Woman and Home / 1st January 1962
Great ad: shame that it’s for suet. If you don’t know what suet is, here’s the Wikipedia entry. Blegh. Also, I have NEVER heard of ‘hard sauce’, and was fascinated by the ‘Robin Hood Roll’ being called ‘Quorn Roll’ when Quorn is now a well-known meat substitute.
Tags: Atora, blatant sexism, cooking, food, kids, motherhood, retail, social history
Woman / 17th August 1973
Kellogg’s have suggested recipes to consumers of Rice Krispies for years, but this is the first example of activities I’ve seen them suggest without using the famous cereal. The recipe suggestions continue up to the present day on their website, but it’s a shame they’ve turned Snap, Crackle and Pop into such annoying twats on the US version.
Tags: food, Kelloggs, kids, motherhood, retail
Woman's Weekly / 9th March 1957
Because, y’know, a bit of rough skin might damage them irreversibly, or something. All part of the rather depressing message sent to women that they not also had to work all the day long in the house, but they couldn’t show any symptoms of having done so, because reality might upset not only their husband, but their children as well.
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, blatant sexism, emotional blackmail, marriage, motherhood, retail, social history
Woman's Weekly / 2nd August 1957
THIS IS IMPORTANT! We’ve passed right over emotional blackmail here and gone to all-out panic, it seems. Although Izal is still on sale, it’s never beaten soft toilet paper in British affections, despite shrill adverts like this. On the contrary, there’s few people who remember it fondly from the days when it was used in public and school toilets, as this set of reviews proves. According to some posters, there’s a special knack to getting the best out of Izal, but it does rather seem like a lot of work, and folding it into three would negate the less ‘wasteful’ claim of the advert. Frankly, a proper hand wash sounds like a better idea to me.
Tags: dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, Izal, motherhood, retail, social history
Woman's Own / 21st March 1969
“You can’t feed a family without breaking eggs.” I think vegan families may beg to differ, but I chose this ad because I thought it was visually striking, as well as being amusing in itself. I miss all these marketing boards for food staples; the leek pie ad was placed by the Flour Marketing Board.
Tags: blatant sexism, Egg Marketing Board, eggs, emotional blackmail, food, marriage, motherhood, social history
Woman's Own / 21st March 1969
Oh my. Don’t you just love the sorts of adverts which patronise women horribly, whilst being under the impression they’re doing them a favour? Reading this advert, you wouldn’t have thought that women in the UK have actually been driving since around WW1, although, to be fair, I do remember my mother telling me that ‘women didn’t drive’ when she was growing up. I’m particularly tickled by the idea that, because housewives were coping with more complex domestic gadgets by 1969, they were better equipped to tackle a big scary car. You can’t fault the moral “a washing machine today – the family chauffeur tomorrow!”, either. Oh. Sorry. You can.
Tags: blatant sexism, BSM, marriage, motherhood, motoring, retail
Woman's Weekly / 9th March 1957
Presumably the whooping cough vaccine was in its early days, as I don’t think a handy cut-out-and-keep guide to it would be considered necessary nowadays, a tribute to just how successful the vaccination programme has been. My mother, born in the early 1940s, survived whooping cough as a baby, which made her fortunate, but I was even more fortunate not to have to face the risk.
Tags: health, kids, motherhood
Woman's Weekly / 9th March 1957
Hm. I don’t have a problem with giving children something to ease symptoms of illness at all, but I don’t think this type of emotional blackmail is quite on, do you?
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, blatant sexism, dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, health, kids, motherhood, retail
Woman's Own / 29th September 1967
Here’s another agony aunt: this time, Mary Grant of Woman’s Own. Obviously there’s around 10 years difference between this page and Mary Marryat’s, but there’s a definite difference in tone with Mary Grant, and I like her a lot more. Her advice to the poor woman being hounded to have more children (I wonder if her husband would have the same opinion if he had to carry the child and give birth to it?) is sound, with her advice to just about everyone else on the page also fair and level-headed. In the context of the time, her advice to the last writer does make sense, although nowadays, thankfully, the writer would be freer to leave a man who was treating her badly and to sort out her life. In 1967, it was very difficult indeed to be a single mother.
Tags: marriage, Mary Grant, motherhood, pregnancy, problem page, social history, teenagers
Woman's Own / 16th August 1968
Aw. So many British children were taken into town to be dressed by Ladybird, Woolworths’ range of childrens’ clothing. Alas, no more: Woolworths was a high-profile victim of the recent recession, but the clothing (as well as the shop) survives online. I thought this charming advert was a nice tribute.
Tags: blatant sexism, kids, Ladybird, motherhood, retail, social history