Advertisers co-opted feminist rhetoric to sell household products

Evidence

And sometimes the power of the suffragette movement itself was harnessed to sell to women. Imagine a floor cleaner with a feminist agenda; that is precisely what Old Dutch Cleanser claimed to be: a “Champion of Women’s Rights,” among which it included “freedom from household drudgery” and “the right to a clean home and the leisure to enjoy it.” By similar logic, an advertisement for Shredded Wheat argued that the cereal was a “Declaration of Independence” from cooking. Here, then, in the Women’s Editorial Department, we witness the birth of a nexus between products and the individual, one that serves advertisers to this day. Going far beyond the question of usefulness or even quality as a matter of brand development, advertisers began to imbue products with traits and associations that consumers could identify with. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 219

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the history of ‘woke-washing’ and corporate co-optation of social movements in the present day. — connects to: Advertising research deliberately cultivated female discontent to expand women’s consumption — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 530; Advertisers classified foods by gender to exploit subconscious consumer preferences — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1348; Advertising shifted from selling product qualities to selling user identity — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 550 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: How did suffragists themselves react to having their cause used to sell floor cleaner and cereal?

Broader Connections

• Advertising shifted from selling product qualities to selling user identity #corroborates (0.82) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 550
• Feminist rhetoric can function as a tool of imperial and nationalist agendas #expands (0.78)