Ditto that and what Cranky said too. Fully involved fathers are sexier than beefcake. Go to guys for laughs, listening and cries are the best. I’m sure grateful for the guy that was listening today.
Abby
Since this is the Pit I’ll take the time to point out that John Cash Penney would object to you leaving the second ‘e’ out of his name. The OP got it right, everyone else who tried has missed it. P-e-n-n-e-y-apostrophe-s.
I’d say more but I’m babysitting right now and the kids are making a mess. I have to go call my wife to find out when she’ll be home.
Honey, while you are out shopping don’t forget to get some Wisk, for that pesky ring-around-the-collar; And some fabric softener; oh and don’t forget some beer.
Is it stereotypical that the dad is an incompetant boob, or that mom is unable to control the womanly urge to run through a burning building while abandoning her helpless family because of the word “SALE”? Or perhaps both?
The “All men are incompetent” bullshhit drives me nuts too.
Lemme see here… My cooking is to die for, I vacuum, do dishes, wash floors, do laundry, change diapers, bathe the kids, feed the kids, hold down a demanding job, volunteer lots, fix the cars, mow the grass, take out the garbage, fix things around the house, and make love like a freaking god. 
I cry at movies, love spending time with my kids, and my day just isn’t complete if I don’t get to cuddle with the girls and rough-house with the boys. Sometimes I rough-house with the girls and cuddle with the boys, just to be fair and as to not instill any stereotypes in our kids.
Last time I checked I had a penis.
“Penis”
No no no…!
You almost has us fooled for a second…
It’s “Cock”
Just like, women pee, men piss grin
Another log to throw on the fire here. . . .
It’s a magazine ad for some kinda dip. Guy’s in his kid’s nursery, dressed in pj’s and socks. He’s walking away from his kid who’s crying horribly in his crib, arms outstretched for his da-da.
What’s the guy doing? He’s got a fuckload of dip in the biggest goddam bowl I’ve ever seen. He’s got the kid’s pacifier as well, and – with a dip-eating grin – is about to EAT THE DIP WITH THE PACIFIER.
Now, I know they’re just playing witch ya to sell you this crap, so I’ll pass over the revulsion over the guy ignoring his crying kid just to pig out on the chemical vat full of crap (I got three kids so I know I’m hyper-sensitive on this point).
But, for all in the love of God, why would some ad company think EATING DIP WITH A PACIFIER is going to encourage me to buy this pale, chemically enhanced shitpile of dip?
I mean, you can’t get SHIT on a pacifier. It all falls off.
Besides, guys use their fingers when they dip.
What I’m afraid is going to happen with this “guy” stereotype is that it will turn into an excuse for being a lout. The boys who are growing up with this stereotype will later think they have a right to behave this way – to forgo domestic chores by some mythical masculine imperative. This is merely a reversal of a situation that people have been bitching about for years – that women are assumed to be incapable of changing a tire, of hooking up a stereo, of moving furniture. We all know women who do in fact use this stereotype to their advantage to avoid these tasks.
I myself have taken the easy way out. I had two younger siblings, and my mother had a job. I know how to hold, feed and diaper a baby. But if I’ve got a baby in my arms, and it starts crying, some woman will come up and take it away, and I don’t fight it. It’s not fun to deal with a crying baby, and she’s volunteering to do it, so why should I protest and look like I’m getting defensive? “Oh, isn’t that cute? He’s getting in a pissing contest over a baby.”
Of course, we all know that women’s opinions are often characterized as bitchy' or menstral,’ but let’s not forget that all male activity can be dismissed as dick waving. In fact, we’re bombarding young men with this message so hard that they won’t be capable of believing otherwise for at least the next generation, and probably long after that.
I have an ongoing spiel about how, while it was cute for years in Dave Barry columns, this `Guys’ stereotype is starting to look pernicious. It not only rationalizes loutish behavior as biological destiny, programs like “The Man Show” claim it as a birthright. Mind you, I find the show amusing. But when I see my brother watching it, I suspect that in his head he’s thinking “Yes, this is who I, as a guy, am.”
Fuck you too, friend.
I mean it’s about damn time. It’s been ‘standard fare’ to make women out to be inferior members of society for a lot longer than 30 years. So if us guys have to look at a commercial or two from time to time that pokes fun at us, I say bring it on! It’s about damn time!
Your girlfriend/wife reads this board. Right?
I think you’re missing a deeper point. It might be superficially appealing to think “Hey! Poking gentle fun at stereotypically male foibles! At long last we’re in sight of a true equality of sexes, where we can all celebrate our differences through the give-and-take medium of humor, with neither sex inferior to the other!”
Well, it’s not quite so easy as all that. If we condone the idea that the bumbling male can’t open a can of soup, then it’s OK to believe that purty li’l gurls’ll never have the smarts to handle math and stuff. If men are incompetent around babies, then of course a woman will never make a good president, because she’ll have PMS and bomb Russia. Since all men have to go to McDonalds for supper when their wives are out of town, then it’d be better if women didn’t have independent careers, and just stayed home to cook and clean.
I don’t really think “equality of the sexes” means “trashing men to the same extent as women, because then everything will be OK.” If you think about it a bit, you’d see that it’s not OK, and reinforcing “stupid male” stereotypes is implying that “stupid female” stereotypes are acceptable also, and accepting that would do more harm to women than it would do good.
Mmm. Sexism. A wonderful thing. Especially great when you can experience some petty feelings of revenge. Something tells me that you’re also cheered on by NOI propaganda featuring “white devils,” eh White Lightning?
I must say, though, as much as I hate this types of advertising that promote sexism, if you think all commercials these days show women as all-powerful and successful, you aren’t paying very close attention.
My other favorite is the “man bashing women”. There always seems to be one in every crowd- “My husband is so dumb…” “My husband can’t do shit”, etc.
I have (more then once) interrupted and said “Why on earth did you marry someone that stupid? It’s not that men are dumb. You just got a dumb one. You should have shopped around longer.”
MAN does that shut them up fast. Any person who lets the opposite gender get away with living up to the stereotype that he/she is incapable of performing certain tasks because of his/her gender needs their head examined. My husband knows that any cry of “I don’t know how!” is followed by a long, drawn out explaination (sometimes with diagrams, If I’m so inclined) showing how to perform that task. That way he never has to ask again. He hasn’t said “I don’t know how” in many, many years, and I don’t do it either.
Zette
Awwwww, yeeeahhhhhh…
That’s me and the GrizzCub.
Dad teaches percussion… early!
Necros, I agree with you. Commercials promote men and women in any number of ways except realistically. I’m an average woman; I can change tires (faster than a lot of guys; my mom showed me how), cook, and get my fiance to kill spiders for me. In other words, I’m a human being with strengths and weaknesses that have nothing to do with my sex. I have rarely, if ever, seen some woman portrayed in an ad in a way that even remotely resembled my life.
On the other hand, all these stereotypes/charicatures in ads make them easier to ignore, IMO. If I ever saw an ad with a woman who really struck a chord with me, I might actually listen to what she was hawking.
Co-habitation axiom number 432:
“The less it appears you know how to do, the less you will be asked to do.”
The few times I’ve been in a mixed group (or one of all wimmin’s) that talks about how men can’t __________(cook, change diapers, dress children, etc.) I try to look whoever said it it the eye and say “So you’re saying its really ok to pay you 70 cents for each dollar I make, because you can’t understand numbers and you spend all day on the phone talking to your girlfriends and you go to fix your makeup every five minutes?”
It usually shuts them up. At least temporarily.
BYW, fathers with their children always get so much more consideration from men and women than mothers do. I recently flew to Florida with Baby Babe I (who was about 18 months at the time). Almost without exception, all of the stewardesses (stewardi??) were fawning all over the father who can travel with his child alone. The men also were saying things along the line of “My wife could do that, but I just couldn’t.” Meanwhile, the mother travelling alone a few rows up was barely managing to keep her 3 children under control, and nobody even noticed. The kids were pretty well behaved, but they are still children.
I would be driving our car with two kids in their carseats a’way in the back; they’d be hollering for some juice or whatever…and my husband would sit there.
I would wait until I was addressed by title, as in “Mamma, I want juice”, before I’d say “Troy?” and he’d reply “Huh?”
I divorced him. No matter what happens, I’m not married to Troy.
I’m in my happy place.
White Lighning, what you don’t seem to undersand is that these stereotypes hurt women just as much as men. Let me give you an example: when I visit my husband’s family, it is just assumed that I am qualified and willing ot help out with child care stuff–pushing strollers, holding babies, watching the kids while mom goes outside for a smoke. Now, I don’t mind helping out, because family is family. but what bugs me is that my husband is not* expected to do this sort of thing because they don’t trust him to. It’s assumed he’d drop the baby, or forget to watch them, or I don’t even know what. It’s not that they assume that all women are good for is watching babies–it’s that they assume men are such universally incompetent louts that they aren’t even worth considering.
As long as no-one takes these stereotypical depictions seriously we should be okay. One of my favourite comedians is John Wing and a good deal of his act pokes fun at men.
“When I come home I tell my wife I can do ONE thing. Then I proceed to do that one thing so damn poorly she will never ask me to do it again”.
Seems to me one crucial factor is the target audience for the ad, assuming potential consumers can even be neatly divided by gender, etc.
Examples: some beer commericals deftly spoof guy sterotypes but are plainly marketed toward men, e.g some SuperBowl ads. They exaggerate male outlook but they’re laughing with target customers, not at them.
On the other side of the gender line, the ad for frozen chicken and veggies where an obviously harried working mom mock-grandly tells her daugher, “you are about to see something you’ve never seen before: cooking.” She laughs, dumps the bag in the pan and both mother and daughter smile. The mom isn’t neglectful; she’s busy.
Others appeal across all lines:
- the “granny athelete” in the pink track suit, quaffing orange juice during her city workout and being cheered by onlookers. It’s both witty AND kind.
- Hebrew National hot dogs, where God vends weiners on the boardwalk. After gently pitching the product specifics, “God” hands a freebie to Larry, the very ordinary male customer:
God: Now take one over to your wife.
Larry: I wish! (sighs; peers at a total babe spreading out her beach gear.)
God: Trust me on this, Larry.
Larry sails happily over to the babe, saying, “Hi, I have a hot dog and it’s for YOU!”.
The ordinary guy finds his soul mate in a gorgeous girl; it’s sweet–nobody’s put down and everybody’s reflected in a good light. He isn’t a dork and she isn’t a bitch.
I truly don’t understand nasty, put-down ads. If women are the target group, why risk alienating potential customers who maybe don’t like having their husbands, SO’s, fathers, brothers, sons, etc. portrayed as crude, incompetent buffoons? It’s an ugly tactic, no matter the scapegoat.
Veb