Captains Of Consciousness Advertising And The Social Roots Of The Consumer Culture

by Stuart Ewen

As ads documented the transition from the productive-knowledge of traditional home activity to the discipline of industrial capitalism, women’s creative roles were increasingly displaced. The advertised duties of the wife became intertwined with the last home industry—marital sex. Woman’s deep-seated instinct urging her to the use of perfumes is a manifestation of a fundamental law of biology. The first duty of woman is to attract. . . . It does not matter how clever or independent you may be, if you fail to influence the men you meet, consciously or unconsciously, you are not fulfilling your fundamental duty as a woman. . . .133