During my childhood days, social studies text described
family as follows:
- Father, the guardian who takes care of your house and earns
money for family
- Mother, the person who cooks and does household works
(mainly cooking)
- Son helps father to do shopping and other works
- Daughter assists mom in cooking and gardening
But after a decade, life has changed. I don’t think the
social studies would recite the same thing for new generation kids. They find
both their parents working together at kitchen and going out to office. Today
mother and father earn for the family. Even if there are a few families that
hold patriarchal system of women at kitchen and men at verandah, many have
changed. The social concept of equality is emerging though at a snail’s pace.
There is still a belief that women can be fooled easily.
Common sense and tactics to deal with things doesn’t belong to men only. The
image of woman depicted in televisions is still that of a ‘good for nothing’
creature
A recent ad by a famous desi mobile network provider shook
me badly. In that advertisement, a guy proposes a girl from a cafeteria. She
says, “I’m ok. But you must change your status in Facebook as IN A
RELATIONSHIP”. And the guy is confused. Now the girl says you can’t fool
females anymore as we have that particular network provider to help us with
IDEAs.
That commercial became a hit in channels. But if you analyze
that ad, you’d find a few points that are extremely annoying:
- Girls can be easily fooled
- Females can survive only with assistance
- Changing Facebook status is the most important thing in life
- A relationship status is a public thing and not confined between two people
Ads can be creative and funny. But it must have logic. The
meanings in between words and scenes convey a lot. Commercials like this would
result in decrease of woman’s confidence. We need self-assured woman folks for
national empowerment. Let us realize the real sense behind these ads and not
think that we need support to react. You are strong enough to judge what is
right and wrong. Be yourself!
