While I was writing my response to megan's question about how we gendered ourselves as children growing up I began to think about how those stereotypes change as you grow up.
Boys become men replacing toy cars and guns for football and pints and girls change to women with makeup and to a certain point become 'housewives' leaving their toy houses behind.
These adverts by Axe advertising shower gel for men play with proposed sterotypes of women and their long suffering boyfriends ( who would apparently do anything for sex other than confront or talk to their partners.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7qRw3wo_G4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzsKm7sEG0&feature=relmfu
This blog, Work that matters, takes an enlightening approach to the adverts sexism.
http://workthatmatters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/complete-axe-guide-to-horrible-female.html
----All this has reminded me of a line in the book 'One Day' by David Nicholls. The leading male protagonist remembers fondly how he could get a girl into bed at university simply by taking her side on a feminism debate.
Will add quote later when I find it! ---------
I actually really enjoyed those adverts! Even though the bottles look like LYNX men deodorant.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair the females here are being shown as matriarchs but in the end the male always has a hidden agenda or basically wins. Pretty much showing that Sex forgives how people are treated and that feelings don't really come into it.
When I think about the people I come into contact with in day to day life they exude a predicticality of how I believe they should behave. Is it so terrible to have stereotypical views?
I don't think its bad at all to have stereotypical views. Imagine how confusing the world would be if people didn't comply to certain stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem comes when one or more parties are subjected to the more negative stereotype conventions eg. women being seen and used as sex symbols.
(Sparking yet another debate; is feminine sexuality a negative stereotype?)
In these adverts its as if the women are using the men and then rewarding them with sex which I feel kind of belittles both parties. It also reveals the notion of 'the crisis of masculinity' which suggests a shifting of power within the stereotypes of gender from male to female. The women here are using social stereotypes against then men, manipulating them to get what they want.
Basically I can't make up my mind about much of this.
ReplyDeleteGender stereotyping seems to work and is needed for order and understanding. It becomes a problem when it offends, restricts and denies people freedom.
These ad's and ones like it make me think how accurate to life and realistic they are. We see gender stereotyping in product marketing and in books we read, films we watch but I keep thinking that a lot of it really doesn't strongly apply to my life.
Not in the overwhelming way that we are studying it.
Of course it does apply because of the way I gender people and how I gender myself but these ads and TV programs seem to create a hyper-real view of gender, perhaps to help our understanding.
But then again perhaps I'm just not enough of a 'stereotypical girl' to feel the affects of stereotyping as strongly as the ads suggest I, as a female, should.
This is all hurting my brain I'm not even sure how I fit into this anymore.
I am starting to feel very confused. I agree that stereotyping is essential for how we can order the world but I know that stereotypes are not always true. Finding exclusions to a stereotype allows a less narrow minded way of thinking which can only ever be a good thing. Maybe we take stereotyping too seriously, when it is only a tool in enabling us to understand the world.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we are all better off having these structures in our minds...but then I think about where these structures have come from, and why we have accepted them so readily. I don't think we will ever find the answer.