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.
There have been some awesome* ads over the years. I found this collection a while ago and literally had to scrap my jaw off the ground when looking at them. The Lysol ads remind me of the ones Palmolive ran for their soap, which was a “use our soap so you can have lovely young lady skin and not scare your husband off, you old middle-aged hag” campaign… the heading was “Yes! Husbands stay lovers when wives guard against dry, lifeless “middle-age” skin!. Ugh.
http://www.thevine.com.au/life/thoughts/sexist-vintage-ads/gallery/0
* By awesome I mean amazingly horrible
Adelaide – argh, that first one about Lucky Strike as an appetite suppressant was gross, gross, gross. Ladies! You’ll be lovely and THIN and MODERN! Never mind the rotting yellow teeth, the emphysema, the blindness, the lung cancer! Trivialities, trivialities!
Argenti – I hear you about autumn! Best time of the year, when we get a good one, and that’s even without the gorgeous colours youse lot up north have (grrrs of envy here).
But we’re starting to get those beautiful mellow days at last. I took this in the gardens by the Shrine of Remembrance yesterday (Tuesday 8th, our time).
@Kittehs
I don’t know how it is down your way, but up here it feels like an extension of summer. Which I quite appreciate, but I realise a lot of people wouldn’t.
@Kitteh’s
In PSHE we were literally told “some people use cigarettes as a way to help losing weight, DO NOT DO THIS”. I don’t know if it actually works as a weight loss aid.
We also had the fun derail where we started talking about the icky things in cigarettes (including formaldehyde) and then went into how to embalm a corpse. We learnt useful things in PSHE sometimes. 😛
fricking cold and grey up here in Northern NSW
I’m not sure why the baby-drinking-a-pop ads were in the sexist ad collection, but yeah, that was pretty appalling. I suspect several ran in Playboy and similar publications only, where they were trying to ‘blend’ with the content, but still.
@Historophilia
Was it doctors advising using Lysol this way, or was it the makers of Lysol? Big difference, IMO – the tendency of companies to sell dangerous shit in the name of profit was probably the same back then.
In that era, it was very common for the companies to get a doctor who had no ethics, or perhaps serious gambling debts, to shill for them. (In the movie Soapdish, Kline’s character mentions that he started on the soap opera back in the days when “We had commercials for cigarettes, starring real doctors.”)
This comes up in Pink Think, an awesome book I highly recommend, but a lot of these old douche ads were exploiting the (erroneous) belief that douching was effective as birth control. When the ad copy talks about how Lysol “cleanses thoroughly,” you’re supposed to understand that this includes any unwanted sperm you might happen to get up in there. Women bought the stuff not just out of fear of stinky vaginas, but also out of desperation to prevent unwanted pregnancies; the popularity of douching dropped off dramatically after the Pill.
Although I guess douching with Lysol could work as birth control, in that it could permanently destroy your reproductive system.
That said, the Lysol ad certainly plays the “stinky vagina” angle too. Ladies, a tip: if your husband refuses to have sex with you unless your crotch smells like floor cleaner, you are not the problem.
The thing I noticed was,
Yeah, I’m sure that happens… Who was the MGTOW who said he could “smell a woman’s filthy crotch” when he was sitting at an outside table?
The idea that one who doesn’t douche is so foul smelling no one want’s to be in room with her? What The Fuck?
NO DO NOT GIVE BABBY SODA
I had to scrape my jaw off the floor after looking at that Jade East ad.
Gah the Ivory soap ad. ::shudders::
Howsabout some brain bleach?
Aww!
Did the Microsheen shoe polish ads run in Playboy or something? They just get worse and worse.
I haven’t seen it yet, but I bet the “your wife will drive home the best reason to have car insurance” ad is in this collection.
There’s an ad in there that claims that women’s suffrage would “double the irresponsible vote.”
There’s something wrong with the math there, but I can’t quite put my finger on it….
And it’s a “best reason for owning a Volkswagen,” and yep, there it is.
I’m going to stop now.
katz: Ain’t they just the most adorable there ever was?
I am smote.
Falconer, they’re still cute! 🙂
Yeah my mother keeps going “what?!” at these ads, so before her time I guess.
Falconer — I end up squee’ing TWIIINNS every time you post a pic of your little ones. Ten little fingers, twice!
Besides that our weather has settled into the 50s, I’ve nothing useful to add.
Twenty little toes!
Two great big heads! I must be picking them up wrong because I think I’ve strained my left thumb.
It was almost 80 here yesterday evening, and in the high 60s overnight. We left most of our windows open except in the bedroom, so as not to risk chilling the babies.
We had a couple of hot days (over 30) here after Easter, but since then it’s been low to mid twenties, which is very nice indeed. It feels like autumn at last – took long enough!
Someone may have already pointed this out, but the Lysol douche is not the same formula as the Lysol disinfectant we know and love today. So, as horrid as the ad is, and as unnecessary and potentially harmful douches were and are today, they weren’t actually putting hospital surface disinfectant in women’s vaginas.
That being said, I’ve always found it as ironic and infuriating that all the products developed to “clean us up” are not only harmful, but they completely backfire as it throws off a woman’s ph balance and kills all the bacteria needed to keep everything “fresh” to begin with. Like I’ve always said: I’m a self-cleaning oven.
Four chubby little baby hands! Twice the cute! Idk about your thumb though.
Nitram –” self-cleaning oven” *dies*
Two wee widdle noses. Four teeny tiny ears.
@katz – Yeah, I really did.
And autumn is definitely here, it’s dropped into the low-mid teens and nights are cold.
Those strange ads…I followed the link to the site with a lot of them and one of them said:
And I really couldn’t read it as a way besides either pointing out that 1) more voters would increase the amount of votes or 2) calling the men’s votes irresponsible too, since it’s being doubled. Idk, maybe I’m just nitpicking the phrasing, cuz I’m easily amused.
I see you guys got there before me… XD
Another ad
Sounds like something an mra would right. Well, so does the first one I mentioned, but I had to nitpick the math fail.
@nitram
Can I ever steal this if I need to? I like it. 😀