"Now You Can Be Even More Amazing!"

By Emily Kaiser

We've come a long way since The Feminine Mystique and illusions of the “perfect” housewife, but don’t tell Electrolux that. Their new series of commercials featuring Kelly Ripa show a startling contrast between their advanced technology and the backwardness of their ideas of motherhood. The reason that Electrolux’s state-of-the-art technology is so great? Because now YOU can do even more work for your family! Have to feed and clean up after two different parties in one evening and put the kids to bed with no husband in sight? It’s no problem with your new best friends, Electrolux’s oven, dishwasher, and refrigerator. Have a job? It’s no problem, after your shift (and the trip to the grocery store on the way back) you can still complete all the tasks assigned to you at home. And all of this, of course, without a wrinkle or hair out of place. Sound like the dream Betty Friedan had in mind?

Obviously this idealized, feminine woman in the commercial is hardly attainable, but is a bigger problem the fact that it’s idealized in the first place? Is this the ideal image of woman that we are supposed to aspire to be? On one hand, women are supposed to be seen as equals in the workforce, but on the other, gender stereotypes still reinforce that a woman’s value needs to revolve around being a caregiver and impressing others (D’Enbeau 31). The idea behind The Feminine Mystique was that “A woman cannot find her identity through others--her husband, her children.” (Friedan 461). This idea has succeeded in that the views of motherhood have shifted to allow women to work to achieve one identity, but they have also remained steadfast in their expectations to keep the original housewife identity as well. You can have a career, but make sure you have time to come home and cook your kids homemade macaroni and cheese; heaven forbid another mom finds out you ordered pizza for the slumber party or had the kids’ juice at the wrong temperature.

The model household portrayed in this commercial is hardly different from “homogenized national culture”(Coontz 65) that Friedan complained about when she wrote The Feminine Mystique in the early 1960s. What Friedan was speaking of were advertisements in magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping that depicted all women as happy housewives, or, as she put it, “without…a commitment to any work…other than ‘Occupation: housewife.’” (Coontz 65) While Kelly Ripa does have a job (and a demanding one at that), it is not the career that is important in this commercial. It’s shown briefly in the first five seconds, and then forgotten about completely, switching the focus to being a good hostess, mother, and wife. She may not be the stereotypically housewife of the 1950s and 1960s, but she’s actually portrayed as something worse: a working woman with endless amounts of energy whose entire life revolves around others. On top of that, she seems happy to do all the work while the children sit back and watch television and the husband is mysteriously absent. This commercial plays up the 1950s theme, music and all, but its outdated generalizations seem less like a satire and more like blatant gender stereotypes disguised as wit.

So what’s wrong with a mom that does it all? Nothing, until it becomes an expectation. This ad isn’t sexist because it depicts a woman doing household chores and taking care of her family after work. It’s sexist because it portrays a woman whose only real satisfaction in life comes from these things, without even a moment to herself. She isn’t amazing because she is a powerful woman and television personality, she’s amazing because she can do all the household chores as efficiently as possible after her shift. So ladies, remember, you can be even more amazing, but only if your definition of amazing is how much time you can dedicate to making a roast and hosting a dinner party.

Sources:

Stephanie Coontz: A Strange Stirring

Betty Friedan: The Forfeited Self

Suzy D’Enbeau and Patrice M. Buzzanell: Caregiving and Female Embodiment: Scrutinizing (Professional) Female Bodies in Media, Academe, and the Neighborhood Bar