Although it is a generally accepted idea that women were supposed to be subservient creatures to their husbands or fathers up until very recent times, it is still difficult to look back on history and understand how women could be treated so poorly. While searching for an ad to rhetorically analyze, I came across the extremely sexist pitch made by a company called Dacron in the 1970s. Dacron sells their product by using the idea that men will gain the attention of all women and make them subservient if they wear Dacron’s “Mr. Leggs” trousers.

As soon as you look at this advertisement you can see there is a lot going on. There is a headless man standing on a tiger rug, but it’s not actually a tiger rug, it’s a tiger’s body with a woman’s head, etcetera etcetera. It can be difficult to truly analyze every facet of this advertisement from a glance, but there are a few very obvious aspects that one will notice at first glance. The first is that there is a man, pictured from the waist down, standing on top of the rug with a woman’s head. Not only is the headless man obviously dominating the slain woman, the caption underneath the picture delves into an even deeper level of sexism. The first few lines include the despicable tagline of “Though she was a tiger lady, our hero didn’t have to fire a shot to floor her. After one look at his Mr. Leggs slacks, she was ready to have him walk all over her.” There is obviously a realm of different problems with these two sentences alone, but pair them with the picture that preceded them and you have an extremely demeaning advertisement that plays off the idea that women are worth nothing but the floor underneath a man’s foot. 

Moving on to who this ad might interest, it can be concluded that the ad is specifically targeting men who are interested in purchasing high quality trousers, but the content of the ad is what truly draws the eye of the audience. In the ad, there is a man pictured from the waist down standing on top of what appears to be a tiger rug, but has the head of a woman instead of a tiger. The man’s foot is propped up on the head of the woman, portraying the dominant pose that hunters often take while being photographed with their latest kill. The main caption of the ad says “It’s nice to have a girl around the house” but is obviously written in a satirical fashion. To be more specific, the caption is referring to having a girl laying around the house, as it is alluded to in the description below the ad “If you’d like your own doll-to-doll carpeting, hunt up a pair of these he-man Mr. Leggs slacks” stating you could have more than one exotic “tiger” rug if only you buy the pants! 

By using a man pictured strictly from the waist down, it plays off the idea that a woman will not care what a man actually looks like, but only notice the type of pants he is wearing. In this context, I believe it is showing how the creators of the ad view women as strictly materialistic beings, as the Mr. Leggs trousers are only a clothing item and would usually hold no other significance. However, this ad seems to embrace a culture of successful men overpowering women. One way we can understand the man pictured is of a successful stature is by what he is wearing. Although we may only be able to see from his waist down, we can see he is wearing a crisp white shirt, tie, well-fitting Mr. Leggs trousers, and what seem to be nice dress shoes. The appearance of the man himself may not seem to be very significant, but it would appeal to other men who aspire to be successful as well. 

Another interesting question to consider with this ad is why would they put this much effort into trying to sell pants? Clothing advertisements may be common, but it is rare you see an ad for a specific apparel item. My theory is the market for clothes was so large that Dacron had to do something drastic in order to make their product known to the population. Although this type of blatant sexism may not have been uncommon during the 1970s, it is still an interesting and creative platform to use for the sale of a product. Someone obviously put a lot of thought and effort into the ad because each design aspect represents a different appeal to the viewer. For example, the rug may illicit a sense of power to men because it is generally known that tiger rugs are a luxurious home accent, therefore a man may associate wearing Mr. Leggs pants with affluence or authority. On the contrary, women may associate men who wear Mr. Leggs pants with being powerful, attractive, and successful. These specific ideas are related to the pathos of the ad and viewers; the personal values of the ideal viewers directly correspond with the images and abrasive text used within the advertisement.

Although many will argue the ad is not entirely horrid when in the context of the time period, the sexist ideas behind the advertisement will never be appropriate. This ad directly represents women as objects that only belong underneath men. Throughout most of humanity, women were viewed as objects to give birth and serve men. After a deep analyzation of the add and its context, it is easy to conclude that the ad itself harnessed the idea of male-domination was much more appealing to the viewing audience than simply advertising a pair of pants that were perhaps well-made or comfortable. Dacron sells their product by using the idea that men will gain the attention of all women and make them subservient if they wear Dacron’s “Mr. Leggs” trousers.
