Archive: Insulting Women to Sell Them Shoes

From the TI archives — an opinion piece by Suchitra Sharma, originally published October 2014. Opinions are the author's.

Cindy Gallop has written powerfully about how the advertising world should change — making women the focus not as a sidekick but as the decision-maker. Watch too many TV ads and you see the opposite: women squealing over a pair of cheap shoes as though nothing else matters. The trope is trite, and it verges on objectifying women as sale-driven creatures.

Here's the absurdity. In about 40% of households with children, women were already the sole or primary breadwinners (per a widely cited 2013 Pew finding), and estimates put women's share of global consumer spending at roughly $20 trillion. Women are not waiting around for the annual sale — in a world of weekly deals and price-matching, the smart buyer knows the "hurry, don't wait" pitch is theater.

Take the ShoeDazzle "buy one, get one free" ads of the era: the whole appeal was aimed at a supposed female "sale mentality." Or the Marshalls "sticker shock" spots showing women devouring shoes and gasping at prices — a fantasy that only works if you imagine the shopper hasn't seen a price tag in a decade. Today's woman compares prices online, across categories — not just shoes and clothes — and buys at fair value. Please don't reduce her to a dimwit.

Media and advertising have a social responsibility in shaping society. When TV buzzes with ads of women showing off shoes as their entire personality, we diminish women's power, integrity, and scope. Yes, women like to shop — and so do men. Where are the ads of men ogling electronics as though nothing else matters? It was past time — it still is — for advertising to lean in and show the woman as a smart, thoughtful buyer in control of her life and her spending.

— Suchitra Sharma