{Image Credit: The Gender Ads Project}
www.genderads.com
When I taught Women’s Studies, my students and I analyzed advertising and media images of women. I was inspired by Jean Kilbourne’s series Killing Us Softly, which documents the portrayal of women in advertising from the 1970s to today. She describes seeing the ads that disturbed her in the seventies and putting them on her refrigerator. When her friends asked, “What’s this?” she’d say, “You tell me.” And they’d discuss what they saw and what it meant.
I want to do the same with you.
I want to look at how mothers and motherhood are portrayed today. To start the conversation, I want to look at some of the advertising and advice directed at mothers.
I’ll tell you what I think, and I’d love for you share your comments and thoughts at the end of this post.
We are exposed to over 3000 advertisements every day, Jean Kilbourne claims, yet we somehow claim to be immune to the effects of advertising. “I just don’t pay attention to ads,” readers will tell her. Yet they are generally wearing shirts from the Gap and drinking Diet Coke. She writes, “Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be.”
For this analysis, I purchased, for the first time in years, a parenting magazine. I analyzed the advertisements and articles to gather a brief look at a portrayal of motherhood. {Though the magazine does not reference mothers specifically in its title, 12.4 million of its 14.5 million readers are women.}
Based on the advertisements alone, we could conclude the following about mothers. They generally spend their time cooking, snuggling babies, holding babies, deciding on the best food for babies, getting up at night with babies, caring for sick babies, smiling at babies, cleaning and decorating their homes, shopping for groceries and beauty products, and rolling in the grass with their children.
There were 35 ads or magazine images depicting mothers with children, and only 10 images of fathers with children. In the pictures of mothers, 11 of them were snuggling a baby, and four were cooking in the kitchen. Despite the fact that 60% of the female readers for this periodical are working mothers, only two women were shown in professional settings, in both cases as pediatricians checking on a baby. These ads were typical of the ones depicting mothers:
In the 10 images depicting fathers, three had the dad playing with the kids, one showed a dad at work, and three showed a dad outside with their child (flying a kite or fishing). These were typical images of dads:
If dads were outside with their children, they were usually engaged in active play.
When moms were outside with their children (three ads), they were always rolling in the grass hugging their child:
There were no images of men with babies, although I did come across this ad in one of my cooking magazines:
I find it interesting that all the images of moms and babies show the mother serenely smiling at her (usually sleeping) infant or otherwise engaging her child, while the one image I found of a father with an infant shows the dad literally balancing parenting duties while he multitasks getting his coffee.
According to advertisers, Mom is always the one who knows best. Seven articles or advertisements specifically referenced “mom” knowing the value of the product for their children. No ad specified dad would be the one to know this information. Mom still seems to be considered the default parent.
Apparently, it’s only mom who will be getting up with the baby at night.
I would have loved to compare this magazine to a parenting magazine for men, but there aren’t any, which is telling in and of itself. I looked at a few of my husband’s magazines that are written for a male audience. In one, I found only seven advertisements that included women {one for a charity, two for men’s clothing, and four for alcohol, which is a whole other post!} But I found this one interesting. Both the men’s magazine and the parenting magazine had an ad for Frosted Mini Wheats. This was the ad in the men’s magazine:
And this was in the parenting magazine:
I do love that the girl is dreaming of being a doctor, but the cereal is marketed to men as a good source of fiber and a great start to the day, and to women as a way to ensure their child’s academic success.
I also studied the content of the magazine, focusing on the feature articles. They included articles about kid-friendly foods, holiday crafts, activities for each developmental stage, lists of “mom-approved” toys for the holidays, makeup tips, and how to help with homework, develop safe sleep practices, organize health records, and fully remove germs from a house after illness. One feature story was about teaching dinnertime manners to children: using napkins and utensils properly, chewing with mouths closed, complimenting the chef, sitting in ones chair, and not playing or burping at the table.
In essence, the message I got from this parenting magazine is that there is a lot that I need to know about parenting and a lot that I need to do for my children. That part’s not entirely surprising. But I should look young and beautiful while I do it, and my house should be tastefully decorated and germ-free. The advertisements tell me I should be fashionably dressed, financially secure, with cute jewelry and a nice car. I should own the latest tech gadgets, and do lots of shopping {obviously}. My children should be well behaved and play with mom-approved toys. I should generally be smiling, and I certainly should roll around in the grass with my kids once in a while. My husband won’t be doing it. He doesn’t know about their clothes or the proper meals to feed them or the medicines they need or the toys that are good for them or even the right kind of water to use for formula. He should just take the kids fishing.
No wonder another feature was called “Slow Down Your Crazy-Busy Life”! Toward the beginning of the article, it references a study of how parenting skills predict kids’ well-being: number two on the list was how well parents manage stress. In other words, slow down your life because it’s what’s good for your children, not necessarily for you. The article did include some helpful advice, such as going to bed earlier, finding downtime and “me-time” during the day, and simply “letting it go.” But then it also, a bit confusingly, suggested getting up 20 minutes earlier!
And if lack of sleep continued to be a problem, a feature in the beauty section had this:
Not all that I saw in the magazine was upsetting ~ there were some helpful parenting tips, and I appreciated the article debunking myths about vaccinations. I myself have praised the writing of parenting experts, and I love reading parenting books, but page after page after page of new tips and ideas felt overwhelming after a while. And to think, a whole new set of suggestions will arrive next month!
Overall, I was a bit surprised by these traditional images of motherhood. Though this ad is for feminine protection, the message perhaps reveals a bit of what we are telling women about motherhood, too:
This “investigation” was prompted by several books about motherhood that I have read recently, including our November Brilliant Book Club pick, Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink by Katrina Alcorn. I’ve also just finished Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner, and Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness by Jessica Valenti.
While each book is different in its approach to analyzing contemporary motherhood in the US, all three authors share a similar premise: today’s mothers are overwhelmed, anxious, and under-supported as they are pressured to live up to almost impossible standards of perfection. I wanted to see if these expectations of “total motherhood” and selfless striving were still celebrated today.
In many ways, I can relate to these authors’ experiences with and observations of motherhood. For example, I do feel pressure to raise kids with perfect behavior {I dread being that mother with the melting-down child in public} and with perfect health. I feel pressured by expectations to always be engaging my children and making sure they’re involved in the proper number of activities. I am continually reminded of our culture’s assumption that the mother is the default parent — our former pediatrician’s office had special parking spaces for “Moms with small children.” I have felt judged as a mother {for example, an online commenter questioned my mothering ability because I admitted I had yelled at my children}.
But in other ways, motherhood for me isn’t all about anxiety and pressure and judgment. My husband and I are pretty good at sharing responsibility for our children and our home – he does all the laundry, and I have never once cut my children’s nails {my husband does it religiously.} I don’t feel guilty for working full time outside of the home. Despite sometimes getting criticized for it, I feel comfortable revealing my imperfections as a mother, both with my friends and on my blog. I think we are getting better as a culture about talking about the hard parts of parenting, that it’s not all smiles and crafts and snuggles.
I guess that is why I was a bit surprised by these articles and advertisements.
I want to hear from you. How do you think motherhood is portrayed in our culture today? What do you think of these ads? Do we still sell a message of total, selfless motherhood? Are we getting better about revealing the more realistic aspects of motherhood? What expectations do you feel are placed upon you as a mother, or father?
I am interested in continuing this conversation with you in the comments!
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