When are women’s “problems” really problems? According to the vintage ads I’ve collected below, only when they affect a man.
You gals may want to pay special attention to that delicate female problem that has destroyed so many marriages. And no, despite the headline for the ad below, I’m not talking about poor spelling.
And yes, that really was an ad for Lysol. The good folks at Lysol hoped to get women so worried about the effect of their “one neglect” on the men in their lives that they would actually put Lysol in their vaginas. Evidently this ad campaign proved successful; there are a lot of these old Lysol ads floating around. Like this one:
Lysol wasn’t the only brand hoping that women would blame their allegedly smelly vaginas for any problems in their marriages:
And speaking of that whole lady area down there, meet this fellow:
Once you’ve got all your female troubles under control, there’s a simple way to win men back:
The only question is if he’s ready for this jelly.
EDITED TO ADD: Here’s one more! It does not involve the lady regions, however.
Seriously?!? LYSOL?!!!!
I know that when I was doing some archival work on women’s magazines of the WWII era, I found a lot of “creative” feminine uses for Listerine, but this one really ups the ante. Is it any wonder that women have struggled for so long not to see their bodies as something horrifying and disgusting?
All in the name of selling more cleaning chemicals…
Not to mention the treatments those women are going to need when they end up with damage and infections from putting things that don’t belong there into a very sensitive area of their bodies…
My only question about that last one is: can it be used by a man to make himself happy? Or is that jam-based self abuse and unsightly before the Lord?
Even though I’ve known about the Lysol thing for a long time, it never ceases to amaze me reading these ads.
It’s a furniture cleaner and a douching solution!
Seriously, how much would you have to worry someone before she’d even consider applying a household cleaning product to her own body? Beauty treatments are seriously horrifying…
This was my introduction: http://books.google.com/books/about/Pink_Think.html?id=uB68a7pXe6MC
I’m in the same boat, lightcastle. Every time I read it I go, “That can’t be true,” even though I know it is.
I used to use Lysol for cleaning and even diluted (and I diluted the “ready to use” stuff) it dried out my hands horribly if I didn’t use gloves. I cannot imagine what effect it must have had on more sensitive tissues.
Clean the floors and your vag! Man, that Lysol does it all.
Lysol – rids your wife of feminine odor and of that pesky libido too! Because it’s hard to get enthusiastic about sex if you’ve just put bleach up your ladybits.
Let’s not get too smug about the silly people in ye olde days though. Douches still exist. The first time I saw a Summer’s Eve ad in a magazine I was going, wait, really? This stuff hasn’t been banned yet?
It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/shimmer-floor-wax/n8625/
The first one is interesting. The headline is aimed at men; if it were printed in a men’s magazine, then that would be understandable as a way to sell a women’s product. But the body is aimed at women. So it probably was printed in a women’s or general magazine and the message is “don’t have nerves because it’ll bother your husband.”
Clean the floors and your vag!
I first read that as “clean the floors with your vag.” I was imagining a woman scooting around on the floor like dogs sometimes do… Maybe Lysol’s onto something.*
*Lysol’s not onto something.
Bagelsan: It’s the new Swiffer!
Perhaps the lady in the first ad is nervous because she just squirted some bleach into her nethers.
@hellkell: It puts the “wife” in Swiffer!
HA!
Solve your post-bleach itching problems before they irritate your poor husband and get your floors clean all at once!
Oh great, so if you find dingleberries on the floor you no longer know who to blame.
It just makes the game of “Whose Dingleberry is This?” that much more interesting.
Awww, you left out my favourite:
http://media.crazyleafdesign.com/2011/01/print-ads-through-the-decades-the-50s-201.jpg
Nora Ephron (RIP) wrote a great essay (I think in her collection Scribble Scribble written in the 1970s) about feminine hygiene sprays. Remember those? Do they still sell them?
Mornidine? Wasn’t that Thalidomide?
WOMEN
DOES YOUR BODY MILDLY INCONVENIENCE THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE
THE ONLY WAY TO FIX IT IS HORRIBLE HORRIBLE PAIN
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT YOU FORCED US TO HURT YOU LIKE THAT
(…Jesus wept.)
@Stepford Knife: Because we all know how terrible it is when your woman refuses to cook you a humongous breakfast because your fetus is making her throw up.
(At least I think that’s what that ad is for, the copy’s so small I can’t read it very well.)
hellkell- no, according to Wikipedia Mornidine was a different and earlier drug, and it was withdrawn for causing liver damage. Shame- I’m sure everyone here will agree that a bit of liver damage is a small price to pay to ensure your man always gets his morning sammich.
@CassandraSays, I don’t think that women using douches says anything about their intelligence. Instead, it reflects the sad state of affairs that happens when women aren’t educated about our bodies, shamed for them and then exploited by companies out to make a buck. Seems like a natural reaction in that situation…if you’re only taught that your body is shameful and dirty, and then you see ads telling you how to clean it and make it good, of course you’re going to buy into it.