Pecan... I am not a woman, I never traveled to rural India and all ah dat. I wouldn't pretend to be able to see things from a woman's perspective, but with all due respect this isn't a 'woman's perspective' issue... at least not exclusively so. I could offer any number of reasons why I feel I can empathize with "the woman's perspective" but in the end it's immaterial. This is an issue about communication, and the ad targets men, so as a man, I can speak to what the ad is telling me. I'll let the other men viewing the ad and subsequent discussion speak for themselves.
Suffice to say I disagree completely with your daughter's perspective, but I won't say anymore on that, other than to address a couple points she makes.
1. It's basically suggesting that if you buy her a drink and get her drunk she won't be able to say "no", thus making a sexual encounter that may not have 100% consent for the female party - which is date rape. Many people believe that it's only non consensual when someone says "No" and even then, people still believe that "no" means "yes". I came across a rapist confidential once and a lot of these people didn't even know they were raping at the time.
Your daughter seems to be equating not being in the "friendzone" and sex to be one in the same, I offer that it is not. Sure, long-term if you're not in the friendzone then you are in a romantic relationship and there likely will be some sex involved. However, 'avoiding the friendzone' is not the same as having sex then and there, that same night. In other words, the opposite of the friendzone is not the coital bed, so I'm not sure where sex, or "date rape" enters the discussion.
2. Then there's the use of "friendzone", a term that perpetuates sexism. The use of it in the ad makes it so that the "Nice Guy who always finishes last" and always finds himself in the friendzone has an excuse to have potentially non consensual sex. Like, since it's him, the "Nice Guy" getting her drunk so she can't really give honest consent it can't be rape. Because - a Nice Guy would never rape someone. That's just impossible. So the ad perpetuates that "nice guys don't rape", and I assure you, they can.
This is just a bizarre comment. I don't understand how the term "perpetuates sexism" for one. This is real, whether it's been a part of your daughter's experience or not. Women make these decisions, and often very early in the relationship. Of course this wouldn't apply to ALL women, but I can tell you from personal experience that there were more than a couple women to whom I was attracted in college but I never acted on it because I thought we were "just friends" and didn't want to mess anything up. Years later I had a good chuckle with some of the same women who were waiting for me to make a move, lol. They were like "you were just like a good friend, I thought that's all you wanted since you never..." In short my ass got stuck in the "friendzone"... and I actually lived to tell about it LOL
Now I can tell you that having learned from that I learned to be clear about my intentions to women to whom I was attracted (and the opposite is also true, the ones I wasn't interested in "like that" I let them know early). Did that result in immediate sex, or any sex at all? Of course not. The opposite of being in the friendzone is just that yuh hopes of being seen as a potential mate stays alive. What this ad does in a very clumsy way, is to equate machismo with consumption, not just of any liquor, but consumption of this particular alcoholic drink. It doesn't say "get her to drink this and take advantage of her" it says "buy her this drink,whether she drinks it or not, your CHOICE of drink tells her you are a man's man"... sorta like the Dos Equis commercial with "The Most Interesting Man in the World"... a man's man.
3. Plus, any time the "friendzone" is uttered, it's perpetuating the idea that females should feel obligated to have sex with a male who is nice to her. Plus, devalues any sort of male-female platonic relationship.
Not a good ad, but most alcohol ads are almost the worst to perpetuate extremely harmful sexism.
Yeah, again... this kind of an odd interpretation. I don't get the dichotomy that she keeps setting up between "friendzone" and "sex"... in my mind it should properly be "friendzone" vs. any non-platonic relationship, be it romance, "friends with benefits", any number of relationships along the gradient, before getting at a purely sexual relationship.
