Daniel Makayan
City College of New York
Writing for the Sciences

        Refreshing yourself brings a label upon yourself
                     Rhetorical Analysis 
                       2024 Spring Term

Men and Women each have their ways when it comes to putting themselves out there to the public eye in order to achieve their goals but it tends to be misunderstood in a way that makes the man feel as if they do a better job in doing it compared to the woman. In recent years, society has been shown to put a label against women as what is shown in the “Pantene ‘Label Against Women’ Digital Advertisement” from Pepe Torres, P&G Philippines. This advertisement speaks out against society putting a negative label on women doing their works and dreams which then affects their reputation because they are being looked at the wrong way and when the men do the same thing the woman are doing, they are put on a positive label, showcasing in a way that men are accepted in what they do and when woman do the same thing, they are being neglected by society. Francis Gonzales who is the managing director stated “We had conducted research that stated that 70% of men actually think that women need to downplay their personality to be accepted. Even more surprising was that 58% of women agree with this fact.” It is crucial that women need to put in time and effort to prove themselves in their environments while men barely need to change.

The advertisement focuses on different areas in which men and women do in their daily life such as working, studying, etc. The advertisement then compares men and women in those environments such as what is first shown. There are 2 bosses, one is a man and one is a woman. The male is identified as a “Boss” which characterizes him as a good leader and successful towards his peers and employees. However, when switched onto the woman, she is labeled as “bossy” instead of a boss which gives the perception that she is very controlive over her employees and she brings an attitude which is a boss that not many employees strive to work for. The advertisement then switches to what looks to be a male and female leader for the people in which they will make a better society for the people. The male leader is labeled as “Persuasive” indicating that he is very good at making people believe in what he thinks and does is correct and right for them while the female leader is labeled as “pushy” which identifies her as a leader who is trying to force her way into people’s minds and is trying to force her beliefs into society.

Next up shown is a father who needs to make sacrifices in staying up due to work and studying in order to keep a living with his child. He is labeled as “dedicated” while the mother doing the same thing is labeled as “selfish” which is putting empathy on the father in which he has to do extra hard work to support his child while the woman being labeled “selfish” is indicating that she is putting in all her hard work in benefit for her, not her child. The ad cuts to a man and women washing their faces in the bathroom as the man is labeled as “neat” while the woman is labeled as “vain”. The final piece of label comparison shown in the commercial is where a man is walking out in public with fine clothing and is labeled as “smooth” while the woman wearing very fashioned clothing is labeled as a “show-off”. This commercial is very strong in what it is trying to tell as people who are being labeled by others and society should not affect the way they still do their daily lives because it is their life and no one should affect how they live.

With this commercial, it is mainly targeting women because it is comparing their lifestyles to men and with the labels that are being put upon them with those lifestyles, it sure can create a very emotional, angered, and doubtful feeling for women because they are being put down in this commercial but then at the end of the commercial, it can be aspiring in a way because it states “don’t let labels hold you back” indicating that women should not be affected by what people say about them. A strong point of the commercial that demonstrates this cause is through the father and mother part of when they have to make a sacrifice for the sake of their lives and their child. Both are staying up late because there is a dark environment and both have children because of the baby bottle. The man is labeled as “dedicated” and the woman is labeled as “selfish”. This both can output a saddened and angered feeling towards anyone who watches the ad (mainly women) because the label of the man being “dedicated” for his child is showing society that this man is hard working and people will feel empathy for him and would actually be willing to reach out for support because this label puts a very sympathetic tone for the audience and society. The mother who is in the same exact situation, is labeled as “selfish” which is showing that she is doing her work for her own benefits and not dedicating her time to her child. This creates a viewpoint that she is doing this for her own good and she is not thinking about others which is not true in her case.

In producing the advertisement with pathos, it effectively targets the audience because it makes them feel in a way that labels are what they are being defined as to the public eye but they do not justify their true meaning to that person being labeled. Creating a feeling of anger and doubt allows the commercial to fully utilize human emotion in a way where the audience will question themselves in what they do, but they shouldn’t because it is not necessary for what the public thinks about them. It is a complicated and harsh way to reach out to this specific audience but in doing so that way, it shows its full effectiveness as audiences will tend to speak out and call the commercial as an act of “feminism” but in truth, it allows the audience to not be defined by the public eye but only by themselves making them stronger.

This commercial from Pantene really gets out its message that people should not be identified as what society labels them to be. People should be identified by how they want to be and only how they view themselves because they themselves know who they are. Women should not be compared and judged negatively based on what they do compared to a man doing it. What is done should be equal amongst both genders and it is important for society to take hold of this because it is not fair for either side to be misjudged and let one be viewed better than the other. The advertisement is very emotional and the message is very well outputted towards the audience.