Oh my goodness, these vintage ads are jawdropping. (One ad actually says, “Men are better than women!”) Can you believe these are from just a few decades ago? Our grandparents might have considered them normal!
More below…
(Via Retronaut)
I think here author did a great analysis about topic..Great efforts shown..Keep working and posting!!
Awesome collection of ads. I really love the styles from back there – also, I love how some things are much more direct/witty. Makes for good advertising.
Wow, these are ridiculous! Such a great (I say great in the sense that they are enlightening) insight into that era!
some of us are commenting on how ads today depict men as dumb and idiotic but when i wondered to myself if my boyfriend or dad are offeneded i came to the comclusion (assumption) that they probably are not and when I searched for the answer as to why that is I concluded that maybe because men have a long held history behind them telling them that they are strong and dominent they don’t even realize this is happening. Or maybe if they are being seen as dumb at home, it is still a woman’s world to them. if men were portrayed as being subservient to women in the work place there would be much more of an uproar from them about it.. and in the same vein women had a long history of this type of stereotype behind them and look how long it too us to stand up for what we wanted and went against these roles.. and we very obviously still are.
I love me some canned soup, ketchup and a vacuum but DAAAMN!
sexism isn’t completely dead, these articles are proof – http://www.marketingeye.com.au/blog/10-things-a-man-should-do-to-be-more-successful-in-business.html
and
http://www.marketingeye.com.au/blog/how-a-woman-can-make-their-man-more-successful.html
A lot of “vintage” ads are fabricated, but I’m curious, how did you verify their authenticity? I still hear these sentiments about gender “differences”, softened up a bit. In church today, someone said, “I guess it’s good that more women are finding success in the workplace, but I won’t get into that. It remains the sacred duty of men to provide for their families–food to eat and a roof over their heads. Men need to prepare to be providers.” He wasn’t TRYING to be offensive, but I interpreted his words as, “Men are inferior at family care and belong in the workplace where their skills can be useful, whereas women should find a good man to depend on and stay home to fulfill their life’s purpose, as GOD intended.” Each family must find the dynamic that works for them, and adjust as circumstances dictate, I say. These kinds of ads are funny, until they feel terribly relevant to views on gender today.
Not sure if it is true or not, but I did read that it appears many of these ads are altered. So I’m not sure how accurate they all are. Not to say that advertising back then was not demeaning to women still. But I don’t think we’ve come very far. It’s just packaged differently. Other posters have mentioned ads nowadays making men look stupid. I’d also have to mention the hyper sexualization of women and girls in advertising now is everywhere. Look at how many ads only show female body parts in sexual ways, not even faces and relate them to objects like cars and alcohol. There was a viral video awhile back about that trend and it made me sick. I love fashion and beauty like many women, but often times the ads go too far. I think generations after us are going to shake their heads the same way we are doing at the Mad Men era.
Didn’t mean to be anonymous – the last comment was mine.
This is a brilliant topic to open up, Joanna. I’m reading the comments and I’m fascinated by the reaction based on age of the commentator. My grandmother, and actually my mother, frankly, as she was born at the very beginning of the baby boom (1946), lived these kind of relationships. To be honest, it’s why I was turned off marriage. I’m forty-two, and in a great relationship, but at the age of ten I’d already decided that marriage was a bad deal for women based on what I saw my grandmothers endure and my timid mother choose (to live through her husband). Obviously, things are different now for a younger generation of women, and even to some degree for mine, but it has left a sour taste in my mouth that I’m only now coming to terms with. (As someone above said, this stuff isn’t funny – some of us are “effing messed up because of it.” :)) I have no regrets, but I am conscious of how what came before has shaped my life and my choices.
One thing that is very interesting to me is that I’ve seen a shift during my career. I work in a male-dominated profession (I’m an economist/statistician). When I started out, in the early 1990s, the older men who were my bosses were on the whole a bunch of chauvinist jerks. Thankfully, as the leadership has gradually shifted and women have achieved more scholastically than men in many fields in the last twenty years, I have seen women gain greater respect and appreciation in both my field and in my office. I can confidently say that I don’t face much of a glass ceiling in my career anymore. Whether or not I’ll choose to take the leadership is another matter (there’s more to life…).
Wow, ads have come so far! Compare those ones to the ones nowadays… big difference for sure! x
Kate {Something Fabulous}
http://thesomethingfabulous.blogspot.com
That last one is creeping me out!
It really is incredible!
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door251.com
@anon 12:14 Yes I agree with you that women do have to “fight for the right to use contraceptives”..I mean I go to planned parenthood to get free birth control, because I make 300 a week and can’t afford it, also I don’t use it as prevention of pregnancy, but for my cyst, because I would get very heavy per. and BC helped control that and I no longer suffered from loosing too much Uterus lining, which the cyst increased…Just imagine the women who have to pay the co-pay or full price of BC! However, I have to admit we do already have a lot in AMERICA, we have condoms, we have plan b, the abortion pill, we are most favored in the court of law when it comes to divorce, rape, and child custody. We have battered women shelters, we have more donations and awareness for breast cancer. Men on the otherhand don’t really have anything except for condoms when it comes to pregnancy prevention, where is the male bc?? and as for divorce court, or child custody they don’t get custody, instead they have to pay child support,they almost never get the option of having to raise their kid and the mother pay child support. Men don’t really get too much prostate cancer awareness. Men don’t have battered men shelters, (now before you ladies/men start laughing) this applies to the gay men who have been beatened to a pulp by their partner with no where to turn to..actually it doesn’t even have to apply to only gay men, I’ve seen civil cases of straight men being beatened by their wives or teenage daughters, very upsetting stuff actually. Don’t pretend that women are frail and weak because they aren’t, there were women in the Soviet army that used BIG GUNS and actually FOUGHT and kicked ass just like any guy. Girls in the Israeli army used AK47s in combat. Just remember who gets drafted in the war in America. The disposable males always.
Wow.
These are fascinating. We’ve come a long way, but still have a way to go. Love your blog, Joanna.
To the poster who commented about how the Kenwood ad appears to be from the mid-1990s – no, it’s from 1961, 51 years ago.
(It’s true the people have a fairly timeless look to them, but the model of the mixer tipped me off – clearly circa 1960s or 1970s – so I did a little digging and it’s 1961.)
I’m not making any comment about how far we have or have not come… just as someone who graduated from high school/started college in 1995 and really feels like it was yesterday, I KNEW that was not from the mid-90s.
not to be a total buzzkill to the first poster/everyone else who thinks we have come so far, but we currently live in a country where women are having to FIGHT for their right to use contraceptives, to have health care that is on par with men, in both cost and quality. where women are subjagated in shows like mad men, and relgated to positions of power within politics based on how much they appeal to repressed republican men (bachman and palin, i am looking at you) while women who have worked hard and thought hard and been of service, but perhaps don’t play that game are laughed at for their ankles.
i know that our advertisments today are not so obviously sexist, but it is still there. america has not changed fast enough, we have men running for political office on the strength of how much they will repress the rights of women once they are elected. these ads are nothing, compared to that.
disclaimer: i did not have time to read every comment on here, just was horrified by the first few that seemed to think this is in our distant past. nope!
I feel like there can’t really be any constructive dialogue in these comments because most of the women here, excluding the ones who have replied to others, are choosing to ignore a topic that is actually a real issue in today’s present time. I’m not talking about the peeing in front of your husband, but of MEN’s issues AS WELL as WOMEN’s issues..First of my grandmother a hispanic women immigrated here in the 40’s and she had a job selling fruit and was treated like s***t by the very same women in these ads…Women back then DID have the option of working let’s not forget that.
These adds are amazing! It kills me that it sounds as if women only want appliances for Christmas! Also, i think choosing to maintain some privacy in regards to peeing, etc., is not being repressed or ashamed. I don’t think we have to share every bodily function with one another. Privacy and gentility can be a good thing. Each to her own.
I’m happy that women have made so much progress since those years. These ads are outrageous!
Teach your children well.
@anon 8:48 I totally agree with you! I am a woman too and am seeing a downward spiral!
@anon 4:22, I know right! wtf didn’t we pee and POOP in front of our parents at one point geeze, the very same parents that we would become with our spouse in the future! Pooping yeah that’s a little too far, but t PEE and farting who the hell cares. all the girls I know fart and burp in front of the bf’s its just normal, y hold it all in and be bloated all day..
this is a computer…you got me:) so nice:) thank you
here is some question for today:) http://marketamedas.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-you-gonna-do-today.html
Wow, it’s a good thing we now live in the 2012, where women are treated equally … other than being ashamed of their peeing, of course.
wow.
when i think of them being published somewhere. that’s crazy and i can’t even imagine.
anyway some made me laugh out loud…
these ads just confirm every single prejudice men had against women at that time. crazy.
thank god MANkind moved on from that(at least almost)! :)
arrgggghhhh that get on my nerves! so glad it’s from decades ago!
I accidentally posted this comment in your pee post — so much for commenting on the iPhone while making dinner! … Anyway, I thought these ads/ your post was timely. my friend just wrote an article about her mom’s reaction to mad men. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/watching-mad-men-with-my-mother.html
If I got a Hoover vacuum for Christmas, staring at it adoringly would NOT be my reaction…
your comment that these ads aren’t from THAT long ago made me think of how when i started working in investment banking, women weren’t “allowed” to wear pants. In fact, my colleague was taken out for drinks by the college recruiter after she was hired (but before she started) to tell her just that since she wore a pants suit to her interview.
Oh, this is was 1993.
By 1997 we were all observing “Friday and summer casual.”
By 2000, we were business casual everyday.
Everyone says these aren’t current, but jeez, that Kenwood ad looks like it was made in the mid 90s. That really wasn’t that long ago.
These created a great discussion, Joanna, so thanks for posting.
I’m a Creative Director at an ad agency and I always find it interesting when this sort of thing comes up. I can tell you first-hand that, at least these days, agencies are not made up of misogynists trying to produce work that makes women feel bad about themselves. But neither are they replete with female creatives (who could bring a more realistic, well-rounded approach to the media).
In fact, creative departments at ad agencies still look like they do on Mad Men. And only 3% of Creative Directors are women. For things to improve, more young women are going to have to take on this industry (which is fast-paced and fiercely competitive, but also crazy fun) and prove that ads can be brilliant without the dumb cliches.
this was a great post.
as appalling as these are, current media is still just as messed up. still just as sexist, and probaby more misogynistic then before. with pornography being so rampant, sexism in our society is only getting worse. as a society, we’ve made huge strides on the one hand, but not without a downfall on the other.
Oh dear. Thank goodness these ads aren’t current…can’t imagine how women made it through having these ads & this mindset as their living reality. We ladies can survive anything!
I do want to add, too… there are a LOT of women today who stay home. It’s actually a trend and a “status symbol” today. I know plenty of college-educated women who do not work and are “stay at home moms” or even “stay at home wives.” That’s not my cup of tea, but the thing is… more women than men stay home, and they’re choosing to do so. The ads which show women in the home are quite representative of real life, whether the women ONLY stays home or works too.
Thank you, Anonymous at 7:27! I (a woman) just came on to comment the exact same thing. Somehow it’s okay for ads today to show the bumbling, incompetent man… not just okay, but a popular trend (and it’s quite serious, not just tongue-in-cheek humor.) That IS equally offensive. And it’s done in TV shows and even in stupid primetime “news” pieces.
Lol…it’s hard not to find these hilarious. Times have changed, fortunately.
Some of these are pretty backwards but there is a lot of hipocracy here. How common is it now to see ads that show smug, condescending women shaking their heads of the stupidity of their husbands and illustrate men as morons. I find those just as offensive. We have come a long way since these ads, but it is ironic that with all the equality we have now, most of the educated, career women I know are miserable and burned out and just dream of marrying and becoming stay-at-home moms and giving up work like the housewives in the ads!
I am taking a womens studies course and my prof showed me this video about the 1950’s oppression of women!!! I recommend it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89WypKUAvM&feature=plcp&context=C430de5eVDvjVQa1PpcFOV3WDa93-KklTZ1foRLR8H-4gA6EPRJ34%3D
Thank GOD times have changed! I would not put up with that BS!
Wow! Those are pretty hilariously. Can’t believe they are real!
So crazy. It’s easy to forget that this was normal relatively not that long ago!
Good god. Equal parts ridiculously laughable and deeply (deeply) disturbing.
These are pretty bad, but I agree with a few other posters who commented on how men are so belittled in current advertising. Not to mention women are still told they have to be beautiful in order to be valuable/liked…so we really haven’t gone anywhere but down. Advertising in general is pretty harmful.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with gender roles. Not to the extent of putting people in a ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ box and not letting them have a personality, but it’s not wrong to like to be feminine or domestic as a woman, for example.
I sometimes think that women’s lib ended up backfiring. We now have to work outside AND inside the home in order to not be seen as lazy.
I dropped out of college (while still single) because I realized what I really wanted to be was a stay-at-home mom. I don’t regret the extra education at all, but I’m glad I didn’t push myself into a career and have the extra juggling involved because really, I love the domestic life!
omigod. i honestly can’t believe how awful some of those are! and i hate to say it, but most of the people i know (co-workers, customers, etc.) still think this way. it’s so frustrating!
Holy Guacamole! These are rough. The Heinz “Most husbands nowadays, have stopped beating their wives” and the Drummond “Indoors, woman are useful — even pleasant. On a mountain they are something of a drag” caught my attention the most. Oh I’m so please that you find me pleasant and have stopped beating me!! What?!?
When I was in High School my friend and I used to check out old magazines like Vogue from the Library. The advise in them was insane (and pretty hilarious at times)
Wow! The audacity of these ads! What will we look back on 50 years from now and be shocked by?
Oh my goodness!! :P
Oops, the campaign is actually for Dr. Pepper 10 (not Zero). Freudian slip, ha!
Here’s the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuG1OpnHP8
Divya
heavybrowsing.com
I read the Heinz soup one a couple of times to make sure I got it right. I can’t believe what it says. That is crazy! And the sweater one about men being better than women! Gasp. I’ll tell ya, the last thing I would be is happy if I got a Hoover on Christmas morning….maybe a Dyson, but definitely not a Hoover! Haha. Thanks for posting. It’s been good for a laugh!
Awful? Yes. Jawdropping? Yes. Quite amusing even though it shouldn’t be? Yes…
Joanna: Have you seen the insane “It’s not for women” campaign for Dr. Pepper’s new product, Dr. Pepper Zero? It sure doesn’t seem like things are THAT different these days…
Divya
heavybrowsing.com
I think men should have a revolt, the way that they are being portrayed in commercials like right NOW…I agree with Girl, and Anonymous that pointed this out. I am woman, not a feminist not an MRA, but a HUMANIST!
Looks a lot like Goldie Hawn driving…
Wow! What’s funny is I’m sure people still think these statements about women are true, it’s just more subtly implied.
omg stop with all this MAD MEN nonsense…just stop
Reading Bluebird by Ariel Gore- and boy would she have a lot to say about this…infact she probably has!
WOW! thats all i can really say.
these are truly awful, but i disagree with the people who say “we’ve come so far.” now our sexism is simply more implicit than it was 40 years ago.
These are awful. So grateful to live in the world we do.
that is shocking how sexist some of them are. i guess that was the norm tho
Wow! I sometimes can’t believe advertisements were like this! But these definitely remind me of an add for some soda that says at the end of the commercial, “Not for women.” Crazy!
The empty speech bubble in the Hoover ad was added later–it’s pixelated!!!
Geez Louise. “If he does not go to the store immediately, cry a little. Not a lot. Just a little. He’ll go, he’ll go.” OHHHH so THAT’s how I get a Kitchenaid stand mixer. And to think, I was going to buy one for myself with my own hard earned cash. Silly girl.
These are honestly depressing. So sad what women of that generation were being told through the media. Things still aren’t perfect, but we’ve come a long way.
Style is great but words aren’t. Lucky we – who lives without the meaning of these words.
Those are crazy!
Also: Jo, does that model in the third ad (the computer one) kind of look like your mom, back in the day? It was my first thought!
Wow… hilarious but scary!
Definitely weird that these were the norm…
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