{"id":4985,"date":"2014-07-02T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=4985"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:31:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:31:35","slug":"pantene-sorry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2014\/07\/02\/pantene-sorry\/","title":{"rendered":"Pantene Urges Women to Stop Being Sorry\u2014But Were They in the First Place?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that female empowerment is an advertiser\u2019s new best friend. Just look at Dove\u2019s Real Beauty Sketches, Always\u2019 #LikeAGirl, and CoverGirl\u2019s #GirlsCan, each boasting millions of views: now Pantene is getting in on the action with its new commercial, Not Sorry.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rzL-vdQ3ObA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The ad challenges women to stop apologizing reflexively. In general, viewers have reacted positively, but, as<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2014\/06\/the-sociology-of-sorry\/373273\/\" target=\"_blank\"> one article in <em>The Atlantic <\/em><\/a>suggests, there may be more to the story of \u201csorry.\u201d The author suggests:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the major problems with all this\u2014besides the one embedded in the insistent equation of apology with weakness, and stubbornness with strength\u2014is that &#8220;sorry&#8221; is, at this point, pretty much meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, is \u201csorry\u201d meaningless or misunderstood? Take sociologist Erving Goffman\u2019s characteristics of an apology: &#8220;expression of embarrassment or chagrin; clarification that one knows what conduct has been expected and sympathizes with the application of negative sanction; verbal rejection, repudiation, and disavowal of the wrong way of behaving along with vilification of the self that so behaved.&#8221; <em>The Atlantic<\/em> points out that these qualities aren\u2019t present in the average, off-hand apology, like the ones featured in the video.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the author continues, the reflexive apology may just be an additional use of the word, rather than a constant expression of patriarchal oppression. In 1997, Deborah Levi proposed four types of apologies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;\u2018Tactical&#8221; (acknowledging the victim&#8217;s suffering in order to gain credibility and influence the victim&#8217;s bargaining behavior)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;\u2018Explanation&#8221; (attempting to excuse the offender&#8217;s behavior and make the other party understand that behavior)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Formalistic&#8221; (capitulating to the demand of an authority figure)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Happy-ending&#8221; (accepting responsibility and expressing regret for the bad act)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Still, Pantene\u2019s commercial doesn\u2019t seem to show any of these kinds of \u201csorries.\u201d Instead, <a href=\"http:\/\/op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com\/2014\/06\/23\/when-should-we-be-sorry\/?_php=true&amp;_type=blogs&amp;_php=true&amp;_type=blogs&amp;_r=1&amp;\" target=\"_blank\">one<em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em> article<\/a> specifies these apologies as \u201cgestural.\u201d Linguist Deborah Tannen tells <em>The Times<\/em>,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLanguage almost never means what the dictionary definition says; it\u2019s used the way others use it \u2014 as a ritual. But those who don\u2019t share the ritual tend to take the words literally.\u00a0Since American men don\u2019t tend to use \u2018sorry\u2019 this way, they mistakenly take women\u2019s use of it literally, as an apology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It seems sorry might be misunderstood by both apologizers and the recipients of those apologies\u2014heartfelt or tossed-off. Ending women\u2019s casual response apologies might promote empowerment, sure, but the very concept of the over-apologizing woman may actually be nothing more than a stereotype,as <em>The Atlantic\u00a0<\/em>asks<em>, <\/em>is the notion of women as being overly apologetic could be \u201cyet another label, yet another double standard that sticks, stubbornly, to women?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><!-- TSP testing --> <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 234px; height: 60px;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-4670099812817063\" data-ad-slot=\"1069646635\"><\/ins><script>\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that female empowerment is an advertiser\u2019s new best friend. Just look at Dove\u2019s Real Beauty Sketches, Always\u2019 #LikeAGirl, and CoverGirl\u2019s #GirlsCan, each boasting millions of views: now Pantene is getting in on the action with its new commercial, Not Sorry. The ad challenges women to stop apologizing reflexively. In general, viewers have reacted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":4990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55],"tags":[750,27513,39114,27514],"class_list":["post-4985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","tag-advertising","tag-apologies","tag-gender","tag-pantene"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2014\/07\/sorry-not-sorry-pantene-words-700-e1404324353406.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4985"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4999,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4985\/revisions\/4999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}