I love tracking down and watching those old, amazingly sexist TV commercials from the 1960s.  You know the type — these are the commercials where a smug male narrator says stuff like, “For today’s modern girl, staying presentable and ladylike is even more important than it was in the past…”  or “Today’s modern woman knows that when her husband gets home from the office, only Farmer’s House Coffee will do.”

Of course, the main reason that these commercials interest me is that they’re not all that different from their modern counterparts.  For the most part, the commercials have become a bit more flashy and the men act a lot more stupid but the message of “If you want to be a real woman, buy our product and stop thinking so much” remains the same.

Here’s an old one from Pepsi that deals with the importance of remaining “beautiful, slim, and attractive.”  From the patronising tone of the narrator to the “ha-ha-women-love-to-shop” punchline, this is just so 1960s.

(I’ve always found it interesting that a woman shopping is somehow irrational while a man who spends his life savings on decorations for his car is considered to be perfectly normal.)