"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol
Does it?
The media contributes to stereotyping in a big way. Which allows it to affect our daily lives since we strive to be what the media portarys as correct. They don’t splash tabloid headlines with some male actor who sleeps around and gets drunk driving charges. That’s what people expect so it won’t sell the rag. In order to be newsworthy it has to be a woman doing these terrible awful things….well acting like her male counterparts really. You won’t see the day the National Informer has a headline reading “Brad Pitt goes commando!” with a picture of him getting out of a limo and a glimpse up the leg of his shorts. If it does happen it’s a one day thing, not an ongoing commentary of a child star gone bad.
Too many people still perceive women as they were in the 1950s and the media reinforces it. Of course once we see it on TV or at the movies it sinks in as the way it’s supposed to be. Departures from this norm are fodder for the tabloid masses. The man makes financial decisions and the woman makes everything nice. Female friends tell me years after they divorce and get the house in the settlement companies persist in addressing anything household related to their ex’s.
Salesmen in person still tend to follow the same trends as well. When you go to a car lot, the salesman will automatically look towards the male concerning the purchase. Unless you inform him otherwise of course, the third time a dealer told my roommate to look at the color when she asked a question she threw his clipboard across the lot. I had to physically restrain her from committing further harm to him.
When you go to look at a house, the realtor will direct all the “look at this view, or that color” to the lady. Yet when they get back to the office and the contract comes out the realtor will be directing all their comments to the man. I sat in a recruiting office in San Diego a few years ago, watching people get signed up. When a male recruit was involved, it was all recruiter talking to the recruit with the father watching proudly or in horror depending on the his grasp of current events. When it was a female recruit, it was usually sign here to the recruit and everything else was directed towards the father.
Now I am not saying this is 100% etched in stone facts, but these are my observations. It would seem a large portion of respect being paid to the female as an independent consumer is simply lip service.
What can be the reasoning behind this? One theory perhaps can be that women are always considered smarter consumers then men, therefore why waste time working extra hard to bamboozle the women when we can try half as much and hoodwink the men? One survey had women as less likely to buy extravagant play toys. Preferring to invest excess income for rainy days ahead. That’s hardly playing fair in our credit heavy economic atmosphere.
One business group that seems to prefer women as consumers to men would be the good old woodchucks. Those rascally jack of all trades scoundrels who will show up to replace three shingles on your roof, come back an hour later hat in hand to tell you part of your roof is rotten. Thirty minutes after that they mention your gutter needs replacing, and by the end of the day they have a tear in their eye as they tell you that six-inch crack in your driveway is what caused your roof to go bad. Not to worry though they can fix it all! Might take a few days, and they prefer cash payments. Don’t worry about declaring the home improvement on your taxes either, as you won’t be getting an itemized statement with what cost what to fix. They are semi well versed in the art of refinancing your mortgage, as this is what it might take to pay them once they are done.
Yet they, along with what seems to still be a large part of corporate America marketing tend to think women cannot easily comprehend financial decisions. Isolate them and you can sell them anything for twice the price. This is a sad belief that seems constantly reinforced by our entertainment industry.
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5 comments:
I truly agree with your statements on how people percieve men and women differently. I think it has been bred into us, this way of thinking, through watching the news,reading newspapers and internet, etc. Remember when Paris Hilton had to go to jail for what seemed to be her fifth DUI. The publicity was absolutely ridiculous. Your observations seem to be right on the money.
This piece reminded me of an article written by Deborah Tannen, "There is no unmarked woman." Check it out, I know it's online in .pdf form.
Society and history both dictate norms that we allow. I know things are changing, but it does feel too slowly. I once worked for an educational provider in Utah in which I was required to wear skirt-suits 4 days a week. We were permitted to "relax" on Fridays with pantsuits. The place was crazy. One of the owners even offered to give my director a raise if she got a perm. Needless to say, I wasn't there long.
Why do we permit this to continue in America? I wonder: it's probably the same as not letting women fight in particular combat situations, saying a presidental candidate will do poorly because of "PMS," etc. The problems are systemic...
The upcoming presidential election will provide a prime example of this if Hillary wins. There will be those who oppose her simply because she is a Democrat, then those who will because she's a Clinton, and finally I can see the argument being made to someone on the fence in congress that they shouldn't agree with the president because she is a woman.
Unfortunately I can make the same argument as far as Obama goes. While he won't have the Clinton stigma to overcome, I believe he'll have a tougher fight overcoming race then Hillary will gender. There have been Female leaders in the 'civilized countries' (G8) but never a non caucasion (well except Japan but that's self explanatory) as far as I know.
While we proclaim to be an enlightened country with liberty and justice for all, we are still being led by the same old white guys in business and congress that broke us away from England 250 years ago because while they didn't mind collecting taxes they abhorred paying them. As long as they manipulate the media and present a skewed sense of public perception that people don't bother to look past we won't make any appreciable social advances.
I agree with how there is a gap in the views of men and women. I had to meet with the garage door guys because my dad was away, they did not know how to react to a nineteen year old girl. They thought all I knew was which door was the prettiest. They were taken aback when I began asking them about wiring and waterproof striping.
So true. You would think that with all the advancements made in our society that we could be a little less ignorant.
I've run across the whole "woman" stereotype many times being the only girl in my group of friends. They often joke telling me to go in the kitchen and make them a sandwich, I find this especially amusing since I'm also the only one in college.
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