Anti-Suffrage Ad

Found this at The Hairpin.

Domestic Women and "Real Men": The World of Advertising

A few weeks ago as I was watching TV, a Bank of America commercial came on. In the commercial, different customers are talking about Bank of America's reward programs. What struck me about the commerical is that about halfway through, there is a man at a grocery store with a baby strapped to him in a carrier, talking about how Bank of America customers get rewards even for buying groceries. I applaud Bank of America for this; in most other commercials, that baby-carrying grocery shopper would have been a woman. Because, according to commericals, men never do anything domestic.

I have been complaining for some time now that almost all commercials for household chore products feature a woman doing those chores. (I say "almost all" as a buffer, but in reality, I have never seen a commercial in which a man is cleaning. They might exist, though.) It was well known that women have long been getting annoyed at how the media portrays us. However, it isn't just women that advertisements pigeonhole; it happens to men, too.

Think back to any cleaning commercial you can remember. Who is it that's smiling because the product made it easy to clean her windows? A woman. Who is looking contentedly at her newly-cleaned floor? A woman (with MR. Clean for company, no less!). Who does the laundry and makes the kids' lunch? Who is giving the baby a bath with the gentle new baby wash? It's always a woman. Why do commercials continue to banish women back to television mom of the 1950's? This, I think, is offensive to both men and women. Not only does it say that women always have to be the cleaners and caretakers, but it seems to say that men are incapable of doing these things. Men clean. I know they do. I've seen it happen plenty of times!

Here's an experiment: do a Google image search for advertisements or commercials for any well-known cleaning product or tool (e.g., Swiffer advertisement, Lysol commercial). How many pictures of men do you come up with? Probably not very many.

There is a whole other series of gender-offensive advertisements: beer commercials. Do a Google image search of "Beer commercials." Go ahead. Sure, there are women, but they certainly aren't drinking beer. There are men drinking beer, though. Also, oddly enough, when I did that search there were three pictures of babies with beer, but the women were just bending over, or suggestively holding a beer bottle.

Concerning the commercials for beer, there is a rampant practice of shoving masculinity down men's throats in order to get them to drink that particular brand of beer. Take the Milwaukee's Best Light beer commercials, for example, in which a man is crushed with a giant can of beer for doing such unmanly things as interacting with a cute dog, calling his partner to check in, or even using a napkin to soak grease off of a piece of pizza. Because, remember guys, real men have heart attacks. The tagline was, "Men should act like men, and light beer should tasted like beer." These commercials aired in 2005, and were popular enough to cause the company to launch another campaign, in which men were crushed with 6-packs of beer for being unmanly.

Miller Lite also recently ran a series of similar commercials. In these, a man goes up to the bar and orders a light beer from an attractive female bartender (there's a different bartender in each ad). She asks him if he cares how it tastes, and he responds with some form of "no" (because, really, who does care how anything tastes?). She then insults his masculinity by pointing out his purse, skinny jeans, skirt, etc. So the message is "If you don't drink our beer, you are not manly, and therefore do feminine things."

These commercials are offensive to men because they construct absurdly strict gender roles, and they are offensive to women because the insult paid to men is that by their actions they are being lesser men, and therefore, womanly. How many make-up commercials do you see telling women to wear a certain brand of make-up, or else they'll look manly?

So, who is to blame for these simple-minded commercials? Are the advertising companies really out to reinforce gender stereotypes? Probably not. Advertisements have exactly one goal in mind: to make money. They do this by playing on established norms and preconceptions, and by preying on our desires and insecurities (think anti-aging cream and Viagra commercials). They usually only have one picture, or less than a minute to work with, so they have to use whatever people will react most quickly to. They aren't in the business of social change because, in most cases, risk is not lucrative.

Really, then, it is us viewers who are to blame. Like anything else that is made to be widely read or viewed, these ads are made because they work. There is an accepting audience, so why should they change? They change when audience changes, because certain tactics no longer work. We who care about gender equality need to show companies why they should change their advertising strategies. Be the audience that changes so that commercials will change with you. Boycott companies with offensive advertisements; better yet, write to those companies and tell them why you are boycotting. You might think that one, or only a handful of people can't do much, but doing a little is better than doing nothing at all.

The Dreaded Label

With the Third Wave of Feminism has come the phenomenon of women, who would otherwise be considered feminists, intentionally distancing themselves from that label. I believe that there are several reasons for this. First, is that our generation in general seems to dislike labels. I'm not sure why this is, but I have observed it quite often. A common sentiment is "I don't want labels imposed on me; I don't want to be categorized. I'm just me." I, personally, think labels are fine, to an extent. People have to categorize the world in order to understand it. The second--and stronger--reason I think that modern women are afraid to call themselves feminists is because of the stereotypes associated with feminism. These stereotypes have all been been boiled down into one charming term: feminazi. The man-hating, self-righteous, angry butch woman. Who wants to be that? Not very many people. I have heard very intelligent people express belief in this stereotype when they hear the word "feminist." (Try playing the popular party game "Apples to Apples" and see what associations people make with the feminist card). Where does this come from? Whose fault is it? Some people point to the second wave feminsts. The bra-burning, pantyhose slashing feminsts. Sure, it could be argued that, in some cases, they might have been a little over the top. Even if that's true, were they really bad enough to earn being called nazis? Were they bad enough to demerit a whole movement that seeks only to gain equality? Do strong, intelligent modern women really avoid being called feminists because groups of women finally got angry after centuries of oppression? Shouldn't we be proud of them, instead of shunning them? Many believe that the negative stereotypes associated with feminism came from the politics during the second wave, particularly Reagan-era politics. Reagan worked hard to reinforce the passive, housewife stereotype to make more room for men in the workplace. Reagan's politics urged the criticism of minority movements for trying to take the place of white males. I won't go into details since I've vowed to keep these posts short and therefore readable, but I encourage you to look for yourselves. And if you are a woman who stands up for women's rights and believes men and women should be equal, but who fights against being called a feminist, think about why. Why, exactly, are you against the feminist "label"? What are you trying to avoid by insisting upon not being called a feminist? I think everyone should be feminists. I realize that it's idealistic, but if everyone were feminists, if everyone declared their dedication to the idea of equality, then there would be no need for such a label.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

The first wavers in the feminism movement almost certainly had the most difficult fight to fight. When they began, women had very little control over anything that was not domestic, and even in the domestic sphere their power only went so far. They had to put the very first cracks in the glass wall that separates women from the world that men live in. Even today, that wall is not completely shattered.

We in the third wave of feminism have a different, more subtle fight to fight. We have to continue to chip away at that wall--it is, perhaps, stronger than we thought. Our difficulty comes not from a lack of voice, but from a lack of social freedom to use it. I realize that that sounds very dramatic, but this is something feminists--both men and women--face today. Much of sexism has burrowed down into a hole of humor. It's probably more realistic to say that there has always been sexism (and racism and ageism, etc.) in humor, but somehow in social upheavals, we've forgotten that humor can be harmful.

Now here's the rub: usually, pointing out that some jokes that are "all in good fun" are offensive often just kills the fun. I don't mean the fun of that particular joke. I mean the fun of the situation (party, drinks, get-together, television-watching, whatever) in which the offensive joke or comment is made. It would be easy to say that the person, show or movie who made the comment is ruining the fun, but no one looks at it that way. Instead, the person who took issue with the comment is seen as sour, bitter and uptight. And maybe we are.

So my question is, when do we speak up and say, "No. I will not stand for this casual sexism. I will not permit such 'joking' in my presence, because it goes against what I believe in. It is offensive to myself, and to everyone who has fought for equality. That is not funny." Obviously, we don't have to say exactly that, but when we speak up that is essentially what we're saying.

I can't claim that I speak up all the time. It's so much easier to let the moment pass, and not draw attention to myself. Because really, who wants to be seen as the uptight person that everyone else has to watch what they say around? And sometimes I think, It's just one joke. It's just one person, or one movie. What can I really do by getting upset about this? What harm can one joke do? But the only other option is to not do or say anything, and given the choice between speaking up and being passive (essentially saying, 'This is okay'), the choice should be obvious. Because the fact is one joke can do harm. Sexist jokes trivialize the feminist movement and reinforce harmful stereotypes. If feminists don't begin to find their voice amongst friends, how can we claim the right to make a difference?