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. Though the demographics and opinions were much different than they are today, the advertisements and common rhetoric used throughout history can be rather alarming to a modern person, especially a woman. 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 uses the grandiloquent idea that men will gain the attention of women and make them subservient through using sexist rhetoric within the images and text of their ad to sell their “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. It can be difficult to truly analyze every facet of this advertisement from a glance, but there are a few very obvious aspects one will notice at first glance. The first is 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.” (Dacron) There are 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. The idea of using this as a sales pitch is not only demeaning, it depicts the idea of men in the 1970s being power hungry and desiring the domination of their female counterparts. It can be concluded 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. 

Another interesting aspect of the ad is that the man’s foot is propped up on the head of the woman, portraying the dominant pose 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” (Dacron) but is obviously written in a satirical fashion. To be more specific, the caption is referring to having a girl laying around the house like a trophy, 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” (Dacron) stating you could have more than one exotic “tiger lady” 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, 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; this ad seems to embrace a culture of successful men overpowering women. The creators use the appeal of Mr. Leggs trousers being related to success through what the man pictured 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. Perhaps 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 ad and its context, it is easy to conclude the ad itself harnessed the idea of male-domination to sell pants that were so ordinary and could have simply been advertised as well-made or comfortable. Dacron sells their product by using the idea that men will be more desirable to women and make them acquiescent if only they wear Dacron’s “Mr. Leggs” slacks.
