After a short break

I´ve had quite a lot to do lately and for that reason this blog has been neglected. I´ve had thoughts on what to write about, but never really the time to write.

There was an interesting thing that caught my attention in advertising and that was the bicycle section of some hardware store sale. They were advertising kids bikes and they had been labeled as boys bikes and girls bikes. The difference was that boys bikes were more offroad and the colouring for them was on the darker side - whereas girls bikes were pink / red and they came with front basket and other accessories that were labeled to be for girls. So at a young age we are told what is a suitable bike for a girl and what the equivalent is for boys... World of advertising. But they work to sell not to bring up or have any moral obligations...

Language and gender in news

There was an interesting debate in the sunday paper of Helsingin Sanomat a few weeks ago, where a researcher discussed the topic income and gender and how men produce more tax income etc. This immediately sparked the discussion of how much does domestic work have value since usually the women stay home longer when families have small kids.

I find it somewhat amusing how the same arguments go round and round and eventually same topics pop up again, with no decisive aim or goal. Every once in a while these type of discussions take media space.

In today´s paper, in the entertainment section, there was an evaluation about "iron ladies" in tv-series. The other was from Damages and the other from the movie Devil wears Prada. The text pondered which one would of these ladies would be tougher if they matched up. What caught my eye was how they defined their language and physical appearance. They never shouted, but gave their negative feedback in a low and calm voice. This reminded me of a discussion in class where we talked that the lower your voice the more seriously you are taken. They also have a serious appearance and their clothes are very fashionable yet conservative.

This actually suggests that if a female wants to be in an executive position and be taken seriously they must be very tough, in behaviour and appearance, if not even evil. They must talk in low a pitch and smile scarcely. Things you learn from just watching the tv...

Advertising and gender

We have discussed this topic previously as we talked how people receive different ads, depending on the information they have given on registration. E.g I receive assault backpack ads in my Facebook account whereas women my age might receive diaper ads... It is all about profiling for customers.

Actually I think it is easier to understand gender stereotyping when it comes to advertising since the aim is to sell the product or concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY

This is an republican ad campaigning for Reagan in the 80´s. From this one can clearly see what is regarded "normal" or something worth trying to accomplish. In a way it worked since (it I remember correctly) he won the election.

Comparing to school books or something more appropriate ads, in my opinion, can have more leniency when it comes to using stereotypes. This is because the goal is different. For instance the cell phone ads that we looked at in class were quite different and the one that was clearly aimed for female audiences was propably more efficient than the "business" phone ad that was quite boring...

Online

This week´s task was to observe the sites where we frequent and pay attention to the gendered differences in them. During the past week there has actually been somewhat many articles / debates over gender differences, I don´t know whether they have increased or have I just paid more attention to them. In the Helsingin Sanomat "sunday debate" was an interesting take on the wage differences between men and women.

For me, propably, the most prominent source of online interaction is the Facebook which is the reason for choosing it to take the examples from. These following remarks are only my own and furthermore they rely mainly on my "gut feeling" rather than any actual data.

I would say that I have about the equal amount of men and women as "friends", and in this respect women are more active on the Facebook, most of the status updates are written by women as well most of the commenting. Women use more smileys and support each other. I didn´t notice any negative updates from my male friends where other male "friends" would write supporting comments. Both genders used humor in the updates. I have the feeling that women use the chat on Facebook more than men, but this is only due to my own limited experience.

I would also say that women tend to post more pictures depicting themselves, in addition I would say that the updates posted by women are longer than that of the male posted. I guess women are more daring and outgoing online than men at least on the more public forums where you don´t use an alias. I almost got in to a predicament because of my female nickname on the poker sites, when an American (says the person´s detail shown to other players) guy started talking to me and I was trying my best to ignore him. I didn´t feel like chit chatting with a guy (or a girl for that matter) when I expected that he thinks that I´m a woman...

Boyd´s article was interesting and what caught my attention was the choosing of those first options in msn profiles and she wound up as male, executive, higher education etc... Quite an coincidence. However I think it is realistic to gather info for the advertisers, since we live in a market economy. Why would I want an ad about e.g womens clothes or something. I didn´t see the same harm as the writer did - if the information stays for these purposes only. It´s going to beinteresting to hear the discussions at class today...

Gender in school books

Last time we were assigned to check out a chapter in a text book and how it mediates images and/or sterotypical gender classifications. This was a interesting task since I hadn´t really looked at text books from this viewpoint. I was actually expecting even more stereotypes in the chapter, it is going to be interesting to see what people saw in the text when we discuss this in class today.

There were traditional stereotypical images e.g the pics depicting the man as a builder with a drill in the hand (quite muscular man with a serious expression on his face) and the woman holding a child with a big smile on the face. Very tradional. However this part was actually discussing these differences so it was a natural intro to the topic.

Another thing was the picture of the mormon family where the man was with his wives and kids (and there were several), but I think in general all things associated with religion are quite conservative and even oldfashioned so these pics were nothing new. Nevertheless I at least got the picture of women being inferior from these pictures relating to religion and marriage.

Lastly there was a part discussing the male and female differences where one could find a lot gender classifications. E.g women nurture, are interested in feelings and read psychology, whereas men are interested in objects and technology, solve problems and do not discuss feelings. These are so broad stereotypes that one can take them as sort of humour, there some truth in them, but things are not so clear cut. And as we discussed in the beginning of the course that many of these things are learned...

Katy Perry etc...

Last time we had class we were analyzing the music videos of Katy Perry and Jay-Z. Katy´s video was fairly self-explanatory and it was easy to reach the same conclusions as everyone else, it is obvious what sells in our world. It is quite sad that (I assume) many teenagers draw their influence from these products and end up wondering how they could look the same...

It was interesting to see how people saw the Jay-Z video in a different light, it feels that people see things they want to see i.e everyone had their own interpretations of the environment where it took place etc. This discussion will be continued today at class. One thing that reminded me of this video was a link at some news site - a link to entertainment section - it stated (in my words) that check out Rihanna´s bold new appearance. I didn´t follow the link but it had something to do with a photoshoot she had done and where she appeared at least with little garment, if any, on. What caught my attention was the word usage, the more brave she is the less clothes she has to have on, never mind that she actually has talent...

The harm of pink toys

This week we were discussing the article about how princess stereotypes can actually be harmful in the development of young girls. The text argued that it automatically drives girls into being good, caring and in conformity which eventually leads to decreasing opportunities in the future.

As I have a 3,5 years old daughter I have empirical knowledge of my own. I´ve never pushed kids into certain roles i.e my son plays with dolls oocasionally with his sister etc. But I somewhat agree with the article´s notion about the innate choices, such as our son plays "girls" games but he tends to play more with cars or play football. The same goes with our daughter, she plays football too, but she values her dolls more. Of course they could have picked these things along the way, but we haven´t coarsed them into specific roles.

As relation to language I´m anxiously waiting to hear when the difference arises when using language. I remember from another course where we were analysing texts and deciding whether or not they were written by a woman. The were some tendencies such as female writers used more descriptive language and long phrases than male writers. However at another course I came across this female writer who used an alias and wrote as a man in order to be more credible (long time ago, 19th century or so...). As regards to language I don´t these things are innate, rather something we probably learn in school. I´ll end this text with a universal question: Why is it that when a female curses it is regarded somehow worse and aggressive? And I somewhat agree with this, or at least I sort of notice it better when a girl curses.