It's a wonder they have managed to survive to adulthood, a miracle they could negotiate procreation. I'm talking about men depicted in advertising, dolts so dumb they can't feed themselves or work an appliance without a smug woman rolling her eyes at their clueless stupidity.
You know who I am talking about: the dropkick who uses his girlfriend's pads as make believe robot armour; the guys who walk across a lawn of bindi eyes transfixed by a bag of chips; the manic moron who stays up all night searching for the best holiday deal while his partner is all over it in a click; the old guy who thinks his missus says he's the best lover when she's talking about insurance cover; the panicking man child left to cook the kids a healthy meal; the goose trying to work out how an air freshener can randomly squirt; the bloke who thinks tampons are cat toys; the baffled dad who explains to his kid the Great Wall of China was built to keep out rabbits…
Some women might find these depictions of men as a long time coming, considering how their sex has been used and abused over the years to sell practically everything and anything – well, our boobs and butts have anyway. But 40 years on, advertisers are slightly more careful about how they depict women, fearful of feminists' wrath if they're seen to be sexist or patronising. Not that it has stopped them completely – that's never going to happen when the first rule of advertising is sex sells.
However, in the wash up of this change, men have gone from being competent breadwinners expecting to arrive home to the 'lil lady looking good and cooking better. Nope, today's men are being portrayed as the weaker and feebler sex, inferior in every way to the modern woman. Whether fools, Neanderthals, rogues or sloths, they're either childlike and useless, obliviously sports obsessed or completely controlled by their penises. Yet, there is a common link with all these men and that is they are routinely doing the wrong things and ridiculed as a result.
In their controversial book, Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, Canadian authors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young noted widespread examples of "laughing at men, looking down on men, blaming men, de-humanising men and demonising men" in modern mass media. "The worldview of our society has become increasingly both gynocentric [focused on the needs and problems of women] and misandric [focused on the evils and inadequacies of men]", they wrote.
This view is backed up by a recent study by Nickelodeon Australia, called Wait Until Your Father Gets Home, which explored the way today's dads are portrayed in the media. And, surprise surprise, the majority of male respondents didn't appreciate the way marketers and advertisers represent their involvement in child rearing, household management and life in general.
According to the study, 42 per cent agree that the media portrays dads as stupid or clueless and 56 per cent say marketers and programmers need to evolve in order to accurately reflect men's involvement in household and parenting roles. Half the dads say they should be depicted as sensitive and nurturing by showing them interacting with their kids, enjoying a variety of activities with them and showing that kids need them as well as mum. The results also show a large majority of Australian dads believe that they are "doing a good job" (78 per cent) and "feel lucky" being a dad (80 per cent), while 62 per cent say they want to be more involved however face expectations to stay at work with 44 per cent believing "there is a disconnect between the expectations of me as a dad from home and from work".
But what are these negative depictions of men doing to society? Well, there is the obvious result of making generations of young boys and men feel inferior to women and that they are expected to be helpless in all matters of housekeeping and child rearing. And the results for women and girls are just as bad, re-enforcing the notion that only the female sex is able to manage such rudimentary domestic chores – and therefore they are the ones who should do them.
Think about it, every eye roll a woman gives a man in an ad is re-enforcing the notion that men are incompetent and only we are truly capable of adequately cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids making the house smell like pine fresh. And every time a woman sighs knowingly at a man glued to the couch watching sport she condones this supposed powerlessness to move or that a cold beer is the Holy Grail that must be reached regardless of all obstacles.
But let's not forget that this gender stereotyping isn't confined to dads but men in general. "If you look at men on TV I am supposed to be ruled by my penis, love of sport or obsession with my corrugated iron roof," one male friend lamented. "I'm not supposed to know how to operate household appliances yet I am supposed to covet power tools. I shouldn't be able to feed myself if a woman isn't around and live in squalor. Well, call me a failure as a man because I am none of those things, nor do I want to be."
Are you listening advertisers? We women are well aware men are competent and capable. It's time you start reminding them of the fact rather than convincing another generation of young boys they are biologically inept and girls that housework is only inherent in that extra X chromosome. You might even sell more products as a result.
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