Hello, mujeres (I’m running out of fun, colloquial ways to address my audience real fast you guys)! I’m currently watching “Dirty Soap” an awesomely vapid new show on the E! Network (go figure) about the lives of soap stars (I’m serious) and I was semi-shocked by sheer domination of the girl-centric commercials on T.V. Glancing at the People Magazine on the coffee table (can my surroundings scream sorority house any louder? It’s rhetorical, they obviously cannot), I was again bombarded by all kinds of perfume ads, lipstick ads, tampon ads, and the list of loud, bright, and sassily tag-lined advertisements could go on. There were perfume ads with waif-like women in wispy dresses, tampon ads with some lady kickboxing (get real, I’d never pull that sh*t on my period and neither would you), a frumpy looking lady reaching for a Midol from a smug co-worker, a woman with a puppy in one hand and some freaking Yaz in the other (looking exceptionally radiant above the minute warning of pulmonary embolisms, mind you), a woman laughing on her work phone head-set with a Playtex logo all up under her chin; now I’m just making up new ads for kicks, so I’ll stop.
Anyway, I say I was semi-shocked by all of this because in the back corners of my mind (right up in where Freud or whoever would be having a field day dissecting my strong dislike of corndogs as some sort of maladapted sexual thing), I know I’ve seen this all before to such a tiring extent that these images have become something I believe legitimately reflects my own experience as a woman. These advertisements plastered all over the media are aiming to sympathize with me on some level, when really they’re just conditioning my brain to believe in the legitimacy of strictly female-oriented problems that are somehow my womanly duty to fix. I need seamless underwear, a push-up bra, teeth-whitening toothpaste, diet pills, tampons with extra leakage support (I know, I don’t like the thought of that either even though I technically shouldn’t mind because I have a vagina, wouldn’t you know it), Midol, birth control pills, “down there” trimmers and shavers (again, I’m just as grossed out as you are, bare with me), foot creams, tanning creams, foundation creams, so much make-up you wouldn’t believe, and YET AGAIN, my list could go on. It’s overwhelming! I feel so inadequate and in need of some sort of renovation with each commercial that interrupts my equally appearance-focused reality shows! It SUCKS. And what’s worse is I totally buy into the BS. I buy Crest White strips, seamless underwear (I have an irrational phobia of panty-lines, thanks for nothing, ads with that girl from Scrubs), skin-firming moisturizer (because I hate the idea of Botox later in life but I’ve been told I have to look as young as possible for as long as possible), push up bras (though let’s be honest there’s not much for those puppies to push up), and whatever else. I’ve grown just as concerned about my feminine “needs” as the next girl and together we’ve become a consumerist army.
So in short, this was a rant again. But in the greater scope of things, we should stop buying into the advertisements and start focusing on what we actually need as women, not what society dictates we should need. It’s easy to lose yourself when ads push this necessity of female perfection, and thusly we end up living our lives purchase to purchase. Now I’m off to go shopping for things I actually want and need as MY OWN PERSON, people. Wish me luck!
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at WM chapter.