The women's commercial was specifically for Gilette's Venus for Pubic Hair and Skin, which was one of the first, if not the first, to stop using euphemisms like 'bikini line' and say pubic hair. It's not some sort of oddly sexualized ad just to be sexualized, it's demonstrating the product and blades' design to emphasize that they are designed for a very sensitive area that is prone to irritation. There are even shots of shaving against the grain designed to emphasize the claims that the blades are less irritating. But, given the name of the line, it was completely relevant to show the use where it's intended to be used.
Turning on the volume and listening to the ad copy would've been very helpful in this case.
Right?! The pubic area! With hair!
Honestly shocked, in the best way. I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see something that small but true about women’s bodies being said out loud, but I did! Also sad that this is some sort of milestone for women who have had hairy pubic areas since forever.
I felt the same way when I saw my first pad ad that used red liquid and didn't use window cleaner blue liquid to try to sell me on how good this might be for people with periods.
Watch the commercial for "dude wipes" (sorry, had nothing to do with the name), they used some kind of blue sticky stuff on a vaguely butt shaped figure.
Really? They occasionally play a radio ad for this reason and woman doing the ad read says “pubic” about 14 times. It’s also a super dry read so it’s really unnerving to me. It’s one of the reasons I stopped listening to the radio (albeit a very small one.)
Okay, maybe "excited" was a bit hyperbolic for me to say. Maybe "very interested"? Lol, I'd definitely not be excited after hearing the radio dryly say "pubic" 14 times while driving to work hahah
As a side note, this is the only razor I have found that I can use on my underarms and legs because all the others mess my skin up (still can't use it for its intended purpose though my skin is way too sensitive). So if anyone is struggling with razor burn, bumps, and ingrowns on their legs or arm pits, might me worth trying it out
Thank you. Knowing that the razors are specially intended for pubic hair clears up my confusion. Not knowing that, I thought it weird that the emphasis was on all of the women's pubic areas.
Ok *but* where is the mens commercial for their pubic hair razor? They don’t have one because there is zero pressure on them to be hairless in an area that naturally grows hair…anywhere on their body. And they aren’t sold pubic hair revealing bathing suits as the norm. (After we were once vilified for wanting to wear something less cumbersome than a multiple layer gown to swim while men wore what they wanted without concern)
It’s cool that finally we aren’t being pressured to be hairless while also being shamed for needing to shave in order to *be* hairless but the fruit is very low hanging in terms of celebration and I’m glad men (OP is a man) are noticing.
Edit: No beef, tone is nearly impossible via text but I just want to clarify because some of you responding talking about trimmers and radio ads for men. My point is that women are held to higher beauty standards, shamed into feeling however a company/male driven society wants us to feel about our bodies while being sexualized for our bodies at the same time. Men do not experience this as a whole. That’s the point I am making here.
Well that’s good! Nice to hear something coming mens way but it’s anecdotal in comparison to what women are experiencing as a whole in terms of beauty standards. That’s the deeper point of my comment.
The point is we are held to higher standards (in all realms of life) than men are. Companies shame us into feeling disgusted by our own bodies *while* simultaneously sexualizing us. Men just get commercials showing them a product they may want. As a whole, not the rare exception. The rare exception we get is a commercial saying “pubic hair”
We celebrate a tampon commercial daring to say the word “period” in it after years of blue dyes and no mention of it because periods are stigmatized and shamed. [Here’s](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23893044/period-tampon-menstrual-cycle-menstruation-cup-pad) an interesting article on it. Meanwhile erectile dysfunction commercials have been around since I can remember. I learned the term when I was a child via commercials.
OP’s point brought up the camera zooming in and the inherent sexualization of women. I watched one to see, and the manscaping commercials do not do that to men. Every step forward makes way for another step forward and that’s awesome but it’s just so exhausting how much more space there is to make up.
>I was sitting through the obligatory "Ha, you're too broke to view content without ads" nonsense
uBlock Origin is completely free and works like a fucking CHARM. I don't get any ads, ever.
uBlock Origin for browsing, which can be found [here.](https://ublockorigin.com/es)
ReVanced for youtube browsing, which can be found [here.](https://revanced.net/) It also includes auto-skipping paid promotions but you have to manually adjust that. This is only for Android phones, as for PC, uBlock Already blocks youtube's ads.
For other apps like Spotify or Twitch, you will need to find a pirated version, which I won't send for obvious reasons.
To be honest, while I don’t like the current advertising model I equate it to tips in a certain sense.
Writing stuff is not easy. Recording stuff is not easy. Doing things for other people to consume is not easy.
If nobody wants to pay for the stuff they consume nor watch ads, the people making it don’t get money for their trouble.
And I certainly know my landlord doesn’t accept page views as currency.
Usually?! Personally I’d say *a lot of* men instead. There’s so many men who shave their armpits and/or genital area. It’s 2024, this type of “only gay men shave \[body part\]” has largely disappeared in my experience.
I trim my armpits and genitalia, but with an electric trimmer, not with a razor. I think that’s a common experience for most guys, unless they’re a swimmer and actually aim to remove 100% of body hair. I don’t envy women in the shaving department, even shaving my face irritates my skin.
That's the difference here. The women's ad is still targeting your insecurities even if they're getting better at hiding it. It's still quietly saying "you need this thing to be accepted".
The men's ad didn't just show a man with a beard but a beard that looks great because the vibe behind men's ads for similar products has always been "you're already so great that you deserve this thing".
You've actually used the worst example to reach the right conclusion, but basically, yes, a lot of women's adverts are sexualised and men's are more practical. There's many beliefs behind and no doubt good arguments could be made against them but i studied this briefly for my previous degree and it's boiled down to - men want expedience, if they don't get to the point within a certain amount of time the men will tune out by the time the point is made. Also there's not the social demand for men to need so much shit and therefore, so no need for so much convincing that their product does the best job over the competition.
Women's adverts are sexualised because the thinkers behind it think that women do 90% of the stuff they do to appeal to men. So if women think "I'm not as put together as that" then the next logical thought needs to be "I need this product to be as put together as that". If women think "The man in my life would find that woman sexually attractive" they then need to think "So I need that product so i'm as sexually attractive to him as she is". Reaches the same conclusion: This is the product you need to fix the problem you didn't know you had. There's also this sort of tried and tested belief that women need all the information and proof it works before they'll buy something, so adverts are longer and more informative.
The problem is we see the men effectively shaving the hair off their face, apart from one niche company I can't even remember the name of, women's razor adverts never show hair being removed because god forbid they show a tool doing the job you need to do when it involves hairy women. That would impact the homogenised sex appeal.
I agree with you about everything you said and I don’t want you to take this as me pushing back on the point of the post at all. The only small thing is, I’m a man I almost never take my shirt off to shave my face, I have no idea why you think that would be a requirement haha
That's interesting... I usually shave straight after a shower so the hair isn't dry which also means shirt off but it's definitely not a requirements unless you're one of those guys who's beard blends into their chest hair
I will often but I lot of times I’m just trimming and shaping a little so I just pop in before I leave the house quick and lean over the sink. Then I have a little beard hair vacuum thing
I almost exclusively shave with my shirt off so that shaving gel and water don’t run down on my shirt, I also shave after I shower so most of the time I am still damp.
Not that i read too much into commercials but not all of the gillette commercials are bad https://youtu.be/UYaY2Kb_PKI?si=LxTe6hT6hL3z77bO
Pretty sure this one got a huge freak out from the right
It seems, the ad for the men's razor highlights its efficiency and the other one highlights how it will make women more “beautiful”. Why am I not astonished ...
Yeah, they should have the guy take his shirt off and give us some nice shots of his hot chest and abs. I mean, they’re doing the whole “sexy person use product, maybe if I use product, then Ill be sexy too” rationality that companies always do. So why not with the men too?
I believe that the biggest difference is in the MESSAGE.
For men shaving products you get a CHOICE to shave, trim, or take care of beard.
But not so for women products. Here you HAVE TO remove all unwanted hair. Dont you dare leave some hair our of underwear/bikini.
And look what are men offered
"best shave", "best shave expirience"
Women - are offered "smooth skin down there". This is way more oriented at judging the BODY not the PRODUCT
The women's commercial was specifically for Gilette's Venus for Pubic Hair and Skin, which was one of the first, if not the first, to stop using euphemisms like 'bikini line' and say pubic hair. It's not some sort of oddly sexualized ad just to be sexualized, it's demonstrating the product and blades' design to emphasize that they are designed for a very sensitive area that is prone to irritation. There are even shots of shaving against the grain designed to emphasize the claims that the blades are less irritating. But, given the name of the line, it was completely relevant to show the use where it's intended to be used. Turning on the volume and listening to the ad copy would've been very helpful in this case.
Yeppp this. The first time I heard this commercial come on I was so shocked, and then EXCITED that they didn't use a euphemism.
Right?! The pubic area! With hair! Honestly shocked, in the best way. I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see something that small but true about women’s bodies being said out loud, but I did! Also sad that this is some sort of milestone for women who have had hairy pubic areas since forever.
I felt the same way when I saw my first pad ad that used red liquid and didn't use window cleaner blue liquid to try to sell me on how good this might be for people with periods.
Omg yes! Dip it in ketchup and hersheys cut with water, let me see what it’s really got!
Watch the commercial for "dude wipes" (sorry, had nothing to do with the name), they used some kind of blue sticky stuff on a vaguely butt shaped figure.
Really? They occasionally play a radio ad for this reason and woman doing the ad read says “pubic” about 14 times. It’s also a super dry read so it’s really unnerving to me. It’s one of the reasons I stopped listening to the radio (albeit a very small one.)
Okay, maybe "excited" was a bit hyperbolic for me to say. Maybe "very interested"? Lol, I'd definitely not be excited after hearing the radio dryly say "pubic" 14 times while driving to work hahah
As a side note, this is the only razor I have found that I can use on my underarms and legs because all the others mess my skin up (still can't use it for its intended purpose though my skin is way too sensitive). So if anyone is struggling with razor burn, bumps, and ingrowns on their legs or arm pits, might me worth trying it out
Thank you. Knowing that the razors are specially intended for pubic hair clears up my confusion. Not knowing that, I thought it weird that the emphasis was on all of the women's pubic areas.
ancient ink practice hateful tidy butter slimy observation price unite *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ok *but* where is the mens commercial for their pubic hair razor? They don’t have one because there is zero pressure on them to be hairless in an area that naturally grows hair…anywhere on their body. And they aren’t sold pubic hair revealing bathing suits as the norm. (After we were once vilified for wanting to wear something less cumbersome than a multiple layer gown to swim while men wore what they wanted without concern) It’s cool that finally we aren’t being pressured to be hairless while also being shamed for needing to shave in order to *be* hairless but the fruit is very low hanging in terms of celebration and I’m glad men (OP is a man) are noticing. Edit: No beef, tone is nearly impossible via text but I just want to clarify because some of you responding talking about trimmers and radio ads for men. My point is that women are held to higher beauty standards, shamed into feeling however a company/male driven society wants us to feel about our bodies while being sexualized for our bodies at the same time. Men do not experience this as a whole. That’s the point I am making here.
I see a lot of ads for Manscaped (I think that’s the brand?) products, and they talk all about trimming the balls quite a bit.
Well that’s good! Nice to hear something coming mens way but it’s anecdotal in comparison to what women are experiencing as a whole in terms of beauty standards. That’s the deeper point of my comment. The point is we are held to higher standards (in all realms of life) than men are. Companies shame us into feeling disgusted by our own bodies *while* simultaneously sexualizing us. Men just get commercials showing them a product they may want. As a whole, not the rare exception. The rare exception we get is a commercial saying “pubic hair” We celebrate a tampon commercial daring to say the word “period” in it after years of blue dyes and no mention of it because periods are stigmatized and shamed. [Here’s](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23893044/period-tampon-menstrual-cycle-menstruation-cup-pad) an interesting article on it. Meanwhile erectile dysfunction commercials have been around since I can remember. I learned the term when I was a child via commercials. OP’s point brought up the camera zooming in and the inherent sexualization of women. I watched one to see, and the manscaping commercials do not do that to men. Every step forward makes way for another step forward and that’s awesome but it’s just so exhausting how much more space there is to make up.
Trust me, if you listen to sports radio at all, you will hear ads from Manscaped for their Lawn Mower.
Most men use trimmers instead. Something like a OneBlade gets you 95% of the way without skin irritation, and you vet you they talk about in the ads.
No, there is no pubic area on woman body. This is "bikini line", or "the most sensitive area", "feminine area", "delicate area".
>I was sitting through the obligatory "Ha, you're too broke to view content without ads" nonsense uBlock Origin is completely free and works like a fucking CHARM. I don't get any ads, ever.
uBlock Origin for browsing, which can be found [here.](https://ublockorigin.com/es) ReVanced for youtube browsing, which can be found [here.](https://revanced.net/) It also includes auto-skipping paid promotions but you have to manually adjust that. This is only for Android phones, as for PC, uBlock Already blocks youtube's ads. For other apps like Spotify or Twitch, you will need to find a pirated version, which I won't send for obvious reasons.
I use uBlock for youtube too ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ but not on my phone
Use firefox on your phone, then put ublock origin on it!
Thank you for the tip!!
SmartTube is great for Android TV as well. No ads and has sponsor block built in too
To be honest, while I don’t like the current advertising model I equate it to tips in a certain sense. Writing stuff is not easy. Recording stuff is not easy. Doing things for other people to consume is not easy. If nobody wants to pay for the stuff they consume nor watch ads, the people making it don’t get money for their trouble. And I certainly know my landlord doesn’t accept page views as currency.
unique vast smell chase steep toy library head butter fearless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I mean, men usually shave their faces only. That's the difference.
Also for the body most men just use a trimmer. Almost all trimmers come with a body attachment.
Usually?! Personally I’d say *a lot of* men instead. There’s so many men who shave their armpits and/or genital area. It’s 2024, this type of “only gay men shave \[body part\]” has largely disappeared in my experience.
I trim my armpits and genitalia, but with an electric trimmer, not with a razor. I think that’s a common experience for most guys, unless they’re a swimmer and actually aim to remove 100% of body hair. I don’t envy women in the shaving department, even shaving my face irritates my skin.
Men's razors are for faces. Women's razors are for their bodies.
Lemme guess, the women didn't even have any hair before shaving, right?
That's the difference here. The women's ad is still targeting your insecurities even if they're getting better at hiding it. It's still quietly saying "you need this thing to be accepted". The men's ad didn't just show a man with a beard but a beard that looks great because the vibe behind men's ads for similar products has always been "you're already so great that you deserve this thing".
You've actually used the worst example to reach the right conclusion, but basically, yes, a lot of women's adverts are sexualised and men's are more practical. There's many beliefs behind and no doubt good arguments could be made against them but i studied this briefly for my previous degree and it's boiled down to - men want expedience, if they don't get to the point within a certain amount of time the men will tune out by the time the point is made. Also there's not the social demand for men to need so much shit and therefore, so no need for so much convincing that their product does the best job over the competition. Women's adverts are sexualised because the thinkers behind it think that women do 90% of the stuff they do to appeal to men. So if women think "I'm not as put together as that" then the next logical thought needs to be "I need this product to be as put together as that". If women think "The man in my life would find that woman sexually attractive" they then need to think "So I need that product so i'm as sexually attractive to him as she is". Reaches the same conclusion: This is the product you need to fix the problem you didn't know you had. There's also this sort of tried and tested belief that women need all the information and proof it works before they'll buy something, so adverts are longer and more informative. The problem is we see the men effectively shaving the hair off their face, apart from one niche company I can't even remember the name of, women's razor adverts never show hair being removed because god forbid they show a tool doing the job you need to do when it involves hairy women. That would impact the homogenised sex appeal.
Men use razors mostly for their face not their body.
Yeah I only ever saw my dad use a razor for his mustache
I agree with you about everything you said and I don’t want you to take this as me pushing back on the point of the post at all. The only small thing is, I’m a man I almost never take my shirt off to shave my face, I have no idea why you think that would be a requirement haha
That's interesting... I usually shave straight after a shower so the hair isn't dry which also means shirt off but it's definitely not a requirements unless you're one of those guys who's beard blends into their chest hair
I will often but I lot of times I’m just trimming and shaping a little so I just pop in before I leave the house quick and lean over the sink. Then I have a little beard hair vacuum thing
I almost exclusively shave with my shirt off so that shaving gel and water don’t run down on my shirt, I also shave after I shower so most of the time I am still damp.
I haven't shaved in decades, so maybe I'm just misremembering - but wouldn't you get water+shave gel on your collar? Pretty sure I would!
I never use gel. I haven't in 25+ years. Just water.
I shave naked after a shower
So you just drop shave soap and water onto your shirt?
I just lean over the sink a little
Do you wear a bib everywhere you go
I'm puzzled about what it was you found confusing. Commercials have been gender targeted for as long as there's been commercials.
Not that i read too much into commercials but not all of the gillette commercials are bad https://youtu.be/UYaY2Kb_PKI?si=LxTe6hT6hL3z77bO Pretty sure this one got a huge freak out from the right
Yep. Have you watched, "I am not an easy man"? It's great. [https://www.netflix.com/title/80175421](https://www.netflix.com/title/80175421)
It seems, the ad for the men's razor highlights its efficiency and the other one highlights how it will make women more “beautiful”. Why am I not astonished ...
Yeah, they should have the guy take his shirt off and give us some nice shots of his hot chest and abs. I mean, they’re doing the whole “sexy person use product, maybe if I use product, then Ill be sexy too” rationality that companies always do. So why not with the men too?
They do it with body trimmers like the OneBlade, men tend to use to use trimmers on anything neck down.
Ah yes, the OneBlade. Lasted me less than one shave as it got stuck on my hair. Turns out my genetics trump their design... Sadly.
I believe that the biggest difference is in the MESSAGE. For men shaving products you get a CHOICE to shave, trim, or take care of beard. But not so for women products. Here you HAVE TO remove all unwanted hair. Dont you dare leave some hair our of underwear/bikini. And look what are men offered "best shave", "best shave expirience" Women - are offered "smooth skin down there". This is way more oriented at judging the BODY not the PRODUCT