Note: The following post contains a few Arabic words, as well as a complimentary glossary of terms at the bottom of the page for your reading convenience.
Allow me to introduce a long-awaited Unrealisdick segment titled…
Be 100% sexist!
It is overwhelmingly disconcerting for many an Arab feminist to bear witness to the ungodly bombardment of advertisements targeting women in this region. Case in point, the good people at Reckitt Benckiser strive to make it their sadistic policy to aid their target audience in the development of rage-induced peptic ulcers as they showcase irrefutably sexist advertisements promoting their rather well-known product “Dettol”.
Dettol can be found in nearly every household across the Arab region, which is mostly unsurprising. As far as hiding embarrassing bathroom smells and eliminating the notorious *زنخة that we all know and despise, Dettol gets the job done. In my honest opinion, the quality of the product was never in question. We’ve used Dettol in my own house since I was a child: got a bad scrape? Dettol. Played with a street cat? Dettol. Midnight Menthol unbeknownst to Mumzy? Dettol.
Lately, however, I’ve been hesitant to grab any Dettol product off the shelf, as I cannot help remembering the many sexist ads I’ve had to repeatedly censure over the past couple of years much to the annoyance/amusement of anyone seated on the other side of the couch. So, what’s the problem? Aside from resisting the near inexorable urge to smash television sets in response to these advertisements, there are the actual advertisements themselves…
One wonders where to even begin with what’s wrong with this ad. The woman (not surprising, yet so disappointing) featured in this advertisement is portrayed as the poor victim of time-consuming chores; she can’t tend to her needy family at their beck and call because she is too preoccupied with cleaning up after their messes! Poor Mama’s missing all the fun! Whatever will she do? Have no fear, Dettol is here! According to these experts, Dettol’s strength will help Mama kill germs and clean faster than you can say, “Why the fuck isn’t anybody else doing any chores?” Yes, Dettol will ensure that your gender-appropriate household duties won’t interfere with the proper care of your otherwise incompetent family!
This unoriginal material is just one example of an ad that manages to incorporate sexism, heterosexism, and gender stereotyping in a mere eye-twitching 29 seconds that all but reduce women to familial slaves. It is also paramount that we take note of the children’s roles in this ad: the son, dressed in what appears to be a football uniform, is cavalierly tracking mud throughout the house, suggesting that he was merrily playing outside while his sister is in the kitchen…baking a cake. Don’t think that’s a big deal? This next ad might change your mind.
The beginning of this ad doesn’t seem so terrible. Just a bunch of children happily playing indoors together, having a grand ol’ time, until…
0:21 seconds
A woman and girl are spotted in their natural habitat: the kitchen. And look! The little one has her very own fun-sized *قحاطة guaranteed to prepare her for the exciting chores that lie ahead in her promising future. She had better grow up to use Dettol, otherwise she will wind up like cautionary-tale-Mama from the first video.
And while these females contentedly clean house with nothing but gleaming smiles on their bright faces, a young boy wearing a karate gi uses the freshly polished floor as his own personal slip ‘n slide before he excitedly jumps out in-stance from behind a corner to surprise his father who, by the way, appears to have just arrived home from work. Starting to notice a pattern? The young boys in these ads are usually portrayed as physically active, playful, messy, and interested in organized sports. The girls are, for the most part, in the kitchen.
“Let us engage in masculine behavior to affirm that we are, in fact, males, my son.”
Aside from the visual component of this shameless perpetuation of sexism and gender roles, let’s focus for a moment on the unfair linguistic aspect of these advertisements. For those of you unfamiliar with Arabic, it is a highly gendered language with both male and female forms for nearly everything, from people, to animals, to inanimate objects. It is very apparent to anyone who understands Arabic that these ads were deliberately designed to address a female audience, and only a female audience. In fact, the translation of Dettol’s slogan — “Be 100% sure!” — makes an appearance at the end of each of the ads and is evidently addressing women, specifically mothers:
We are left to ponder why brand management would not simply remedy this situation by employing the pronoun which addresses a more general audience, but, then again, there unfortunately exists the misconception that doing so would somehow violate the natural order under which women ought to be the only interested consumers of any cleaning detergent on this earth.
While these ads continue to debase women as well as incite guilt in mothers who do not use Dettol, they do share one positive educational element in common: “sexism” and “gender stereotypes” are not mutually exclusive concepts and, much to the dismay of women and girls everywhere, they are still very much alive. How is this awareness a good thing? Well, prior to my very vocal ranting in her presence, my own mother could not see the fault in Dettol’s advertisements. They raised no red flags in her mind because she had become so accustomed to the portrayal of women as the primary caretakers in the family unit. In other words, it just made sense to her that the ads would target women, as she claimed that men display no interest whatsoever in undertaking household chores or child rearing, so somebody has to do the work!
My mother is an intelligent woman, but those associations between “female” and “cleaning” had been made long ago (probably while she was still a fetus), and I would frequently overlook this result of conditioning whenever I’d ask how she could not possibly see the damage these ads were causing. “It’s not that men have no interest in cleaning, Mama,” I’d pose time and time again. “It’s that nobody ever really socializes men to take such an interest because they’ve all been conditioned to view it as a woman’s job. And even if they did, you have ads like these reminding young girls everywhere that it’s their job, not the men’s.”
I cannot count on both hands and feet the times I have had to explain this to her. However, I am happy to say that my mother, once a firm believer in a woman’s role as *”ست البيت”, has recently joined the opposition. I would wager she was able to reach her own critical conclusions regarding these degrading ads because she had no choice but to listen to my incessant griping about the flagrant misrepresentation of females in almost every one of Dettol’s advertisements. This is no exaggeration, I assure you.
Here, I’ll generously toss you one more just to prove it:
If you think it stops at TV advertising, you are sorely mistaken. I leave you with the following snapshot taken straight from the Dettol SA Facebook page. Click to enlarge the picture and read the full description.
The description says “children”, but the picture predictably features a little girl ready to clean a fucking kitchen.
The next time you purchase a Dettol product, consider what Dettol has to say about your sex and/or gender. Although, you can be 100% sure that Reckitt Benckiser makes no distinction between the two beyond the observable gender-specific advertising targeting females like a homing missile.
Until the next AdRant, I remain sincerely yours,
Lore.
Glossary of terms
“زنخة“, pronounced “zankha“: A rancid stench caused by raw chicken, fish, eggs, etc.
“قحاطة“, pronounced “qahata“: A cleaning instrument used on floors that seems to have no direct English translation.
“كوني متأكدة“, pronounced “kuni muta’akida“: The phrase “Be sure” addressed to a female.
“ست البيت“, pronounced “sit el-beit“: “Woman of the house”, a woman who is adept at competently carrying out household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, etc.
Unrealisdick 
Boom! Destroyed.
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