I guess it’s just a matter of whose dollars are needed the most and how dumb they’re perceived by advertisers/movie and TV producers (which is also why there are more racial minorities in make-up ads even when minority models are nowhere to be found in fashion spreads-- regular companies figured out how much blackand Latina women spend on cosmetics. Designer labels… not so much).
Gay male here. You know what really gets my goat? Those ridiculous radio commercials for diamonds (I forget which company - Jared’s or Helzberg or something). It’s always something like this:
“Honey, I know you mean well when shopping for gifts this holiday season, but why don’t you spare us both the disappointment and get me what any woman desires most - diamonds!!!”
They always make the husband sound thoughtless and stupid, while the woman is portrayed as the one with good common sense. After all, she only wants DIAMONDS!!!
Ahh, women control a lot of discretionary spending so they get pandered to. Economics 101.
It’s not especially ennobling or empowering to be pandered to, though. The implicit message is “we have targeted you as someone who can be persuaded to buy our product through shallow flattery and appeals to your group-identity that have nothing to do with the quality of the product.” In general, people who will have (and act upon) a pronounced positive reaction to a message of “You are so smart and capable and beautiful” are people who aren’t so confident in the truth of these assertions to begin with.
On the few occasions when men or “masculinity” is pandered to in ads (which seems to take the form either of loutish beer commercial “real men of genius” slobbery or of Iron John “reclaiming the male”), it’s notable not only that women aren’t being bashed (that’s taboo), but that the men being appealed to (stereotypical Maxim-reading oafs and insecure emasculated suburbanites) are hardly a model of what most men would want to be represented by.
Some of my friends who are habitues of the online dating scene make fun of what they see as the cliched line “I am a strong independent woman” in online profiles – their assertion being that this is usually a red flag for rampant insecurity and inadequacy. I don’t recall too many instances of Patton, or Jack Dempsey, or Maria Theresa, running around telling everyone how confident and independent they were.
If I were a woman, I’d be dismayed that advertisers thought, and presumably had market-based reasons to think, that my allegience to their floor wax or electronics goods or automobile could be bought by them communicating to me the objectively-false notion that all members of my sex were wise and sober and all members of the opposite sex were ninnies. But apparently enough women <do> like pandering that this continues to pay dividends in a way it would not if companies did it for men (on a related note, you’ll observe that nowadays Presidential candidates seem to feel obliged to go on Oprah and talk about their feelings, whereas none of them seems to think that going on Monday Night Football or The Man Show would to discuss their love of monster trucks would sway any appreciable portion of the male electorate – if they’re right in estimating that appearing on Oprah will sway female voters, but that men are not as readily or effectively swayed by sex-stereotype-based pandering, of who(m) is that an indictment?).
Interesting point. I will have my PhD in about two years, and I’m going to have to make some tough choices once that happens. I would like to be a mother once I graduate, but being a mother and working 60+ hours per week at a post-doc in order to get enough work done so that I can be seriously considered for a future faculty position is not going to be easy. Well, sure, I have the “choice” of leaving my chosen profession in order to raise children, but you know, having gone to school now for 9 years in order to do what I do, I don’t really want to give it up. Now, maybe your sister-in-law genuinely did not want to continue in the field of genetics, but maybe she did and just didn’t have the options or flexibility in order to do it.
I’m not saying options aren’t available, but for a woman who wants to be a mother, it’s a heck of a lot harder to pursue academia than it is for any man, and the choices a woman has to make aren’t easy.
Great article, still reading it.
I saw that fitting in less with the “stupid guy” theme of commercials, but more with one that was depressingly ubiquitous this holiday season: “self-interest and naked greed are good”! The Best Buy commercials where the family does a drive-by greeting with grandma so that they can go home to their Best Buy presents, the Verizon “you’re my #1” commercials, the MasterCard commercial where the kid’s gift to his mother is a new set of clothes for himself… Jiminy Christmas, the lid is off of commercials. They’ve finally decided to stop hiding their target - you and your desire to pleasure yourself.
In a similar vein, I’m alarmed by the commercials that suggest that the family full of self-interested malcontents will simply be delighted to come together as a family because they can ride around in their van, play video games and sit backwards. In fact, the van is so great, that they’ll want to eat dinner in it sitting in the driveway. I hope the makers of these commercials have funerals that nobody attends because they don’t want to get out of their vans to do so.
There was a radio commercial that featured a distraught mother describing how her young son has gone to live with a friend because the friend’s family has a newer, more feature-laden minivan. “Timmy! We love you! Please come home!” :rolleyes:
Interesting point-- if this is true, then it means that women are doing most of the grocery shopping and choosing items for household chores… which thus means that advertisers, at least, seem to think that women are doing most of these chores. The logical conclusion from this is that the division of labor in households remains the same, with women still primarily responsible for the household chores, despite more women than ever graduating college and earning decent salaries. I imagine the advertising industry does market research to figure this out, so it must have some basis in reality, though if someone offers a cite to the contrary, I’d stand corrected. Have things changed in the American home, or are they largely the same re: who does what?
Why is it an indictment of anyone? A lot of people watch Oprah. Appearing on Oprah will get you exposure to a large number of people, with a TV personality that apparently a lot of people trust. I’m not sure it’s appearing on Oprah per se that makes people favor a particular candidate over another… might just be that the audience got to know a candidate better because he or she was on Oprah, which influenced the viewer’s opinion. Does Oprah have only one candidate on her show, or have multiple candidates appeared? Does she endorse someone and give them more time? I don’t know, because I don’t watch Oprah.
His counter-example was MNF, which has non-football-related guests on virtually every week – though no political guests as of yet – and draws way more viewers than Oprah ever dreamed of.
Do they talk about politics, or just football, on MNF? I honestly have no idea. Don’t watch Oprah or MNF, so I’m hardly an American at all. If Mike Huckabee did a guest spot on The Wire, I might notice. Otherwise, forget it.
Normally, no, but this year, for the first time, she is ‘officially’ supporting Obama. I’m not certain, but I believe, over 42 minutes, most of her guests manage to talk about more than their feelings (and no roar of monster trucks or women bouncing on trampolines, either). That’s a whole other kettle of fish, though.
As for pandering commercials (another poster)… ya think? Men are pandered to in more than just beer commercials, but I think it’s so common that it barely registers. We only notice when, say, a car commercial targets a busy soccer moms because the default is a suave business man (though this is changing).
And people do enjoy being pandered to. At the same time, women don’t need their egos stroked to buy a product- in fact, I’d say we’re used to the opposite. The shock ad that makes us aware of some problem we didn’t know we had (cellulite! a smelly house! dull whites of the eyes!) and shames us into buying a product we didn’t know existed.
I don’t care for commercials that tell me I can empower myself through hair dye, but I can appreciate ones that try to appeal to more than just my fear of aging or seeming unfeminine. Still, people must point out ‘But they’re just trying to sell you stuff!’ which was a common reaction to the Dove commercials (yet another kettle of fish). Yes. I know. Everyone knows. But so are all the ads with 14-year-old models.
(Four paragraphs and no topic sentence. My HS teachers would be appalled!)
Just a quick comment of “good luck.”
Our first kid was born when my wife was in graduate school, and was a little tyke during the post-doc phase.
Our second kid was born when she was an Asst. Prof, and I was in graduate school myself (just an MBA - not smart enough to get a PhD).
With all of that she made tenure, and is fairly well regarded in her field. There was some shit thrown from people with foot-in-mouth disease, admittedly, but our marriage and her career did survive kids and a faculty appointment.
The funny (?) part is that she is the MOST angry about PhDs who quit to raise families, simply because funded grad school positions are so tough to get it pisses her off when one “goes to waste.”
As to the OP - the dumb male commericals are offensive, if I allow them to be. I am happy to have finally discovered Tivo and the abilty to watch shows while skipping the commercials.
Hmmmm - dildo commercials. Interesting take, my friend. 
Rubystreak, I’d like to report in my circle of 35-45 year olds that the housework is split evenly, but the truth is that all the women I know are still doing the majority of it. And working full time, mostly. We’ve come a long way, baby - now we’re expected to have babies, look after the house and all its occupants, AND bring home half the bacon. Yay. And men are the stupid ones?
Heck, they rarely talk about football when they’ve got someone in the booth. They pretty much waste the entire third quarter talking about whatever movie the guest has coming out or whatever and the play-by-play and especially the analysis really suffers. I believe MNF doing this has spawned several pit threads.
If they could sell them on tv they would. I’m sure they’ll settle for making you believe that buying a minivan will make you orgasm.
I just want to register my agreement with catsix that this equation is always unfavorable when you leave out the “housework” that is traditionally assumed to be the man’s responsibility.
Yes, it’s definitely a difficult choice, or difficult choices, I should say.
I presented my SIL as an example of why 50% of CEOs ect. aren’t women. In my opinion, it’s no longer (was it ever?) a male conspiracy to keep women down. 50% of of CEOs and various other powerful movers and shakers in society will never be women if a certain percent of women simply don’t want to compete for those jobs.
In my experience with women, many of them will quickly and automatically wonder why 50% of this, that or the other profession/field/strata isn’t filled with women but when I ask them why aren’t you in that field they’ll say “oh, well I don’t want to. But other women should!”
But there really aren’t enough of these “other women” to fill all the desirable and high paying and powerful positions in society to 50%.
In the case of my SIL, well, I’m not sure why she ever bothered getting a PhD when she never really intended to use it but society says she can and should so she did. She also really sucked at being a mom though, and my brother makes beaucoup bucks with his PhD and made it abundantly clear they could afford nannies and housekeepers and maids and daycare and whatever it would take to allow her to continue in her professional career but it became pretty obvious after 6-8 years she had no intention of doing anything other than be a mom.
I’m currently 43. That makes my brother 47. That makes my SIL somewhere in her early-mid 50’s. They split up not too long ago and she finally went back to work, but not in her field. She’s never going to make CEO at this point, but it’s not a male conspiracy. Life’s rough.
Car commercials shown during PGA tourneys portray suave gentlemen of leisure or captains of industry, yes. That is not the precise point here, nor is it pandering – it is the somewhat-different tactic of “people probably respond to people who look like how they look (or would aspire to look.” The female corollary would be showing MILF-type middle aged women blithely managing to be perfect wives, mothers, employees while remaining nicely coiffed throughout the day.
The OP was not faulting such a portrayal of competent women (which I am sure exists in the Martha Stewart-demographic-targeted ads). It was instead looking to the subset of ads reflecting the idea that women could not feel good (could not effectively be pandered to) by just showing them in a shiny happy successful light but that instead, men had to concurrently be deprecated. Which part of the silver haired exec driving a Cadillac Escalade down a leafy lane, or shaking his stockbroker’s hand in celebration of his portfolio’s success, or retiring to the hot tub with his matronly wife, fortified by Cialis, to go back to my example of the PGA commercials, is dependent on or in any way involves mocking or questioning the competence or intelligence of his wife or other women?
Word. I’m planning to go for my Ph.D. too, and by the time I get it I’ll probably be over 30. Absolutely women choose to stay at home and have children… I just might, at least for the first few years. But you know the last time I heard a guy agonize over whether or not he wanted children or a career? I resent that as a woman it is assumed that I have to make this choice.
And no, I don’t usually get into these gender debates but Jesus Christ. I’m an intelligent woman and I have the potential to be a great mother. My burning desire to be a great mother is as fervent as my burning desire to contribute to my community in the form of a focused career. I’m lucky my husband understands that and is willing to share the burden. I know so many women who marry and immediately become stay-at-home mothers. I doubt they even have ‘‘the discussion,’’ first of all because people are dumbasses when it comes to birth control. ‘‘Surprise! We’re pregnant! It doesn’t really matter anyways, we’re already married. Well, I’ll be staying at home to care for the children of course.’’ It’s so default.
I submit it does fucking matter when you have children. No surprises for me, thanks. I know some goddesses manage to pull off this ‘‘career and family’’ shit and I suppose I’m going to have to figure out how to be one of them. To the goddesses – I salute you.
Because if you were a man, staying home to raise some babies until they were in school all day long while your spouse brought home the bacon wouldn’t likely be a realistic option.
Men don’t have to make the choice because by and large, they don’t have the option. They are expected to work long hours and miss out on great portions of their kids’ early lives (and not so early lives) in order to continue bringing home the paycheck that supplies the kids with all those wonderful toys like laptops, video games and cell phones without complaint, tirelessly, whether they want to work 50, 60, 70 or even 80 hour weeks. They are routinely expected to miss birthdays and holidays and not complain about it because it is assumed that none of that matters to them at all as they pick up some gifts on their trip through the airport in some city a thousand miles from their family.
Except that y’know, a lot of the time it does. But I’m sure they’re all so glad they don’t have to choose.
It may well be an old cliche, but the grass is not always greener.
Why isn’t it a realistic option? You say here:
Note your repeated use of the word “expected.” By that same token, women are also “expected” to drop their educations and careers and have babies, stay home and keep house, wiping noses and changing diapers without complaint, tirelessly. I know that’s what my mother did, just as my dad busted his ass. They BOTH busted their ass, and I bet there were more than a few times when they both wished they could switch with each other. Despite your smarmy claims to the contrary, these days, they COULD.
Becase we don’t have to do what’s expected of us anymore. God knows I didn’t. I don’t see why it’s “realistic” for you to claim that women have achieved total equality, that we don’t need feminisim anymore because women have been freed utterly of the societal expectations that kept them from the upper echelons of business and academia… but then claim that men do not have the same freedoms because they are “expected” to bring home the bacon. I just don’t buy it. Men are as free to defy expectations as women are.
If women have broken the glass ceiling in every way and are now in no need of advocation or help advancing, then why would you in the same breath claim that men still need to be the primary earner? Why do they have to miss out on their kids’ growing up, if, as you claim, their wives are eclipsing them in every aspect of life? Your argument doesn’t hold up, because it takes both sides of the equation to enforce these expectations. Take away one side, the other falls apart.
What I think you and others fail to realize is that, despite your innate hostility towards gender roles, both for men and women, some people DO CHOOSE THEM. Some women choose to stay home, and their husbands choose to go to work. That’s a valid choice and so is the reverse. Just like some men CHOOSE to by women jewelry for gifts, and aren’t dupes manipulated by golddigging whores. Not everyone who makes these choices is a victim. Sure, some are, but the assumption that either men or women are enslaved by these social roles is sexist regardless of which side of the debate is claiming it.
No way. A woman choosing to get a degree and make money is WAY different from a man choosing to stay home and not make money. Those two things are unbelievably different. Girls in school are taught they can do anything and in fact should go out and do everything. Show me where in school we teach boys they can choose to stay home and raise a family and should expect a woman to provide for them.