Friday, June 9, 2017

Fairy, Vileda - of stereotypes of women and their appropriation!

Source
Fairy, the popular dish washing liquid, shows its true colors - women should be barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen. In their new ad they say (and mind you the Arabic language distinguishes between genders) "you (female) cook and leave the toughest grease stains on us".
Here's a reminder of a Vileda ad from November 2015;

Is the Vileda ad which says "for Lebanon to be clean, let the women handle it" sexist? Yes. It is not-very-clever? Yes. Did it stir - for better or worse - a controversy? Yes. And that is not always good for the brand by the way contrary to the idea that "any advertising is good advertising". Same for that new outing from Fairy...
My problem today is elsewhere, it is when the stereotype is appropriated, would this still be sexism? Racism? Denigration?... Look at this photo taken from the Vileda sponsoring of the avant-premiere of the movie Neswen (women). The woman is proudly holding a sign which says the same thing as the ad above, flashing it proudly and smiling to the cam. She obviously agrees to the message, endorses it, and thinks the joke is funny.
In this case, can we still call it sexism?
If the person belonging to the cultural or gender related section being targeted by a stereotype actually wants to be part of that stereotype, can we argue over the identity belonging bit?
I was accused twice of not being a feminist (actually, the second time I was accused of being a misogynistic person). The first time for commenting on an ad about football and agreeing that women are less knowledgeable about football than men (for the record I myself had to google what mannschaft is to understand the joke which equates the word to "manchafe" or beach towel in Arabic), Here is the ad below:
The second time for my artwork at my Beirut/SECAM exhibition where I depicted women in kitchens taken from vintage white goods catalogs;
But when a woman asks a man "hey, get out of here, what are you doing in my kitchen?" it becomes difficult to counter the argument of appropriating that stereotype. After all, if these people want to belong and identify with how they are are socially and publicly portrayed who are we to argue!
Fairy and Vileda know that all too well it seems and forget about that Dior "we should all be feminist" thing!