A couple points in proof of this claim:
1. In every species that exhibits parental behavior, it is the female that exhibits that behavior more than the male. Now, for reasons I can’t go into there is in humans high paternal investment. But this is of a different nature than the maternal investment (it’s more a provider and protector role than a nurturing one, and in any case it lasts only until about 4 years old).

2. A woman is always sure that her child is hers; a man can never be sure that a child is his. Thus we would expect more caution on the male’s part.

I sort of got what Coral Insects was saying–advertisers will do whatever they think will be successful/has been shown to be successful, problematic or not–and maybe it’s OK/inevitable sometimes? But that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the potential effects of these representations (effects which are hard to determine, but I think it would be naive to say that representations don’t have effects…). But then we get to point 4:

“Only women can bear children, thus we would expect the motif of bearing children to be closely associated with women.”

True but trivial, since bearing children does not equal raising children.

“Women by virtue of being women are more adept at child-raising than men.” “…child-raising is a distinctively female activity…”

My mom and dad might disagree. But then again, my dad cooks, so he probably doesn’t get it.

The fact that people think of child-raising as a distinctively female activity is a problem.

1. white people make up the majority of the people watching television at any given time. thus it makes sense to target them by putting white people in the commercials.

2. the sports in the winter olympics are sports that skew heavily white in both participation and in observation (curling, skiing, hockey etc). The American delegation is less racially diverse than you seem to think. So the audience is more heavily white than usual, thus making the above strategy even more appropriate.

3. Whites are more likely than other races (perhaps not Asians) to have the disposable income to buy a lot of P&G products. This again makes them the correct target for this marketing campaign.

(3.5 I’m tempted to say that white wives are more likely to be stay-at-home moms than are wives of other races, but I don’t know if this is true.)

4. Only women can bear children, thus we would expect the motif of bearing children to be closely associated with women. Women by virtue of being women are more adept at child-raising than men. This is obvious in the case of nursing, and less obvious but nonetheless true in the sort of care that P&G deals in. Because child-raising is a distinctively female activity, it’s what comes to mind when people think of a female “contribution”. If SMT does a good job as president you don’t think of that as a female contribution, you think of it as a sex-neutral contribution first, and only subsequently, if at all, as a contribution made by a female.

In short, child raising is done by women qua women, while basically every other job by women qua persons. Genuine feminists believe the latter conception of women; Identity Studies people cling to the former while lamenting that no one believes the latter.

And, more than just buying into stereotypes, the commercial gives women who choose to be “mothers” a sense of personal satisfaction. There’s nothing wrong with being a mother, and caring for children is an important role for society. But all too often, it’s the only contribution that women make that gets recognized, it’s the only one acceptable for women to make, and it’s the only one that society thanks them for.

My dad usually mocks emotional ads. But he LOVES the kind of ads that are shown during the Superbowl. My mom literally teared up during the P&G commercial that featured “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Perhaps a broader campaign thanking more than moms could have increased their outreach to more potential consumers, but the ads do a good job of appealing to the consumers who 1) were the demographic watching the Olympics, and 2) are the demographic most likely to purchase P&G products.

Actually, this is a new campaign, so perhaps P&G is just trying to key into social constructs already in place (however problematic) in order to garner support for their program. While the name and commercial may only recognize moms, the program does not ignore everyone else. I agree with you that the portrayal of “mom” as the only family member who supports U.S. Olympic team athletes is problematic, but from their marketing department’s perspective, sex sells, and that is one sexy mom in their commercial.

http://pgfamilyhomenews.blogspot.com/2010/02/procter-gamble-helps-team-usa-moms-get.html?utm_source=thankYouMom&utm_medium=mini-site&utm_campaign=teamUSA