On Father's Day. Virginia Slims reminds you that founding fathers could not have been founding fathers without founding mothers.
This ad for Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed exclusively to women, places a young woman’s face between Thomas Jefferson’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s on Mount Rushmore. The ad was printed around Father’s Day, and the message reads, “founding fathers couldn’t have been founding fathers without founding mothers.” This every-day woman looks much too young to be a mother, with a large bow atop her head and her simple short hair, but the message is the same: women are just as important, or more important, than men. Virginia Slims manipulates women into believing that the brand is modern, forward-thinking, and supportive of women’s liberation. The juxtaposition of power with femininity is a marketing ploy which tobacco companies exploit decade after decade.
empowerment, Female, humor, liberation, Mount Rushmore, Political, Teen, woman, young adult
