Weekend Blog: Commercials and Stereotypes

[aldersprig]

A radio ad - think it was for McDonald's - got me thinking, not for the first time, about cultural assumptions.

Okay, so there's a long-running set of assumptions about Husbands in American culture. This particular one was "men don't like to clean out the garage."

This... is not true of the men I know, but hey, let's keep going.

This goes along with the "men don't like to do chores" tropes - the "Honey-Do" list, the chore jar, etc. The ignored tasks that pile up and up until Marge has to learn carpentry to fix them herself. (I watch a lot of Simpsons, okay? ;-) There seems to be a stack of assumptions that permeate American culture - especially comedy, which, Simpsons aside, I try not to watch too much of.

So, "who perpetuates these myths" is obvious: comedies, commercials, media. I think it probably goes along with the idea that men can't parent, can't do housework, are pretty much helpless children when it comes to the realm of the home.

Now, I know the separate spheres idea goes back at least to the late 1800's, and I know my father, for instance, liked to pretend a helplessness with things like laundry and cooking that belied the years he'd spent living on his own. (Seriously, I was horrified as a teenager to have to show my dad how to use the washer). But my post-childhood experience with men has not been that they are helpless, useless, or lazy.

(There’s a certain amount of self-selection there, of course; I knew incompetent men, lazy men, useless men. I grew up with competent helpful skilled men — my grandfather is a farmer; my other grandfather used to build houses — and chose to marry the same.)

Why do you think this stereotype proliferates?

When you are writing, are there stereotypes you work into your writing? What sorts, and why?

What do you run into in media that just seems jarring vs. the way your life actually goes?

Comments

[inventrix]

"Why do you think this stereotype proliferates?"

Because it can. Because we like to absolve men of all social responsibility, as a culture. "Boys will be boys", etc. People are constantly excusing the bad behavior of men because it's "what men are like".

[aldersprig]

...You know, I hadn't even thought to attach it to the "boys will be boys" BS but you are (of course) right.

[sauergeek]

There's also the entertainment value that can be pulled from the stereotype. The trope is there, and comedies can put all sorts of variations on the theme without having to explain a thing.

But where it's being used as an escape clause, there's something quite wrong.

[inventrix]

Humor tends to follow society, though, not society follow humor. That is, once a stereotype becomes socially passé or irrelevant, people stop making jokes about it, and things rarely become socially relevant or trendy through humor.

At least, that's my general perception. >.>

There's a bit of a feedback cycle, of course, but if there's a growing movement away from "men are useless children" as a social stereotype, then the humor would follow.

[sauergeek]

Hm, true. Many of the stereotypes of black people used in comedy died out some time ago. Must be we're not done pushing yet.

[kelkyag]

Way, way too long an answer: the Metafilter Emotional Labor thread.

I think relatively few people (of any sex or gender) *like* to clean out the garage, or various other chores. Individual people find any given chore more or less unpleasant, and do it dilligently or rarely or badly (and do or don't learn to do better) or not at all. Some people take advantage of stereotypes and/or feign incompetence to get out of tasks they don't like.

Also there (still) cultures in America that preach different spheres for men and for women, and men being in charge of their households. And vaguely in that space the "Honey Do" list is letting one's wife push one around and failing to be the man-in-charge.

Feh.

[sauergeek]

Free To Be You And Me, with their "Housework" piece (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y7dJrGnEYI) was revolutionary in pointing out that housework kinda sucks. That was 1974. I'm of the opinion that it takes three generations -- minimum! -- for a substantial change in society to actually take. Assuming this one is going to at all, it's only two generations in.

[kelkyag]

Songs of my childhood ...

[aldersprig]

That's a good point, that it takes three generations for change. *considers that*

I don't think my grandfather knew anything about housework. My husband mopped the floor last weekend.

[aldersprig]

*glares at gender stereotypes*

I mean… there are some of them that I sort of like.

I like there being competent skilled people with vaguely overlapping skills. Specialization works in society!

OTOH, being able to CHOSE your specialization…

…wait I have a dystopic story idea…

[kelkyag]

Don't you already have a few of those? :)

Yes, specializiation is useful, but letting people make informed choices about what they want to specialize in, and offering incentives to pursue unpopular specializations ...

[eseme]

I tend to fall into the "no one likes chores" camp, but then I am someone who will let dishes pile up and the floors become filthy because I am reading things or watching TV and enjoy that more. So in many ways I am the "childish" one.

I like folding laundry...

Anyhow, virtually every man in my life save my father and my first boyfriend was or is a better cook than me. I learn from them.

The last three boyfriends have even been the barefoot in the kitchen, literally, types. I am lucky!