ATTENTION! Woman Found Scrubbing the Floors.

As I read the Honolulu Advertiser at breakfast, an advertisement with large red bold-type font caught my eye: “Woman Found Scrubbing the Floors.” What? Below the title was a young woman scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. Next to her head were the words, “Husband said she was on her hands and knees for days…Don’t let this happen to you. Buy an Oreck Orbiter today.”

Was this really happening? I grasped the paper and peered closer as a half-eaten Portuguese sausage slid off my fork and plopped onto the table. I looked for signs that the ad was a joke. Was I reading The Onion by mistake? Perhaps it was a rehash and analysis of some ancient ad from the 60’s? In disbelief, I began to show the ad to family members. They seemed mildly interested, as if to say, “yea, what’s abnormal about that? Why are you getting so worked up?”

I like to think of myself as a feminist. I fantasize about the erosion of gender constructs and all that comes with it. “Men” and “women” live within preset roles and we should fight them, and live as we are deep down. This ad must be a joke, from another time. It wasn’t.

I decided I’d let the ad wash over my consciousness and let it work its message, consciously. I started to pretend the woman was real. Her name was Jessica. Don’t ask why, she just looked like a Jessica. I began to construct different stories and narratives around Jessica with what little information the ad offered. The narrative was elaborate and complex. She had different personality traits and habits.

And I noticed…the less information there was, the more I inferred and the more meaning I constructed. Perhaps this is the aim of all advertisements. They present a scenario and let you think you are injecting your own meaning into it, but instead you are being guided towards their desired conclusion.
And then it happened – I began to subconsciously make excuses for the ad. What if Jessica truly chose to live her life this way? Perhaps she feels comfortable staying home and keeping the house clean? What if she feels liberated doing household duties? Who am I to judge what makes her happy?

I was making myself sick.

The most recent women’s movement intended to incorporate women into the upper ranks of the business world. It was supposed to liberate them from “needing a man” for sustenance, happiness.

Yes, women have greater access to what they didn’t before. They can earn salaries that enable them to be self-sufficient (albeit salaries remain unequal). They have access to far more jobs, opportunities, etc. But in the end they have only entered another oppressive sector of modernity, industry. Women are now subjected to alienating labor in the home and at work. Of course, not all labor inside the home and without is alienating by default, but the general reality is crystal clear.

As I looked deeper, I saw that even the woman in the ad was made a subject. All persons in advertisements are subjects. “Woman Found Scrubbing the Floors.” She is just a woman, they seem to say. The husband, the only one with agency, finds his wife scrubbing the floors “on her hands and knees for days.” However, the ad reminds us, “Don’t let this happen to you.” The remedy for the woman being subjected to this labor is not liberation, or for her “husband” to get on his hands and knees and help, but to buy a product from Oreck. The gateway to women’s liberation is for her husband to purchase goods for her, and then for her to consume such goods. She is obviously too dumb to realize she needs an Oreck Orbiter.

The key to liberation, according to this ad, is to buy more stuff. And men, you need to tell your woman what this stuff is, as she would just as readily mindlessly work on her hands and knees as opposed to thinking critically about her situation. The circularity of the argument is shocking. The life of the American “wife” is to labor at home, then sell their labor power on the market, use that money to more efficiently labor in the home (the Oreck Orbiter), then buy more stuff (perhaps a bigger house or have more kids), which will add to the amount of stuff that must be cleaned and maintained.

On the surface it appears that women in this country (or any other industrialized nation) are more liberated than any other. We immediately, and ignorantly, lecture on the world of atrocities against Muslim women who are “forced” to wear hijab. The U.S. apparently sets the standard for the liberation of women in this world. Heck, in the last election we had two women vying for executive positions. Doesn’t that mean we are doing well? Actually, if we think about how well we are dealing with racism during the tenure of our first “black” President, the actual “liberation” of women doesn’t seem to stand much hope.

Look, there is no doubt that the lifestyles of women have drastically changed. But we must ask ourselves, how have they changed? To be fair, there are overt changes that are constructive. But there are also subliminal and more subversive forces that have filled the void. We must ask ourselves, are these new forces even more toxic? Shall we all take a stand, “get off our hands and knees,” and liberate ourselves from the overt and subliminal chains we are subjected to?