I live in the city and take a lot of buses so I see these a lot. There's another one that addresses the pain of carrying a heavy purse.

So, we have:

1. Walking in high heels
2. Pushing a stroller
3. Carrying a purse

all of which are everyday activities for many women.

It's nice to have it publicly recognized that all of these things can cause pain. But it's really, really unnerving to have that pain normalized in these ads by their tone of sympathy--"here, we all have to go through with this, just take a pill and you won't mind so much"--instead of criticized.

Isn't "I feel your pain" also a gendered term? I remember it was once discussed how men normally just look for solutions, so when their (female) partner wants to tell them something, they automatically assume she wants them to help her solve it, and come up with solutions. Men were then told that what women want is for their partners to share in their feelings and empathize with them, for example with phrases like "I feel your pain".

I've since felt there's something condescending in that phrase, as it is automatically translated in my head to say "I don't know what you want me to do, so here's a generic meaningless phrase I was taught that should shut you up".

It is definitely disturbing that women are being sold the idea not only that femininity should cause pain, but that this is acceptable and even expected, and should be treated with drugs.

I take it you haven't yet seen the babywearing mortrin ad. Oy - check out the www.motrin.com website to watch it.

Basically, mums wear their babies b/c it makes them look like "an official mom" even though it hurts their neck, back & hips. Niiice...b/c mums are too stupid to, say, do research on how to properly carry a baby if what we're trying isn't working for us. And all mums who wear their babies are just posers trying to follow a trend.

I am really disturbed by this in the same way as Michelle. I don't know what sort of painkiller Motrin is, but it seems immoral to me to propose taking painkillers to continue doing an activity that is voluntary. Particularly in a culture where painkillers are often abused.

(I'm not opposed to people wearing high heels, but if they hurt and you still want to wear them, surely the sane response is "wear comfy shoes to walk in and put your heels on when you get there", not "take a painkiller so you won't notice the damage you're doing".)

I had the tv on over the weekend and noticed that advil was being marketed to women specifically. Apparently it's ibuprofen that is gendered.
On their website, too:
http://www.advil.com/index.asp

There's one at my train station. I really would rather not wear shoes that require drugs to deal with.

Just coming back to note that the baby wearing ad at http://www.motrin.com has been removed and replaced with an apology. See: http://www.motrin.com/images/motrin/marketing_message.jpg

Interesting.

It is definitely disturbing that women are being sold the idea not only that femininity should cause pain, but that this is acceptable and even expected, and should be treated with drugs. hip pain