If in the 90s Indian women were always cooking, getting really good at washing clothes and slathering fairness creams frantically; in 2016, we can safely say that we have come a long way.
Providing a counter to the regressive advertisements of fairness, vagina tightening/lightening, that still exist, apparel company Anouk which is owned by Myntra has been releasing a series of commercials tackling discrimination that women face in society, in marriage, in workplaces, etc.
In its latest commercial, The Move, Anouk tells the story of a career driven woman who doesn’t let her marriage hold her life back, or let her career upset her marriage.
The point to be taken is that, women don’t have to choose between career and marriage. It is utterly nonsensical to think that family isn’t priority for a man, or that one’s profession is secondary to women.
While Myntra faced backlash for a commercial cartoon (it did not produce) portraying an episode from Mahabharata showing Krishna ordering sarees on Myntra while Draupadi gets disrobed, Myntra has produced quite a few socially progressive ads.
On films, televisions and advertisements, career women have most commonly been characterized as self-centered, careless, greedy and lacking in maternal instict.
A year back, an advertisement by the same company, on a lesbian couple, had gone viral.
The conservative attitude towards women hasn’t changed but the change in the thought process has been initiated. What had started with a Whisper sanitary pad ad about doing away with the taboos of menstruation has kicked off a tide of feminism-backed advertisements.
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