Women in Advertising Gender Stereotype Shocker

So today is International Women's Day.
And it occurred to me that, in amongst this conversation about liberating women and the stereotypes that befall us, that I (also a woman) had commited one of those cardinal sins.
We recently produced a Spotify audio commercial for Crunchy Nut. Quite a fun one to promote bowling for the family and quite without hesitation I cast the voiceover as a woman and told the story from the view point of the mother.
All those staunch feminists would be aghast....but the reality is that, to make advertising work you need to reflect real life or make a very good comedy out of your contrast.
The truth is that the 'main-shoppers' as we now term what was once referred to as 'housewives' is so called because the women within households still account for the role as 'main shopper' and to have cast the role differently would have seemed contrived.

You still hear the arguement that the advertising world needs to lead change in how it represents gender stereotyping, that we reinforce these stereotypes to our children. But if these stereotypes aren't infact stereotypes, but are the reality for the majority then it's not the advertising that needs to change. Advertising reflects the world we live in as well as the one we aspire to.

So as it is International Women's Day, let's remember that women in some other countries couldn't give a damn that we're represented 'poorly' by endosing a household cleaning product. They're still fighting for the right to vote or visit the shops without a chaperone.