Now, as the opening music rose I’m sure you cringed as much as I did. But when our enterprising lemonade maker launched into a different language, did you smile instead? There’s a tendency to ignore or overlook the marketing campaigns of big business and to assume that nothing they ever do can possibly be for the good. After all, they’re trying to sell us products and services, right? But marketing tries to make us empathise, and to capture our hopes, dreams and ideas for the future. It also guns for mass market appeal.
So here’s the idea: a clever little girl can grow up to be a multinational business leader.
The lemonade stand metaphor is an interesting one, and certainly well used in the fields of business and commerce. It’s used as the basis of training games for pricing models, economics theory (there’s a nice Calvin and Hobbes one here), maths tutorials and host of other skills needed to run your own business. It’s not just a cute thing that kids do; it’s also about how we introduce children, boys and girls, to the world of work.
The models we use for “work” within childhood play set the tone for how we expect children to behave and the roles they might grow into. I remember books on work with pictures of male pilots and female air hostesses. Mothers cleaning the house whilst fathers returned from work. Some of these have since been pleasingly updated, including the Richard Scarry books.
I was told by a friend of mine (who was a boy) that he couldn’t play with pots and pans because they were “for girls”. We must have been about six. Even though we were actually a rock band. With wooden spoons instead of drumsticks. Maybe we were a girl band.
Anyway.
I like the fact that this campaign could have just as easily been done with a young boy and his mother, but instead we have a girl and her dad. A decisive, smart and multi-lingual little girl. Her loving and supportive father, blown away by his daughter’s abilities.
Future businesswoman of the year, perhaps?
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But feminists come in many shapes and sizes and while the froo-froo shit doesn’t bother me in weddings (although really, someone tell me why you would spend money on wedding favours instead of booze?), there are a couple of traditions that I’m having trouble swallowing. I’m talking about being given away. This is actually really stressful for me, because I’m torn between duty/love and wanting to remain true to myself. It’s tradition that the bride’s father gives her away. Sometimes, if he isn’t available, it’s her brother or uncle, or her mother. In Jewish tradition it is both her parents. And I sodding hate the entire idea.
It’s only in recent years that we primarily started marrying for love. Back in Ye Olden DayesTM, people married for financial security, or because their families had arranged it. Brides came with dowries of land, money, and/or resources and grooms came with significant presents to her family. To show that the head of the family (the dad) was satisfied, the bride would be handed over on her wedding day by her father to show that she was no longer his property and was now the responsibility of the groom’s family.
Ick.
The very thought of this makes my skin crawl. I don’t understand why I can’t walk down the aisle myself, head high as I approach my future husband – my own agency, my own choice, nothing to do with being someone’s chattel. I even like the idea, becoming more common in America, of meeting your betrothed at the entrance of your ceremony venue, having a private moment and then walking in together. You are, after all, entering the married state together, so why not the church or hall?
But. There’s a but. In that I know my dad has always planned on walking me down the aisle. I mean, it’s not like he’s been fantasising about it since I was seven, but it was taken as fact that that’s what I’d have. And while he’s said to me he doesn’t mind what I do at my wedding and that he doesn’t even have to be invited, I can’t quite get to the point of saying ‘No, dad, I don’t want you to walk me down the aisle’. For one thing, he’s my dad and he’s been damn supportive of me, so making him happy with this one thing should be a compromise I’m willing to make. For another, I may need someone to lean on so I don’t wobble with nerves, or panic, or booze (fuck yeah, Dutch courage!). And part of me thinks ‘aww’ when I envision his face as he walks me down the aisle and I face my fiancé. We’re not having a traditional ceremony so there will be no ‘who gives this woman’ because no one does – so surely it won’t matter that much.
So with all these reasons, why does my stomach clench when I think about it? Why do I actively fret over this very simple, 30 second task that is dwarfed by the lifetime vows I’m going to make five minutes afterwards? Do what I want, and I have to deal with a hurt father and guilt – do what will make him happy and I feel like a fake. It’s a conundrum and one I’m not sure I know how to answer. I’m hoping wisdom and clarity will come to me sometime this year.
(Photo: Phil Hawksworth.)
- Lizzie is getting married in 2013 and has already planned roughly 5,748 weddings in her head. You can find more of her musings, wedding-themed reviews and rantings at Wedding Belles UK.
I was taken by his concept of dadhood, and his understanding and appreciation for the importance of it. He takes a tandem approach, both looking to replace the aspects of himself as a person and looking for people whose responses to “what advice would you give my daughters” he liked. The end results are surprisingly non-gender stereotyped – get over obstacles, jump in mud puddles, find a friend.
He also talks a lot about the importance of community in creating a whole person, and a little about the idea of a “modern man” as actively seeking a role in their child’s upbringing, which is very encouraging.
- Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. Send your finds to [email protected]!