(Hat tip to This Is Hysteria and Sociological Images.)
Warning, lotsa pictures after the cut, people with crappy computers beware.
Girls have diamond rings and purses, boys have saws and a hammer. Because you know you’re a Real Man when you fix things around the house! Also, men never like shiny things, and men never ever ever ever ever need a bag of a size in between “backpack” and “pocket.”
And boys are busy while girls are sweet. Clearly. As opposed to small children tending to be be, regardless of gender, both busy attempting to explore this whole new world they found themselves in, and sweet so their parents don’t kill them. That would be ridiculous.
Some food to put into lunches, helpfully arranged for the “busy mom”! Because men never make lunches, dontcha know. Men work twelve hours trying to climb the corporate ladder and then come home to play catch with their son and clean the gun in front of their daughter’s new boyfriend. I mean, the idea that men could care about their children and make an effort to be involved in their children’s lives, which sometimes manifests in the form of packing them school lunches, is completely ridiculous!
We all know what the purpose of getting in a relationship with a man is. No, not companionship and emotional support, don’t be ridiculous. Clearly not because you get along and enjoy spending time together. And because he’s hot? Don’t be silly, next thing you’ll be suggesting women enjoy sex! No, the only purpose of a relationship with a man is so you can spend all his money. A man’s value as a human being is directly tied to his checkbook. Worth? More like net worth, amirite, ladies?
Oh, look, the tie dye colors come in “girl.” Because boys don’t wear clothes that are purple, light blue or pink. Someone better correct all those Roman emperors and boy babies and Gene LeBell.
“Air Guitar” bedspread is for both boys and girls. Hey, I don’t even have to be sarcastic, we can encouage our kids to be Joan Jett or Robert Plant, that’s pretty co–
“Jungle Queen” (bonus racism for the name!). It’s pink and animal print. The marketing copy refers to the person whose room it might go in as “she.” Okay, I’m used to “boys don’t like pink,” “boys don’t like zebra print” is whatever, but “boys don’t like animals”? What the hell? Is this the new misandric thing? I mean, I can almost see the argument now. “Animals are cute and fuzzy, and only girls like cute fuzzy things! You have to take care of an animal, and only girls are capable of expressing care! Boys can like lizards and snakes and flying death porcupines without impugning their masculinity, but that’s it.”
This has nothing to do with sexism. It’s just cool-looking. Who’s a cute little purple cephalopod, yes you are!
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
Where were these taken?
But I like the Cephalopod. Cephalopods are cool. 🙂
Oh wow, I am sitting here nodding my head like crazy. Growing up I had leggos and hot wheels and not a speck of pink or purple (yes, I’m a girl). I have pictures of my boys with their favorite pink baby doll or a pretty sparkly necklace or heart print stuffy or whatever. Removing gender based decisions when buying things for your children teaches that a valuable lesson early in life; it don’t matter what color or print it is….if you like it then it just doesn’t matter.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go do some work in my garage with my power tools that are NOT fucking pink with purple flowers on them. Hint for the good folks down at Home Depot: women don’t need their tools to be pink in order to use them.
Thanks for another great post. Ozy, love your work.
Don’t even get us started on work attire and the cost of clothes for men vs. women.
“Some food to put into lunches, helpfully arranged for the “busy mom”! Because men never make lunches, dontcha know.”
I bet debaser71 can tell us some stories!
@Scott: I WANNA WEAR THE SKIRTS THE WOMEN ARE ALLOWED TO WEAR.
Seriously women get to choose between pants and a skirt? It’s *bleeping* HOT out in the summer and black pants retain heat REALLY WELL. Plus they’re thick and uncomfy… and I hate belts.
Women can either do the black pants thing with the belt OR they can wear a skirt. Men have to wear close-toed uncomfortable shoes, women can wear slippers.
@superglucose That is what I’m talking about! It’s summer and I’m a big boy, I would like to be able to wear some khaki shorts or something, but instead I have to wear a t-shirt, button-up, slacks and uncomfortable shoes. While Miss Thang is wearing a skirt, flimsy blouse and open-toes.
Not to mention she probably paid under $100 for her entire outfit and my shoes alone cost $60-80.
@Scott, I’m not going to go down that road because check what women pay for prom dresses that I wore my dad’s tux to XD
That is, indeed, a cute cephalopod.
“Boys can like lizards and snakes and flying death porcupines without impugning their masculinity, but that’s it.”
Made me LOL IRL. Great examples.
@Simon J. Broome
The “busy moms” sign was from a Loblaws, and the “His money/Her money” piggy bank was from a gift shop (that specialized mostly in baked goods and cookware) in a small town in Ontario.
@scott: ehhhh just cause the outfit looks cheap and flimsy doesn’t mean it is. it’s a little depressing that when i want to buy clothes that will last more than 10 wears i need to go to the men’s section. i think they figure women will buy whatever’s in season rather than quality goods, and still pay the same or more for their clothing. and half of the clothes i own that look cool – as in comfortable cool – are made of shitty material that doesn’t breathe. mmm sweat patches that i’m not even allowed to have because women don’t have bodily functions.
@SJ, I was about to say the same. Women’s clothes are often made of flimsy-ass materials and still cost the same as men’s. I’ve been on the search for a non-see through white cotton blouse this summer, and it appears I will have to shell out some serious cash in order to get one. I’m so glad slim chinos and trousers are in style for men, because glory hallelujah, now I can buy pants that aren’t 5% spandex made to fit like a fucking body glove! And designed for people who are assumed to have calf muscles instead of skinny stick legs! Ahem. I was also amazed to find 100% merino wool v-neck sweaters in the men’s section at H&M, in nice neutral colors. None of the women’s basics are that type of quality material. I bought one of each color.
However, it really is ridiculous how much men are limited in mainstream fashion. The colors and silouhettes stay insanely constant and basic, except in high fashion. It’s crazy to think about, but I’m pretty sure pink and purple shirts for men have really only been on offer in your basic department stores and fast fashion retailers for about 10 years. There’s the whole issue of how suiting doesn’t seem to even recognize that it gets above 70° F in the summertime. And that’s got to have gotten worse since the widespread substitution of synthetic materials for natural. All in all as ridiculous as women’s fashion can be in terms of trend-chasing, cheaply made bullshit (I haven’t been able to buy a dress for 2 years because everything has been covered in lace, ruffles and horrible prints…) I’m glad to have the variety available. And seriously who decided men can’t have skirts?
All of this is the perfect example of how sexism tends to be double edged.
Fashion rant over… Maybe I’ll come back and rant about gendered toys later.
“I’m not going to go down that road because check what women pay for prom dresses that I wore my dad’s tux to XD”
Yeah, and factor in makeup and haircuts and I think you’ve got a hard road trying to claim that men always pay more to look good.
“we can encouage our kids to be Joan Jett or Robert Plant”
we probably dont want to enourage anyone to be Robert Plant given the lyrical content of most Zepplin songs. im guessing you meant for his musical abilities though.
Kid’s things like sippy cups that come in multi-packs are a sore point; I would be happy to buy “several colors, pink and purple included” but the choices are always “aggressively non-pink” against “pink/pink, pink/purple, pink/white” and of course stocked in equal numbers so the non-pink assortment sells out first.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go do some work in my garage with my power tools that are NOT fucking pink with purple flowers on them. Hint for the good folks down at Home Depot: women don’t need their tools to be pink in order to use them.” (Velah)
Wouldn’t mind a larger variety of colors in power tools overall. Something other than neutral/dark colors and bright pink. My dream toolbox would have everything in varying shades and tones of green.
Silly signs at the supermarket are one example of how only mothers matter … and fathers only babysit. The worst offender of this (at least imv) are magazines and articles in the paper and on the web that are supposedly about parenting. Even a website that has great information on parenting is called “momformation” and on supposed liberal msnbc the parenting section is called TODAYmoms. Never mind on t.v. where the dad is a doofus and mom has to save the kids from him.
@SJ: you mentioned sweat spots.
Peruse this:
I suspect, but cannot prove, that the “boys don’t like animal print” thing has to do with how animal print clothing is usually sexualized. Jungle babes in leopard-print bikinis, etc. And, you know, boys don’t want to display their bodies in sexual ways, because that’d be gay.
No not gay, just not done. Men just aren’t sexy. Not even to gay people: gay people just date men because they don’t know how great it is to be with women.
I find it interesting because it’s like the opposite of the transactional model: sex is something women give and men receive… but attention is something men give and women receive. Weird.
I think superglucose and Wolf are both half-right. Men are certainly seen as unable to be sexy and it’s laughable when they try but I cannot help but notice that any movie that has any scene that is even semi-successful at displaying a man in a sexy light will be immediately deemed “homoerotic”.
Well, yeah, they’re closely linked: society says gayness is just an aberration, and women basically have no actual sexual *desires* (see “sex is something men give and women receive”), therefore the male body is not inherently sexy, *and* any attempt to portray it as though it were sexy must be trying to appeal to those aberrations, gay men. There’s also the active/passive thing, where a man making himself a passive object of desire is failing at manhood and/or becoming feminized (not trying to restart the whole “femmephobia” thing there – the point is, male passivity is seen as a contemptible gender role violation for whatever reason).
(Though I’m not sure about the idea that gay men just don’t know how great sex with women is…that doesn’t seem to square with the pervasive fear of straight men being “turned gay,” or with the common idea that bisexual men are all just gay and in denial.)
“”(Though I’m not sure about the idea that gay men just don’t know how great sex with women is…that doesn’t seem to square with the pervasive fear of straight men being “turned gay,” or with the common idea that bisexual men are all just gay and in denial.)””
It’s a weird sort of double-think in that if you’re gay or have had “gay sex” then you are tainted by it forever (hence why bisexual men are all just “really gay” and straight men might be turned (I always think of Anne McAffrey and the “tent peg” theory for that one, feckin’ hilarious)), but at the same time, if you come out as gay you will hear an endless chorus of “maybe you just haven’t found the right woman!” Until everyone gets used to it and stops trying to save you from the horror of gayness.
“(Though I’m not sure about the idea that gay men just don’t know how great sex with women is…that doesn’t seem to square with the pervasive fear of straight men being “turned gay,” or with the common idea that bisexual men are all just gay and in denial.)”
well… there is the idea that a gay man can be “fixed” by the right girl.
This one leaves me pretty confused — shouldn’t we be much *more* bothered by the sexism that makes it so that women almost always make lunches than by the sexism of the sign excluding men by assuming that women almost always make lunches?
To put it another way, if I had to pick whether the sign is “more sexist” towards women or against men, I’d say that it’s far more sexist towards women. Maybe everyone agrees and this site is just dedicated to sexism against men without mentioning sexism against women, or maybe people really think that men suffer a comparable harm from it being assumed (and being the case) that they don’t do as much child-rearing?
Men are certainly seen as unable to be sexy and it’s laughable when they try but I cannot help but notice that any movie that has any scene that is even semi-successful at displaying a man in a sexy light will be immediately deemed “homoerotic”.
I think that problem is related to our old buddy the male gaze. As long as the assumed “normal” viewer is male, then if men are being shown as sexy, it’s by definition homoerotic. That’s one of the factors playing into the Myth Of Men Not Being Hot, as Ozy calls it.
@Chris
Well, let me answer your question with another question… if there were an ad that indcated only men ever do something, like…fixing a car, say…. would you say that ad is more sexist against men for assuming only men fix cars, or against women for assuming that women don’t?
@Paul
Well, it’s tough — part of the reason we have the stereotype of women being bad at engineering is a history of socializing them as unintelligent and unable to learn (“math is hard!”), which is related to a history of denying them advanced schooling and so on. Since I don’t think there’s any comparable harm to portraying men as being smart and capable of fixing things (there is harm in portraying women as doing all the childcare, in that when they do it they then have to have fewer hobbies, less of a career, etc), I’m not going to say that that one’s more sexist towards men either.
Of course this doesn’t mean that I think *all* examples of gender socialization are more sexist towards women than men; just the particular examples that have been brought up. The way that I try to determine which gender is being more hurt by a stereotype is to think about whether the stereotype is a high status activity (like fixing a car, as opposed to changing diapers), and whether there’s harm associated with following the stereotype through.
“Since I don’t think there’s any comparable harm to portraying men as being smart and capable of fixing things…I’m not going to say that that one’s more sexist towards men either.”
Actually there can be great harm in portraying men as being great at fixing things, if the assumption is that men are *automatically* great at fixing things. (which in our society, it pretty much is.) Trust me. I’m speaking as a man whose automotive knowledge ends at being able to change a tire… barely.
“(there is harm in portraying women as doing all the childcare, in that when they do it they then have to have fewer hobbies, less of a career, etc), ”
What about the portrayal of men as being too stupid to figure out how to change a diaper? Hell, if you go by the typical portrayal on television the *kids* are usually smarter than dad.
Same here. I don’t really feel harmed by everyone thinking that I’m smarter than I am, though. The stereotype’s lie (that I’m an excellent mechanic) never actually gets disproven. It’s clearly worse to be on the female side of that equation, where everyone assumes you’re incompetent even when you know what you’re doing.
But it doesn’t take any intelligence, or even learning, to change a diaper. It’s just menial work. I don’t think the portrayal you’re describing actually exists.
If you’re useless and there’s no learning, where’s the logic there? You’re so soo soooo useless than you can’t grasp basic skill like diaper changing? Isn’t it like a supreme insult?
Like being told you can’t swallow or think intelligent thought (by the measure that it is non-animal).
I’m saying that I would like to see examples of men being stereotyped as not knowing how to change a diaper, rather than merely not having to because women exist to do it for them. I don’t recall seeing this stereotype (not knowing how to) before; which either means that it exists and I just didn’t notice it, or it doesn’t exist.
I’ve seen that stereotype in my life, it exists. It’s not a “you can do it instead of me” thing, it’s a “you’re too useless to do it” thing.
That depends entirely on whether you have any interest in doing the thing.
If you want to do the thing, then yes, it’s worse to have people think you’re incompetent, because when they think you’re competent the stereotype matches up nicely to reality, while if they think you’re incompetent people will assume you can’t do something you really can do with all the bullshit that entails.
But if you DON’T want to do the thing, it’s worse to have people think you’re competent. Because this time if you’re thought to be incompetent, you’re not expected to be doing something you have no interest in doing, so no harm done. But if you’re thought to be competent, your options are either waste time learning to do something you have no interest in just to appease the gender police, or else be thought of as a lesser human being because you have no interest in some random subject. Or possibly, if you’re legitimately stupid, you can try to fake it and make everyone mad when you mess up.
Chris:
This one leaves me pretty confused — shouldn’t we be much *more* bothered by the sexism that makes it so that women almost always make lunches than by the sexism of the sign excluding men by assuming that women almost always make lunches?
Trying to figure out which one (out of list of many sexist things) is more bothersome is the beginning of a slope and at the bottom of that slope is the Oppression Olympics.
To put it another way, if I had to pick whether the sign is “more sexist” towards women or against men, I’d say that it’s far more sexist towards women. Maybe everyone agrees and this site is just dedicated to sexism against men without mentioning sexism against women, or maybe people really think that men suffer a comparable harm from it being assumed (and being the case) that they don’t do as much child-rearing?
Frankly if someone asked me to pick I’d tell them they are wasting my time. I’m not sure about it being comparable but I do believe that men really do suffer from the assumption that men don’t know about child care.
The way that I try to determine which gender is being more hurt by a stereotype is to think about whether the stereotype is a high status activity (like fixing a car, as opposed to changing diapers), and whether there’s harm associated with following the stereotype through.
But when doing that doesn’t that lead to the issue of removing the personal desire of the person in question? Wouldn’t this line of logic end up saying something to the effect that a woman not getting a job as a CEO is worse than a man not being able to get a job at a daycare (both over gender reasons)? In fact I think that line of thinking may be why today you hear so much about how its unfair that women aren’t in more high end corporate positions but don’t hear so much about it being unfair that women aren’t in more positions like plumbing or garbage collection.
I’m saying that I would like to see examples of men being stereotyped as not knowing how to change a diaper, rather than merely not having to because women exist to do it for them. I don’t recall seeing this stereotype (not knowing how to) before; which either means that it exists and I just didn’t notice it, or it doesn’t exist.
I’ll say I’ve never seen the “dad too stupid to…” meme used on diaper changing before but I have seen it in regards to cooking (dad’s too stupid to cook so he orders takeout) and helping the kids with homework (dad’s too stupid to help the kids with the homework so mom has to sweep in and save them from a bad grade).
This blog is centered around men, so of course I discussed how the pics were sexist against men; you can look at the links for an excellent discussion of how all of them are sexist against women. I tend to think that “who is hurt worse by sexism” is a bit of a useless argument; it’s sexist either way and whether you think men or women are worse hurt everyone can agree that we ought to get rid of it. 🙂
“Same here. I don’t really feel harmed by everyone thinking that I’m smarter than I am, though. The stereotype’s lie (that I’m an excellent mechanic) never actually gets disproven.”
It’s not “thinks I’m smarter than I am” thats the problem though, it’s when they expect you to actually *be* smarter than you are, and attempt to tie your value as a person into it. Come find me if someone (in my case an ex GF) ever gives you the “what are you an idiot?” look when they find out you don’t know why their engine is making a weird clicking noise. her exact words were “You’re a guy, aren’t you? Fix it.”
” It’s clearly worse to be on the female side of that equation, where everyone assumes you’re incompetent even when you know what you’re doing.”
“But it doesn’t take any intelligence, or even learning, to change a diaper. It’s just menial work.”
So… the assumption that I, as a man, am incapable of doing this activity that -as you put it- requires no learning and is just menial work is less insulting than the assumption that the average Jane-On-The-Street doesn’t know how to do something that people go to school for years to learn how to do professionally?
“I don’t think the portrayal you’re describing actually exists.”
Maybe not “men can’t change diapers” specifically, but “dads are dumb”? You’ve really never noticed this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/opinion/18tierney.html
http://findersonline.wordpress.com/category/stupid-mandumb-dad-tv-commercials/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad
Oh wow, I didn’t realize the “men are horrible parents” stereotype was so strong it overrides the “men are good at computers” stereotype.
Learn something new every day, I guess.
“”I’m saying that I would like to see examples of men being stereotyped as not knowing how to change a diaper, rather than merely not having to because women exist to do it for them. I don’t recall seeing this stereotype (not knowing how to) before; which either means that it exists and I just didn’t notice it, or it doesn’t exist.””
Have you never watched a sitcom in your life? Or commercials? Or television at all? Men cannot parent! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad
(I suppose it’s not really “diaper changing” but the male of the species is clearly considered incompetent in the realm of raising his offspring. This burdens both sexes but that is generally the case with sexism and as BH points out how much it “hurts” depends on how much you want it (or don’t, as the case may be))
Also I should point out, (before somebody can accuse me of it,) that I’m really not trying to get my oppression gold medal, just trying to show that a little tweak to the usual mindset can yield different results.
As a father the thought of dads not changing diapers are foreign to me, but I am also sick and tired of this stereotype of men changing diapers:
What does annoys me is when only the ladie’s room have changing facilities. I usually brazen myself agains all nasty looks I get and change the diapers in the ladie’s room. Boy have I had women hiss at me… The older the worse.
re: the myth of men not being hot, the myth that dating men makes one 100% gay forever, and the “hetero men don’t display their bodies” stereotype – I recently read this personal essay which brings all of those things together in a rather toxic, relationship-ending stew: http://www.good.is/post/dealbreaker-he-s-dated-men/
It’s rather cold comfort that the woman who wrote it seems to realize she was being prejudicial and ridiculous, and that she let a real catch go because she just couldn’t deal with the way he didn’t conform to her idea of masculinity.
@f
and that’s coming from a woman who was raised by a lesbian parent who got lots of crap for it. You’d think she’d have learned more, since it hit her personally. But nope, my boyfriend looking and trying on another guy’s watch is totally not good masculine behavior and reason to dump him. My mom being lesbian? Totally different thing, for sure.
Wow.
We’ve shown sexist commercials on here aimed at both men and women. But that Verizon commercial just about made me want to throw up in pure disgust.
There was no softening humor in that commercial whatsoever. It was all hatred and contempt of Stupid Dad.
regarding diaper changing…
1) it’s a learned skill … because if you are bad at it the baby will rash and you’ll have to clean up messes every 2 hours.
2) it’s great for bonding with your baby…if you aren’t changing your baby’s diapers you are missing out … seriously.
@ Chris
“Maybe everyone agrees and this site is just dedicated to sexism against men without mentioning sexism against women, or maybe people really think that men suffer a comparable harm from it being assumed (and being the case) that they don’t do as much child-rearing?”
Ask an involved(even a house-husband) father who got four days a month with his kids post-divorce if the stereotype that men ‘don’t do as much child-rearing’ doesn’t cause a lot of harm to men.
Also, is the reason why you believe ‘women are more harmed’ because they are more harmed or because it supports your stereotypes about women as ‘need-objects’.
Ironic that now in advanced schooling as a whole (not talking about STEM diciplines), the gender divide is 60%/40% …in favor of women.
I second that debaser71.
Here’s another to add to your pictorial tour:
This was excellent to read through in light of the more recent post that posited about misandry and misogyny being flipsides of the same problem. Every one of these images demonstrated that idea in stark light. Also props for the Gene Lebell thing.