Have No Fear, Men Are Here!

The “damsel in distress” and the “knight in shining armor” are both examples of gender roles that are perpetuated by the media. There is no masculine counterpart for the word damsel, which suggests that men are strong, capable, and are in no need of saving. Women are rarely ever thought of as the knight in shining armor, where the armor symbolizes strength, and the knight is a symbol of heroism or bravery. I don’t think that these labels should be restricted to either gender because both men and women are capable of being brave or in distress. Rosa Parks was an African American woman most known for her refusal to move to the back of the bus, and she demonstrated that women can be equally as brave as men can.

In many films that involve superheroes the gender roles remain, even though superheroes are usually genetically altered or have extraordinary abilities, they still choose men over women to play the heroic role. Also, it isn’t common to represent homosexuals as heroic in the media. Famous examples of these gender roles are:

-Spider-Man (In every part of the trilogy, Mary Jane has always played the damsel in distress role)

-Superman (Lois Lane always needs saving)

-The Hulk (He has tremendous strength while his love interest is vulnerable in comparison)

-Fantastic Four (the character that Jessica Alba plays still falls under the ‘damsel in distress’ role even though she has her own superpowers)

-Thor (Natalie Portman appears to be his love interest who will undoubtedly need saving)

-Iron Man (In Iron Man 2 he does have to protect and rescue his love interest at a certain point in the film)

-Prince of Persia

1) Why do you think that men are commonly portrayed as the heroes rather than women?

2) Are these stereotypical roles an accurate representation of reality, in the sense that perhaps men prefer to feel in control and women desire that sense of security?

3) Would you rather watch a movie that has a male or a woman portrayed as the hero, and why?

Sexist superbowl ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8F_cHT4DvQ

The video above was a commercial originally intended to air during the Superbowl, but was cut because it was too controversial. Although it never appeared on TV, it did demonstrate a negative view of women. In the commercial the man is watching foot ball, while his wife is cleaning the house around him. The wife complains about having to do all the housework herself and this annoys the man. He's just trying to watch his sports. The woman is than replaced by an attractive, scarcely dressed woman who bring the man what he wants and that will not disturb him.

This commercial says many things. It says that a man's desire to watch football is more important than him doing any share of the housework. And that women are only useful when they are prevocatively dressed, and submissive. All in all this sends the message that men are the dominant sex, and that women are supposed to server men.

I find this extremely offensive to women. Not only does it bring up the gender role of the woman doing all of the house work while the man watches TV, but this is not even good enough for the man! The woman has to be completely submissive and cannot interupt his sport watching. I find the fact that anyone would think like this to be shocking. I don't think men are entitled to anything more than women.

What do you think this commercial says about society, and what impact would it have if it was released?

Do you trust media????

So easy, a man can do it

This advert is for an over cleaner; Oven Pride. It features a man acting like a child, using the product. Meanwhile a pregnant woman stands by glaring angrily at him. The tagline of the ad is, "Oven Pride, so easy a man can do it". And, there is even a note at the end, saying, "No men were harmed during the making of this commercial".

I found that the ad was sexist, offensive, and demeaning to both genders. The advertisement suggests that men are too stupid to clean, and that cleaning is woman's job. Cleaning the oven or cleaning in general, is not a complex task, and can be done by either gender. The ad stereotypes women as typical housewives who take care of the house, and men as the dumb, incapable spouse. This advertisement isn't the only piece of media that stereotypes men and women like this. These stereotypes are very popular and common in the media.

In The Simpsons, Homer (On the couch) is lazy and very stupid, and Marge (Vacuuming) is the typical housewife, in charge of cleaning the house.

Now, there are families across the globe, in which the women is the sole breadwinner of the family, and the man stays home and takes care of the house and children. But, women, in a household, are expected to clean and take care of the children without the help of their husbands, who are expected to get a job and provide for the family financially.

In my opinion, between the two roles, neither is superior. In my own family, both my parents have jobs, and although my father has helped clean, primarily my mother is the one in charge of maintaining the house.

That's just my opinion, what's yours?

Questions:

I. What did you think about the advertisement?

II. Do you think these stereotypes are true? false?

III. Between the two roles of the spouses, do you think one is superior? If so, which one, and why?

When Women Abuse Men

Watch before reading or posting any comments please. :D

If video doesn't work here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks

This video was a pretty interesting social experiment. To summarize what basically happened was; a male actor was made to abuse a female actor, and when people saw this they immediately reacted and came to the aid of the female. But when the roles were reversed and the female was the one abusing and assaulting the male nobody really seemed to care anymore. This shows that we tend to believe that when a man is abusing a women its immediately wrong, but when a women is abusing a male, well it's probably the males fault any ways, he deserves it, right? About 163 people walked by the abusive women before anybody actually reacted. Even a police officer even walked by without doing anything, he simply said that they were having a little "pip"(I think), and it was nothing to be worried about.

A plausible reason for this is that we are conditioned by the media, and even our literature to assume that when

a women hits a man, she has a just reason for it and thus it is acceptable. For instance in Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow is slapped but for a very good reason, so we the viewers immediately consider it OK and even consider it empowering and a good dead done on the females behalf, seeing as she was able to extract her revenge. Also we are raised never to hit a women, and as a result when we see women hitting men, we act passive towards them and don't see the situation for what it really is.

Unfortunately in this country, women abusing men is a serious problem, especially with the stereotypes that exist for both males and females. A abused male may be afraid of even admitting to anybody that his wife/girlfriend is abusing him in fear of being considered weak and a wimp. Also people would be very resistant to immediately believe him seeing as its strange in our society to think that a women is abusing a male. Its generally the other way around.

In the video a lady's reaction went as far as to even cheer silently for the women. When later asked why she cheered the lady responded "good for her, you go girl" supporting and even encouraging her violent behavior because of the assumption that the women had caught the male doing something like cheating. The problem with this is that female aggression, in our current society is stereotyped as harmless, and nothing to react to, but it could possibly be very harmful, to both the male and the female in the relationship. Though unfortunately as a result, many violent acts are committed by females, and encouraged rather than being taken seriously for what they are. Violent actions should never be encouraged regardless of whether there is a good reason for it or not. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

Points to Discuss:

1) Do you think our society justly treats the problem of abusive females, or are they given a

lesser penalty seeing as they are females?

2) If you saw a female abusing a male, how would you react?

3)Why do you think we assume that the male is responsible when we see a women abusing a

male?

RELIGION BREEDS HOMOPHOBIA?!?

The church of Westboro, i'm sure many of you have heard about them before. They are mainly known a hate group because of their extreme stances against homosexuality. As you can see in the picture above these kids are being taught from childhood that being a homosexual is wrong and that they will probably burn in hell if they even think about acting this way. This certain religious group installs fear into their children which causes them to be afraid of being homosexual, regardless of what their true feelings may be.

The issue that lies behind this is that most religions state that homosexuality is a sin and such activity shouldn't be conducted. Unfortunately people who follow these religions are constantly conditioned, whether they know it or not, to discriminate against homosexuality and by the time they're older will have a negative opinion of homosexuals. In this todays society homosexuality should be accepted, not looked down upon. Due to this conditioning many people who are homosexuals may in fact be afraid to admit it, and end up living a unhappy lie of a life. Also people who are homosexuals often have to end up acting this way only in secret, in fear of being punished by the law.

Possible Questions:

1) Is religion really a good enough reason to allow children to be conditioned to discriminate against homosexuals?

2)Is it really right to discriminate against something just because of the fact that it is "tradition" to do so?

3)Everything in this world is subject to decay, whether its a flower or even an idea. Everything is also constantly evolving, isn't it time we changed old discriminatory thinking and replaced it with more understanding and accepting thinking?

Man without compromise?

In this video, the man is being encouraged to stand up for himself and he is congratulated for not giving in to his wife/partner. I think men watching this commercial are being encouraged to stand up for themselves in their relationship and not to let their leisures being taken away from them. I think that this video contains some truth in the sense that a couple cannot always be together, each partner needs his/her space and that is a key aspect for a relationship to be a lasting one.

There are some negatives to this commercial though. Firstly, children, teens or even adults watching this video might get the wrong idea and might actually think that the needs of a man are more important than those of a woman, that will eventually cause them to have some troubles in their relationship later on. Another problem to think about is that of children watching this video. Small boys and teenagers might get the impression of that's how a "real" man should be acting and might do so later on in their life. Similarly, female viewers might get the impression of that is the way girls should be acting in order for men to find them attractive.

I want to hear about any opinions that you may have about this commercial.

What you think about this commercial in general? What possible consequences do you think might result from people watching this? Do you think that this whole commercial was implied to be seen as a joke without really meaning for it to appear as a sexist commercial?