Since I don’t have a television, I am not able to contextualize the 2-3 advertisements that I watch by choice online within the cacophony of commercials that the average television watching individual is assaulted with on a daily basis. I wonder when and where these gender-non-conforming ads appear on television, and what kind of an impact they actually have when they are buried among all of the other noise. In the Washington Post, blogger Nia-Malika Henderson highlights a few of these ads in her article Madison Avenue Catching Up to Changing Gender Roles. 

Click Here for Verizon’s “Pretty Girl” Ad

In trying to counter those more common images with these current ads, the companies are acknowledging their tremendous power in creating and underscoring stereotypical ideas about gender.  They have offered up the dish-washing mom who discovers just the right product for the best looking dishes. These current ads reflect a shifting landscape and companies that sell products to women and girls are acknowledging this moment. Women are often sole breadwinners in their homes, dads do housework, and girls grow up to be basketball players and doctors. It is good business for companies to recognize and reflect consumer’s changing lives.

 

— Caterina Gironda, Southern Editor

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