Readers watched a video depicting gender reversal in advertising in common magazines. They give their thoughts and reactions and then explain what they feel would actually be a much more proper role reversal. Watch the original video here and then tell us what you think!
These are comments by RMNZ, Random_Stranger, and wellokaythen on the post “What Would it Look Like if Gender Roles Were Reversed in Advertising? (Video)“.
RMNZ said:
I think as usual this skips all the violence perpetrated against men, which is hugely problematic. For me the standout example of this is the factoid that 50% of women in Canada have experienced physical or sexual violence. This figure is of course 100% for men everywhere, and the fact that this 100% figure isn’t being highlighted as much as the 50% figure is morally damning – it shows that we as a society don’t consider violence to be a big deal unless it happens to people of a certain class. Violence is always a big deal.
The other flawed aspect of this is that “conventionally attractive” women were used by all the real advertisers, but the role reversal used men of various shapes and sizes very few of whom would be considered attractive according to our cultural conventions on male beauty. I feel this weakens the effect, and suspect it is something to do with the fact that male beauty is considered unimportant but can’t quite figure out how. I worry that it is playing off the “men look funny in womens’ clothing” thing which is itself a huge part of western society’s current gender disorder.
Random_Stranger said:
The dominant male and submissive female is a popular mutual sexual fantasy among men and women (eg shades of grey). It gets both genders attention and both gender linking sex with the whatever they’re selling. That doesn’t mean that exploiting and desensitizing the population to a fantasy that flirts with power and consent will not have fallout. Just saying that culpability for these ads is a gender neutral issue.
The second things is, in their “reversal”, the authors are actually accessing an oft portrayed image of man as sexual dolt, object of ridicule and impotence. That’s not a true reversal, that’s simply accessing the same well of bad gender imagery from which the subject of their original complaint resides. A true role reversal would put Ryan Gosling on there or any number of Calvin Klein ads. I guess, inconveniently, those images are being commercially exploited and could undermine the authors implicit thesis that this form of advertising is a one-way street.
wellokaythen said:
The chosen images are powerful, and the stats are alarming. The correlation between the stats and the ads, though, are largely unstated and assumed. If one thing increases over 20 years and another thing increases over 20 years, then one causes the other, right? Not necessarily. There’s probably some effect of perfume ads in fashion magazines on interpersonal violence, but is magazine advertising a primary culprit or just an easy target? I suspect it’s the latter, more than anyone wants to admit.
In answer to the question about gender reversal:
A fuller thought experiment about gender role reversal would also have to address the advertising tropes in which men are shown as inferior to women. Let’s say for the sake of argument that those are less common. Fine. They’re still out there, and they are part of the spectrum of gender constructs in popular culture.
For example, I’d like everyone to imagine an ad in which a man is portrayed as a wonderful, competent, wise, experienced parent and a woman is portrayed as an ignorant, disorganized, dirty, clueless buffoon when it comes to raising children. Treat women as inherently dangerous to children and treat men as more important to a child’s health and future than women. That would also be a striking role reversal.
—
Like this Comment of the Day? Here are more.
Want to nominate a comment of the day? Email the comment and the post it was on to deanna.m.ogle@gmail.com.
–
Photo credit: Flickr /
The post “I think it’s playing off the ‘men look funny in womens’ clothing’ thing which is a big part of western society’s current gender disorder.” appeared first on The Good Men Project.