Beauty companies now want women to feel insecure about our insecurities

[ismnotwasm]

Ask for more money. Stop with the "up-speak". Love your body! The helpful pieces of very public advice thrown at women sure are starting to sound more like orders than encouragement. And the latest bit of go-get-'em girl guidance – a commercial from Pantene imploring women to stop apologizing for everything – has just about sent me over the edge. Because instead of just selling us physical insecurity by implying we're fat or wrinkly, beauty companies are now trying to make us feel insecure about our insecurities – all while giving themselves a pat on the back for "empowering" us to feel better (and collecting our money, of course).

Pantene is the most recent company to fall into the "confidence gap": telling women that the source of their woes isn't workplace inequality or crappy partners who don't do their fair share, but women themselves. According to this new dictum, women are self-sabotaging at work, love and life.

The shampoo giant's new ad, part of its #ShineStrong campaign – as in, the shiny hair that you'll have if you buy their product – opens with a question: "Why are women always apologizing?" Viewers are then treated to vignettes of women saying "sorry" for various non-infractions – including, but not limited to: a woman in a business meeting who interrupts a colleague with, "Sorry, can I ask a stupid question?"; a woman who takes back stolen bed-covers from her partner; and a harried mom apologizing for handing a toddler over to dad.

It's hard to disagree with the premise – it's true, these women have nothing for which they need to apologize (and yet many women still do in those situations). The same goes for Dove's incredibly popular "real beauty" campaign – yes, all body types should be accepted and loved. But there's something incredibly irritating, and crass, about beauty purveyors instructing women to "stop apologizing" or "stop hating their bodies" when many such insecurities stem, at least in part, from these very companies' advertisements.

Let's not forget, for example, that Dove's parent company Unilever not only produces the scourge-of-the-nostrils Axe Body Spray – not exactly a bastion of female empowerment – but actual skin lightening creams for women of color. Love your body ... so long as you're white?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/19/beauty-companies-women-pantene-sorry

[CTyankee]

1. As I get older, I get bolder.

I don't much give a sh*t what I say (as long as it isn't hurtful to people) when it comes to stuff like this. I am now plotting with my 18 year old granddaughter to be a guerrilla fighter in this thing. I figure I can make some inroads with a young woman needing to arm herself with everything she's got (and she's got a LOT) and goes off to college...age DOES have its advantages!

[ismnotwasm]

2. Heh!

Yup

[SheilaT]

3. People need to stop looking at ads as best they can.

The first thing is to turn off commercial TV. Secondly, be very selective about the magazines you read.

[redqueen]

4. That's a solution for individuals.

Yes it does help us individually if we just don't watch commercial TV, look at billboards, listen to ads on the radio, etc.

However that ignores the fact that millions of others are still being bombarded with toxic messages. So the best thing to do is to talk about them so that others who read about them and might see the ads not only will be less susceptible to the ads themselves, but may also in turn tell others.

IMO women need to do a lot less 'just ignoring it' and a lot more 'speaking the fuck up'.

[SheilaT]

6. Those who see them probably should speak up.

Since I don't own a TV and therefore see very little commercial advertising, there is simply a huge lot I've never seen. People have no clue how sucked in they are by all the incredible commercialism, and all the trivialization of almost everything, unless they actually disconnect from all of that for a significant period of time.

I am quite well informed (in my opinion) about those things that matter, and I have zero interest in almost any celebrity news, or caring about who is dating or divorcing someone.

Right now I'm staying with my sister for a week, and I'm going slightly crazy because the TV is on from first thing in the morning until last thing at night. Right now I'm in the dining room with my laptop and typing this. I am beginning to feel dumber just by being bombarded with the TV all day.

[niyad]

5. just heard about that new campaign from pantene--what nonsense. all

designed, of course, to make one feel good about purchasing their products --LOOK how they are empowering us!!!! fortunately, too old and much too cranky to be amused by this latest mind game.

[nomorenomore08]

7. Nothing more empowering than being a good consumer, right?

[niyad]

8. the sad fact is that there will be a lot of women who are completely conditioned

to fall for this bs.

[Shivering Jemmy]

10. Industrial society would collapse

If we couldn't get people to buy stuff they don't need.

Not sure what that says about us.

[niyad]

11. what it says is that, somewhere along the line, society (read: patriarchy)

made some truly non-life-affirming decisions about the direction to go, and we continue to pay the price.

[Shivering Jemmy]

12. Here's the hard question:

Can we fix it without destroying ourselves? Or have we painted ourselves into a corner?

[niyad]

13. would like to believe that we can, there is certainly a lot of effort being made.

[Shivering Jemmy]

9. Humans need 4 things

Food, shelter, sleep and affection.

Everything beyond that is a need someone has created in us through a process of convincement.