Yah, the feminist weighs in! Okay here I go… stop me if this gets to serious or intense for you!
First, what Ingram is talking about by offering percentages based upon what roles women appear in on television should scare you. I notice things like this often, like the shift work commericals for employment really calling out to women b/c they are more likely to low-ball themselves and work them or they are the primary caregivers and need a job flexible to work around their schedule.
Now, this is effecting men as well (I couldn’t leave you guys out) as any man that wants to work participate in these ‘private sphere’ house acitivities, which are strictly being advertised as female roles, are going to be ridiculed for deviating from their roles as ‘men’. And then we teach our children these gender roles (or the television does it for us) and they re-create their own compliance or resistance to these norms. Does anyone else see the systematic effects?
This is a people issue. Thinking in terms of the binary opposition or dualism is a kick in the pants to everyone. Granted, men have been the holders of power and in a lot of areas still do, but it is a certain type of man and it is damanging those of us who do not fit into the mold.
Now, how can women feel liberated and empowered (and claim feminism or the struggle for equality is over) when gender perscribed roles and stereotypes of men being smarter or better than women (based on her identity consistently being linked her sexuality and reproduction) are still being perpetuated. And how do men feel about being portrayed in these manners? I mean do men feel influened to feel they are smarter than their spourses when these types of ideas are perpetuated? and another thing, how do men feel when their expectations of being ’smarter’ than women is let down b/c it is absurb to base intelligence on gender. Ron Burgundy Anyone?
“I’m a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That’s what kind of man I am. You’re just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It’s science.” – RON BURGUNDY
Anyways, the point I am trying to arrive at is if women are so equal than why are we still being portrayed as sex objects, who are overemotional and lack and real rationality. Why are these stereotypes still being promoted, especially when women are some of the largest consumers when they actively buy the products being sold to them to create femininity? And another thing, I thought equality was about difference not sameness! I thought it was about recognizing that different perspectives and ideas do exist and we should respect them for being different, not try to change them by creating sameness.
Thoughts?
I look forward to C.Malacrida’s gender class this fall, where I’m sure I’ll have my ass handed to me for what I’m about to write, but don’t you think there are biological reasons for our gender roles? Isn’t it possible that generations of natural selection have ingrained skills in each of us for different things? Because of men’s greater physical strength, it makes sense that men hunted, it’s just efficency. Isn’t it possible that because the men hunted and the women raised children that women developed the natural skills for it? It hasn’t been that many generations since we hunted/gathered/farmed for our very lives. Ingrained biological processes will take much longer to be replaced than the 5000 or so years that we’ve been civilized. This in mind, it’s not so surprising that laundry soap and baby food are marketed to women, they may actually be better judges of these products than men! How’s that for empowerment!
I look forward to your backlash.