Have a cigar! With the passing of International Women’s Day, we thought it might be interesting to reflect on the good old days of chauvinistic sexism. A time when a good woman knew her place– in the kitchen at the foot of her man. And when she wasn’t dreaming of getting appliances for Christmas she was flashing the power of her assets from a slinky evening dress.
We would like to think we’ve grown since the dogmatic days of Madison Avenue’s portrayal of women and wives and their love for pleasing their husbands through domesticated tasks. At least we seem to laugh at such stereotypes we see on Mad Men.
But even as sexist as Don Draper is, nothing in his television world compares to the crazy print advertisements from the 1960’s.
In fact, I think Don and his fellow ad men could only dream of creating sexist radio advertising as ludicrous (although funny) as these radio ads produced for DWG Cigar Corporation for their RG Dun line of cigars which are a clear reaction to the Women’s Liberation Movement of the time and could be considered as jaw-dropping in their over-the-top misogyny.
But advertising is often its most imaginative and humorous when there is social and cultural change and we shouldn’t take these ads on face value in 2016. I’m sure we can all agree they certainly don’t make them like this anymore!
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