ShamWow Feminism

Ladies, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the basic tenets of feminism are being neatly packaged, marketed and sold to you like a ShamWow.

They’re in your shampoo. They’re in your body wash. They’re scrawled all over your tampon boxes.

Big names such as Pantene, Nike and Kotex are seemingly beginning to acknowledge the disparity between both marketed images and reality, as well as the gendered experience between men and women as leaders in the workforce.

We all know in our heart of hearts that buying a certain type of soap won’t lessen that pay gap or end rape culture, but it’s comforting at first to believe there is a company out there that sympathizes with us and our struggles.

What is less comforting, however, is the near certainty that these ideas are merely clever marketing ploys. They are expertly designed to draw us even further into a system that capitalizes on our insecurities — first with our appearances, and then with our unequal place in society.

Take, for instance, the Campaign for Real Beauty launched by Dove in 2004. It claims to focus on how “women are bombarded with unrealistic, unattainable images of beauty that impact their self esteem.”

Although seemingly groundbreaking, Dove is actually owned by a much larger corporation — Unilever. You may recognize them as the vendors of several other problematic products, including Axe body spray for men, Fair & Lovely skin bleaching cream and Slimfast weight loss supplements.

Though Axe may do little more than conjure up the unpleasant ghosts of strong smells wafting out of middle school boys’ locker rooms, it is promoted by notoriously sexist advertisements.

The whitened beauty that the use of Fair & Lovely promises is marketed solely to non-white women in Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Even Slimfast yields the idea of a weight loss product that values slimness over fitness, and instant gratification over hard work for health.

One has to wonder how exactly we should feel empowered and beautiful as women when we are told by a company supposedly on our side that our bodies are not for us, that the color of our skin is inherently wrong or that we should get slim, and fast.

The other problem with this exploitation of “female empowerment” is not simply that it’s disingenuous, but the way it allows companies to appeal to a growing movement without being directly labeled with the often-stigmatic word “feminist”.

The softer language of “empowerment” has a placating effect. Through it, the rhetoric of feminism is diluted and twisted to appeal but demur — never offending.

It’s arguably inoffensive to use such brand-name products, but females and consumers need to hone a seriously critical eye.

Don’t go out and buy some deodorant because your aunt shared a Facebook link to its particularly moving ad. Do your research, and try to support products made locally.

In the meantime, though, the best retaliation is to love your bodies. Really love them — the dimples, the unfaded scars, your swarthy complexion and the straight line of your hips so many glamour magazines have referred to as “boyish”.

It is only then that we will be able to differentiate between true empowerment and manipulative marketing.

­— mcaranna@indiana.edu