Liberating Women

Leaders of the women's liberation movement have shown a penchant for oddball causes--from ban-the-bras to communal child rearing--that leave many women cold. Now the liberationists have trained their ire on a new target: the distorted image of women in advertisements. And this time the militants are gaining wide support among women.

Agency executives are understandably concerned, partly because women are by far the biggest buyers of packaged goods. To plumb the depths of discontent, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn conducted long interviews with 19 feminists, including writers, a photographer and Wall Street workers. The primary complaint was against the generally servile role of women in ads. Though nearly one-half of American women hold jobs, they are still depicted in many ads as scatterbrained homebodies, barely able to cope with piles of soiled laundry, dirty sinks and other mundane minutiae. In most of these ads, men instruct, while women do the servants' work. This, the feminists argued, only reinforces the idea of women's dependency on men.

Another grievance concerned the use of seductive poses or seminudity to push products. Most of these ads, the panelists noted, perpetuate the notion that women are mere sex objects. The feminists were also irked by ads that provoke guilt feeling with the implication that unless women buy the product they will fail as mothers, wives or lovers. A pet peeve: promotions for feminine-hygiene deodorants. The panelists believed that such products meet no real need.

Women's liberationists are by no means the only critics. Franchellie Cadwell, non-lib president of Cadwell Davis, a Manhattan ad agency with billings of $6,000,000, has been lecturing around the country on the subject. "Some advertisers act like women have brain damage," she says. "This has to change. Women are tired of insults."

Disadvantaged Minority. Miss Cadwell had a research group choose 607 women at random and ask one question: "What TV advertisement can you recall that you find particularly demeaning or objectionable?" Most-resented ads were for Right Guard deodorant, Axion presoak and Ultra Brite toothpaste. Right Guard's commercials show two families sharing the same medicine cabinet, and that, as Miss Cadwell sees it, belittles family life and offends women in their roles as wives and mothers. Women resent Arthur Godfrey's pitch for Axion, she believes, because it talks down to them. As for Ultra Brite's kiss-throwing commercials, she says: "Advertisers must think that women are stupid if they are to believe that a toothpaste will bring sex appeal." Other ads that the women found vexing included some for Crest toothpaste, Bold detergent, Dove soap, Colgate 100 mouthwash, Punch detergent, Ajax cleaner and Scope mouthwash.

Militants are getting into the act by defacing offending ads in buses, subways and on billboards with stickers proclaiming, THIS AD INSULTS WOMEN, Or THIS EXPLOITS WOMEN. Admen like to hold by formulas that they consider successful. But some executives in the business believe that they ultimately will have to take account of the feminine protest. "In advertising," says Dr. Robert Wachsler, a psychologist on the BBDO staff, "we will have to show women less as women and more as people."

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