Response to the joy razor commercial entitled “change the world” 

 

We open on the chic, everyday girl on the go propping her leg up on her pink toilet in her pink bathroom, plowing down her calf hair then rinsing the blades of patriarchy from her Joy razor under the faucet, something secret yet known spiraling down the drain. 

 

The relatable, funny, female narrator booms like god over the scarily monochromatic, ultra-feminine pink bathroom, declaring, 

 

 “This razor won’t change the world, but it will change your leg hair situation. So later if you decide you want to change the world, you can do it with less leg hair.” 

 

The seemingly all-knowing idiot stumbles through the second sentence almost made a question by her hesitation, her self-awareness of the dimness of these words poking through the screen. 

 

Joy, a female razor company, promotes female empowerment. “You can change the world, girl!” shouts company executives and expensive t-shirts everywhere. These piercing screams drown out the fact that lying in wait beneath Joy’s girl power commercials are the social norms for female hair removal and women’s shame of their bodies. Their shame that somebody will witness the scary werewolf that unleashes during the no-shave full moon of every day or so. The shame that someone will see the hair we all know exists. 

 

Joy, how can you say you are empowering girls, when you are appealing to their shame?

 

How can you make women feel powerful, Joy, when you are reminding them of a body feature that is regarded as a social weakness? 

 

If you really want to be empowering, Joy, you would not insinuate that something that grows naturally on the body needs to be removed (or else!) and sell a product to do just that. If you want to make a woman feel powerful, you’ll say she can conquer the world with or without body hair. If you want to make a woman feel strong, you’ll tell her that social norms are culturally constructed and used as a form of control, instead of reinforcing those same ideas. You’ll tell her, Joy, that her appearance and body hair have no affect on her success.

 

But maybe the commercial is right in its paradoxical way, at first you must confront the shame society projects onto you, you must remove what is shameful, to feel power.

 

So what Joy’s funny-girl deity should really be narrating is:

 

“You must be shamed and give into that shame in order to be powerful.”

 

An unfair, nonsensical truth made up by our great-great grandfathers and their sexist methods of shaming women into inferiority. 

 

Ya know, Joy, I would have more respect for you if you didn’t disguise your “change the world” platform under women’s empowerment. That’s not what you’re directly selling. You are selling a razor because women are expected to be devoid of body hair, the body hair that tarnishes their delicate, pretty nature, that makes them seem dirty and masculine. You’re not selling power, Joy, you’re selling shame that removes Mother Nature. You’re selling shame that cuts. You’re selling shame that leaves blood-red badges everywhere representing the commitment to our womanly duty.

 

Joy, you might as well change your company name to Shame, because that’s what you’re making women feel.