In Space, No One Can Hear Your Outrage Over a Gender Normative Ad for Cleaning Products

By Doug Barry | November 11, 2012 | 5:30pm

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In the whimsical, mid-20th century past when America was enjoying a post-war money bath in gold it collectively won from the Nazis, people thought that colonizing the moon and flying around in Jetson cars was surely an imminent reality. Space travel and fancy gadgets would be great and all, but some companies realized pretty early on that even moon colonists would still engage in their day-to-day chores and errands because, unlike Lost in Space or Flash Gordon, real-life doesn’t let people just skip over menial, uninspiring tasks like sullenly taking out the garbage to one’s moon curb, waiting for the moon train (which of course is running 15 minutes late because even in the imminent space future shit breaks like all the time), or tamping a half-eaten moon dinner down a moon garbage disposal while assuring an ungrateful live-in moon partner that it’s just as well because this will be the last time you ever try to make chicken florentine anyway. It’s fine to have fancy dreams about living on the moon and all, but who is going to clean all the moon marinara sauce off of the moon kitchen counter?

According to this ad, the moon’s most mundane household tasks will fall to women, who will not only have to clean up regular floor footprints from their grimy moon kids, but also ceiling footprints because, as you may or may not know, there’s way less gravity on the moon and kids will be able to dirty every surface of the house. All this while wearing a physically constraining space suit because, while we may have advanced, futuristic technology, our social attitudes are strictly Victorian.