As I was staying over at my partner's house last weekend, while I was taking a nice relaxing shower, I noticed something very sexist in the washroom. I mean most of us notice a gender difference in the washroom anyway due to different stereotypical items i.e. mens shaving/aftershave stuff, women's waxing kits etc. Recently I've been using loofah's quite often as winter's around the corner, I like to exfoliate and lather on some lotion before I head to bed. Unfortunately I didn't have a loofah handy in my partner's washroom so I decided to use whatever was hanging next to the tub. As I was just to pump shower gel onto the loofah, I noticed a few words saying "MENS CARE" embossed on the side of it. Now this particular loofah is quite unique. It's dual sided which means (refer to the bottom picture) one side is for exfoliating and the other is for normal cleansing. I haven't seen one of these for women in the past so I thought it was kinda cool actually. So I searched up the item on the Dove website (since that was it's brand) and noticed some details that kind of threw me off... First of all the item could only be found in the Men's Care section (they didn't have one made for women). Second of all it seems as though it's only marketed towards men (which is fair I guess since most Dove products are targeted towards women, but what about woman like me wanting to buy dual sided loofahs?) Thirdly, is it too "tough" for woman like myself because the descriptions for the item appealed to me that way. And last but not least, the packaging refers to it as an "Active Clean SHOWER TOOL"...
So what? Men can't go out and purchase a regular loofah? Why should companies like Dove market a stupid "tool" for men just so they can feel better about using a "cleaning tool" inside the shower instead of a regular loofah? This product yells obnoxious! I mean should men feel pressured in buying products that are supposed to be unisex? Or do men feel more okay about buying something with MEN ONLY labelled on it so it doesn't reflect the word SISSY on it? I'm not sure what it is but every time I look at that stupid loofah now I get reminded of all these questions. I guess loofah's aren't loofah's to men, they're feminine things that women use in the shower to clean themselves. But noooooo this dumb dual sided loofah lookalike thing is a SHOWER TOOL. I'm not saying this is exactly what all men think per se, but the way this item was advertised by Dove sure does!
I too have noticed this particular piece of advertising. Being a GSWS minor, it's quite obvious to me how differently male and female products are marketing despite the fact that many of them are almost identical. Those Dove commercials about protecting your man hide are offering products no different from women's products (just maybe with a manlier scent added in the mix) that protect their soft, womanly hides (read: sarcasm). Most commercials in general tend to fill me full of ironic amusement or angst in regard to the way they so blatantly (at least in my perspective) play to those still-strong gender roles of men and women. I think men are afraid of trying out a girly-looking product covered in pink and flower; similarly, girls are hesitant to try out that manly, dark product that may make them smell or look like a man... Oh the power of marketing!
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend has one of these but it's the axe version. The funny thing is that it's so stereotypically made to look masculine that I myself, didn't even think of it as a loofah! This is just a small example of all the items that are marketed to further widen the binary gap-- I mean really? now it's not manly to shower using a loofah? They have to clean themselves with an 'active shower' tool? LOL.
ReplyDeleteI think next time I go to my boyfriends house I'm gonna call it a loofah and see what he says!
I WANT ONE OF THOSE!!!!! Guess I can't though...it's only for men :( HAHA. right.
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