This Clorox advertisement taken from Working Mother Magazine (11/2001) is interesting because it aims to sell a cleaning product using the image of an overtly masculine black woman. This woman is overtly masculine because she is both the antithesis of what traditionally has been fashioned in advertising as feminine, and because she appears to be in dialogue with the well-known advertising image of Mr. Clean, the image of a hyper-muscular bald white male used to sell cleaning products. She is the antithesis of what tradition dictates to be feminine because she is neither thin nor remarkably beautiful. Rather, she is a large muscular woman of average looks. Her attire also contributes to her masculine appearance. This is true, for it resembles that of a weightlifter. Her hands are taped, she is wearing a sweatband, and the sleeves of her sweatshirt are cut off. Such physical characteristics combined with her pose and the ad logo are what suggest that she is in dialogue with Mr. Clean. The logo reads, "More grease-cutting power than the â?~other guys'." Clearly, there is not a large group of male cleaning icons with big muscles. And, she stands sideways so that her flexed bicep, upon which a bottle of Pine-sol gently rests, becomes clearly emphasized as a focal point. The emphasis on the bicep as a focal point, a well-recognized symbol of strength and power, should clearly be read as a competitive gesture towards Mr. Clean's hyper masculine physique. But why is she so masculinized? How would this campaign increase the appeal of the product?

The woman's masculine appearance speaks to ideals surrounding women's empowerment. As Sut Jhally argues, "advertising talks to us as individuals and addresses us about how we can become happy."(Jhally: 1990:251) Thus, under this logic, presenting a masculine woman speaks to how women can be masters of themselves, and of their own households. In using this image, Clorox is literally attempting to sell feminism back to females, but without upsetting the basic gendered division of labor that places women "in the home."

The juxtaposition of this ad with an image of Rosie the Riveter, an ad campaign from the forties appropriated by the Tampax Corporation in 2002, reinforces the idea that this image was chosen as a means to appeal to notions of female empowerment. Rosie the Riveter was a female icon created in the forties during WWII in order to promote women entering the workforce while the men were away at war. Looking at the two ads together there is a striking resemblance between the two, clearly indicating that the Clorox ad was no accident. The women's stances are almost identical, each standing sideways exhibiting a flexed bicep, the bicep serving as a podium for the product being sold. What is interesting about Rosie is that she is marketing Tampax tampons. Tampons, a creation of the 1930's, lent itself as major symbol for women's personal freedom.¹ Tampons, because they were inserts, offered women a new range of freedoms that had been previously unrealized with pads. Pine-sol, by using the same positioning as Rosie the Riveter, demonstrates that the two ads are sending the same message. Just as tampons afforded women a new range of personal freedom, Pine-sol, too, can offer a woman personal freedom; the freedom of mastering oneself.

As an overall value judgment, it seems fair to say that this ad strives to link itself to positive notions of what it means to be happy. However, at the same time, linking women with cleaning products, especially black women, is inherently problematic. This is true for various reasons. The most obvious of reasons is that it has the potential to be viewed as reinforcing perceptions which dictate that a woman's proper place, regardless of her color, is not in the workforce, rather, it is in the home doing mindless housework.

Linking such perceptions with female empowerment suggests that to belong only in the home is something to be proud of, something empowering. Another reason this ad is inherently problematic is that black women have been historically viewed as being biologically more masculine than white women. This notion stems form ideas that emerged in the nineteenth century when anatomical studies concluded that the size of a black woman's clitoris was naturally larger than a white woman's. These studies were conducted around the same time that eugenics emerged, and therefore, one can also question not only what this ad is saying about black women's masculinity, but also about their cleanliness. (Somerville: 1997:41,43) Basically, although this ad image has good intentions, the message conveyed in actuality is very ambiguous, and thus, can easily be interpreted as very negative and offensive.

Sources:

1. Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health. http://www.mum.org/faxAd.htm

Jhally, Sut. "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture," in Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez, (eds.) Gender, Race, and Class in Media. London: Sage, 1995.

Somerville, Siobhan. "Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body," in

Lancaster and di Leonardo, (Eds.), The Gender/Sexuality Reader, New York: Routledge, 1997.