On July 15 we were shown a series of Walmart commercials which main motif keeps to be the same over the years: family together. Below is a similar example to what we saw.
This is a very typical Walmart commercial. Look at the way Walmart advertises, it is not difficult to find out one of its important features: the ads are always narrated by a mother. Why does it matter? Certainly gender roles and stereotypes affect family interactions. In tradition, women do not work, and they are always the child bearer, and besides that, the housekeeper. Men are the boss in every household because they are the bread winner in the family. So women are economically and psychologically dependent on men. They must cook, keep the house clean and please their husbands so that they can keep their marriage. They must take good care of their husbands and children if they have any; this is very true in many cultures. So mothers are the biggest potential consumers for Walmart. By raising up a mother’s voice, Walmart’s commercial gets other mothers’ attention, and then it ends up with a big smile on everybody’s face, but who are the happiest and most satisfied? The mothers. It is not only because they can save money and live better, but also because Walmart products promise family togetherness.
It is the culture that modes people into certain scripts so that people fit in the society. Women are not born to be obedient, they become so because the society forces them to fit in. Yes, THE SOCIETY which men rule.
However, as Feminist’s voice has become louder and louder, people’s attitudes and stereotype gender roles have been, to certain extend, changed. To give an example, please watch the Heineken commercial of the following.
Women want beauty, and men want fun. This is true in human nature. In the video the women are dressing fancy clothes, behaving socially, standing rigidly and distant from each other, admiring a fancy closet which may symbolize money and vanity fair. On the contrary, the men are wearing just polo shirts and they seem to be close friends, hugging each other and being excited about a walk-in fridge that is full of Heineken, which may represent having fun together. Compared with the first video, the second commercial has somewhat reflected a societal change in stereotyped gender roles, that more and more women work, and they tend to be more ambitious social climbers.
It is not uncommon to see a woman leader nowadays. According to an online database, there are 14 countries which have female presidents and prime ministers currently in power, and those include Ireland, Finland, The Philippines, Mozambique, Germany, Liberia, Chile, India, Haiti, Argentina, Bangladesh, Gabon, Iceland and Lithuania.
In the American soap opera Gossip Girl we can also see female influence in the society, to be more accurate, in the elite. One of the characters I want to mention about is Anne Archibald, who is a wife and a mother. She manages to help her family business in every way to get promoted, for instance, she will urge her son Nate to propose to Blair, whose mother is an influential woman and has a big liaison network. Her husband, Howard Archibald, lives under her pressure because she always pushes him to do things he is not capable to, and then he loses himself in drugs to release the stress. Even though this soap opera is fictional, the story reflects a real problem or say phenomenon in the present days societies, that women’s status in a family has been profoundly changed, and the function of a family has been redefined.
