{"id":60022,"date":"2013-12-10T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=60022"},"modified":"2017-09-17T11:14:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T16:14:40","slug":"the-solution-to-patriarchy-pantene-says-shine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/10\/the-solution-to-patriarchy-pantene-says-shine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Solution to Patriarchy? Pantene says Shine!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This 1 minute commercial<\/a> for Pantene, running in the Philippines, is getting a lot of praise. \u00a0It does a powerful job of pointing out the way that women are disadvantaged in corporate contexts. \u00a0The men and women in the ad are portrayed similarly, but the women are judged for the behavior while the men are praised.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/a>\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a>Pretty neat.<\/p>\n

But then the end. \u00a0Oh Pantene. \u00a0The answer to this systemic double bind that damns women if they do and damns them if they don’t is, apparently, to “be strong and shine.”<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I suppose we shouldn’t expect much more from a shampoo ad, but I lament the ending anyway. \u00a0It resonates with a wider cultural trend in which feminist empowerment has been conflated with individual gain within a patriarchal system, not a collective effort to end patriarchy once and for all.<\/p>\n

This is the lesson of Sheryl Sandberg’s\u00a0Lean In<\/em>: the system’s all set up to fuck you over, she acknowledges, but then she whispers: I will try to help you get to the top anyway<\/em>. \u00a0No matter if you have to step all over lots of other women<\/a> on the way. \u00a0That’s not feminism, that’s self-interest. \u00a0And it’s certainly not progressive change.<\/p>\n