Television is well-known for its "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver" representations of the gendered division of labor and leisure at home. Television advertising likewise has reinforced conventional ideological accounts of women's domestic chores and the efficient functioning of the household. Women have long been depicted as knowledgeable household consumers, especially when it comes to cleansers and tools for cleaning -- mops, vacuum cleaners, laundry, dishwashers, ovens, etc.

Indeed, most of us are familiar with advertisements that present women as having a natural desire for spotlessness. The following example was taken from an ad for Fred Meyer grocery stores. The ad advances the following narrative.

"Lorraine Sheehan has always been an impeccable house keeper. Her kids say she's a demon on dirt. Lorraine expects the same from the store she shops, and says Fred Meyer always measures up. She doesn't know that's because of people like Sue Dooley who work long after the store's closed, who cover it from top to bottom until its shines. The kind of shine that Lorraine Sheehan really appreciates. You'll find it at Fred Meyer."

Notice the parallel construction between Lorraine as homemaker and Sue as employee. Each is shown doing the floors and windows. The depiction of their labors comes surprisingly close to how Protestants used to refer to a man's "calling." In hailing an older female audience, this advertiser explicitly links the roles of housekeeper and consumer. Indeed, the ad closes with a scene of Lorraine as consumer in the space cleaned to a "shine" so lovingly by Sue.

Since the matter of productive labor has long since been banished from the household (see Susan Willis, 1991), now a bastion of consumption, even imagery of sewing and food preparation has either disappeared or been made a function of labor-saving commodities. Hence, in the 1990s a considerable proportion of television ads have begun to depict alternative models of dual-earner, professional couples with children living at home. Studies such as that by Arlie Hochschild (The Second Shift) have found that in restructuring their work and their division of labor to accommodate family needs in dual-career households, women have restructured more than men. Though women are now routinely in the workforce, women still bear the brunt of the burden in performing necessary household labors. Nonetheless in television ads there appears to be a significant effort at showing fathers engaged in more domestic reproduction activities such as food preparation and childcare, and even cleaning. But let's not get carried away here: more often than not the presentation of adult males in these roles is flavored with humor to buffer the impact of the message. Usually the sponsored product (e.g., US West voice-messaging services, or a fast-food preparation like McDonald's) appears to make it possible for even an incompetent male to accomplish domestic household tasks such as food preparation or the changing of diapers without too much damage or distress. Notice the spin that deskilling is given here -- in the interest of the two career family that has no spare time, the deskilling of reproductive labor -- cooking, cleaning and childcare -- is made to appear as a benefit. We might hypothesize that representations of men performing reproductive labor around the household are more for the benefit of female audiences than male.