Every time you switch on the television you see them.
Perfect women. Women with tresses that look like velvet fountains. Calm and
smiling mothers who wipe toddlers’ tears away and feed cough mixture to grumpy
and sick husbands.
Mothers who
drive fancy clean cars while thinking up trivial pursuit questions for the kids
in the back seat. Women who bring forth dishes for supper that look as if a
professional chef has been slaving away for days.
Women who look beautiful upon
waking. Women who seem to spend their lives jetskiing in the Bahamas. Women who
look stunning leaving work in the afternoon. Women whose houses are always tidy.
Girls who are thin, zitless, confident and beautiful and who get flowers from
strangers in the street.
Where are these people? Who are these people? Do they
really exist, or are they merely conjured up to make the rest of us feel
sufficiently inadequate so that we will consider spending our hard-earned cash
on the single product which will give us the lifestyle or appearance apparent in
the advertisement? Are we all just simply useless failures who shout at our
children, run out of toilet paper and look like Attilla the Hun prior to our
morning beauty routine?
If advertisements make you feel like you’ve never been
where the action is, this article is for you. Welcome to the world of the silent
majority, whose lives bear little resemblance to the plastic perfection of the
advertising world. Here follows a reality chart designed to give you greater
insight into the behaviour, habitat and appearance of the real woman. And that
is not the one you see in the advertisements.
| Women in the world of advertising |
Women in the real world |
| They wake up perfectly groomed, completely refreshed and
dancing |
We wake up, hair looking like a crysanthemum, breath
seriously malodorous, face looking like that of the Pilsbury Doughboy and
not in a jumping-for-joy mood. Maybe it had something to do with the baby
and its colic? |
| Their children eat cooked breakfasts in clean kitchens |
In the morning our kitchens look like missile testing sites,
with the debris of the previous evening's meal often in evidence.
Forget the cooked breakfast - the kids are lucky if you are organised
enough to have milk as well as sugar with the cereal. |
| They arrive at the breakfast table perfectly groomed |
We arrive at the breakfast table still sporting the
crysanthemum and wearing the ubiquitous dressing gown which is everything
but dressy. Comfortable slippers round off this elegant picture. |
| They wear 'dress for success' outfits to work. They have
executive jobs, in other words. |
Many of us wear uniforms for work and have the kind of jobs
where we make the tea for the boss rather than being the boss. Many women
slave away in dead end jobs to make ends meet. |
| They drive what looks like new and clean company cars |
We drive clapped out station wagons which look as if they
have just been on a 4X4 trail. Debris from the children decorates the interior of the car, which we bought secondhand. |
| They wear designer clothing - a casually thrown together
outfit could easily cost R5000 |
We wear what we have - mostly from department stores or
sales at the more expensive clothing retailers. We struggle to pay off our
clothing accounts. |
| Their houses are always tidy. No doubt the scrubbing and
polishing is not done by the hands that sport those perfectly manicured
nails. I mean, really - white couches in a house with children? |
Put it this way - if your dinner guests were to arrive an
hour early, the state of your house might make them go home again. We
think our weekly chars are angels from heaven. We believe that only dull
women have immaculate houses. Ours every now and then resembles an
obstacle course. |
| Supper happens almost by itself. They also entertain effortlessly, throwing together six-course
meals without getting the kitchen dirty. |
We only entertain on the night of the day the domestic help has been
- we don't have the time to both clean and cook. We seldom try out new
adventurous gourmet recipes, largely because we don't have the time and we
don't want to spend the year's entertainment budget in one evening. We
also fight about whose turn it is to go and fetch take-aways. |
| Their children go into raptures about being given rice or
asked to scrub down the stove. |
Ours groan at both these prospects and slink off to the dark
caves which they have made their rooms. |
| They go to exotic beaches or casinos for their vacations |
We trot off on a camping holiday by the seaside - what else
can you afford if you have four children? |
| When they leave work, they look as if they have just had a
make-over |
When we leave work, we look as if we need a make-over. |
| They have husbands and partners who queue to do household
chores |
Mostly, we have to threaten torture and punishment of some
sort to get his hands into the sink |
| Their husbands open their mouths to take medication |
Ours have to be cajoled for lengthy periods of time before
they will deign to take any tablets or potions you are offering. |
| Their babies coo and gurgle and wear only dry nappies |
Ours do too, but they also scream at 3 am, cry for no
reason and need 12 nappy changes a day. Why do babies on television
never have diarrhoea? |
| Their husbands or lovers mostly adore them and remember
birthdays and anniversaries |
Ours love us too, but it does not stop them from forgetting
anniversaries and birthdays. They are also not in the constant habit of
buying flowers, cars or jewellery for us. |
| They solve all household crises and never seem to go to
pieces |
We are sometimes in a bad mood, scream at the kids, leave
the ironing and the dishes and yell at our husbands for inviting the boss
to dinner at half an hour's notice. |
| Their fridges are always full to bursting with delectables. |
You know what it's like when you have growing children. They're like warrior ants. They can empty a well-stocked fridge in forty-five
minutes leaving only a limp lettuce leaf and an old jar of mayonnaise. |
| They are always fabulously wealthy and always only buy the
very best or eat at the very best restaurants |
We sometimes have to ask for an advance on our
salaries so we can pay the rent, because we bumped our car and
the dog had to go to the vet three times after being bitten by the
neighbour's cat. |
| They wear slinky silky nightdresses and feel like sex every
night |
In winter we wear flannel pyjamas and, sometimes, but
thankfully not always, would club our dearest on the head if he even
thought sex was a possibility. |
| They always retain their sense of humour and look happy |
We suffer from frequent sense-of-humour-failures and are not
always dancing with joy. But then when we do laugh, at least it's real and
when we are happy, it's not because we are paid to smile. |
Bookmark with:
What are social bookmarks?