's the same thing that we do these

321
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: days with influencers on Instagram and Snapchat and all of

322
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:43,520
Speaker 1: the the makeup tictorials that I've watched on YouTube and

323
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 1: not been able to recreate at all. Yeah, and so

324
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:52,040
Speaker 1: before we ever had Virginia Slims telling us how far

325
00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: we had come as women. You had a totally separate

326
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: cigarette campaign that was telling women how far they could

327
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 1: go if only they picked up a torch of freedom.

328
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, suffrage smells like stale cigarette smoke. A lot

329
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 1: of listeners might have heard of this before because we

330
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:24,160
Speaker 1: have talked about it on the podcast. But Easter Sunday

331
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:29,200
Speaker 1: was a big day in advertising. This is when Edward Burnet's,

332
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: who's considered the father of public relations, launched the Torches

333
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:38,439
Speaker 1: of Freedom campaign on behalf of American tobacco. And what

334
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 1: went down was Burnet's hired this group of uber stylish

335
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: women to walk in the New York Easter Parade because

336
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 1: that used to be a big deal, and these very

337
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: stylish ladies smoked cigarettes in public. Oh my gosh. Well,

338
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: but the thing is just like when you see a

339
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 1: Door or a Chanel co opting feminist slogans for their

340
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 1: fashion today, or just like when you see you know,

341
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:11,719
Speaker 1: always doing it's like a girl campaign. They're not just

342
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,880
Speaker 1: pulling this out of thin air. They're not inventing the

343
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:19,119
Speaker 1: movements that they are trying to capitalize on. Burnet's looked

344
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 1: around and was just savvy enough to notice that this

345
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 1: is all part of popular modern culture. Anyway, we've you know,

346
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 1: women have won the vote. Um, you've got this new woman,

347
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 1: these flappers who were already stepping outside the home, they're dating,

348
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: they're going in car rides with boys, and they're already

349
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 1: a lot of them probably lighting up having a cocktail. Um.

350
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: And so what great inspiration for this whole pr campaign

351
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: for cigarettes. Well, and I didn't realize that Berne's had

352
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: already masterminded for lucky strikes, the campaign of reach for

353
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:02,199
Speaker 1: a lucky instead of a sweet, So already capitalizing on

354
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: women's weight in security. Cool. Yeah, you know, who needs

355
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: a lunch when you could just have a pack of cigarette. Um.

356
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 1: But there was of course a ton of media coverage

357
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: of the Easter parade. That's part of why it was

358
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: such a success. The New York Times, you know, it

359
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 1: was covering the fact that these women were smoking in public.

360
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 1: And there was a quote, I think from the New

361
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: York Times from one of bruns smoking ladies who said, quote,

362
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: I hope we've started something, and that these torches of

363
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: freedom will smash the discriminatory taboo on cigarettes for women,

364
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 1: and that our sex will go on breaking down all

365
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: the scriminations. What is it with tobacco companies and feminism

366
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: like throughout the twentieth century, Like that's been our big breakthrough.

367
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: Like two of the most successful in power tizing campaigns

368
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: of the past one years have just been women's cigarettes

369
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: and we've lit up. Yeah. No, I I think when

370
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: you latch onto a powerful movement at a time when

371
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who want to break

372
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: away from the past. I mean, I think it was

373
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: part of this Burnes campaign right where they featured ads

374
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: showing women who you know, obviously weren't real these were

375
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 1: fictional stories, but women who were like having to sneak

376
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: to the basement to smoke a cigarette and we're being

377
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: told by their parents or their husbands that they had

378
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: to like go to their rooms as punishment for smoking.

379
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: And it was basically like, ladies, you don't want to

380
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 1: be told what to do, do you well know you

381
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: should light a cigarette and be proud of it. And

382
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: I'm sure at that cultural moment as today, as with

383
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: the Virginia Slims campaign, there were a lot of women

384
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, I do want to be able

385
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: to do whatever I want, even if it includes lighting

386
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: a cigarette. That's not good for me. But also, I mean,

387
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: aside from package ng and branding and like flavors, I guess, like,

388
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: how do you even really distinguished cigarettes from each other?

389
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 1: And so like all of these cigarette companies are having

390
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 1: to mastermind all of these different ad campaigns to open

391
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: up new consumer channels. So what then gets us from

392
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: Torches of Freedom to the nineteen seventies. You've come a

393
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: long way, baby, is when the awakening begins in the

394
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and seventies. Because of course, before feminists can

395
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: come around and respond to sexism and ads, we have

396
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: to have the ad industry like first, like start getting

397
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: really really sexist. Um. So, by the time the feminine

398
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: mystique comes out in nineteen sixty three, oh man, I mean,

399
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: especially like we're in post World War two domestic cities,

400
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: queen like ads are all about really boxing women into

401
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: a house life shaped Uh box. That's not right. Um

402
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: it sounds like a coffin. Oh god, well, you know

403
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: who'd agree with that. Caroline Betty for Dan tell me

404
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: more so. She publishes a feminine Mystique in three and

405
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:23,719
Speaker 1: in it she really takes advertising to task, and for

406
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: good reason. The same reason that even today, if you

407
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: want to get attention on your blog post, make it

408
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: about some prominent company creating some kind of blindly sexist ad.

409
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: The first one that comes to mind of late is

410
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: one from Gap Kids, where the classic T shirt for

411
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 1: girls said something princessy and T shirt for boys had

412
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: Einstein on it and he spelled his name. Oh right,

413
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: great kind of irony. I think it is a little

414
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: bit um. But in the feminine mystique for dan rights,

415
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: if advertisements are not responsible for sending women home, they're

416
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: surely responsible for keeping them there. Yeah. Well yes, And

417
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: this is because you see all sorts of ads that

418
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: are not only for things like lisol and and beauty

419
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: products and whatever, but you also have the explosion of

420
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: ads that are targeting both men and women for like

421
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: the new vacuum cleaner or the new oven range or

422
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: stove of like, oh girl, there was one I think

423
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: I think this one was from like the forties or fifties.

424
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: It was basically like, oh girl, I have all this

425
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,719
Speaker 1: free time now that I've got a new stove. And

426
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was the copy for it. Was that

427
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: a Valium ad or Speed housewife on Trucker Speed I

428
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: just get so much cleaning done. Clean my night nine,

429
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: I am the house the spot loss Um and a

430
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: lot of women took to this obviously. There's there's a

431
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: reason why we we still talk in so many episodes

432
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: about this book that came out in nineteen sixty three.

433
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: A lot of upper middle class white women in particular,

434
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: we're like, oh my god, this is this is what

435
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: I have been noticing myself. I thought I was the

436
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: only one. So it kicks off the beginning of a

437
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: movement of women protesting these sexist ads. And of course,

438
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: at first the ad industry, which is very heavily male

439
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: at this time, they balked, yeah, I just got a

440
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: room full of Don Draper's right, yeah, like what and

441
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: let's see you with sex objects. But you did around

442
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: this time start to have some Peggy Olsen's. You have

443
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: a growing number of women who are starting to bit

444
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: by bit promoting change from the inside, like Helen Lansdown

445
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: Racer Hope to do Um. Even though it wasn't change,

446
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: it was just you know, building the foundation back in

447
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: the nineteen tens and twenties. And on the flip side

448
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: of that, what really convinced on drapers in the room

449
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: that maybe they should pay more attention and maybe make

450
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: their as less sexist. Is the fact that the women

451
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: who were buying the feminine mystique and who were suddenly

452
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: side eyeing certain ad campaigns were largely white, middle class

453
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: women who had a lot still do of buying power.

454
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: And so a few years later we start to see

455
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: pocketbook protests, right, and yeah, so that makes sense then

456
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: why advertisers would suddenly be paying attention to all these

457
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: silly feminists because oh wait, are they willing to spend

458
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: their money elsewhere? Yeah, we might choose another brand of

459
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: douche that's not liceol. People who don't know the background

460
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: Lisolo and douche are very confused. Right now, just go

461
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: on Pinterest or watch Boardwalk Empire. Oh, is there a

462
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: scene with her lots of them? Well to prevent pregnancy.

463
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: That's also not a thing, right, we all have an

464
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: episode on douching in case you're unclear on that as well. Yeah,

465
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: but all right, So if we traveled to nineteen sixty nine,

466
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: there is a feminist advertising protest in front of the

467
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: New York City Macy's over this Mattel ad that was

468
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: featured in Life magazine, which used the ad copy little

469
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: girls dream about being a ballerina or a young fashion model,

470
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: while boys were born to build, learn and find science

471
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: fund which, hello, nineteen sixty nine, we are fighting the

472
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: same fight. Still, yeah, what was the gap? That the

473
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: gap kids example, I just escaped. It's the same kind

474
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: of thing of the pink and blue boys are smart

475
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: and girls are pretty well Girl's Life and Boys Life magazine.

476
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: That scandal just happened. Like how in the world, I mean,

477
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: are people just sticking their heads in the sand and

478
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: not realizing, like, hey, let's not only pitch pink and

479
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: princesses to girls and only pitch blue and like toy

480
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: trucks to boys exactly. But then, of course, not to

481
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: get ahead of ourselves. But then you'd see say a

482
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: Target making the move to make their toy aisles gender neutral,

483
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: which you could argue is a bit of empower tizing.

484
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: Are they just you know, capitalizing literally and figuratively on

485
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: our desire to bust kids out of these pink and

486
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: blue boxes and we're just buying into it all? I mean, well,

487
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: it is funny that when you go to Target side note,

488
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: because they didn't change anything else about the toy section.

489
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: They just took the sign off. Really. Yeah, so like

490
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: all of the pink stuff is still grouped together in

491
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: the pink ghetto, and all of like the you know,

492
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: Star Wars toys are still in another aisle, but they're

493
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: in the mechanic aisle. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's weird. Um.

494
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: But Mattel was far from the only product and campaign

495
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: that feminists at this time we're protesting. They also held

496
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: boycotts against Silva Thins cigare gurettes because it's ad campaigns

497
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: revolved around taglines like cigarettes are like women, the best

498
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: ones are thin and rich. Sounds like a Donald Trump quote. Well,

499
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 1: and then when the Sila Thins came out with their hundreds,

500
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: which are you know, longer, thinner versions of typical cigarettes,

501
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: they're that tagline was I'm a thinner, long and lean.

502
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: That's the way I like things. I like my figure slim,

503
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: my men trim, and my cigarettes thin. And it features

504
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: Brunette seventies fantastic model who is indeed thin. She is thin. Yeah,

505
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: but I mean, like that ad copy is just not

506
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: very good aside from everything else about like trying to

507
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: fat shame me or convince me to start smoking like

508
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: right right right, more inspired ad copy. Well, then we

509
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: got to talk about Pristine, because Pristine, speaking of douches,

510
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: Christine was a feminine hygiene deodorant. I think it was

511
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 1: actually like a like an aerosol spray that he would

512
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: spray all around your vulva. I just stick one of

513
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 1: those pine tree air fresheners for your car up in there,

514
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, yeah, I don't father with a spray,

515
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: it's not gonna last, or like a glade air freshener um.

516
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: So feminists were not only concerned over just the idea

517
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: that our vaginas needed to smell like something they don't

518
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: mountain fresh. Yes, they were also skeptical of the safety

519
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: of this product, and in response, the Pristine manufacturer Warner

520
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: Lambert said, Pristine is for femininity, freshness and women's confidence.

521
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: How can anyone be against that? Which I kind of

522
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: feel like, if you're look can get in power tizing

523
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 1: and femvertizing from the glass half mte perspective, that quote

524
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 1: might as well stand for any any product, right, I mean,

525
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 1: we're promoting confidence. Don't you want confidence and femininity and freshness?

526
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just picketing outside of say the New

527
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,439
Speaker 1: York Macy store. You also have more radical groups like

528
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: the Red Stockings, who in nineteen sixty nine started bombing

529
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: subway ads with stickers that said, this ad insults women,

530
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: or this ad oppresses women. I we all need those

531
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: stickers in our purses or our knapsacks or our Fannie packs, um,

532
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: whatever you carry your belongings in, um, because I feel

533
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: like I've even seen stickers like that, or at least

534
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,320
Speaker 1: pictures of them. Yeah. I forget which group did it

535
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: or if it was a specific group, but a couple

536
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: of years ago someone started doing that in New York

537
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: subways again and it got a bunch of online attention.

538
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: So that brings us up to the nineties seventies, when

539
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: the ad industry responds with what some people call commodity feminism,

540
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:13,720
Speaker 1: which is another way of describing and power tizing, shifting

541
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: focus essentially to say, okay, maybe maybe these women have

542
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: a point. And this is when Advertising Age magazine starts

543
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: covering this. So I mean this deis become like an

544
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: industry wide conversation. Yeah, these conversations are being led by

545
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: women who were in the trenches in the ad industry

546
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: working to yes, sell their products and yes, be good

547
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: advertisers for their clients and those products, but also working

548
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: to make less maybe overtly sexist ads. Uh, motivated by

549
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: both profits and politics. Yeah, and it's interesting to see

550
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: how they went about this because of course these were

551
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: still businesswomen. You know, they were ambitious, they were career driven,

552
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: and at the same time they didn't want to promote

553
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: sexist imagery. So you have people like ad executive Franchilli Cadwell,

554
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 1: who took out a two page spread in Advertising Age

555
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: magazine announcing the Lady of the House is dead. No

556
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 1: force has demeaned women more than advertising, and she goes

557
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: on to argue that brands that ignore this fact will

558
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: suffer financially. In other words, hey, talking down to women

559
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: is bad business. Do you want to lose money? No? Okay,

560
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: well get with the program then. So in the early

561
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies you also start to see places like B

562
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: B d O, a prominent ad agency, still conducting focus

563
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: groups among feminists to find out exactly what they hate

564
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: about ads, and their major gripe was the reinforcement of domesticity,

565
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: all of those efficient stoves and vacuum cleaners, um. And

566
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break. We're

567
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: going to talk about uh, feminist perfume getting in on

568
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: the act. I don't know. Maybe it's used to clear

569
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: the air after you smoked all those feminist cigarettes. I

570
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: don't know, but we will be right back, so, Caroline,

571
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 1: my favorite chapter of our fembortizing history comes in nineteen

572
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: seventy three when Revalon debuts a feminist perfume. Oh good, yes,

573
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: so this perfume is protesting for women's rights. Yeah, the

574
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: perfume is out on the streets with a sign picketing

575
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:57,359
Speaker 1: sexist businesses. The perfume is actually like paving the way.

576
00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: This is the same year as Roby Wade, you know.

577
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: And it was actually because of this perfume, you know,

578
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,240
Speaker 1: because a bunch of lawyers wore it in the courtroom

579
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: and the judges were like, it's fine, legalized abortion. Let's

580
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: get out of here. It smells disgusting. But in the headache.

581
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: On a serious note, Revalan comes out with this perfume

582
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: called Charlie, and listeners, if you have a chance, go

583
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:26,359
Speaker 1: on YouTube and look up one of these Charlie commercials.

584
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: In fact, watched them all because Charlie was not only

585
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: a perfume. She was a persona, and Charlie was this

586
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 1: pants suited, horldly woman who was always out on the town.

587
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: She was dazzling gentleman. She wore a sequin blazer and

588
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: one which you know, if you can make a sequen

589
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: blazer work, then you must be liberated somehow. And within

590
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: a year it was America's best selling drug store fragrance.

591
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:58,839
Speaker 1: People were all about this liberated Charlie and her perfume. Yeah,

592
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: there was even an for Charlie. She the woman is

593
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: not wearing a pant suit, she's wearing a power suit.

594
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: It's skirt suit, and it's this reversal of the stereotypical

595
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: gender roles were reversal of sexism almost because the woman

596
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: is grabbing the man's butt and it's like she's very

597
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 1: Charlie is the copy. Can we can we make that

598
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: a term so Charlie women who get in trouble for

599
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: sexual harassment in the workplace, never mind such a she's

600
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: a Charlie term. Yeah, that was actually that. That's one

601
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 1: thing too, is that the ad industry and also feminist

602
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: at the time, didn't fully understand how just flipping the

603
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: sexism script isn't necessarily feminism. Like, no, liberation is not

604
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 1: women being being able to grow men at their leisure.

605
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: It's no one groping anyone at all, all of us

606
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: being treated as human people with rights and responsibility. There's

607
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: no non consensual groping in feminism. No, but I mean,

608
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: Charlie was hardly the only quote unquote feminist empowering perfume.

609
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: You also had gene Natte, which I gotta tell you, like,

610
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: I just turned the ad off. I like pulled it

611
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: up and she's splashing. This was me projecting, right, Okay,

612
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: so she's like splashing gene nite all over herself, and

613
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: I turned it off because I just kept thinking, like,

614
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: if that woman was my coworker and she was standing

615
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: next to me, I would have to leave work with

616
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: a migraine because she would just reek of genata well.

617
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: And it was called the Oliver fragrance, which is probably

618
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: why she was literally putting it all over herself. And

619
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: the tagline was take Charge of your Life. And the

620
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:53,240
Speaker 1: Gina Tay commercial that we watched features another blond woman

621
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: who is just dousing herself in gena te and suddenly

622
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: she is transported to being a jockey right, and she

623
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: wins the race, and you know the voice, the voiceover

624
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: comes on and the commercial saying, is she a Gena

625
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: Te kind of woman? Don't buy up a fume by

626
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: her Gena And then the final cut is just this

627
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 1: disembodied hand presumably covered in Gena Te all over fragrance,

628
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: just slapping the body this like naked woman's body with

629
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,800
Speaker 1: Gina Te, which just did not seem like a pleasant

630
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 1: way to apply fragrance. But I like that, out of

631
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: all of the things we can imagine for women in

632
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: terms of equality and like women you need to break

633
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 1: the glass ceiling, Gina Te is like, ah, had a jockey,

634
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: women can be small, women love horses. But that is

635
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 1: not to be outdone by Julie, who came out around

636
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 1: the same time, also a selling perfume via empowerment. They

637
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,959
Speaker 1: used this jingle that included the line I can bring

638
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: home the bacon fried up in a pan and never

639
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 1: let you forget. But you're a man. Yeah, yeah, you

640
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: kind of like they went off the cliff. They're they're

641
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: promising like, oh, she's a working woman, and the ad

642
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: it talks about being the eight hour perfume for the

643
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: twenty four hour woman, which does just sound exhausting. Um,

644
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: but it shows flashes of her in a power suit

645
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: and then she's at home, and then she's what she's

646
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: in pajamas too, or there's there's several outfit changes. Being

647
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour woman requires a lot of clothes. Yeah,

648
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: you need a lot of wardrobe changes and a lot

649
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: of perfume. So while all of this feminist perfume is

650
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: being sold to us in the Natural, Advertising Review Board

651
00:43:54,320 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: releases an Advertising and Women report highlighting sexisteotyping and offering

652
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: guidelines for better representation. Terrific, but to give an idea

653
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: of where we're at at this point. Some of the

654
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: checklist questions that they provide in the report for advertisers

655
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:18,840
Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, check themselves before they wrecked

656
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: themselves include do my ads portray women as more neurotic

657
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: than men? And do my ads portray women actually driving cars?

658
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: I mean, we're at a very one oh one point

659
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: here in the mid seventies, like maybe we've established that

660
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: women are people, like maybe, but yeah, have you thought

661
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: about having a woman driving a car or being not neurotic?

662
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: Like maybe we're still at the hysterical uterus stage well,

663
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: and this is when we see the Helen Landsdown Razor

664
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: era of a new woman all over again, because it

665
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: wasn't Razor, but another prominent woman in her women's editorial

666
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: department at JA w T, who was openly um critical

667
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,919
Speaker 1: of the stereotype back then of the housewife, is being

668
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: particularly neurotic and saying, you know what, we need to

669
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: portray women as being intelligent and discriminating. Um. And so

670
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: hopping to the seventies, we see a similar thing going

671
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: on where Madison Avenue starts to refashion the new woman

672
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: so to speak, um and co opting the feminist movements language. Um.

673
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: But as Steve Craig, who has researched this, talks about

674
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: in a paper that we read, even before that National

675
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: Advertising Review Board report ADS quote began to appear that

676
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:53,280
Speaker 1: not only avoided objectionable images, but even attempted to curry

677
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: favor with women who had become sensitized to liberation issues.

678
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 1: I just I like that language. I mean, it's a

679
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: very good point, but I like the language. It's funny

680
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: of like I imagine and being like, oh, oh liberation issues. Um.

681
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: And so what do we see if history is indeed

682
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: in the ad industry repeating itself that means we've got

683
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: to talk about cigarettes again. It's been about five minutes.

684
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: It's time to talk about SIGs again. Torches of Freedom.

685
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:29,399
Speaker 1: Almost fifty years later, after the Easter Parade with all

686
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: those attractive white women lighting up in seventy eight, the

687
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: Leo Burnett Agency creates that You've Come a Long Way

688
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: Baby campaign for Philip Morris because they're like, hey, we

689
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: need to sell some cigarettes to women. We've got these

690
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: Virginia Slims. Let's make it happen. And it's a huge success. Um.

691
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: It also, by the way, prompted the feminist retort don't

692
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: call me Baby, that I appreciated well, of course, because

693
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: I mean they're still being demeaning to women on top

694
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: of pretty much only advertising still to white, middle and

695
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: upperclass women. But industry wise, the bar is set so

696
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: low that You've Come a long Way Baby really set

697
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 1: a new standard for how you should advertise to women.

698
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: And I mean, for better or worse, this ad campaign

699
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: and the way that they approached talking to female consumers

700
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: worked so well that Virginia Slims are still a top

701
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: brand among women smokers. And it also perpetuates. Around the

702
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:41,280
Speaker 1: same time, advertisers and brands thinking, oh, let's just flip

703
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: the sexism script um, which I gotta fay. I was

704
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: not terribly pleased to see that. At the time. The

705
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: National Organization for Women, of course, was very involved in

706
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: protesting the sexist ads. Their big reason why this entire

707
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:04,959
Speaker 1: move movement happened. Um. But they were totally down with

708
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: the flipped sexism script. Not necessarily flipping gender roles, but

709
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: the sexism. So in the case of an American Express ad,

710
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: around the time you have a male model asking in

711
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: the copy, isn't a time women got their own credit

712
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: cards and started taking me out to dinner? So again,

713
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: liberation is buying a handsome man dinner, right And and yes,

714
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: and like we said earlier with a Charlie ad with

715
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: a woman accosting the man. Equality, it's not just like

716
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: empowerment is not something that one group has and then

717
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: the other one doesn't. We're trying for equality and and

718
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,240
Speaker 1: so that's the bone that everybody had to pick. Well,

719
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: a lot of people had to pick with these gender

720
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: flipped ads. But still, like you were saying, now was

721
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: on board. A lot of the women in now were

722
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: and at MISMA magazine, including Glorious dam we're on board

723
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: with some of these gender swapped ads, right, I mean,

724
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: because it's difficult to rain to navigate um And in fact,

725
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: the first issue of MSS ran what was considered a

726
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:21,760
Speaker 1: controversial ad for Copper Tone suntan lotion, which featured a slim,

727
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 1: blond woman in a bikini with a copy that said

728
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: that it helps more people get a magnificently deep, fast

729
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: tan and that doesn't sound that terrible, but at the

730
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: same time, it's like, well, this magazine, I mean, it

731
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: was on the inside, the front cover. You suddenly have

732
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 1: this image of a slim woman in a bikini. And

733
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: Steve Craig also points out the magazine later ran ads

734
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: for Virginia Slims, which not surprisingly prompted a negative backlash

735
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 1: from readership. But at the end of the day, Glorious

736
00:49:56,360 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: dynam had a business to run, a mag gazine business

737
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:04,720
Speaker 1: to run. Yeah, and it's author Steve Craig points out

738
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 1: she did work to attract ads from cosmetics companies, from

739
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 1: people like Revlon, and that was seen as sort of

740
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 1: a negative too for a magazine likeness to be kind

741
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: of singing the same tune. It's just about every other

742
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: publication out there when it came to advertising, right. And

743
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: this too is a conversation that we had with Andy

744
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:32,760
Speaker 1: Seesler from Bitch Magazine and author of We Were Feminists Once,

745
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: because you know, she started Bitch Magazine, which, like MS

746
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: is feminist through and through, and Bitch has had a

747
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 1: lot of challenges as a nonprofit. You know, that does

748
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:52,959
Speaker 1: not take out typical Revlon Virginia slims ish advertising, um,

749
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,879
Speaker 1: which can you know, I mean it's it's it's hard

750
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:00,799
Speaker 1: to survive as independent media if you aren't taking that

751
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:06,319
Speaker 1: kind of corporate cash. But dims the brakes. So when

752
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: we move into the nineteen eighties to the two thousands,

753
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 1: as a helpful breakdown over at Women's e News talks

754
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: about along with more women joining the workforce, the fem

755
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: vertizing trope that you see becomes the superwoman. This is

756
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: like the working mom with the octopus arms, the how

757
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 1: does she do it all? Yeah, every stock image ever,

758
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 1: You've got the power suit, the briefcase, the baby, the salad,

759
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: the money, the credit card, the cell phone. Yeah. Again,

760
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: she sounds like the Enjolie woman. You know, she's the

761
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: twenty four hour woman and she's on a horse, and

762
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 1: you know that's that's kind of going on in the

763
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: background when sem vertizing first comes up in its modern

764
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: iteration really with Dove and the Dove campaign for real

765
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 1: Beauty like You Mean earlier kicks off in two thousand four.

766
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 1: And one reason why She Knows Media has been giving

767
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: out defemvertizing awards for the past few years and it

768
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 1: provides a lot of positive press about this kind of

769
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 1: advertising is the fact that it works. Yeah. I mean,

770
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 1: they're they're effective ads, and that they sell a lot

771
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 1: of whatever products they are pitching, but they're also effective

772
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:34,399
Speaker 1: in communicating and attracting the female consumer who's been so

773
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 1: turned off by sexist ads or ads that just don't

774
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: represent them visually well. And also keep in mind too,

775
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: for women today, we're very media literate. We can spot

776
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: a bad photoshop from a mile away, right exactly, especially

777
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,760
Speaker 1: when they like cut off an arm or something. Um.

778
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: But according to She Knows Media surveys from sixteen of

779
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: their response and said that sexually objectifying ads are damaging. UM,

780
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: I would like to talk to the seven percent who

781
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 1: said that sexually objectifying ads are not damaging, just kind

782
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: of be like, hey, gals, let's talk. What are you thinking? Um.

783
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 1: They also found that of the respondents claimed that pro

784
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: women ads are important for positively shaping younger generations and

785
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 1: men the way that men view women in their place

786
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:34,240
Speaker 1: in society, and of the women said that they wanted

787
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: to see non airbrushed, realistic lady bodies in their advertisements,

788
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 1: and sixty of the men they talked to agreed. And

789
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: this next stat is something that absolutely makes brands ears

790
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: perk up. If brands do in fact have ears, sure,

791
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: we're personifying them. It's fine. Percent I think this was

792
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: survey respondent said that they have bought a product because

793
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 1: of its positive portrayal of women. And I will count

794
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: myself as part of the I've absolutely gone with chosen

795
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: certain brands over others because I like their message. Because

796
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: it's kind of the least they could do, totally, even

797
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:24,239
Speaker 1: if they do not pursue a quote unquote truly feminist

798
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 1: company culture, even if they're not supporting young girls in

799
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 1: stem or the arts for instance, or setting up a

800
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: you know, a nonprofit to help kids get to college,

801
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 1: or you know, sending products to women in underserved areas. Um,

802
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 1: the least they can do is tailor their advertising messages

803
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:47,760
Speaker 1: to not be overtly sexist or objectifying. Well, and obviously too,

804
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 1: we're talking about more of the bigger household name brands

805
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:56,799
Speaker 1: as opposed to an independent, woman owned, out and out

806
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:00,439
Speaker 1: like feminist kind of brand, and some of is great

807
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: to see. I mean, we post this kind of stuff

808
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: on our social media all the time. One of my favorites,

809
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: for instance, has been under armours I will what I

810
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 1: Want campaign featuring ballerina Missy Copeland, because the more Missy

811
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:18,879
Speaker 1: Copeland I can see in my feeds, the happier I am. Yeah,

812
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: and people love it. Our followers love it. Just people

813
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,239
Speaker 1: on the Internet in general. I cannot get enough of

814
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:29,359
Speaker 1: Misty Copeland. And I think part of it is just like,

815
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 1: oh my god, a woman who doesn't look like every

816
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 1: other model who's trying to sell me close. She is

817
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: an athlete, she's a woman of color, she's powerful and

818
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,879
Speaker 1: strong and outspoken, and that's wonderful to see. Absolutely, she's

819
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 1: still selling you something, but it's wonderful to see that

820
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 1: new representation. And it's also notable to see how brands

821
00:55:54,719 --> 00:55:57,319
Speaker 1: that you would not expect at all to get in

822
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:01,319
Speaker 1: on a little bit of femvertizing are also ponying up

823
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:05,600
Speaker 1: to this. So one of the She Knows Media femb

824
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:10,919
Speaker 1: Vertizing award recipients is bud Light for their equal Pay

825
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 1: campaign featuring Amy Schumer and Seth Rogan, and I tweeted

826
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: about it, I think, just on my personal Twitter about

827
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:26,920
Speaker 1: one of those UM campaign commercials where they gave a

828
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 1: nod to all genders and speaking like very specifically in

829
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:34,720
Speaker 1: that language, and I was like, Hey, this is cool

830
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:38,879
Speaker 1: bud Lights doing this. I I like that, that's good

831
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 1: to see. I also know that you probably have a

832
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:44,760
Speaker 1: legacy of that, you know, advertising too well to women.

833
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: But cool, especially if you're going to have people like

834
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 1: Seth Rogan and Amy Schumer who have spoken on behalf

835
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: of gender equality before. I'm glad to see it coming through,

836
00:56:56,960 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 1: even if it's through a punchline in your ad. Yeah,

837
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,319
Speaker 1: because I think that that makes such messages a little

838
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 1: more palatable to a general audience that is not familiar

839
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: with these conversations. Absolutely, you and I are having these

840
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: conversations all the time, but the average person maybe watching

841
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: a bud Like commercial maybe isn't. And so why are

842
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: we complaining? Because we're feminists, We we we want to

843
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: be victims, right, That's what the Internet tells me exactly.

844
00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:28,560
Speaker 1: That's what feminism has been selling me. J K. So whenever,

845
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 1: though it comes to media and advertising, an ounce of

846
00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:40,040
Speaker 1: skepticism is worth a pound of what gain deodorant gained

847
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: the laundry detergent, Because from what I could find at

848
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: least or couldn't find, I should say, there's no empirical

849
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: proof that commercials are going to solve sexism. And here's

850
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: a crucial thing. This, to me is really the line

851
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: that we have to consider. Just because a commercial makes

852
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 1: us feel good and might make us in that moment

853
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: feel a sense of empowerment, that doesn't necessarily mean that

854
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,720
Speaker 1: it is empowering, that it is affecting this kind of

855
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 1: change that it is portraying. Now, what it does mean

856
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: is that it's probably speaking to the audience that's already

857
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:22,920
Speaker 1: receptive to it. It might not necessarily be out there

858
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 1: changing hearts and minds of people who are sexist or

859
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:31,840
Speaker 1: misogynist or what have you. Racist. Um, but I, as

860
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: a self identified feminist, can see like a Dove ad,

861
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: for instance, and be like, oh, well that feels better,

862
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: thank you for doing that. And I mean dev is

863
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 1: saying no, no, we've seen a billion and a half

864
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: profit increase, so thank you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Ever since

865
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: that campaign for Real Beauty launched to so in ten

866
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: years they up their revenue by one point five billion dollars.

867
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 1: And again, if if you want to brand to pay attention,

868
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: start throwing out some bees. Yeah, honey, bees, honey. They

869
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:13,920
Speaker 1: will terrorize you. Um, and you know you've also got some.

870
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: You know your favor is problematic. All your favors are problematic.

871
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 1: And that includes Dove because they are owned but Unilever,

872
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: who also hawks Saara and Lovely the skin bleaching cream,

873
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 1: which is not what you would call empowering. Yeah. And

874
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:36,919
Speaker 1: and this is again something that Andy Ziesler does such

875
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 1: a good job of dissecting. And we were feminists once.

876
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 1: Because a lot of companies, like Procter and Gamble, like

877
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:49,560
Speaker 1: a Unilever, etcetera, they have corporate responsibility teams. I know

878
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: this because my first internship out of college was on

879
00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: one of these corporate PR teams where your job is

880
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 1: to figure out what you're good cause is going to

881
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: be and how you're going to market that good cause

882
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 1: to make your company look better. I am all for

883
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: corporations investing as much money as possible into these kinds

884
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: of good causes, but corporate responsibility often is more of

885
01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 1: like um, just pr rather than actual cultural change within

886
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 1: that whole group or within you know, their consumers too.

887
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 1: It's like it's almos. It almost feels like moral licensing

888
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: in a way, where you're kind of like paying a

889
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: small chunk of money relative to your overall profits to

890
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 1: help out these you know, these people in a developing

891
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 1: country so that in this non developing country you can

892
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: do something shadier like maybe sell skin lightning cream skin

893
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 1: lightning cream, or not give your employees any sort of

894
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 1: paid family leave, or on and on and on, exactly

895
01:00:57,240 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: relying on a lot of contract work so you don't

896
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: have to pay any benefits at all. I'm not alleging

897
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: that that's something that Dove does. I'm just saying that's

898
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: very common among large corporations, and of course too, it's

899
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: this false sense of feminism that a lot of people

900
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: are wary of, not in the sense of like, you know,

901
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 1: I love the always Maxipad like a Girl campaign. It

902
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:24,080
Speaker 1: got me, you know, teary eyed when I watched those

903
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:28,000
Speaker 1: little girls. Loving the fact that they were girls, and

904
01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: that's terrific. But there's more to feminism than sharing a

905
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:37,919
Speaker 1: commercial on your Facebook. And there's more to feminism than

906
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: just running a ra ra yea ladies ad in a magazine.

907
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 1: And this next, this next little bullet point is something

908
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:50,160
Speaker 1: that I had absolutely one percent blocked out of my mind.

909
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,240
Speaker 1: I was reading about it and was like, oh my god,

910
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 1: the rage is coming back to me. So back in

911
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 1: l u K gathered up some ad agencies Brave Mother

912
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: and Widen and Kennedy, and they were like, all right, guys,

913
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:15,040
Speaker 1: we've got a mission. We are going to rebrand feminism

914
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 1: because apparently, you know, the work of feminism was totally

915
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,160
Speaker 1: done before that and it was totally irrelevant. So like,

916
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: let's rebrand it to make it fun again. Yeah. There.

917
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, there was a lot of criticism

918
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 1: of this initiative, but let's talk about what came out

919
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 1: of it. So Brave made an are you a feminist

920
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:44,480
Speaker 1: flow chart with all roads leading back to yes. It's cute,

921
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: very tumbler. Friendly Mother teamed up with The Feminist Times

922
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 1: to produce a sex pistol V poster on the wage gap,

923
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: and Carrie Donne writing about this over at fast Code

924
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 1: notes how this ad does not meant and feminists or

925
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:04,280
Speaker 1: feminism in their copy at all. It's sort of like

926
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:09,040
Speaker 1: the sneaking and the feminist vegetables approach. And finally you

927
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,160
Speaker 1: have Widened Kennedy teaming up with the Agenda to make

928
01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:16,960
Speaker 1: a hot pink cashtag I am a woman and poster

929
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: too in their words, saw the stereotypes and it was

930
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:25,120
Speaker 1: a neat idea where they had I'm a woman and

931
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 1: and you could fill in the blank with all sorts

932
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:30,919
Speaker 1: of things that you are or are not, again very

933
01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: social media friendly, but also just just know, well, yeah,

934
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:40,600
Speaker 1: because the whole point is that feminism is not a brand,

935
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:43,680
Speaker 1: it's not a trend, it's not a poster. It is

936
01:03:43,720 --> 01:03:49,400
Speaker 1: a movement towards equal human rights for human people and

937
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 1: for equal respect and equal opportunities. And uh, you know,

938
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:57,240
Speaker 1: the ads themselves weren't It's not like they had any

939
01:03:57,280 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 1: bite to them. It's not like they had a call

940
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:02,240
Speaker 1: to action beyond you know, having you tweet something with

941
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: a hashtag. Right, And I thought it was interesting how

942
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:11,560
Speaker 1: done noted in fast Code that l u K initially

943
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: vetoed mother in Feminist Times is original concept because its

944
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: message was too anti consumerist, and then their second concept

945
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 1: was a photomontage ad featuring a variety of Volva's aimed

946
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: at making the reader think twice before getting a Brazilian wax.

947
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, l UK, which features a lot of content

948
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:41,800
Speaker 1: on pubic hair grooming, was like, that's a little too much.

949
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: So it's like if we're going to rebrand feminism, but

950
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:48,200
Speaker 1: there's also a line to where it's like, that's too much.

951
01:04:49,400 --> 01:04:51,920
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like rebranding, that sounds like again, what

952
01:04:52,360 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 1: was the woman shaped box in the coffin, Betty Draper coffin. Yeah,

953
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 1: we're just boxing feminism up in that it I mean.

954
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,080
Speaker 1: And and this the point of talking about this l

955
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:09,880
Speaker 1: example isn't to make fun of magazine initiatives, but rather

956
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 1: just how approaching feminism as a brand is a dead end, right, Yeah,

957
01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 1: I know exactly. And the conversation continues to get more

958
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: interesting and raise my eyebrow a little bit more when

959
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 1: you think about the idea of someone else's definition of progress,

960
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:38,760
Speaker 1: maybe because it seems like with um, the femortizing awards

961
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:43,040
Speaker 1: from Shino's Media, they're like cool box checked, Like let's

962
01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:47,760
Speaker 1: move on past, just focusing on the empowering images of women,

963
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: the non objectifying images of variety of women. And let's

964
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 1: talk about how great dads are in advertising, and like,

965
01:05:55,080 --> 01:05:58,960
Speaker 1: I agree that it's just as bad to constantly show

966
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:01,440
Speaker 1: the dopey dead ad who can't figure out how to

967
01:06:01,440 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 1: go grocery shopping or change a diaper, Like that's just

968
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 1: as stupid of a stereotype as the mom who is

969
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:11,880
Speaker 1: chained to the kitchen sink. Um, But have we made

970
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:14,960
Speaker 1: enough progress to be like, okay, women, like you're cool

971
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:17,880
Speaker 1: over there. Let's talk about all the dads fixing their

972
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: daughter's hair and advertisements. And I think it's part of that.

973
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 1: It's it's that element of glossing over, which is what

974
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: gives me, just speaking personally, that's what gives me pause

975
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 1: for a lot of this where, um, you know, as

976
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:36,760
Speaker 1: Samantha Sky, who's president chief revenue officer if she knows media, says,

977
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: you know that in most of their friend vertizing focus

978
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 1: was quote on how women are represented, and we've expanded

979
01:06:45,160 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 1: our contemplation to how all genders are represented and where

980
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 1: the stereotypes and the negative representation exists. But it did

981
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:58,919
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, it's like okay, well, we've we've

982
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:01,320
Speaker 1: given some pets on the act for some positive women

983
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 1: ads and now let's just look at look at all

984
01:07:03,880 --> 01:07:07,080
Speaker 1: of them. I don't know, but but again, even these

985
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 1: femvertising awards are ultimately intended to sell things, and you

986
01:07:12,040 --> 01:07:15,840
Speaker 1: could argue all they're selling like better advertisements, better for

987
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:19,560
Speaker 1: the consumer. I would rather have me as my twelve

988
01:07:19,640 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 1: year old self watching these commercials than the commercials I

989
01:07:23,640 --> 01:07:26,040
Speaker 1: was watching as a kid. Sure, but are they selling

990
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:28,920
Speaker 1: things that are actively harming other people? Because if you

991
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 1: sell things like fast fashion that are made in other

992
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 1: countries by exploited children and women who don't get to

993
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:38,800
Speaker 1: leave their factories ever and have to use their tiny

994
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 1: little baby hands to make your clothes, like who is

995
01:07:42,440 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: being empowered? Right? And that was something I was thinking

996
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 1: of this past weekend when I was watching. It might

997
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 1: have been on Hulu, it doesn't really matter. But H

998
01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 1: and M has a new fault commercial campaign and it

999
01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:04,040
Speaker 1: features as trans models. It features shaved heads and pit

1000
01:08:04,200 --> 01:08:09,920
Speaker 1: hair and women of all different body shapes to represent

1001
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:14,440
Speaker 1: inclusivity in their words, and that is terrific. We're all

1002
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:18,600
Speaker 1: about inclusivity, all about representation. But the first thing I

1003
01:08:18,680 --> 01:08:22,000
Speaker 1: thought was exactly that Caroline was like, Oh, I feel

1004
01:08:22,040 --> 01:08:24,879
Speaker 1: so good right now, but I don't feel good knowing

1005
01:08:25,080 --> 01:08:27,600
Speaker 1: that if I if I go and buy some of

1006
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:31,160
Speaker 1: that fall fashion, I'm supporting the number one clothing buyer

1007
01:08:31,280 --> 01:08:36,040
Speaker 1: from Bangladesh factories that definitely are not empowering their overwhelmingly

1008
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 1: female and possibly some child labor in there too, manufacturing

1009
01:08:40,840 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 1: workforce of one point six million. Yeah, but at the

1010
01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 1: same time, I also cannot shirk off all of my

1011
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:53,400
Speaker 1: responsibility in this whole consumerist cycle either and feel like

1012
01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:56,600
Speaker 1: oh well, each and in blah blah blah, because that

1013
01:08:56,720 --> 01:08:59,880
Speaker 1: exact same week that I was side dyeing that app

1014
01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: which is a great I mean again, it's a terrific commercial,

1015
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:04,760
Speaker 1: but it's the whole package. And then I became even

1016
01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 1: more troubled when I remembered, oh, yeah, what are you

1017
01:09:07,560 --> 01:09:10,719
Speaker 1: wearing right now, Kristen, while you're watching this ad? Oh

1018
01:09:10,760 --> 01:09:14,439
Speaker 1: this like feminist e sweatshirt from H and M that

1019
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:17,479
Speaker 1: said property of No One, which I bought because it

1020
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:20,519
Speaker 1: was very cheap and it did have a feminist slogan.

1021
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:24,479
Speaker 1: So I'm part of the problem, I mean yeah, and

1022
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:27,200
Speaker 1: that which is a whole other episode about how you

1023
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:31,040
Speaker 1: are the now I mean I shop at targets, so right,

1024
01:09:31,200 --> 01:09:35,200
Speaker 1: what do I? Yeah, exactly, Um, And this all ties

1025
01:09:35,280 --> 01:09:39,320
Speaker 1: in all of this feel good advertising that kind of

1026
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:44,840
Speaker 1: disguise as a murky undertow uh comes into play. Also

1027
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:50,760
Speaker 1: when you have these big corporate feminist e lady power conferences,

1028
01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:59,200
Speaker 1: UM that aren't necessarily actually helping the Bangladeshi garment worker

1029
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:03,479
Speaker 1: are really just your average women on the street here

1030
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:06,559
Speaker 1: in the United States. Um, But they are doing a

1031
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:10,560
Speaker 1: lot to bring a lot of powerful women together to network.

1032
01:10:10,920 --> 01:10:13,479
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, those conferences which we have been to.

1033
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:17,200
Speaker 1: We did an entire series focused around the Maker's Conference,

1034
01:10:17,280 --> 01:10:20,799
Speaker 1: and I can tell you those women individually are terrific

1035
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:24,160
Speaker 1: and they are very committed to feminism and believe very

1036
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:25,880
Speaker 1: much in it. But I will say that a lot

1037
01:10:25,920 --> 01:10:28,200
Speaker 1: of those conferences are about as effective as my H

1038
01:10:28,280 --> 01:10:31,080
Speaker 1: and M property of No One's sweatshirt, where it's a

1039
01:10:31,080 --> 01:10:35,599
Speaker 1: good conversation starter, but I'm not changing the world by

1040
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:40,960
Speaker 1: wearing it, right, Like, are you inviting and you, I

1041
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: mean the general you at a conference? Like, are you

1042
01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:48,479
Speaker 1: inviting underprivileged girls from you know, schools, middle schools, high

1043
01:10:48,479 --> 01:10:51,840
Speaker 1: schools to participate and meet powerful women and be inspired.

1044
01:10:51,880 --> 01:10:55,479
Speaker 1: Are you taking all of those empowering conversations about the

1045
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:58,679
Speaker 1: wage gap or salary negotiation back to your actual job

1046
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:01,599
Speaker 1: and putting that into practice. Or you know, if we're

1047
01:11:01,600 --> 01:11:04,000
Speaker 1: talking about where a lot of these conferences are held,

1048
01:11:04,040 --> 01:11:08,360
Speaker 1: which are very fancy schmancy resorts, what about all the

1049
01:11:08,360 --> 01:11:10,360
Speaker 1: people who are working at those resorts? What about all

1050
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:12,400
Speaker 1: the people who are serving the food at these like

1051
01:11:12,479 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 1: fancy dinners that we have been to and making the food.

1052
01:11:15,520 --> 01:11:21,920
Speaker 1: It's like those the that's where arguably, like the societal

1053
01:11:22,040 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: change is happening. Yes, it's important that these conversations are

1054
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:30,440
Speaker 1: happening at the top, But can you call it empowering

1055
01:11:30,600 --> 01:11:34,599
Speaker 1: if it doesn't trickle down to everyone else, If it's

1056
01:11:34,600 --> 01:11:39,600
Speaker 1: still just concentrates power at the top, What does empowerment

1057
01:11:39,760 --> 01:11:44,479
Speaker 1: even mean at that point? Right? Because at that point,

1058
01:11:44,520 --> 01:11:48,559
Speaker 1: empowerment is just an emotion. Yeah, It's like how good

1059
01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:51,559
Speaker 1: you feel after you eat a good lunch, Right, It's

1060
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:54,200
Speaker 1: like feeling full you just had a good sandwich, a

1061
01:11:54,200 --> 01:11:59,280
Speaker 1: good feminist sandwich. But I am really fascinated, especially by

1062
01:12:00,479 --> 01:12:04,839
Speaker 1: the conference arm of this and femortizing in general, because

1063
01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:10,360
Speaker 1: to me, as a digital media nerd um native advertising

1064
01:12:10,439 --> 01:12:13,240
Speaker 1: is the new name of the game, where it's ads

1065
01:12:13,280 --> 01:12:16,839
Speaker 1: that don't look like ads, it's sponsored content, it's things,

1066
01:12:17,680 --> 01:12:20,559
Speaker 1: you know, where it doesn't feel like a commercial. You're

1067
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:22,760
Speaker 1: actually learning something. Oh, it just happens to be brought

1068
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:26,040
Speaker 1: to you by Johnson and Johnson. And these kinds of

1069
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:29,880
Speaker 1: conferences feel like native in power tizing, where it's like,

1070
01:12:30,160 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 1: we're bringing you this, you know, this, this rundown of

1071
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:38,360
Speaker 1: all these inspiring speakers who are gonna, you know, engage

1072
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:41,280
Speaker 1: your feminism and work and help you balance your life

1073
01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:44,840
Speaker 1: with your twenty four seven job, et cetera. And it

1074
01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:49,439
Speaker 1: just happens to be brought to you by X y Z. Yeah.

1075
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:51,760
Speaker 1: And again, I mean and I think that there's the

1076
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:54,320
Speaker 1: positives and the negatives. You know, if you have an

1077
01:12:54,320 --> 01:12:58,640
Speaker 1: extended ad, like I think it's aerial. They make detergent

1078
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 1: clothing deter urgent. And they had this whole ad in

1079
01:13:02,439 --> 01:13:05,639
Speaker 1: India about getting the men to help with the laundry

1080
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:08,840
Speaker 1: because the women were doing all of the housework. Men

1081
01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:11,400
Speaker 1: never touched the laundry, and so they're like, you know,

1082
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 1: what can we do to help sort of even the

1083
01:13:13,520 --> 01:13:16,479
Speaker 1: score here? And and it launched a great conversation, It

1084
01:13:16,560 --> 01:13:20,360
Speaker 1: got people talking, you know, and yes it was total

1085
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:25,000
Speaker 1: viral hashtag activism kind of stuff, but it spawned a

1086
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:28,439
Speaker 1: great conversation. But it's still advertising, and they want you

1087
01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:29,920
Speaker 1: to buy their product and they want you to feel

1088
01:13:29,960 --> 01:13:32,960
Speaker 1: good about their products. So it's kind of you know,

1089
01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:36,719
Speaker 1: it's that endless cycle. And to bring it full circle,

1090
01:13:37,240 --> 01:13:40,719
Speaker 1: the place where I at least first saw that laundry

1091
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:46,240
Speaker 1: detergent ad was presented by Chryl Sandberg at a maker's conference. Yes, ma'am,

1092
01:13:46,920 --> 01:13:49,719
Speaker 1: so you and I are kind of sitting here then,

1093
01:13:49,880 --> 01:13:53,040
Speaker 1: almost almost right right in the middle of this whole

1094
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:58,200
Speaker 1: fem vertizing ecosystem. I mean, we sell products on this

1095
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:02,200
Speaker 1: podcast as well. We still feminist stamps from stamps dot com,

1096
01:14:02,280 --> 01:14:06,439
Speaker 1: don't you know. Um So, on a lot of different levels,

1097
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 1: this is something you know, that is important to me

1098
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:15,400
Speaker 1: as a feminist media maker, um to make sure that

1099
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:20,760
Speaker 1: what I'm selling does match up with the content that

1100
01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:23,040
Speaker 1: I'm kind of selling in a way, you know, the

1101
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:26,240
Speaker 1: information I'm presenting, and also the kind of example that

1102
01:14:26,280 --> 01:14:29,760
Speaker 1: I want to set for other people. And then it's

1103
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:34,160
Speaker 1: the question of reconciling all of these different moving parts

1104
01:14:34,880 --> 01:14:39,679
Speaker 1: with one another, and it's challenging It is challenging because

1105
01:14:39,920 --> 01:14:43,439
Speaker 1: you know, we live in a capitalist society that tells

1106
01:14:43,520 --> 01:14:47,280
Speaker 1: us to be good consumers. You know, some people are

1107
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:50,680
Speaker 1: addicted to drugs and alcohol. Some people are shopping at

1108
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:56,000
Speaker 1: its like legitimately, and you know, I think that the

1109
01:14:56,040 --> 01:14:58,719
Speaker 1: best we can hope to do is continue to vote

1110
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:02,960
Speaker 1: with our wallets, out with our money, and try to

1111
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:05,120
Speaker 1: put our money where our mouths are and hold companies

1112
01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:08,200
Speaker 1: accountable because obviously, as we've just talked about for the

1113
01:15:08,280 --> 01:15:12,640
Speaker 1: last hour, advertisers listen when you boycott their products. But

1114
01:15:12,720 --> 01:15:15,400
Speaker 1: I and I think too that it's remembering that media

1115
01:15:15,439 --> 01:15:19,760
Speaker 1: literacy goes beyond liking or not liking an individual commercial.

1116
01:15:20,680 --> 01:15:22,639
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of work that goes into

1117
01:15:23,840 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 1: knowing how you're my I'll personalize this, how my stick

1118
01:15:29,040 --> 01:15:32,280
Speaker 1: of dub deodorant, which a do use because like how

1119
01:15:32,320 --> 01:15:36,960
Speaker 1: it smells, it empowers my under arms to negotiate for raises.

1120
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:41,480
Speaker 1: But how that stick of deodorant that I'm using relates

1121
01:15:41,600 --> 01:15:45,479
Speaker 1: to people on the other side of the world. And

1122
01:15:45,760 --> 01:15:49,519
Speaker 1: we asked Andy Ziezler about this when we talked to

1123
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:53,519
Speaker 1: her a few months back, of just like, what do

1124
01:15:53,560 --> 01:15:56,439
Speaker 1: you do you know? And she didn't really have a

1125
01:15:56,479 --> 01:15:59,240
Speaker 1: tidy answer for it. I mean, obviously there's a go

1126
01:15:59,400 --> 01:16:05,120
Speaker 1: to like support your local artisans and your local you know,

1127
01:16:05,240 --> 01:16:09,559
Speaker 1: independent sellers and goods and things like that, And I'm

1128
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:11,320
Speaker 1: just going to add that there is. I don't think

1129
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:15,719
Speaker 1: there's any such thing as living like a perfect feminist life.

1130
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:18,960
Speaker 1: But I think that if you have the money to

1131
01:16:19,080 --> 01:16:21,920
Speaker 1: be able to choose what you buy, because this is

1132
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:24,240
Speaker 1: also a privileged conversation to have, I'm saying this about

1133
01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:27,040
Speaker 1: an hour too late. Um, if you have the money

1134
01:16:27,040 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 1: to be able to make these consumer choices, I think

1135
01:16:30,200 --> 01:16:34,000
Speaker 1: that it is our responsibility to make them wisely if

1136
01:16:34,040 --> 01:16:38,880
Speaker 1: we truly believe that empowerment is something that in a

1137
01:16:38,960 --> 01:16:43,200
Speaker 1: way can be bought. So listeners, help us sort this

1138
01:16:43,280 --> 01:16:48,360
Speaker 1: out because it's tricky and we want to know what

1139
01:16:48,479 --> 01:16:51,280
Speaker 1: you think about it. Mom Stuff at how stuff works

1140
01:16:51,280 --> 01:16:54,200
Speaker 1: dot com is our email addressed. You can also tweet

1141
01:16:54,280 --> 01:16:57,320
Speaker 1: us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and

1142
01:16:57,360 --> 01:16:59,439
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you

1143
01:16:59,479 --> 01:17:02,320
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break in

1144
01:17:02,360 --> 01:17:09,439
Speaker 1: which we'll sell you something. All right, Hello, I have

1145
01:17:09,520 --> 01:17:12,519
Speaker 1: a letter here from Ingrid in response to our pants

1146
01:17:12,520 --> 01:17:15,360
Speaker 1: suit episode. She says, it was really interesting to hear

1147
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:18,639
Speaker 1: the history of the evolution of women wearing pants. It's

1148
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:21,639
Speaker 1: so easy to forget sometimes, all the small things other

1149
01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:23,880
Speaker 1: women had to fight daily for us to get where

1150
01:17:23,920 --> 01:17:26,880
Speaker 1: we are today. It actually gave me some flashbacks to

1151
01:17:26,920 --> 01:17:30,360
Speaker 1: the small private Christian college I attended all the way

1152
01:17:30,360 --> 01:17:33,080
Speaker 1: back Yonder In nine I was a freshman at a

1153
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:36,280
Speaker 1: school of about five d and fifty students. I remember

1154
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:38,679
Speaker 1: the first week of school, our dormother had a meeting

1155
01:17:38,720 --> 01:17:40,960
Speaker 1: with us about a dress code. She told us that

1156
01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:44,400
Speaker 1: even though the administration had decided women could now wear jeans,

1157
01:17:44,960 --> 01:17:49,160
Speaker 1: guys could always wear them, women could not. Until she

1158
01:17:49,320 --> 01:17:53,479
Speaker 1: did not think women wearing pants was acceptable, particularly brown pants.

1159
01:17:54,080 --> 01:17:56,800
Speaker 1: Why brown, she wouldn't say, but they were apparently the

1160
01:17:56,840 --> 01:18:00,360
Speaker 1: most lust inducing of pant colors. She could not forced

1161
01:18:00,439 --> 01:18:03,639
Speaker 1: us to stop wearing jeans or the sinful brown pants,

1162
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:06,759
Speaker 1: but she, along with the rest of the administration, still

1163
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,559
Speaker 1: policed our clothing to a degree I have never before

1164
01:18:09,640 --> 01:18:12,920
Speaker 1: or since experienced. Shorts and skirts could be no more

1165
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:14,760
Speaker 1: than an inch above the knee, and they would use

1166
01:18:14,840 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: rulers to measure and send you back to change if

1167
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:19,439
Speaker 1: they were too short. I remember One of the bigger

1168
01:18:19,479 --> 01:18:21,280
Speaker 1: scandals a few months in was when we had a

1169
01:18:21,320 --> 01:18:24,880
Speaker 1: special meeting to talk about button down shirts. We almost

1170
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:28,040
Speaker 1: lost the privilege of wearing them because the men on

1171
01:18:28,160 --> 01:18:31,360
Speaker 1: campus had complained that the shirts we were wearing were

1172
01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:33,960
Speaker 1: too tight and would sometimes gap a little and they

1173
01:18:34,000 --> 01:18:37,360
Speaker 1: could see bras, which of course caused them to lust,

1174
01:18:37,439 --> 01:18:40,400
Speaker 1: which was our fault. That is two hours of my

1175
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:43,320
Speaker 1: life I will never get back. Honestly, I could go

1176
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:45,559
Speaker 1: on for days about the dress code and double standards

1177
01:18:45,560 --> 01:18:47,759
Speaker 1: at that school. All I can say is I pieced

1178
01:18:47,760 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: out of there and haven't regretted it at all. It

1179
01:18:49,960 --> 01:18:54,759
Speaker 1: was exhausting constantly worrying about other people's problems with my clothes.

1180
01:18:55,479 --> 01:18:57,599
Speaker 1: At any rate, thanks for continuing to bring us such

1181
01:18:57,600 --> 01:19:00,559
Speaker 1: an interesting and insightful podcast. Keep up the great work

1182
01:19:01,080 --> 01:19:04,720
Speaker 1: and you do the same Ingrid. Thank you. So. I

1183
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:08,439
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Maggie about our pent Suit

1184
01:19:08,560 --> 01:19:13,320
Speaker 1: Power Dressing episode, and Maggie writes, I'm a lawyer in Ontario, Canada,

1185
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,040
Speaker 1: a mother of two, and a fat woman. I think

1186
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:19,160
Speaker 1: something really not touched on in the episode was the

1187
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:22,439
Speaker 1: fat phobic way in which fat professional women and men

1188
01:19:22,720 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 1: are treated in relation to dress I just returned from

1189
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,120
Speaker 1: my maternity leave of my second child. In prep for

1190
01:19:29,120 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 1: the return, I wasn't brushing up on the law, which is,

1191
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:34,960
Speaker 1: you know, my job. I was worried about the extra

1192
01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:38,120
Speaker 1: weight and the fact that nothing I owned fit. Shopping

1193
01:19:38,120 --> 01:19:40,599
Speaker 1: for fat women could be an episode in and of itself.

1194
01:19:41,000 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 1: Regardless of clothes I can find it fit and I

1195
01:19:43,439 --> 01:19:48,559
Speaker 1: feel comfortable in, are truly not traditionally professional. My experience

1196
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:50,560
Speaker 1: being a fat woman in a professional career is a

1197
01:19:50,640 --> 01:19:54,960
Speaker 1: constant feeling of being sloppy, frumpy, unkempt, and unprofessional. I

1198
01:19:55,000 --> 01:19:57,760
Speaker 1: already have trouble being taken seriously as a young woman,

1199
01:19:57,840 --> 01:19:59,880
Speaker 1: but on top of that, I'm fat, which is often

1200
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:02,960
Speaker 1: at as being lazy, not hard working, not knowledgeable, and

1201
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:06,880
Speaker 1: generally not really caring about myself. I feel the eyes

1202
01:20:06,920 --> 01:20:09,439
Speaker 1: of my colleagues and co workers judging my appearance, but

1203
01:20:09,520 --> 01:20:12,000
Speaker 1: even more so of my clients and of opposing counsel

1204
01:20:12,280 --> 01:20:14,600
Speaker 1: who certainly don't look at me is tough or qualified,

1205
01:20:14,880 --> 01:20:17,479
Speaker 1: which I attribute to the combination of being fat, young,

1206
01:20:17,520 --> 01:20:20,120
Speaker 1: and a woman. I believe this issue is doubly or

1207
01:20:20,200 --> 01:20:23,280
Speaker 1: triply problematic for women of color and women of poverty

1208
01:20:23,479 --> 01:20:27,080
Speaker 1: who can't afford an incredibly expensive custom wardrobe to fit

1209
01:20:27,120 --> 01:20:31,320
Speaker 1: a fat body and appear quote unquote professional on Aside

1210
01:20:31,360 --> 01:20:33,840
Speaker 1: from the fat issues, I think the episode would have

1211
01:20:33,880 --> 01:20:37,240
Speaker 1: benefited from a discussion of Muslim women in professional careers

1212
01:20:37,439 --> 01:20:40,960
Speaker 1: who wear a hijab, nikab or burka and the perception

1213
01:20:41,080 --> 01:20:44,040
Speaker 1: that the same is not professional attire, which has been

1214
01:20:44,080 --> 01:20:47,160
Speaker 1: an issue dealt with directly in Canada when a judge

1215
01:20:47,200 --> 01:20:50,360
Speaker 1: commented on a female lawyer's he job indicating she was

1216
01:20:50,400 --> 01:20:53,920
Speaker 1: not suitably dressed and refused to hear her case unless

1217
01:20:53,960 --> 01:20:57,479
Speaker 1: she removed it. I'll stop rambling, but thanks again and

1218
01:20:57,520 --> 01:20:59,880
Speaker 1: looking forward to much more. And Maggie, that was not

1219
01:21:00,040 --> 01:21:04,599
Speaker 1: rambling at all. You raise incredibly important points and this

1220
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:06,280
Speaker 1: is something too I have a feeling a lot of

1221
01:21:06,280 --> 01:21:09,800
Speaker 1: other listeners can chime in on. So if you also

1222
01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:14,560
Speaker 1: have thoughts on being a fat woman shopping for professional clothes,

1223
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:17,599
Speaker 1: let us know what you think, and also Muslim women

1224
01:21:17,880 --> 01:21:21,720
Speaker 1: in the workplace in wardrobe issues around that. Let's keep

1225
01:21:21,720 --> 01:21:24,920
Speaker 1: these conversations going. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot

1226
01:21:24,920 --> 01:21:27,240
Speaker 1: com is where you can email us and for links

1227
01:21:27,280 --> 01:21:29,160
Speaker 1: to all of our social media as well as all

1228
01:21:29,200 --> 01:21:32,080
Speaker 1: of our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so

1229
01:21:32,160 --> 01:21:34,800
Speaker 1: you can learn more about empower tizing. Head on over

1230
01:21:34,880 --> 01:21:41,679
Speaker 1: to stuff Mom Never told You dot com for more

1231
01:21:41,720 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it How

1232
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:52,760
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com