All of these ads share two qualities with “World’s Toughest Job”: first, they present child-rearing as primarily the responsibility of mothers, and second, they reflect and reinforce contemporary assumptions about what motherhood entails. Our current parenting culture of taxing schedules, organic snacks, and profound emotional involvement—motherhood as a contact sport—pressures women to perform to impossible standards. Of course “World’s Toughest Job” went viral: these are challenging times for parents, and its message of praise for mothers seems, on the surface, to acknowledge these challenges. But the particular ideal of motherhood the ad presents—mom as superhuman, capable of physically impossible feats, all “with a happy disposition”—isn’t actually helpful to women (another feature that the video shares with ads that have used moms to sell things throughout history)
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 12:17:30 +0000
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