The Use Of Feminism In Advertisements: Always “#LikeAGirl - Unstoppable”
In this world where competition exists everywhere, it’s not surprising to see that companies rely heavily on advertisements to sell their products. One way is that companies promote feminism is in their ads, which is seen in Always “#LikeAGirl - Unstoppable” pad commercial. The video shows the negative impacts that society have on women, which are seen by the distinctive words used to portray ladies in the video. However, the message that the video is trying to say is that society prevents a girl from doing what she wants even though girls are capable of doing it.
Always takes advantage of feminism to sell their products rather than focusing on helping solve gender equality #LikeAGirl - Unstoppable, which is a strategy that the company uses to sell their products. At the beginning of the video, Always starts off by asking girls “have you ever been told because you're a girl that you should not do something?”. All of the girls said yes. One of the girls said that “be kind of traditional, like don't do something too challenging” and another said “I can't really like. . . rescue anybody” Then, the girls were then asked to write down one thing that they said that represented their limitations. Some of the things they wrote down were “girls aren’t strong” and “can’t be brave”. These are all examples that society limit girls and tell them what they should or shouldn’t be, making men perceiving women this way to be considered normal. An example of this could be that women get paid less than men work from the same contribution of work. Research has shown that “women are paid 16% less for making a contribution of the same value to their employer. ” and for work that is the same value of men “value the average woman in the private for-profit sector was paid only 84 cents for every $1 paid to the average man. ” One possibility is that employers could stereotype “women as being less productive than men, and pay them commensurately with their value only once they had had a chance to demonstrate their productivity” showing sexism as the main driver of the gender wage gap. In the quote, “I would be more inclined to say that men’s power has been successfully distributed in such a way that access to male physical strength is more easily accessed (and easier to take for granted). Roads are built using large machines, and most men’s physical work. Machines have not replaced men, but have supplemented men’s strength. And these machines were built mostly by men’s labor, and so on down the chain of events. ” shows that men work with these jobs because the machines are strong and “Men are naturally dominant, women are naturally submissive, thus men are superior” demonstrates that women and men are expected to behave in their own certain ways because any behavior outside of the norm will not be accepted by society. With these facts in a society being perceived as norms this discourages women to work hard toward success because they are being portrayed as weak.
Towards the end of the video, the message “Share how you are unstoppable #likeagirl” is shown. This message is directed at women and is an example of Postfeminism. The messages encourage people to share #likeagirl on social media to show that girls are no longer the disadvantages gender and to promote its product. By using a feminist point of view, Always hopes to show women that they have power and tells them to not let others put them down and affect their choices that they decide to make, which is shown throughout the video. However, Always, the company itself does not take any effective actions towards helping women achieve equality. Rather, it is promoting its own brand through the portrayal of supporting a current event. The way that Always sells their product in the add is actually deceptive. Always knows that gender equality is a problem that still exists in today’s society. By combining both the problem of gender equality and a girls emotion, Always is able to promote its goods.
First Always as the question “have you ever been told because you're a girl that you should not do something?” to introduce a gender equality problem that girls are told that they should not do something because it’s meant for men to do. Then the video ends with “Share how you are unstoppable #likeagirl” to get people to share this on social media with the intent to sell their product and not have any direct connection with gender issues. Nevertheless, it does cause audiences to connect Always products with supporting the fight for gender equality.
The method that is used by Always is clever by deceiving its audience that the issue of gender equality is an issue while with the intent of promoting their product. Audiences will need to recognize that buying the products from Always will not help feminist activists to achieve anything and that it is only helping companies generate revenue. In conclusion, companies that promote their goods with a current event problem is most likely trying to make money off you and have no intent in trying to fix the event issue. Buying a product from companies that use this tactic will not help spread the issue of a current event problem.
