Shan always come up with different ideas in term of advertising their products, they are promoting diversity, family system, equality in society ,breaking stereotype, defying gender roles but this time they depict rights for working women.
This advertisement educates us about the fact that (we already know) 77 percent of female doctors are unable to practice their profession because of our culture. The fact that people demand for doctor bahu but once she gets married her goals and dreams are drained and she is force to do house hold chores. The extravaganza scene that her mother-in-law takes the oath with her doctor bahu to serve the nation and make her patients health, her foremost duty and later on cook the food and pack for her to the hospital to make sure that she is eating healthy. She puts an effort to help her daughter in law to grow and excel as a confident women. This advertisement shares how women help each other and Saas bahu relationship is portrayed in a very positive light.
Another, recent advertisement of Shan Food also come up with the same message.Video below;
Comparatively, the misogynistic and mindless content that we consume every day, the whole concept of this campaign is amazing and heart-touching and we need to promote this message because women doctor remain invisible in our statistics and sometime women do not choose to leave they are forced to do so because of myriad reasons.
This was a very heartwarming advertisement, It is good to see that there are ads now which are actually promoting women and their careers instead of putting them in a negative light. Also while I encourage how they have shown a positive relationship between Saas and Bahu, I believe it could have also been a good message to spread if the husband was cooking the food instead of the Saas so that it normalizes men working in the kitchen also. Moreover, I also wrote a blog post about ads which actually promote the opposite message to yours and puts women in a negative light. Would love for you to give it a read. https://www.mediapolicyproject.com/post/kenwood-ac-men-will-be-men
A great post, Zunaira!
While the entire ad, message it is promoting and narrative is, undoubtedly, really beautifuI. And the celebration of a woman supporting a woman that makes us feel heartwarming. And I really agree that such ads are really helpful against sexism and misogyny.
I think Shaan has created some wonderful advertisements in the past, including this one, that shed light positively on relationships and situations which are not necessarily seen as positive or have a different perception in society. This Doctor Bahu ad is one I found particularly striking and emotional, and another that made me smile was with the Chinese wife making food for her Pakistani neighbors. (Here's the link: https://youtu.be/qGVMqHtNdXI). Another one they released this year has the potential to inspire many great changes in our media production and the characters we include in it, given that the hashtag is #DifferentYetTogether (https://youtu.be/T9jLB3GXB78). So many people and communities can be included and covered in concepts like these, and I feel like Shaan…
This is a great ad. I'm so glad that this issue is being highlighted now since 90% of women who do become doctors and not only forced by their in-laws not to practice, but their families too discourage them from practicing. The medical degree is just there, so the woman could be a trophy wife, which is dangerous for our society (lack of enough qualified doctors) and a massive waste of potential that could've contributed to our nation's progression instead of slaving away as housewives. This is not just a story of a doctor. This is a story of every household where a bahu is solely responsible for kitchen work which is too much for her, along with other house…
You're right to bring out a positive advertisement Zunaira! It is certainly refreshing to see it, what with the whole lot of horrible commercials always showing a woman's precarious position in her in-laws. We've grown up internalizing messages due to such commercials that saas is the villain. Although it is a progressive step and an impressive and wholesome advertisement, I still feel like the whole narrative heavily misses out on the husband's role on the whole ordeal. It's as if the wife is always fully at the mercy of her mother in law, whether in a good way or a bad way. When commercials show the saas in a bad light, like the brite advertisement, the husband doesn't take a…