They should. There are a lot of us.
Since the dawn of advertising, marketing strategies aimed at female consumers have had two goals: to convince them that the products being advertised would 1) help them get a man or 2) make them better mothers and wives.
In the first category: makeup, perfume, clothing, fitness and hair care products that will make you sexier to men. You wear certain mascara, dab on expensive perfume and exercise until you get flat abs and you’ll snag a guy. Even your hair must be considered as part of your arsenal of sexual attraction (check out the $18 volumizing spray called for in this “10 Ways to Sexy Hair” article from InStyle.)
Full disclosure: I wear makeup and jewelry. I style my hair. I wear clothes that flatter me, hopefully. I view these elements as ways to express my personal style, not as symbols of some kind of single-woman-desperation.
The second category is even more insidious. Pick up any non-fashion-oriented women’s magazine next time you’re at the supermarket and you’ll find tons of ads for food items, cleaning products, toys for kids and home décor accessories – all of which you should buy and use if you want to make your family happy and healthy. These seemingly benign promotions are manipulative and damaging. Women have a tough time trying to live up to the idealized versions of wives and moms that are thrust upon them by society. I know this from friends who are wives and mothers. I know this from my own mother.
But I’m getting off track.
Time to ditch the stereotype
“How is it 2018 and many marketers still think a single woman is just a married couple who hasn’t happened yet?” That question is posed by Jess Lloyd in an AdWeek article entitled, “It’s Time to Ditch the Isolating Single Women Stereotypes and Expand Marketing Efforts to Include Them.” Continue reading
Naturally – it is the Wall Street Journal – the three women home buyers profiled in the piece are wealthy (by my standards, anyway). The writer notes that one decided to downsize to a house that was easier to care for – from a 5,000 square foot house to a 3,200 square foot one. Another bought a 7,000-square-foot house with six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. Granted, she wants to have room for her kids, mother and eventual grandkids to stay when they visit. (Her kitchen is pictured at left.)
I was at a driving range yesterday having Golf Lesson #2 when a man drove up in one of those caged vehicles that drive around golf courses, picking up balls.
An older guy I know on a casual basis asked me for a hug recently – then copped a feel.
I was talking to a college teacher yesterday. As an experiment, she had her students list the attributes of someone who would be considered “pretty.”
Here’s how to do it:
Here I am, a humble single girl trying to make it on my own — just like Mary Tyler Moore was in her 1970s hit TV show — and yet still people reflexively ask me all the time: “Who are you dating?” “Will you ever get married?” “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
Last night I went to the symphony, which gave me a rare opportunity to dress up. This time – in addition to a fancy outfit and large, glittery earrings, I decided to take the ultimate step. I pulled a pair of rather beautiful high heels from the back of the closet and put them on. (The picture at right is actually of me. Not really.)
