Questionable Advertising Mondays: MEN! Am I Right?

This week's questionable advertising is for Wrangler Jeans and it comes from the advertisement agency La Comunidad in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

You know when me talk about how men are discriminated against, but then go on to list things like "I can't get a drink by showing some leg" or "I don't get the door opened for me" and the like?

Well, men, these ads are the kind of thing you should be crying out against instead.


I mean just look:

Childish!

Disgusting!

Lazy!

Men! Amirite?

It's not like these ads are any less damaging then ones that tell women they are only homemakers, bitches and sluts. I mean really, think about it. Would you want someone to look at you and think, "God, what a lazy pig!" or "It's like you're a child!"?

I didn't think so.

Everyday advertisements portray men as pseudo-baby pigs and it's kind of getting old, especially with the renewal of the term "real man" or "real men." Like other than physically being male is not enough. (Hint: if you can be "real" than it's not natural)

This ad's slogan is "Returning Man to His Place." Now think about that for a second. What if this ad depicted a women cleaning a house or making dinner and the slogan was "Returning Woman to Her Place?" We'd be up in arms! That's bullshit and we know it, so then why aren't men getting pissed off when the media portrays them as barely sentient slobs who aren't even capable of buying a table (or making one)?

It's because these ads are all about the domestic sphere, that magical place where men can't do anything right. Underneath all this talk of manly men is another more sinister message that says, "this is women's work." Men can't clean or do laundry, that's women's work. Men can't properly take care of their pets, that's women's work. Men can't buy furniture (that's not electronic in some way), that's women's work.

People still believe this crap, and it is such crap. Men still say things like "I can't help myself" or "I'm supposed to be dirty." Really? Why? Because women are supposed to do it for you?

These ads are horrible, because in one fell swoop they managed to portray sexist attitudes against both men and women.

Men are pigs! Women you need to take care of them!
Now make me a sandwich!

Questionable Advertising Monday: Gender Status Quo

Ah, advertising. It permeates every part of almost every society, from food to politics. We can't get away from it. It also happens to be one of the greatest perpetrators of racism and sexism. Unfortunately even in the twenty-first century still many a good advertising company has created one or two questionable ads.

This week’s ad is “Growing Up Is...” for Nesquik and it comes from the McCann Erickson agency in Portugal.

It’s a rather banal ad for the Nestlé product, but it's…

Well, see for yourself.






There is nothing obviously offensive about the ad, which makes sense as it is aimed at parents, but then there's nothing contemporary about it either. At best it is a lazy attempt to portray male and female children. At worst it is another reinforcement of the same old gender roles. Not only is the imagery sexist, but in the bottom corner of each ad is a list of what “Growing Up Is…” for each sex. Girls get the usual princessy type stuff: caring for animals, kissing, and cake while boys get the usual manly type stuff: space ships, aliens, and …eating dog food? So according to this ad girls are princesses and boys are “special.”

I find it exasperating that this agency couldn’t move beyond breaking children down into their pre-assigned gender roles. Maybe they would have been better off sticking with the bunny.

Awesome Book Review Friday: Pink Brain, Blue Brain

Because a little literature can go a long way I will be posting a review of an awesome book every Friday.



This week's book is "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps And What We Can Do About It" by neuroscientist Lise Eliot.

It's a non-fiction book that explores, and disproves, the science of proving gender exists naturally. The chapters are separated by childhood development, starting at birth and finishing at teenage hood.

It would have been enough for Eliot to simply disprove the studies or expose the misinformation, but she takes it a step further. At the end of every chapter is a break-down of how you as a parent or teacher can actually work to help children develop without the constraints of genderization.

My favorite example of this is in the beginning chapters of the book where Eliot exposes the myth that gender can be effected through superficial means, such as toys or clothes. She gives the example of giving dolls to boys and trucks to girls. She points out that this method is doomed from the start because it doesn't address the real problem. Worst it often leads parents to believe that gender is natural.

Instead of simply swapping genderized items, Eliot suggests that parents should first focus on what each sex lacks due to gender constraints. For example she points out that girls rarely get to develop their spacial abilities while boys rarely get to develop their nurturing abilities. If a parent really wanted to help their children overcome gender barriers they would instead give their girls building toys, like Lego or K'Nex, and allow their boys to care for a small animal.

At times with Eliot's scientific approach to the source material the chapters can seem overwhelming. However, it is well worth giving this book a read through. I found that while I may not always understand the studies she discuses in the chapters, there is more than enough information and instruction at the end of each chapter to make up for it.

If you are a parent, teacher, gender studies student, or you just care about breaking gender barriers, Lise Eliot's "Pink Brain, Blue Brain" is read worth picking up.

Workplace Harassment

A few years ago I was a manager at a production company with a pretty even male/female split. When I started I loved working there because we had a great team of people and everyone respected one another. However, about two years in I started to get reports about sexual harassment. I figured it would be a quick fix since our department manager was very serious about harassment cases. We carefully screened our new hires and we make them fully aware that physical or verbal harassment of any kind was not allowed. Those who got it stayed and those that didn't were let go.

However, this case was different. Because in this case the victims were men and the perpetrators were women. It seemed that some women felt that "playful" touching and "teasing" was okay and despite being asked to stop would continue without abate. I received repeated complaints, and it always made me sad because the men seemed so ashamed that they had to complain in the first place.

Talking with the women didn’t help as none of them believed what they were doing was sexual or harassment. Even pointing out that when someone says stop they need to stop didn’t work. They honestly believed that nothing they could do, short of grabbing the guys junk, counted as sexual harassment. This is not what feminism is about. We are not supposed to create a role reversal, but rather have respect for one another and listen when someone says no.

When it became clear to me that talking and shifting schedules wasn’t working I took the issue to the department manager. He didn't believe it and refused to listen, claiming that a woman couldn't possible sexually harass a man. I was floored. We eventually lost a good deal of employees because the work environment had grown so toxic. I also eventually left because I couldn't continue to work in a place that didn't treat every employee with respect.

The biggest issue with this whole incident was simply that men aren't raised to see women as threats and women are raised to believe they cannot be a threat to a man. Men are not taught to view unwanted attention as creepy or indicative of possible violence the way women are. If a man acts like these women he is perceived as being a possible threat, but when a woman does it she is perceived as either being pathetic or flirty.

Neither of these behaviours are healthy for anyone involved. Men don’t speak up enough when they feel uncomfortable, for fear of being labelled a sissy or weak. Women engage in sexual misconduct because they don’t believe that what they are doing is wrong or at all similar to what men do. This belief is only reaffirmed when managers and employers treat cases of male sexual-harassment with less seriousness than female sexual-harassment.

Bravo's got a real Work of Art here

I'm at the half-way point of the new Bravo show "Work of Art," a reality show much in the vein of "Top Chef" only this time with artists.

I found the premise to be really interesting, I mean I have nothing in common with models or chefs, but I am an artist so I thought that maybe this show would appeal to me. Oh god no, that is not true at all. It's like a train wreck that I can't stop watching because I have to see if my predictions are true.

The entire show is just like the worst of university art programs all rolled into one show. What's wrong with it you ask?

Well to start with the tasks are incredibly vague and yet the judges will still claim that a particular artist didn't do what they were asked. In one particularly galling episode they take the artist for rides around NY City in Audi's and then ask them to create a work of art that shows that experience.
That's right, they wanted a piece of art based on a 20min car ride. Do you know what that means? I don't. Certainly I don't know what a representation of a feeling of taking a car ride would look like, so I could never say that someone failed to show it. But the judges do and then they change their minds about what the task was! After the works are finished! Now, as they walk the gallery judging the art, they say that the task was to create a "space." What the hell does that mean, "A space?"
But you see this sudden topic change happened because golden boy, Miles, who decided to take a nap while everyone else was working, created, in his words, "a quiet space." And they can not praise him enough. It really exposes how unaccepting of change these judges are, because Miles is just doing the same lazy "Modern" shit that has been done a million times before.

In addition to the vague and changing tasks, and their abnormal love for Miles, they also seem to be obsessed with seeing the pretty young female artist, Jaclyn, naked. They keep asking her to make herself "more open" and "more vulnerable" which seems to translate into naked because that's the only time they seem to like her work.
Okay that's not entirely fair, she did do a piece that involved men who were looking at her. But still what the judges liked was the fact that people were looking at her. They are obsessed with gazing and seeing other people gaze at this woman. It's rather disturbing because despite the fact that they act like high art critics they are pandering to the idea that only sex sells and that's all pretty women are good for.

The worst part of it all is just how boring and rushed the work is. No artist does their best work in under 24 hours, and yet that's what this show wants them to do. It causes good artists to create shitty and rushed work, and then criticize them for it. The only one who does well in this show is Miles because the judges love him so he can do whatever he wants. No seriously, he couldn't come up with an idea for one task so he copied a previous work of his and they said nothing!

If you are thinking about going into university for art, watch this show because that is what four years of your life is going to be like. Vague tasks, rushed work, useless critiques, and that one guy who doesn't try at all yet the prof loves everything they do. The real trick is the bullshit. By which I mean the artist's explanation of the work. In situations like this where the artist is disengaged from their work the explanation becomes bullshit spouted in an attempt to make the prof/judge think that it's deep. It makes you feel dirty. I know I hated myself every time I spouted a line just to get an A.

Despite it all the show is enjoyable enough. I mean things that get me fired up even in a bad way still entertain, but really it's just too boring to continue on to a second season. That's not to say that it won't. I mean "Top Model," "Top Chef," and "Project Runway" are all still going strong. This will just be another drop in the bucket. I'm only saddened by the fact that Bravo seems to be going the way of A&E. Remember when A&E did "Biography?" Ya, those were good times.

Issues of Privilege

The first time I took a First Nations literature class I was presented with a very difficult and heavy issue. We were given an article written by the leader of an anti-violence Native women’s group. In the article she recounts an incident where two trans-women attend her woman's only event and she asked them to leave. The event in question was a meeting aimed at discussing issues of violence against Native Women, especially the homeless.

Growing up in an environment that taught utter toleration and acceptance, I couldn't understand why these trans-women were asked to leave. Clearly no one else in my class could figure it out either. Some, who felt that trans-women were still men, stated that their original sex was the reason, but our professor claimed that was not the case. We were stumped and she refused to give us the answer.

So this has been a question that I have worked on for a very long time. I think now I understand why the author felt that these trans-women needed to be removed.

When the trans-women first enter they do so loudly, drawing attention to themselves. They are described as non-native and when they are quietly asked to leave they take issue with the request. With out hesitation they loudly proclaim that they deserve to be there.

They deserve to be there...

I had not thought of it before. This is because despite being taught about accepting all people I was never taught about privilege. I didn't understand, until I started taking gender and sexuality courses, that some people, because of how they look or their sex, are given preference over others. However, I also did not consider that sometimes even when we are on the outside, such as these trans-women, we can still have privilege over others. This is such the case with the Native women in this anti-violence group.

These women are marginalized more than most groups in North America. To be native and poor almost seems to mean that you are not worthy of human dignity. How then could they see these trans-women as anything less than a source of violence? And the fact that these women did not consider that they would not be welcomed is part of the problem with unconsidered privilege. They considered themselves outsiders and therefore without privilege, but that is not the case at all. Privilege is not just a two way street, where either you have it or you don’t. It’s more like a pyramid. There will always be someone with more privilege than you, but you also have to consider that there will always be someone with less privilege than you.

Genderbitch has an interesting article on the concept of Expectation of Trust which is the same issue. These trans-women had an unreasonable expectation that because they were also marginalized that they would be immediately trusted by another marginalized group. To believe that just because you have less privilege than one person does not mean that there is anyone with less privilege than you is selfish and unreasonable.

It wasn’t because they were trans that these women were sent away. It was because they flaunted their privilege in the face of some of the most marginalized people in North America. They did this without consideration and could not see past their own desires to see how they were only causing harm.