November 08, 2004
Girlie Men
By Jim Dallas
I'm sorry, but I can't take claims of male victimhood stemming from (and lets face it) cutesy advertisement too seriously.
The whole joke of the ad being complained about here isn't that men are inferior. The joke is that its natural for men to have a fascination with gadgetry, it's natural for adults not to understand said gadgetry as well as adults, and its okay for men to be on the receiving end of some soft jabs, because, dammit, we're men, we can take it, at the end of the day its still our world. Since the dawn of humanity there's always been the ol' man, and I imagine that every non-reactionary society since has had some kind of well-meaning dad jokes.
P.S.: Incidentally, I note that most of the people who get all pissy about this sort of thing seem to be pushing reactionary social agendas (e.g. "its unfair that women get to decide about abortions." -- maybe when men get pregnant, we'll have a right to complain?).
Posted by Jim Dallas at November 8, 2004 05:29 AM
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Yes, yes, it's never okay for men to complain about being stereotyped. Tell me, do you honestly not think that if the roles were reversed in that ad feminists wouldn't be outraged? But see, it's hard to contemplate that, since such ads are almost never made, because advertisers know the reaction they'll get.
Dean:
Let's assume that we lived in a world where there were not any gender stereotypes.
In this case, we would have one adult (who happens to be male) looking foolish, and another adult calling him on it.
In such a world, there would be no use worrying about "reversing the tables", because doing so would result in an ad where one adult (a female) looked foolish, and another adult called her on it.
And the whole joke would be, "look, there is an adult person doing something dumb!"
Now, obviously, we both agree that this is not the world that we live in. And we both agree that were the roles reversed, there would be much sturm and drang.
But that actually proves my point, not yours.
Because the obvious conclusion to draw from that is that a mother or woman would be being "picked on unfairly," and that our poor lady was suffering in a place of social vulnerability. IN sole part because men have been placed in a position of dominance (I am agnostic as to whether that's actually a bad thing, mind you, since a credible case can be made that its an immutable nature.)
The fact that we would continue to presume a woman to be vulnerable is prima facie evidence that men remain in a position of social dominance, and as such, men have very little to worry about, since even a slew of negative stereotypes are apparently not making a heck of a lot of difference.
And I'd point out, that the humor of the ad rests on the idea of situational irony, the placing of presumptively dominant father figures in awkward situations.
At any rate, I'd note that my position hinges on the idea that stereotyping is not inherently wrong, since it is an epistemological tool for making sense of a complex world. Where the evil comes in is when it becomes a tool of social oppression; and as noted, men/fathers (as a class) are hardly oppressed.
No women are just use as sex objects. Get over. There are bigger battles to fight.
