I am a woman and I think the Women’s Day ‘Dance to my Tunes’ campaign by Godrej was offensive.
Of course, who wouldn’t like people dancing to your tunes,
especially when they are people deemed
in the socio-cultural rulebook to do just the opposite!
But that’s the whole point.
Imagine the same app being designed for the men folk; it would
have been received with an outrage from feminists, social activists, media,
critiques and even our current and aspiring leaders (who have suddenly woken up
to the need for women empowerment).
The problem is, we are living in a highly skewed society, where
the only way to counter a problem is to do the exact opposite.
The opposite of a patriarchal society is a matriarchal one. But that
is not the solution. It is another problem in itself.
The solution to a patriarchal system is an equal society that does
not get overly excited, or upset and starts judging women who stay out of home
for more hours than the men in the family or men who do the laundry and take
care of the kids.
I recently wrote about how more brands are using the power of social advertising, something I have been vouching
for, for long. And I appreciate the effort to connect a lifestyle brand with
women empowerment in a fun way. But tilting the balance to the other side is
only going to heighten the effects of objectification and sexism that
advertising is increasingly being accused of.
