One Step Forward, One Ziplock Ad Backwards – Women and the Burden of Familial Responsibility
“The obligation for working mothers is a very precise one: the feeling that one ought to work as if one does not have children, while raising one’s children as if one did not have a job.” – Annabel Crabb
Do you ever watch TV and realize that your blood is actually boiling? And that it's not boiling because of some political debate but rather a seemingly innocuous ad for Ziploc?
If you're too lazy to open the link I've provided above, here's a synopsis. Mom fills a Ziploc bag with potato chips and envisions an alternative universe where she sent her daughter -- somewhere between the age of 6 and 9 -- to school with a regular snack size packet of chips, where she subsequently opens the chips and to the HORROR of mothers everywhere, her daughter's chips go flying everywhere. The shame, the embarrassment... not just for the daughter, but for the mother as well, especially when it's so easy to just put it into that damn plastic bag with those wonderful easy open tabs.
Funny enough, it made some other's blood boil as well. The angry commenters I found on the iSpot TV posting of the ad were deeply offended by two things:
- The use of plastic in an age of environmental concern. This indignation is further exacerbated by the transfer of the potato chips from one plastic bag to another.
- The feeding of potato chips to the child, instead of healthier alternatives like grapes. Side note: one commenter also suggested in response to another's plea for grapes that these hypothetical grapes should be cut in half -- lest the TV commercial feature a young girl choking on whole grapes.
But my sense is that there is something everyone is missing here. What kind of world do we live in where the explosive opening of a potato chip bag inspires fear in mothers everywhere?
Creating Anxiety in a Near Perfect World
Welcome to the Age of Anxiety, starring mothers everywhere. Apparently, this epoch has been happening for some time, at least according to WH Auden who wrote about it in 1948, but it seems to only be worsening and it's hitting mothers hard -- if an exploding potato chip bag can create anxiety, we must really be at the peak of anxiety.
In 2012, Daniel Smith wrote in The New York Times (January 14, 2012) that to call something the Age of Anxiety is to devalue real anxiety, one that is paralyzing and debilitating. He goes on to say that it is hard to envision this as an epoch, when anxiety is often acute and confined, rather than mild and extended.
Smith quotes statistics about anxiety, including that nearly twice as many people are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder than a mood disorder like depression or bi-polar. Smith says, "Just because our anxiety is heavily diagnosed and medicated, however, doesn’t mean that we are more anxious than our forebears. It might simply mean that we are better treated — that we are, as individuals and a culture, more cognizant of the mind’s tendency to spin out of control." He points to even more potentially anxious times, like the 14th Century, when plagues and marauding were likely to inspire even more anxiety and yet no one has labeled that as the Age of Anxiety.
I would argue, however, that it is these times, without concern for imminent death, rape or pillaging, in fact, that anxiety is at its greatest or at least at its most receptive and unpredictable. Anxiety is defined as a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. When this world becomes so predictable, so easy and manageable -- there's a government, police, reliable transportation and food sources -- suddenly even the most mundane can be a source of anxiety... anything that throws off the order they've come to expect from their lives. I acknowledge this may not be the case for all, so let's, for the sake of this analysis, address only those for whom the Ziploc ad is meant -- middle class, American moms.
Durkheim spoke about the idea of Ennui, that when life becomes boring, maybe even without struggle, we begin to lose our drive, our desire to engage. The worker who struggles to put food on the table and for mere survival is less likely to disengage, their survival depends on it. On the other side of that is Anxiety and we flit between the two. According to William Edward Hartpole Lecky in The Map of Life, “Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.” Are they in fact the same proverbial rock and hard place, one springing from the other, rather than separate entities? Does the rock beget the hard place?
Might it be possible that our own ennui actually bounces us back to anxiety? Like the metaphor of Scylla and Charybdis, a boredom in society creates a need for anxiety – bouncing the boat of society between boredom and anxiety; creating anxiety to fill the hole that boredom leaves in the sense of purpose we seek as humankind. Whether it’s of our own doing, where we look to create our own anxiety or whether it’s developed by a larger society as a way to entertain and to give purpose to that society.
Looking at Facebook, we might see many examples of this need within society or players within society to create anxiety for others. Internet trolls and even seemingly well-meaning mothers are all there to tell us why our opinion is wrong, or what we’re doing is stupid or ill-advised or even that the picture we’ve posted of ourselves is not one that flatters. In the town in which I live, there is a Facebook page to share contacts and recommendations, but it’s often filled with the unsolicited judgments of seemingly bored women and men that ensure they put their anxiety and their opinions on you – oftentimes encouraging there to be anxiety where there was none before.
Even without ennui or boredom, you can see how anxiety can permeate society. If we think about the human condition over the centuries, it is one in which there is always the potential for danger and the intellectual awareness to know this danger exists. In the face of relative stability, where danger feels just below the surface, we can only assume that somewhere out there lurks some unknown hazard -- something bad must be just off the horizon. So, anxiety becomes heightened, a sense that with nothing really going wrong, there must really be something going wrong and every potential threat to our perfect world should produce anxiety. In some ways, are we not more receptive then to anxiety than we would be if we faced danger every day? Then that danger would be predictable, expected.
Further, in today's world, where we live a relative life of ease that theoretically nears perfection, anxiety may arise from the minutiae of life, rather than big dangers and fears (it's probably difficult to think of and worry about minutiae as you're walking out to the outhouse in the middle of the winter or you're building your own home on the frontier), we allow ourselves to become more anxious -- not about the big things, but rather everything can be a source of anxiety, the tiny things that may get in the way of us achieving a perfect, unfettered and undisturbed life.
Seeking Perfection
In a near perfect world, the ultimate goal moves from survival to transcendence, especially for women who are endeavoring to have it all. Debora Spar, President of Barnard College and former Professor and Department Head at Harvard Business School writes about this dynamic in her book Wonder Women: Sex and the Quest for Perfection. Spar’s thesis is that in their struggle to move ahead in the world, instead of achieving that, they have become stuck in an endless quest for perfection. “Fortifying the myth of perfectionism is the fear of being an imposter and the unrealistic expectations we hold for ourselves.” These unrealistic expectations run the gamut, from standards of beauty we cannot achieve to standards of parenting that make it possible to achieve in the workplace. And as Spar explains, “[we’re] selling women the myth that if we try harder, we’ll feel better and be successful…. The competition for perfection is making us all crazy.”
But what is it that makes us want to achieve this perfection? A search for sources in this area comes up nearly empty. There are a few amateur blogs and such that touch on this idea, but no real scientific research directed specifically against this idea. However, if we look through the lens on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we can begin to understand the dynamics.
Maslow, a sociologist, whose theory on a hierarchy of needs is still widely referred to today, asserted that humans look to satisfy their needs starting at the most basic physiological needs. As they satisfy these lower level basic needs, they begin to pursue higher level needs like psychological needs of belonging and love and importantly, esteem and eventually self-actualization.
Esteem and self-actualization are all about perfection and recognition of perfection. In the former, it is about recognition that you are somehow achieving something beyond your peers, while self-actualization is truly the pursuit of the best self – the most perfect version of self.
The difference for men and women is that when women’s opportunities were opened, all the other pressures did not fall to the side or go away. The pursuit of achievement in new avenues was just layered on top of the previous responsibilities and women struggle to live up to the demands of each of these pressures.
Further, the pressures are constantly changing – there’s always a new version of the best self. In the ‘80’s the pressure was to be the tough woman who could hang with the men but yet maintained a sense of femininity, manifested in big shoulder pads and silken bows. In the ‘90’s we saw the rise of the waif model – small, slight and unthreatening other than her desperate heroin chic look. Today, the ideal is the strong woman. Thin is not enough – now it is lean and strong, which doesn’t just mean she diets, it means she works out hard, too. Women boomerang around, just as we and others start to settle on the ideal, there’s a new ideal to achieve. The target keeps moving and that in itself creates an anxiety.
The same could be said for womanhood overall. When women first began to hit the working world in the ‘80’s, the ideal was to be a great worker – seen as just as tough and capable as the men in the office. Today, that hasn’t necessarily changed, but the pressures have multiplied. The ideal is not just to be a great working woman but also to have a great and fulfilling life outside of the working world – an enviable personal life.
I would also argue that the pursuit of perfection begets a need for more perfection across all facets of life. We all knew that person in high school or college who truly seemed perfect – beautiful/handsome, perfect physique, straight A’s and multi-talented and they seemingly pursued all of these things without breaking a sweat. If one is interested in perfection in one area, why wouldn’t he or she be interested in it across all facets of her life? In fact, looking again at Maslow’s Hierarchy, it is self-actualization that points to this very idea, since fundamentally, being the best person you can be, means that you are the best you can be in every aspect of your life – and for women, that’s a lot of facets.
Mothers today are particularly subject to the pressures of perfection. Whether working or not, mothers are pulled in more and more directions. According to the Pew Research Center, in 1970 53% of women worked outside the home. In 2015, the number had risen to 71%. Despite this rise in employment, there has not been a commensurate decrease in responsibilities within the home. While women are more likely to work today, their husbands haven’t necessarily picked up the slack. Working Mother Research Institute puts it into even starker context, showing the division of work at home. While women do much of the indoor work and the men do the outdoor, the men are also more likely to outsource the work that falls in their column.
As caretakers of the children, they are still more likely to be the primary giver of nurturing and the pressure to be perfect as they dole out that nurturing is rife, as well. More than half of working parents say that the mother bears the bulk of responsibility for scheduling and general rearing of the children, from homework help to feeding to doctors appointments. According to a study published in The Journal of Marriage and Family, “Educational Gradients in Parents' Child-Care Time Across Countries, 1965–2012” mothers now spend nearly twice the amount of time with their children than they did 50 years ago. Mothers might have been more likely to stay home with their children, but they felt less pressured to spend “quality time” with their children.
As anyone with children would attest, as well, children are not a chore that can be put off. The pressure is always there – both from the children and society. Add to that the pressure in all other aspects of their lives, from fitness and beauty to relationships and one can only imagine the angst in their lives.
Ziploc, owned by Dow Chemical, has touched on this very issue with which mothers struggle every single day, whether working or staying-at-home -- the desire, nay, the pressure, that foments the need to create an impression, if not a manifestation of perfection. God forbid your child has an embarrassing moment in school, they are to be protected from shame and embarrassment forever.
But it's not just about protecting your child, it's about protecting yourself. Imperfection as a parent has created all sorts of anxiety and pressure. Just think about helicoptering as the defining element of parenting these days. Helicoptering is about the anxiety of parenting and the quest for a perfect outcome for your children, but it's also about the fear of judgment that comes from not having a perfect child, for not protecting your child from failure.
In previous generations you might have worried that your kids were getting an education at all or that they have any sort of food for lunch, but not today. Today, we worry about whether their potato chips will burst in the cafeteria. Today we have articles posted on our Facebook feeds that says, 50 things you should never say to your child. For God's sakes, is there anything left to say to our children once you take away those 50 things? Must we always be perfect? Must our lives be so perfect that we have to make sure we never say those 50 things?
In fact, when we look at the ad, coupled with the comments, you can see why mothers may be feeling so much anxiety. It's not just about the embarrassment they feel when they're not able to open their packet of chips correctly, but we're also able to shame each other about environmental consciousness, what we're feeding our kids and the transgression of transgressions -- feeding your child those death traps otherwise known as whole grapes.
We're putting that anxiety on each other, with constant judgment and counsel, whether solicited or unsolicited. In my town, there is a Facebook page that caters to the mothers in town. It’s supposed to be a resource for information, but often devolves into a parenting judgment zone, especially when school is cancelled for bad weather. The mothers who question why school was cancelled are told by others that they clearly do not care about the safety of their children.
Book after book comes out to condemn or cajole women. We should lean in. We should be tiger moms. We should be more like a French mother. We should, we should, we should. I am not the first person to write about this, as I’m well aware. Jennifer Senior wrote about this in All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, as did Judith Warner in Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. All of this focus on motherhood and the perfection of motherhood is having a profound impact on women.
Though there is likely to be more awareness and normalization in mental health issues and thus greater reporting of these issues, adults in the 2000’s are more likely than their counterparts in the 1980’s to report symptoms of anxiety, including restless sleep, muted appetite and a general sense of everything being more of an effort, according to Jean Twenge Ph.D. and author of Generation Me. Further research suggests that women are also twice as likely as men to report symptoms of anxiety within the last year. All of this points to an increasing sense of stress and burden of expectations within society, of which women are taking the brunt.
The Uni-Dimensionalizing of Mothers
The very idea that the mother in our ad is concerned about how her daughter opens up a bag of potato chips is not just offensive in the very mundanity of this concern, but in the fact that her life must be so focused on her child and the perfection of parenting to suggest that she is just one-dimensional. In this day, are women not multifaceted beings, with interests and needs beyond their children?
It makes for an interesting and potentially conflicting set of issues with the ad. I cringe at it for preying on the anxieties of a mother and making even the smallest issue a source of anxiety. But I also cringe that she is shown to be so unidimensional, so devoid of more interesting and important problems that this could actually be a problem she feels she needs to solve.
Now, I realize that it's just a :30 spot and my wished for character development may not be possible, but is there not an opportunity to show women as they are more and more today, especially those who don't have the ease of worrying about this -- that they have more complex lives, more things to worry about than the opening of the potato chip bag and the micromanagement of every moment of their child's life?
Focusing on one aspect of a woman’s life might also succeed in only creating more anxiety for her. Instead of acknowledging the breadth of her life and the demands on her life, when there is a light that shines so brightly on just one aspect, it may itself reinforce the stress in such an exacting way that it then amplifies this stress. Take for example, beauty magazines. Years of research have shown that beauty magazines and their unrelenting focus on perfection in looks and beauty has had a profound effect on a woman’s view of her own beauty. As she is fed images of the ideal, she becomes her own worst critic. She fails to live up to the beauty standard.
Imagine then a world where each time she is shown a standard with little room for interpretation. We are slowly taking down the barriers of the beauty industry (though certainly I could argue that the images women see are still idealized, even if not standardized), but we’re seeing a lag when it comes to the role of the woman and especially the working mother. She is still portrayed in these ads as having a singular focus and in particular, a focus on perfect parenting. When she’s in the business environment, she’s shown as a ball buster and a go-getter. When she’s in the home environment, she’s the best, most concerned parent out there. I love that we’re starting to see a focus on women outside the home, but all of this emphasis on perfection and greatness in singular aspects of a woman’s life can only give her an ideal, which is difficult to achieve.
We don’t see this unidimensionalization as much for men. Just observe this ad that makes the father the hero in home matters. He swoops in, heroically, in suit and tie to save the day – ensuring his son has the right drink. The semiotics of the ad are not subtle, he and his son are best friends looking lovingly at each other in theirmatching super hero costumes they’ve cobbled together in what was likely a fun morning of father and son bonding. He’s the perfect fun father but he’s also a clearly working father, given the suit and tie he’s donned, as well. Even more importantly, he’s the perfect dad because he’s not perfect. That same cobbled together superhero costume says that it’s enough that he is even trying. “A” for effort for him. I’m not sure women are afforded the same leniency in judgment.
It would be nice if women were seen to be as multi-dimensional as men and if they were given as much slack for their multi-faceted lives. In fact, it wouldn’t just be nice -- it would be welcome. Strong advertising is one that taps into the zeitgeist of the moment, the central condition of the human and where he or she is now and especially offers products in a way that acknowledges and then relieves the tensions of her life -- not just functional tensions but also emotional tensions. In the case of her life today that emotional tension isn’t just about the social success of her child but also the burden of doing it all and having it all. Advertising that understands deeper insights and more clearly and authentically taps into where women are in their lives, is more successful advertising. All of this shouldn’t just matter in regards to how women feel about themselves; it should matter to advertisers and marketers because it impacts their bottom line.
In fact, Ziploc is missing the opportunity to connect more with the women of today – to show them as multi-dimensional adults who are pulled in different directions and are looking for solutions that help them be the best they can be – not necessarily perfect, but a better realization of themselves. Focusing on just one aspect of her life not only misses the mark, but makes the advertising that much more generic and less impactful.