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!
Oh, come now. If the claims men make about women only wanting rich men, we wouldn’t have a population explosion. Gold-diggers show up in films and videos much more often than they show up in real life. In the lower sock-economic classes the women is often the breadwinner. Many women carry the child—for about 18 years forward.
Sexual stereotypes are damaging to both sexes. AGREED!
Vent, vent, vent all you like. Consider however that your are EMPLOYING stereotypes to vent about stereotypes. Just saying`…
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.
Here’s another to add to your pictorial tour:
http://i.imgur.com/mrVFK.jpg
I second that debaser71.
Ironic that now in advanced schooling as a whole (not talking about STEM diciplines), the gender divide is 60%/40% …in favor of women.
@ 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… Read more »
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhlW3XXRQqk
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.
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.
“”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… Read more »
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.
“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… Read more »
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. 🙂
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… Read more »
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. 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… Read more »
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.
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.
Like being told you can’t swallow or think intelligent thought (by the measure that it is non-animal).
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?
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. 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… Read more »
“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… Read more »
@Paul Hobson 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… Read more »