EVERY ad is going to portray the consumer as obsessed with the advertised products. Female characters go crazy for air freshners and spend inordinate amounts of time cleaning. Male characters go crazy for watered down beer and spend inordinate amounts of time patching things together with their tool set. Both male and female characters seem to find life fulfillment by purchasing the newest 7-razored shaving device. In this respect the ads seem even handed.
The imbalance comes in whenever male and female characters interact with each other. Maybe it's just my male bias at work, but it seems like female characters usually get the upper hand over the male characters.
How many ads have you seen where a man gets "put in his place" by a woman? These threads will provide countless examples. How many ads have you seen where a woman gets shown up by a man? I'm sure there are some, but they don't seem nearly as numerous.
You make some very good points here.