Posted by Bitch Lab at 7:03 pm and filed under Advertising, Gender, Sexism ::
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Greetings from New Orleans It blows and sucks at the same time Cute
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For what it’s worth, I don’t like Bitch Lab, I don’t read her, I don’t think she’s very bright, and I think the main thing she piggybacked on recently was a comment thread to a post she didn’t author. Nice appropriation, that.
So: Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better.
So: Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better.
05-14-2006
Just go ahead and bitch
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[...] Bitch | Lab: Ad Industry Portrays Men as Children Who Will Never Grow Up [...]
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there was that book a while back by Benjamin Kunkel called “Indecision” that tried to pick apart this ethos, the ongoing infancy of young men. Lauren at Feministe wrote a bit about it last year.
It’s just a hipper newer version of dumb-baby-style masculinity that corresponds to products. The older version is what I so love to call the “bumbling dad” - he doesn’t know how cook, clean, parent, shop, and he never knows what’s going on. Somehow he manages to hold down a job and keep sports scores in his head, but other than that he’s a real knucklehead, hardy har. Get him a beer and keep the kids away - you know he’ll end up playing catch with them as the ball. Because that’s what men do. Duh.
If I ever admit my inability to spell Lakshimi’s last name correctly — without the extra N — I will consider that progress and die a happy woman.
Isn’t there an argument to be had for women also being kept teenagers, through the Ally McBeal/Bridget Jones, “why can’t I have a boyfriend ?” new stereotype ?
But then there is the redeeming passage into motherhood, and all of a sudden wanting to party down and get the cute bot disappear from Ad Woman’s concerns, to be replaced with children’s education, health, cleanliness… While the dads, deprived of any real relationship with their children, drink and drive to oblivion…
Fortunately, as the article points out, reality is not (always) quite as depressing.
[...] Bitch | Lab: Ad Industry Portrays Men as Children Who Will Never Grow Up [...]
Hi ilestre!
I’m not sure how shows about women in search of a man “to settle down with” is a show about being kept in a perpetual state of teenhood. It does send a mixed message of sorts. On one hand, “settling down” is seen as a sign of maturity and giving up the days of casual dating. On the other hand, it’s suggesting that women aren’t really “grown up” until they have a man.
To be perfectly honest if forced to choose one I’d prefer the image of perpetually juvenile men over the alternative of men as completely stupid. (There’s always a hope one can grow up while stupidity is innate.)
Of course if I didn’t have to choose I’d pick something entirely different. (Maybe something along the lines of conforming realistic expectations rather than shared stereotypes.)
The tricky part, of course, is that we ought to distinguish the comparable types for women. I have a feeling they’re intimately related, with each side finely tuned to the expectations of the other.
(I’m aware that doesn’t answer much but intuition tells me that expanding the problem is the only way to find answers.)
Good post, Dr. B.
figleaf