Rose Petal Cottage

Rose Petal Cottage, a toy targeted to be sold to the parents of young girls, gives quite an interesting insight into how sexism makes its way into advertising. 

The lyrics to the peppy song explain why a little girl should want this toy:

Come on into my home sweet home,

Rose Petal Cottage, a place of my own,

It's a special place, come and be my guest,

Try 'em up and they're the best, best best!

Rose Petal Cottage a place of own,

I love when my laundry gets so clean,

Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream,

In Rose Petal Cottage, my home, a place of my very own!

The lyrics focus mainly on having "a place of my own". This could be construed either as beneficial or harmful to encouraging the blurred lines of gender stereotypes. On one hand, they are depicting little girls playing by themselves, without any boys present. This could show how women are capable of doing things on their own, without the help of a man. I argue though, that the commercial is referring more to little girls doing things without their parent's help, which really doesn't have a negative connotation at all. However, taking into consideration the context of the lyrics as well can be helpful in deciphering how destructive this commercial really is. The two lines that seem to provide a powerful insight into what the advertisers were marketing for are these, "I love when my laundry gets so clean, taking care of my home is a dream, dream dream." These lines are the disturbing ones to me. I enjoy clean laundry and a clean house because it's tidy and not cluttered, letting me relax. I don't enjoy actually performing these tasks, though. I don't know any woman, or man for that matter, who really does. This commercial is telling young girls that they should enjoy doing tasks that nobody likes. Why market this towards females? If everyone wants a clean house, but nobody wants to clean it, then why do the woman get stuck with this task? This is clearly the remnants of negative stereotypes that unfortunately are still being used in advertising very frequently.