Adverts in Nigeria that depict career women and how they juggle between their jobs and kitchen duties have sparked a heated debate about gender roles in Nigeria.
The campaign is for a seasoning brand Maggi, which sells over 90 million stock cubes in Nigeria each day, according to company figures.
In the advert a 30-something mother and self-described “boss lady” proudly introduces herself as a “chief quality inspector” in her corporate life and a “kitchen grandmaster” at home.
She switches between presentations in the boardroom to cooking in an ultra-modern kitchen.
With an apron over her office clothes, she blows out the flame from a gas lighter – rather like James Bond dissipating the smoke from his gun – as she whips up a dish for her loving family.
“I love what I do,” she enthuses.
A billboard ad, meanwhile, features a happy woman with her two children, with the caption: “Mummy. Teacher. Taste Master.”
The ad campaign that was released last month has stirred controversy amongst Nigerian citizens concerning gender roles. Nigeria is a country whether women are often expected to conform to gender roles established previously as opposed to changing according to the times.
One Twitter user said of the video: “I like the fact that she is a mom, boss lady and still a slayer.”
Another said: “I love that a woman is being portrayed as the multi-tasker that she is.”
But others described the advert as “misogyny” and “well-packaged suffering” and questioned why the person in the kitchen was not a man.
-EWN
