Heather Downs, an Assistant Professor at Jacksonville University, pointed out a post by Sadie Stein at Jezebel about a recent graphic from the USA Today Snapshots feature; we’re pleased to repost it here, with some additional comments from me below.
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Women just love, love, love housework! Says a survey. Conducted by cleaning product.
Apparently under the impression that we also believe cigarettes are soothing to the throat and little kids love laxatives, Scrubbing Bubbles (or rather, the impartial survey they commissioned) informs us (via USA Today) that an overwhelming percentage of women in every age group “enjoy the dirty work of keeping their house clean.”
Now, I know there are indeed women — and men, for that matter — who do indeed find satisfaction in the tangible rewards of cleaning (although I can’t pretend to be one of them.) But…why is this survey for and about women exclusively? Maybe because it comes from the same universe in which women — exclusively — scrub and sweep and swiffer with expressions of cheerful serenity in pastel-hued V-necks.
That said, in their defense, at least as of 1978, the bubbles themselves seem to have been masculine. And do not appear to be perverts:
[Via: Scrubbing Bubbles Says: All women are cleaning ladies (Mislabeled)]
Send an email to Sadie Stein, the author of this post, at Sadie@jezebel.com.
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Aside from the gendered element, it’s also a great example of the conflation of marketing-type materials with the surrounding, presumably non-advertising, material. Without having to buy advertising space, Scrubbing Bubbles gets a mention next to an item that says women think cleaning is awesome!
Also see how excited Kelly Ripa is to do laundry and product placement on Days of Our Lives.
Comments 37
gidget — January 25, 2011
I wonder how they worded this. Because I do like HAVING a clean house. I don't ENJOY cleaning, but I like the result.
pmsrhino — January 25, 2011
What's funny is with commercials like these (where the cleaning products come alive) they actually take the work AWAY from the women. It's like we women can't even do the simple task that society has given us, the products we buy have to do the actual muscle work. So we get manly scrubbing bubbles that do the work or we get Mr. Clean aiding us around the kitchen with his manly muscles and awesome products reducing our work or we get the manly yet sensitive Brawny man who can just soak up those spills for us OR we get sad manly mops or brooms trying to woo us back because an evenly manlier map/broom product has taken their women and cleaning work away from them. Ladies! Why are we even bothering to clean anymore? It's quite obvious that the manly products are the one doing all the work! Now if only we could get a manly product that will make sammiches us women will be practically obsolete.
Or at least that's what I get from commercials like these. Women are expected to clean (and enjoy it!) but we are so pathetic we can't even do THAT much without the help of some type of man or another.
LdeG — January 25, 2011
'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.'
I'm a liberal female 59-year-old with a Ph.D., and since I was a 20-something semi-hippie living on less than minimum wage in the 70s, I have enjoyed cleaning and other housework. Cooking and cleaning are crafts. If you look at them as a nuisance, they are. But they can be meditative, and satisfying in addition to the satisfaction of having good food and a clean and beautiful living space.
My husband likes doing yardwork, not just for the results, but for being outside and using his body. I do, too. Once upon a time we actually had an argument because he hung a load of laundry on a new clothesline and I had wanted to do it.
I read this post while waiting for lime-remover to soak on my 70-year-old shower floor. Figuring out what the grubbiness was, how to fix it, and scrubbing it clean is just as satisfying as the Unix trouble-shooting, programming, grant-writing, program planning, and other things I did in my paid-employment life.
Ollie — January 25, 2011
The bubbles were masculine because there was work to be done.
MissPrism — January 25, 2011
I can't help noticing that the age groups that "like housework" the most look seem likely to be the ones who do least of it.
Kayla — January 25, 2011
I thought that survey was from The Onion until I looked at it a bit closer. Yikes!
Elena — January 25, 2011
The hand in the graphic has nails painted red, a bracelet and a marriage ring. It's not enough for the hand to be assigned a gender, it also must display the markers of a white, middle/upper-class housewife. Ô_ó
Maria — January 25, 2011
the scrubbing bubbles commercials in the late 70's/early 80's scared the living bejeezus out of me as a child. i therefore blame them for my severe distaste for housework as an adult.
(really has nothing to do with the post, really, except to propose the bubbles and their compatriots are evil overlords.)
RedKat — January 25, 2011
I was just about to leave a comment about how the scrubbing bubbles scared me something wicked when I was a kid.....and, Maria, I see you had the same fear! I was so terrified that those creepy mustachioed bubbles would appear from the drain and hurt me.
WG — January 25, 2011
How does a person know if the scrubbing bubbles are masculine?