'Think of a New Way to Get Men to Buy Stuff. By Caitlin, year 10

Since when was advertising so demeaning to women? I mean, we’ve supposedly achieved equality. 

I first noticed this trend when I was watching a ‘Head and Shoulders’ advert and then, surprisingly, a few weeks later a similar advert for men’s face cream appeared. The general pattern of these adverts is as follows; ‘men, look at women with all their silly cosmetic products. You don’t need to bother with all of that because you are a strong man (strong man appears and violently knocks pink bottles off a shelf), all you need is ONE product’. 

Maybe one of the reasons I find this advert so sexist is that I’ve been using Head and Shoulders for years and I don’t appreciate being told that I’m using a men’s product. But I think the main reason I dislike this advert is this. Who are all these women in adverts using many products for? Men. 

Who would claim that these same women are lazy and need to make more of an effort if they didn’t use these cosmetics? Men. 

Whilst I agree that it’s stupid that women feel pressured into using these products by society, this advert appeared to suggest that it’s women’s fault they feel this way. I wouldn’t call myself a great feminist but in this case I feel like it’s something men need to sort out.  

This is not a good advertising campaign-especially in a nation where the majority of people are female, as it calls women stupid and then shows their property bring violently knocked to the floor, which feels kind of like a metaphor. 

This goes beyond a stupid advert because it’s just sexist to suggest that women are stupid for wanting to impress men or other women or even if they just want to impress themselves. Besides, how come men don’t have to use lots of products? How come when women choose not to use lots of hair products or cosmetics they’re called lazy but it’s considered stupid if men do? This goes the other way too because it’s insulting any men who do spend a lot of time on their appearance and suggesting that they’re rather feminine (which is an obvious ploy to get them to use the product in the advert).

Whilst I’m here I may as well mention the USA. If anything, America 'the beautiful' is worse than the UK. I mean, if you go on YouTube there are age restricted Hardees’s advert which generally feature women in bikini tops looking suggestive. 

Come on world, this is the 21st century. Think of a new way to get men to buy stuff.