Drano ad and... the sniffles?

My gut reaction to this add was to be offended while part of me (a very small part) tried to understand the rationale of the '30s behind this add. Like others have commented, yes the ideal of the time was for a woman to stay at home and make the house run smoothly. In fact, it reminds me of a "helpful" newspaper article fromthe '50s which stated that it's a woman's job to make sure the man does not have _anything_ to worry about once he comes home because he works so darn hard (as if keeping a house isn't hard work, too).

I got to thinking about the claims of others, though, that this is an outrageous ad and we wouldn't see the like today. While I do see the shadow of domestic abuse that others pointed out, in a broader sense, this ad strikes me as targeting a woman's guilt at not living up to expectations. I would also argue that in that sense, it's not much different than the Clorox commercials of today that have women running after their kids and wiping everything down with a Clorox handywipe... as if their child getting the sniffles is the end of the world, and what a horrible mother they would be if this happened (as if kids won't go outside and eat dirt or bugs or rocks, etc.). In both cases, a woman's role is to anticipate the annoyance/discomfort of others and do something about it so they never have to deal with it (no matter how trivial the annoyance). In that case, it's just an earlier verse of the same song being sung today.