As a gay white male, middle class, born in the USA, etc, I just want to thank the OP for starting this thread and this discussion. I think it’s silly to feel persecuted, discriminated against, etc, for being a man, but I think it’s important to have this conversation.
I roll my eyes at all the stupid male stereotypes/tropes in comedies and commercials, but there are plenty of neative female stereotypes as well.
You seem to be saying that we should invest energy in making sure women and men are equally represented in ninny roles.
I’m saying that we should invest energy in making sure women and men are equally represented in all roles. Because that’s the more serious issue.
I’m not dismissing your complaint as much as I’m trying to direct your attention to the more salient problem. Addressing this problem will solve the other.
That’s not entirely what I’m getting at. I’d prefer to see fewer ninny roles in general. At best, I’d like to see some awareness of the stereotype; attention and promotion of positive male role models just have there has been for women.
And when you say that your issue is “more serious” and “more salient”, you really are dismissing me.
I think this - or rather what’s right behind it - is where this conversation is always going to break down. The difference between a “positive” cultural assumption and a “negative” cultural assumption is so subjective that even if everyone agreed on what the phenomenon was, which almost nobody does at any rate, there’d still be tremendous controversy over whether that was an example of pro-these or pro-those or anti-those or reverse anti-those bias.
Why would a starring role by a male bumbler demonstrate that women control purchasing decisions? Because that’s the target demographic for the ad? And because they enjoy watching men portrayed negatively? This seems like a fairly difficult position to substantiate, and fairly rife with assumptions that not everyone’s going to be on board with.
Because they don’t have the power to turn America into a Christian version of Afghanistan under the Taliban like they’d prefer to. Give them that power and America would probably look like a real world version of A Handmaid’s Tale. And I personally would probably be dead.
I didn’t pull my statement completely out of thin air.
When It Comes To Spending Decisions, Women Are In Control
Women Influencing More Purchase Decisions
The top 30 stats you need to know when marketing to women
Alright. I’m dismissing your complaint. I’ll be frank: I don’t see why men being made into buffoons is a serious problem. Not when I can turn on almost any TV show and see them NOT being buffoonish. For every buffoon, there are a hundred heroic, intelligent, non-buffoon characters to choose from.
As I stated earlier, people aren’t designed to have unlimited sympathy/empathy for every issue or complaint that comes up. Believe me, I don’t have sympathy/empathy for every single complaint that comes up from my side either. (Like the Google Doodle complaints are completely eye-rolly to me). It’s not enough to say, “This group is overrepresented as X” to make it worthy of discourse. Not when other groups have a longer list of much more serious complaints, and they have yet to be adequately addressed.
I don’t like seeing men always being portrayed as stupid either. But the messaging that I interpret from commercials that employ this device isn’t that men are stupid. It’s that women need to buy whatever it is that’s being advertised so that the boys can go outside and play like they’re supposed to do. Or I interpret that men can be full of childlike wonder and have adventures and do fun crazy things, but not women. We’re stern and boring and not supposed to have fun. When I see Peter Griffin acting a fool, I don’t see a man acting like a fool. I see a man having fun. I’d love to watch a cartoon about a “family woman” having fun.
So the limited place that women occupy on the big and little screen is what I think about when I hear your complaint. This is why when you put the focus on men, I can’t make myself care that much.
While I always have agreed with that article, I have the same issue with shutting down the complaints of privileged classes as I do with “first world problems”. When you take that to its logical conclusion, nobody can complain about anything because, hey, the Holocaust happened. It’s a bit ridiculous. People have valid complaints, and unless you’re currently deciding which charity to send your money do it doesn’t strike me as productive to tell people to sit down and shut up if you don’t deem their problems as important. We all have bad experiences and societal pressures negatively affecting us, playing the oppression olympics just hinders discussion.
Now, yes, you’re definitely kind of a jerk if you go into a feminist thread to complain about how white males are so much more oppressed, and you deserve a little bit of chastising if you’re actively trying to derail a conversation to focus on the “more important” men’s issues. However, simply pointing out double standards that negatively affect men shouldn’t be met with “oooooh poor baby”. Hell, if anything, it enforces the stereotype that men should be tough and not complain, which is anti-feminist in itself since it upholds hyper-masuline/patriarchal ideals.
Right, but reframing the issue should be something to bring people together on a common issue, not shut them down or tell them their complaints are invalid. All too often I see it phrased as “don’t you see how this REALLY hurts women and not men?” Why not just leave it as “hey, I’m against that too! In fact, it negatively affects both of us!” It’s certainly true that societal norms marginalize men, and yes, it can almost always be viewed through an alternative lens showing how it also negatively affects (or stems from a negative perception about) women. That doesn’t mean people are wrong if they want to view it through a certain lens.
And as for the comedy, I kind of agree, but I can say that it gets tiring in my family. My mom’s family is 5 (well, 4 now) sisters. The level of abuse heaped on all the men in the family is kind of exhausting. Now, it’s all meant in good fun, but when family get-togethers are half a day where 80% of the humor is “knock the husbands down a peg” it does get kind of old and depressing.
Huh, we have completely different reasoning but the same conclusion. The way I always saw The Joke™ is that “everyone knows women aren’t REALLY smart and in charge, so we’re subverting your expectations by making the MAN a bumbling buffoon and the woman the one running things. Isn’t that silly?”
As a woman you care for women’s problems, but for me and many men men’s problems take a definite priority. Fortunately many men and some women are empathetic to the issues I have mentioned above:
– Abused men do not get equal legal protection.
– Men are treated more harshly by the legal system.
– Male bashing is rampant, similar bashing would not be acceptable toward any other birth group.
– Men are discriminated in divorce cases.
We have freedom to care primarily about our issues and to express these issues.
I have no problem with people not caring about these issues – every one has a right to care and not care for issues close to them.
The only problem is when someone tries to stop others from discussing the issues by personal attacks and even stalking.
I agree 100%. As a libertarian I believe that everyone is entitled to their views and a space to express them.
Maybe both sides are right – to everyone their problems are the most important ones.
It would be nice if you asked me how I felt about these issues before implying that I don’t care about them. If you go back, you’ll see that I was addressing Robot’s complaint about examples of male stupidity in the media. Which, I hope you agree, is a lot more trivial than the issues you’ve listed.
(I would also add male sexual assault to your list. Especially wrt the military. Sexual assault in the military has been framed as a “woman’s” issue, and this makes sense since women are disproportionately affected. But IIRC, males comprise half of the victims.)
I never suggested that you had. I asked why a bumbling male demonstrates that it’s the case.
Thank you. Like I said, I don’t think I should have included “straight” in my post, as I really don’t know of any injustice issues for straight people. I’m on my phone so I can’t really address the posts here… but there are some really interesting posts her! Learning a lot.
I think that’s the point. Straight white men can have the same problems other groups have. It’s not fair to just assume none of them do.
Yes.
Judging any individual by their membership in a group - white, male, black, female, whatever - is wrong, unfair and dangerous.
Great postings, Monstro!
Excellent post. We don’t need to have a competition for who has it worse off. That doesn’t help anything. We should focus on the problems and how to fix them instead.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d go about proving that. I doubt any advertising executive has gone on record explaining that they target women by portraying men as incompetent.[sup]*[/sup] I do think it’s safe to assume that companies develop advertising to appeal to their likely customers. And as the previous links said, those customers are becoming predominantly women.
While women may be underpaid on average, depending on where you work, being a white male can be a disadvantage, especially at large corporation white collar jobs and government contractors. Such corporations often have active diversity advancement programs that go out of their way to advance women and minorities. Makes it more difficult for a slightly above average white male to advance.
There is also so the 8(a) Business Development Plan of the Small Business Administration that preferentially gives government contracts and loans to woman, minority, or “socially disadvantaged” owned buisinesses. 8(1) may be a case where being gay would be an advantage.
Portrayal of white males as fools in commericals and sitcoms is less of a concern, but sure seems to be common. This is especially noticable in the type of commercials they show during weekend sporting events with humorous corporate situations with a minority or woman playing the mature boss or CEO while a white male makes a fool of himself. Same in the multicultural groups of buddies in the beer commericals.
What are the current ratios of men to women, whites to minorities, and white men to all others at these corporations?
If you can show me that white men are not currently over-represented in those companies, I’d be more inclined to buy this argument.
.