Over Thanksgiving we posted a Bed, Bath, and Beyond ad that illustrated the fact that women, overwhelmingly, take responsibility for the work involved with holidays. Victoria S. sent us a U.K. website illustrating the same idea. The website, for a shopping center, is using the slogan, the 12 Mums of Christmas.
Victoria writes:
…it assumes that the mum of the family does EVERYTHING for the family/friends. It also forgets about people who therefore don’t have children, or people who are on their own, or those that don’t have a mum-type figure in their lives etc…
The site even nicely describes the various tasks that “mums” are responsible for.
The shopper:
The planner:
The wrapper:
The party girl:
Mums! Do all the work! Look great! And have a good time, too! Or else you fail as a mother. Just sayin’.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
