Guaranteed to get more help from husbands.

This a print advertisement for some sort of retro faucet read for its gender and race.

Read (without interpretations): A ‘white’ man with a blue shirt and black tie standing in front of the sink located inside a house. He is washing white dishes with an electric gadget connected to the faucet. He is a husband according to the copy on the advertisement.

This image grabbed my attention when a typed in “Print Advertising” because of the tagline. I thought it was a classic play on gender roles because they purposefully display a man in the kitchen and identify that it is not his normal place to be.

This advertisement goes back to our discussion that women belong in the kitchen because it is their destiny and desire to be there. By having that idea already planted in our brains, we realized that there is something off or different in this image, which grabs our attention. We think, “Hey! Why is there a man in the kitchen washing dishes? What do I need to do to get my man to do that?”

This advertisement reads gender. This image actually stereotypes the woman and man. First, it shows that women have a lack of technical knowledge and would not understand the advertisement if it included how the faucet actually functions; instead the only thing that they would understand and be interested in is that their husbands would be willing to help them in the kitchen. Second, men are only helpful around the house when they only need to do as little as possible. If this product eliminates scrubbing and rubber gloves, then he is willing to help.

This advertisement also reads race. In my journalism class we discussed what stereotypes different ‘groups’ of people hold in advertising. For example, Hispanic roles may include terms such as bandit, lover, or senorita; African Americans my include terms such as athletes, entertainers, or reliant; while Asian Americans may include terms like dominant, no nurture, or martial artist. So, for this particular advertisement to work and not subconsciously include these stereotypical identities they used a ‘non-race’ person for this product. Dyer explains in his article White, “As long as white people are not racially seen and named, they function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people.” This is a perfect example of this product being sold to ‘people’ instead of a particular group of people. Just image this picture with a different ‘raced’ person…it would portray a whole new meaning! By marketing to a ‘non-race’ it is as if you are marketing to all races. As Dyer says, “There is no more powerful position than that of being ‘just’ human.”