1/27/13

ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID, never...


Women's magazines have almost always gone out of their way to make women feel bad about themselves. How else can you possibly logically sell products without telling your buyer they're nothing without it? But this...this has always been a saying that irked me. And for young women today who think the feminist movement was not for them, consider this ad and ask yourself if they'd use it today. I'm sure in some narrow-world-view-circles this is still considered a perfectly logical fear. I ask that those people get off the bus.
Edna’s case was really a pathetic one. Like every woman, her primary ambition was to marry. Most of the girls of her set were married—or about to be. Yet not one possessed more grace or charm or loveliness than she.
And as her birthdays crept gradually toward that tragic thirty-mark, marriage seemed farther from her life than ever.
She was often a bridesmaid but never a bride.
What I'd really like to know is if it was a man or woman who wrote this copy. It wouldn't change my perspective of how bad the ad is, but it would have me wondering about the discussions that went on at the ad agency.

Click on image to see it larger. (SOURCE: The American Magazine, October, 1936)

And if you think not getting married is the biggest horror in life caused by bad breath...I give you death by halitosis.

Personally I think this photo looks like Edna might be crying over Ivy's casket.

1 comment:

  1. I agree!! Looks much more like grief atop a casket!! ha ha ha

    ReplyDelete