Surprisingly, it’s an ad by Pantene, but it’s not like any other ad I’ve seen from a company like this.
In the 2013 ad, Pantene Philippines asks the question, “Does gender bias still exist?”. Not surprisingly, the commercial was never aired in the United States.
As Academia reports,
Advertising is not only about selling products or services, it also sells values, and tries to change or reinforce opinions, and attitudes on social issues. Sadly, most commercials represents sexist (favoring one gender over another), and patriarchal (unequal power relations between women and men) view of the world. ‘Advertising and other mass media inculcate in consumers the cultural assumption that men are dominant, and women are passive and subordinate.’
Continuing their analysis, Academia explains that the “short one-minute commercial shows ascetically pleasing professionals, female and their male counterparts, in identical situations, but receiving different labels” in the form of words shown in the background of each scene. In once segment, a man is seen lecturing someone in an office with the word “Boss” seen in the background and when a woman is shown in the same context, the word has been changed to “Bossy.” We see the man as being “persuasive” and the woman – “pushy.” Other comparisons include “dedicated” as opposed to “selfish” and “neat” versus “vain.”
As Academia explains,
The situations in which we find characters are completely identical; furthermore ways that they are behaving, their gestures, mimic, and way of standing are not changing. The only thing that is different is gender. Then why, in case when nothing important for perceiving and interpreting the situation has changed, man and woman are labeled differently? That is because of a social gender stereotyping.
This ad was shown exclusively in the Philippines, but can you imagine if the networks here in the United States ever tried to put it on during prime time? Parts of our culture would totally blow a gasket.