Ultimately despite the role that many of the "Lady Persuaders" also played in the women's rights movement, their work at J. Walter Thompson tended mainly to reinforce the condescending biases and stereotypes they had once been at pains as activists to undo. Frances Maule, once in advertising, opined that whether they knew it or not, women usually suffered from a sense of "unimportance, insignificance, [and] inadequacy." Successful advertisements for soap or cold cream worked by promising a remedy for such emotions, so that by buying the product a woman might achieve that " 'grand and glorious feeling' which we are seeking all the time." The president of the advertising trade association described the effect more cynically: "It is an illusion, of course…still it is a means to that end and its proper use [is] a very desirable practice."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 226