Gendered Colloquialism

A colloquialism is a word or phrase that people use in every day, casual conversations.  Since these conversations are typically informal, people may not think about whether or not they are using gendered slang.  A classic example of this is calling everyone, male and female “dude.”  While this is one of the more innocuous examples, there are other slang words that are more powerful and are definitely gendered.  Taking sex as an example, women are often called “sluts” because of the number of sexual partners they have.  But a man with the same number of sexual partners will often be called a “player.”  Instead of using one word to describe these two people, society separated them based on their gender.  By doing this, society is forcing its expectations and judgements onto each person.  A woman who is called a slut will often be viewed negatively by others, but a man participating in the same behavior will be praised for it.  What I think is very interesting though, is the rise of new slang for men with many sexual partners.  Instead of calling a man like this a “whore,” he’s a “man-whore.”  A term typically used to degrade women, is being applied to men while still using the female slang.  However, these comments don’t have the same connotations as they do in women.  A man with many sexual partners is still viewed in a positive light.

The article “Two Timelines of Slang for Genitalia, from 1250 Through Today” shows us that colloquialisms change throughout history.  Every new generation has its own slang for things such as genitalia and sex.  Many female slang words are used in a much harsher tone though.  Those words that are meant to be aimed at women are sometimes directed at men as a deeper form of insult.  We all have probably witnessed people insult others by calling them a “dick” or a “pussy,” the only difference is the strength of the word.  The former is taken much less seriously, while the latter is taken more negatively.  Theoretically, both of those words should produce the same amount of impact as an insult, but this is obviously not the case.

"Hetero Barbie?"

Mary Rogers, the author of “Hetero Barbie?” opens up the discussion by declaring that most heterosexual females will shift the focus of their lives around their teenage years.  When young women get “heterosexualized” they believe dating and boys/young men should be at the forefront of their thinking (Rogers 1999).  The purpose of their actions and appearances are meant to impress a boy or young man.  Rogers argues this focus on dating is the reason why young women become so obsessed with their appearances and popularity at school.  She uses Barbie as an example of the “epitome” of the female form and makes a note to state how exaggerated the doll really is.  Even though Barbie was thought to be the ideal image all girls strived to be, Rogers notes that the doll “escapes the typical outcomes” presented on her by society.  Barbie never marries or has children, suggesting that her femininity is not “normal.”  This evidence allows the doll to be interpreted in many ways.  This fact allows for a wide range of consumers, and thus is a good marketing technique by Mattel.            

The fact that “Barbie exudes an independence that deviates from the codes of mainstream femininity” further supports the author’s argument (Rogers 1999).  Barbie may not be heterosexual, or even a woman for that matter; she may be a drag queen (Rogers 1999).  After offering various pieces of evidence for this argument, such as Barbie’s long legs, flat hips, and heavy makeup, Rogers suggests Barbie may have some appeal to gay men.  So not only is she the icon for traditional heterosexual femininity, she can also be taken as an icon for “nonheterosexual femininity” (Rogers 1999).  The exaggerated aspect of Barbie “demonstrates that femininity is a manufactured reality” (Rogers 1999).  Barbie could be exemplifying the constructed female performance, demonstrating how reality usually entails a lot of artificial aspects.

Rogers switches her focus in the article to discuss how the doll has impacted people.  A specific collector of these dolls, Michael Osborne, has stated he often has trouble with relationships with real people “because they did not really like Barbie” (Rogers 1999).  This exhibits how much some people identify with Barbie and the particular aspects which she embodies.  Some of these aspects include interests in activities that are non-normative, such as men being hairdressers or ballet dancers.  Roger closes her article by quoting Jesse Berrett: “[Barbie] is seen as mass culture’s power to define, commodify, and mutate sexual identity” (Rogers 1999).

Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture

In the article, “Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture,” the author, Sut Jhally starts off with an example of how society and consumer culture affects our actions.  By pointing out that a diamond ring is “considered a necessity” to validate an engagement, we are able to see just how much consumer culture affects the general population (Jhally 1990).  The world was not always this encapsulated in consumer society though.  There was a time where family, community, religion, and other factors were the primary “creators of the cultural forms” (Jhally 1990).  However, figuring out exactly when and how our culture became this way is not exactly straightforward.  It was not simply one year where the media teemed with images in an attempt to sell certain products.  Instead it was a whole decade, the 1920s, that gave us the image-based media culture we know today.  The 1920s represent a novel, industrial time in the U.S. and can be referred to as the turning point in creating an “image-saturated society” (Jhally 1990).  During this time, the consumers were not only being bombarded with commercial messages, but were also taught how to interpret them.  With this information, Jhally moves to say that “advertising is ubiquitous- it is the air that we breathe as we live our daily lives” (Jhally 1990).

Advertisers work to sell the consumer a product, and do so by playing on his or her emotions.  What is even more interesting, is that some people have equated advertising as a religious system, where “people construct their identities through the commodity form” (Jhally 1990).  The advertising culture is perpetually going to convince us to buy products on the basis that they will result in happiness.  They used to do this with only audio or visual advertisements, but the combined methods are especially powerful.  Video makers and song writers now work together with this “vital marketing tool in mind” (Jhally 1990).  These videos have become increasingly shorter and shorter in length.  For example, commercials have gone from being 30 seconds, to 15, and soon they will become even shorter.  The need for commercials to stand out to the viewer though has increased dramatically, due to the universality of TV commercials.  In order to make a commercial stand out in a crowd of others, advertisers often use “intensely pleasurable images,” often including sexual ones (Jhally 1990).  In addition to this, commercials have evolved to invoke feeling in its viewers, to leave a lasting impression.

The Modern Family

Prior to this assignment, I was unfamiliar with the term “nuclear family.”  Upon research, I learned that it described a family structure consisting of a married couple and their children.  This stereotypical view of what defines a family leaves out other groups such as single parents and their children, and even extended family acting as a child’s primary caregivers.  Today, these examples are much more prevalent in society.  In a “nuclear family,” it would be safe to assume that the adult male would be the primary source of income for the family.  The female is assumed to stay at home and care for the children.  In doing so, she would have to stop working, even if she had a successful career of her own.  Keeping this type of family structure in consideration, the biggest change may be the continuation of the woman’s career.  Mothers will often return to work after having children for a variety of reasons, such as the need for another source of income, or simply to continue her career.  Regardless of the reason, the trend nowadays seems to be that both parents are working.

            Modern families would typically be defined as anything that falls outside of this stereotypical family structure.  By this definition, there are a myriad of different possibilities that would establish a family structure.  Single parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and many other adults care for children today, but that does not exclude them from being a family.  Personally, I believe the only requirement to define a family is the love and care that each person has for another.  But, these modern family structures can place additional stress on the adults in terms of gender roles.  For example, a single father of young children may have to assume both roles of a mother and a father.  In this way, typical gender roles are broken, but that does not necessarily yield a negative result.

            The article “Dad-Mom Role Reversals” touches upon something interesting about adults’ self-esteem in these “role-reversed” households.  The husband felt a blow to his ego when he lost his job, even though it allowed him to spend more time with his daughter.  The stay-at-home father felt as if he was “unproductive” because he was used to being self-sufficient as a working adult.  Eventually, he had come to “run the household with pride” and brag about his hard-working wife.

What is Love?

To me, love is about much more than the typical love story you would see in any movie.  It is knowing someone will always support you, but more importantly, you will always support them.  It is being able to be your true self around them.  Love is when you are able to communicate without having to think about what you are saying or how you are saying it, and knowing that the other person will understand you.  My ideas of love do not directly conflict with the media’s representation, but I do feel that something lacking in the media’s representation is realism.

The media will always portray the perfect, more idealized version of a love story.  But realists know that this kind of love requires a lot of work and bumps in the road.  As the media presents love through rose-colored lenses, it also depicts it in a contrasting light.  While first we are exposed to “perfect relationships” in movies and TV shows, we are also shown the ease and pleasure of the hook-up culture.  It seems the media contradicts itself when it tries to show its viewers what love is.  Shows like the Bachelor/Bachelorette romanticize the idea of a perfect relationship, but the way the show gets to the happy ending, is essentially through multiple hook-ups.

I think the hook-up culture sometimes strays people away from the idea of love.  I am not against this culture in the sense of people wanting to both consensually just hook up; but often this culture leads to relationships where one person wants to move forward with a relationship, and the other wants to keep hooking up.  Once the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship is over, it is very easy to find new partners to perpetuate that stage.  This culture along with all of the dating websites out there have made it too simple to find something new, than to fix what you currently have.  What feeds this culture, is the increase in social media

In the past 5-10 years, social media has increased, which has obviously impacted relationships between people.  I remember in middle school and high school, the popular thing was to become “Facebook official” with your significant other.  Today, I would say that has transferred to Instagram with trending hashtags such as “mcm” (man crush Monday) and “wcw” (woman crush Wednesday).  There’s a desire to publicize your love and relationships, to make it look real to others. 

The article, “There are Bitches and Hoes” starts out by introducing the concept of the glamorization of pimp culture.  The author, Tricia Rose, goes on to mention a few rappers that have also “bragged” about the pimp lifestyle, such as “Too Short, Snoop Dogg, Ice T,” etc. (Rose 2008).  The article then points out that because street culture has been so influential to black identity in the hip hop generation, “many women parrot the sexist ideals that are so widely circulated in hip hop” (Rose 2008).  Rose’s argument is that by glorifying the pimp culture, people are essentially turning women against each other, and therefore, continuing the sexism.  However, there are women who are extremely angered about the degrading lyrics that Rose mentions throughout the article.  Some of these women, she argues, do not speak out to challenge the sexism in fear of being “marginalized” (Rose 2008).  There are other women though, that “embrace ‘bitch’ as a term of empowerment” and often feel no connection between themselves and that word (Rose 2008).  Rose quickly shuts this kind of thinking down.  She points out that just because a word or phrase isn’t offensive to one person, does not mean it is not offensive to others. 

  Moving on to talk about the racial aspect of pimp culture, Rose notes that the “gangsta rapper image needs ‘bitches and hoes’” because women labelled this way create value for the pimp image (Rose 2008).  This would almost encourage young women to fill this role in order to feel included in the society that the media creates for them.  Rose carefully clarifies that she did not write this article to be demeaning to hyper-sexual popular culture, but rather because she is worried about the overall freedom and equality of black women (Rose 2008).  She says rap and the hip hop culture used to be a means of expression and art around 15 years ago.  Instead today, the hip hop culture has “evolved” to cast people as either a player, or someone being played. Because sexism and racism have always existed in this world, hip hop or pimp culture is not responsible for these things.  But Rose says “hip hop is [an] extreme engine for black popular culture” (Rose 2008).  To finish the article on a strong note, Rose demands that “empowered women be in charge of their own sexual imagery” (Rose 2008).

Even though the “Cornrows and Cultural Appropriation: The Truth About Racial Identity Theft” article was written to explain the issue of appropriation, some similarities can be drawn between these two articles.  Both discuss the issues of race and racial culture, and even the effects of racism.  It would be interesting to look at how appropriation specifically affects hip hop culture.

YouTube Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvjUtU9viuc

The first video is a compilation of different commercials that are commonly seen on TV that portray the stereotypical gender role for women.  The women in all of these ads are portrayed as the home-keeper and are shown advertising many different cleaning products.  The target audience is clearly middle class women and it effectively reaches this audience.  These advertisements are found on virtually all TV channels, and sometimes play before other videos on YouTube.  I’ve always known that a majority of these commercials feature women, but I have realized that almost all, if not all, of these commercials do in fact use the same template.  In this video, companies are using the idea of a gender-based stereotype to sell a product, by marketing it to women.  This is based on the idea that women usually stay in the home and do the domestic chores that require these products, such as cleaning and cooking.  These products are not even “gendered products;” for example, they are not tampons.  Anyone could use paper towels or a broom, but they are still marketed towards women.  Compared to the second video, typical gender norms can be clearly seen and noted by the viewer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zxcw2nfJuw

The second video was created for entertainment purposes as it clearly shows a woman dominating a typically-male skill.  I believe the target audience to actually be men as they’re the ones most likely to be entertained by a woman who can throw a football better than most of them.  While reading the comments, I noticed that many of them were written by men talking about her body.  This shows that even when women are amazing at something, they are still being sexualized while their skill is ignored.  Because this video defies the stereotypical gender norms, I believe the role of gender should not be included because it does not matter.  She doesn’t “throw great for a girl,” she throws great period.  With the recent event of the Olympics, this quickly reminded me of the Hungarian swimmer, Katinka Hosszu.  After she competed in her swimming event, the main topic of conversation was not her great achievements, but rather her husband’s reaction and how he was her coach.  While his reaction was funny and genuine, the media decided to focus on his efforts as her coach, rather than Hosszu’s accomplishments.  These situations are not uncommon; there are many events like these throughout history where a woman’s achievements have been overshadowed by men.

Summary of Feminism without Feminists

In the article Feminism without Feminists, the author, Linda Jin Kim, writes about the TV show, Sex and the City.  This show, which was later turned into a series of movies, is about single women who gather and discuss events from each of their lives.  Describing each of the four characters, the author notes that SATC has been “praised for its feminist elements” (Kim 2010).  But on the contrary, the show has also been critiqued for its “post-feminist messages” (Kim 2010).  Later on in the article, Kim further develops the idea of post-feminism, saying it is the idea that women are now able to choose from a plethora of opportunities in this present day.  Many believe this is not the case, and that women are not yet equal to men and do not have the same freedoms as they do.

But many others have often called the show innovative, due to the way the characters prioritize their friendship over boyfriends and husbands.  It was noted that many times each character actually chooses her own family structure based on her individual needs.  The show discusses controversial topics such as pregnancy and abortions, and the characters often give their own contrasting opinions.  While this is viewed as radical by some critics, viewers have responded positively to these discussions of “taboo” subjects. 

Kim changes the course of the article when she writes about the audience, onto whom the show is trying to push a consumer lifestyle to be emulated (Kim 2010). She then references another paper written by David Morley in 1986 about the viewing practices of men and women.  This paper highlights a key difference in how each sex views TV and TV shows.  Men would rather watch TV and remain uninterrupted, while women, who were home most of the day, preferred to have the TV on in the background combined with housework.

Following this discussion, Kim turns to the racial side of the TV field.  She brings up shows such as The Cosby Show, and how both black and white audiences loved it.  But even though it was revered by many, often the white audience “saw a black family,” instead of a “black family” suggesting that whites didn’t view racism as a problem in society.

She ends this segment of her paper by asking the reader a series of questions.  “What is the appeal of SATC?  How do fans feel about representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality on SATC?” (Kim 2010).  Kim notes that in the rest of her dissertation, she researches these questions in an attempt to discover how women who were “not affluent [or] white” viewed the SATC (Kim 2010).