Reinforcing A False Narrative

I love football, so I watched the Super Bowl. My team wasn’t playing, so I cheered for the Patriots (I spent 35 years living near their stadium). I loved the halftime show. However, there was one deeply disturbing and misleading commercial. Evidently I was not the only person who thought so.

Dennis Prager posted an article at the National Review today about that ad. The ad was for Audi, a really cool car. Unfortunately, the ad was destructive and convinced me that I will never buy an Audi.

The article quotes the text of the ad:

“What do I tell my daughter?

Do I tell her that her grandpa is worth more than her grandma?

“That her dad is worth more than her mom?

“Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets?

“Or maybe . . . I’ll be able to tell her something different.”

First of all, if you tell her any of those things, you are lying to her. You are also telling her that she is a victim because she is a woman. You are not telling her that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ You are not telling her what a privilege she has to be able to bear children and nurture a husband and family. You are not telling her that she CAN achieve anything a man can achieve in the business world if she has the proper qualifications. Are you telling her to get a degree in feminine studies and then compete against a man with a masters degree in business administration? Are you telling her that her worth as a person is only based on how much money she makes? Are you instilling in her the idea that she is supposed to be a ‘human doing’ instead of a human being? Exactly what is the message you want to give your daughter?

Dennis Prager puts this much better than I do:

First, we need to stop the politicization of everything in America. We need to be able to watch sports, for example, without left-wing propaganda intruding. I would feel the same about right-wing propaganda, but the Right believes in allowing people to enjoy life without injecting politics wherever possible.

Second, the ad sent the false and debilitating message to every girl that being born in America is to be born oppressed and persecuted: “I am a woman, therefore I am a victim.”

In the words of the ad, “she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets.” It is hard to imagine a worse message to give a child. I devote an entire chapter in my book on happiness (Happiness Is a Serious Problem) to victimhood, because regarding oneself as a victim makes happiness impossible. Which is a big reason many feminists are unhappy human beings.

…Fifth, even from just a materialistic perspective, the ad is based on a lie. Women do not make less than men for the same work. And wage differences based on gender have been illegal for over 50 years. This fraudulent claim has been debunked so often — for a powerful five-minute video on the subject, see “The Myth of the Gender Wage Gap” (2.3 million views), presented by Christina Hoff Sommers at PragerU.com — that it is utterly irresponsible to keep repeating it. Using common sense alone, why would any employers hire a man if they can hire a woman to do the exact same work for 25 percent less?

Audi makes a wonderful car. Do they pay women who work for them less than they pay men? What is their claim based on? Do the women who work for Audi consider themselves victims? The car in the ad is beautiful. The ad is totally misleading.