I don't believe they were attempting to degrade women with this comercial but certainly could be the effect.
There is a couple sets of comercials that I think do something similar for guys. I think their delivery is more offensive because its calling out in their slogan that they're attacking men.
Has anyone seen the Hardee's commercials that try to imply that guys can't take care of themselves. Their catch line is something to the effect of "Without us, men would starve." Yeah that irritates the crap out of me. I find that a quite offensive statement. Not just them though.
Theres that set of beer comercials, maybe for Budweiser or something where they depict men in a typical man situation, working on cars, playing cards, whatever when one of the men does something that might be considered I don't know "sensitive, caring, compassionate" and what happens, a giant beer can falls on this guy. Then to kind of hit the last nail in the coffin, the other guys just go back to whatever they were doing like he deserved it.
I shall ponder if I can remember any more offensive comercials and see if this is a wide spread marketing technique that scares these roles into the men and women of the world. Thanks for the alternative perspective.
-Us
