Men’s Rightsers and MGTOWers regularly lament what they see as the baleful influence of feminism on everyday life and popular culture. So it’s perhaps worth reminding people what things were really like before modern – that is, second and third wave – feminism.
Second-wave feminism was in its infancy in 1970 when this charming Goodyear ad was shown on the first broadcast of Monday Night Football.
Obviously, the whole “women drivers suck LOL” attitude lives on — in the form of countless dumb jokes, demotivational posters, YouTube compilations, you name it.
But none of that shit hits on the same visceral level as this ad. I think that’s partly because of the smug, patronizing tone of the narrator of the Goodyear commercial, and the hint of contempt that slips into his voice when he mentions the possibility of a mere woman taking the wheel. I think it’s also because to whomever made the ad—and presumably a great number of those watching it — the idea that women are awful drivers is simply considered an incontrovertible fact; the ad isn’t even trying to be funny.
Indeed, this deliberately cutesy vintage Volvo ad, while equally sexist, seems fairly innocuous by comparison. (My only question is why that poor woman seems to have married her father.)
Sigh David… I never understood the sudden taboo of usage of medical terminology. In my line of work most of what I say is hurtful to someone. And I am running out of inventive way to mock the incredibly stupid. First they took cretin and now they took mentally retarded. Great! Pretty soon I will have to invent new ones that are really obscure. CURSE YOU!!!
Also the AA used to run adverts similar to this except the woman would get engine trouble on the side of the road rather than be an advert that could be taken either way.
Well, it seems that lately things have swung too far in the other direction and we’ve got piles of commercials (and sitcoms, where it’s played for laughs) featuring (white, heterosexual) men as bumbling buffoons with the intellectual capacity of a 2-year old, being inept at the most mundane tasks and needing their smart wives/girlfriends/daughters etc to bail them out. But of course when a man points this out he’s told to ‘suck it up’ and ‘stop whining’. Because, you know, it’s supposed to be funny.
Of course, a lot of those ada show men being inept at traditionally female tasks like cooking, so I wouldn’t exactly call them feminist.
Also, if you look at the sitcoms like this, they’re generally fairly hackneyed and old-fashioned. Everyone plays a fairly boring stereotypical role: bumbling husband, more competent but shrewish wife, etc etc. And the shows still revolve around the male star, with the wife mostly playing the “straight man” role, as it were, which is really a much less interesting role to play. Kevin James is the star of King of Queens, not whoever it is who plays his wife.
If you look at better and more innovative sitcoms like The Office or Arrested Development you find that they have much more interesting female characters, and that they tend to be as flawed (and ridiculous, and venal) as the male characters. One of the great plot developments in the American version of the Office was Jan — who at first seemed to be one of these stereotypical hyper-competent sitcom women — turning out to be completely screwy and actually kind of evil.
And who do they think makes these sitcoms and commercials? Sure as heck isn’t women, I can almost guarantee it. It wasn’t a woman who came up with Homer Simpson, and the majority of sitcoms with bumbling dads/husbands tend to be (as has been pointed out) written and produced by the guy who’s the star. Before they cry, “Mangina! Feminism!” I’d like them to notice that the women are always depicted as nagging killjoys ruining their bumbling husband’s fun.
And you know, the husband being bad at laundry never strikes me as, “Men are soooo stupid!” It strikes me as, “Laundry is like, GIRL STUFF! EW!! MY BALLS JUST FELL OFF!!”
Also, evil, she’s driving to an airport. She’s not out in the middle of nowhere. If they wanted to suggest the danger from getting stranded on a highway in the middle of nowhere, they would have depicted her as driving on a highway in the middle of nowhere.
Or they could have her driving to the Kansas City airport … which is right in the middle of absolutely nothing. :/
Ah. I love the (il)logic displayed on this site! MRAL: Dworkin was perfectly happy and had no right to comment on injustice because she was fat!
No-one with an unhealthy relationship with food can possibly have suffered trauma! *sarcasm* I’m not saying this is necessarily the case with Dworkin but seriously, what’s with the idea that fat people can’t speak about social issues? o.O
> Sigh David… I never understood the sudden taboo of usage of medical terminology. In my line of work most of what I say is hurtful to someone. And I am running out of inventive way to mock the incredibly stupid.
“Retarded” is “inventive”? Please.
David and chocomint: that’d be fine if they didn’t also portray them as incompetent at gender-neutral tasks, like buying insurance or using a computer. Not to mention being complete disasters in the kitchen, because men are just like that, har har, amirite? despite the fact that many of the world’s top chefs are men. And as for the wife playing the ‘straight man’ or the killjoy… sure, sometimes, but all too often she’s also smarter, wiser and more capable than the husband (not to mention better-looking) to the point where you ask yourself “what the hell does she see in him anyway?” But yes, I guess at least some of it can be chalked up to bad, lazy writing.
Regarding the commercial NWO posted: I’d seen it a while ago and I remember my initial reaction being “wtf?”. I understand what they’re trying to say. But what it seems to say at first is “Men are not only potential, but likely rapists, unless special care is taken to steer them away from that path early in life!” And I believe many others saw it the same way. Imagine if the commercial had shown a brown baby with the announcer saying “…and he grew up to be a terrorist”. It’s the same sort of message, but suddenly a lot less acceptable, isn’t it?
Or indeed 30 Rock where everyone takes turns to be the straight man including the stiff lipped Twofer. (What I like the show!)
And I never understood the idea of cooking being difficult. It is just chemistry.
@Avicenna
It’s like science for hungry people!
Then go complain to the Hollywood writers about the portrayal of men in comedies or better yet, write your own script that shows men not being bumbling twits.
And note also that the last woman to actually not be good looking on TV for a regular sitcom was Roseanne. That was 14 years ago, can you name another woman who has not be svelte, good looking and was just a plain Jane? If you say Ugly Betty I will have to put you in a box and ship you to China.
“And I believe many others saw it the same way. Imagine if the commercial had shown a brown baby with the announcer saying “…and he grew up to be a terrorist”. It’s the same sort of message, but suddenly a lot less acceptable, isn’t it?”
Hmmm… I seem to recall A DEBATE ON THE FLOOR OF THE FUCKING US CONGRESS regarding the (in their opinion, very real) threat of “Terror Babies.”
…
Whyohwhy is it that every time an MRA or MRA-apologist tries to posit some “totally outRAGEous!” scenario as a stand-in for “male oppression”, it turns out that their example has actually fucking happened?
GAWD I hate Amurica sometiems. Naw, fuck it, I’ll just go on record as an occasional misanthrope. Foot in all camps! Equal opportunity bigotry.
“This is an ad intended to advertise the resistance of these tires to blow outs that would mean a woman stranded alone on the freakin’ highway in an age before cell phones you moron!”
I’m confused. Was the spare tire not invented until after the cell phone or something? Because my dad used to have a Bronco, and I could have sworn… but I’m a wimminz. Probably I’m just confused.
In sitcoms, there’s often a shlubby man who is partnered with a hot chick. It’s rarely the reverse (the Puck and Lauren romance in Glee is a rare exception.) I can anticipate MRAs saying that this is misandrist, but it seems to be more misogynistic than anything. It perpetuates the myth that all men deserve supermodels, and that any woman who is not conventionally attractive and/or thin does not belong on television, especially not as a potential love interest for a man. Maybe viewers do ask “what the hell does she see in him anyway?” but I think it usually just makes men feel entitled to sleep with hot women. There’s so many TV shows/films like this and virtually none of the reverse — shlubby men like Seth Rogen are always going to land hotties like Katherine Heigl. But there’s no hope for women that aren’t super smokin’. It doesn’t bother me that much, but it’s kinda messed up.
Yeah, given the vast preponderance of male screenwriters (for both TV and movies, but the link is about TV), you’ve got men to blame for how men are portrayed.
Also, how about counting the number of men and women in those shows? Probably one or a couple of women and a bunch of men, huh? I challenge you to name a TV show with a gender-neutral audience that has more women than men in the main cast.
The top rated shows that are not contest or reality for the week of April 25, 2011 from Nielsen.com
The Mentalist—-CBS, It follows the story of Patrick Jane, who, as a paid consultant, uses unorthodox methods to aid the fictional California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in homicide investigations.—Got the description from Wikepedia because I’ve not seen this show. Doesn’t sound much like the lead character will be a bumbling idiot though.
BODY OF PROOF—-ABC, American medical drama television series created by Chris Murphey and produced by ABC Studios. Starring Dana Delany and Jeri Ryan. The series stars Delany as Dr. Megan Hunt, a medical examiner. The show will focus on Hunt’s efforts to balance the demands of her professional life with her personal life.[2] Hunt was a top-flight neurosurgeon until she had a life-changing automobile accident. Her boss is the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, played by Jeri Ryan.—-The male characters don’t sound like incompetents, although I’d suppose MRA’s would have a problem with men working for a woman boss as in the show. Probably not something they would watch.
NCIS—CBS, American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.The MCRT is led by Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Gibbs’s team is composed of Special Agent and Senior Field Agent Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) and Probationary Special Agent (formerly Mossad liaison officer) Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), who replaced Caitlin “Kate” Todd (Sasha Alexander) when she was shot and killed by rogue Mossad agent Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin) at the end of season two. The team is assisted in their investigations by Chief Medical Examiner Donald “Ducky” Mallard (David McCallum), his assistant Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen), who replaced Gerald Jackson (Pancho Demmings), and Forensic Specialist Abigail “Abby” Sciuto (Pauley Perrette).—-Seems like a show full of competent male characters to me.
BETTER WITH YOU—-ABC, an American romantic sitcom TV show starring Joanna Garcia Swisher and Jennifer Finnigan. The series revolves around three different relationships that are tightly intertwined in one family, as it follows a couple, Maddie and Ben, who had been dating for nine years and are happy just living together despite not taking the next step, marriage. Maddie’s life is thrown for a loop when her younger sister Mia announces that she is pregnant and is about to marry Casey, a guy whom she has only known for seven weeks. To make matters worse, Maddie is stunned that their parents, who have been married for 35 years and have their issues, approve of the union, leaving Maddie and Ben questioning themselves about their own relationship.—-The male characters don’t seem to come off as particularly be boobs, but I suppose that’s my opinion. There is opportunity for that, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Better_with_You_episodes
GREY’S ANATOMY—ABC,American medical drama television series created by Shonda Rhimes. The series focuses on a group of surgical interns, residents, and the various physicians who serve as their mentors in their professional and personal lives.I have seen this show and although some characters have some strange quirks, none are bumbling fools. This includes the men.
LAW & ORDER:criminal intent—USA, American police procedural television drama series set in New York City. Criminal Intent follows a division of the New York City Police Department, the “Major Case Squad”. episodes typically alternated between two teams of detectives: Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames alternating with Mike Logan and his partners, Carolyn Barek, Megan Wheeler, and Nola Falacci; after Season 7, Logan quit the force and was replaced with Zack Nichols.–This is another show I watch and the main male characters are not incompetent and are usually the ones who end up solving the case. Rarely do I see the female lead detective the one to figure out and reveal who the guilty party is first. No complaints about it, it’s just a good show.
So out of the most popular shows, the men are represented pretty well in my opinion.
Wasn’t that where terrorists come down, have babies, take babies home to terrorist land and educate them to “Rage against the american Machine”. Then 20 years later send them back to get jobs and get in easily with their superior passports and thus not raise any suspicion…
Any plan that takes more than 20 years is a stupid plan. That plan was so daft I think it was like an AlQaeda april fools day joke.
Katz:
Sex in the City? Desperate Housewives?
The bumbling-husband sitcom cliche is neither new nor encouraged by feminists. Unless you think “The Flintstones” is a recent, feminist program. I’d be delighted if stuff like “King of Queens” fell out of popularity, but people have been into that crap for decades.
It’s a sexist cliche, but it’s at least as sexist against women (who are portrayed as boring, humorless substitute mommies getting in the way of a guy’s good time), and it’s a whole galaxy away from seriously arguing that women are too stupid to drive cars.
Is Sex in the City considered to have a gender-neutral audience? There have always been female-dominated casts in shows that are considered “girl stuff” that guys wouldn’t want to watch.
The bumbling husband idea perpetuates the notion that a woman’s place is taking care of/nurturing a man. But, still, as Xtra pointed out, the thing is that media is packed full of stories about men (white, cis, hetero, able bodied, mostly upperclass men). Men do not have to worry about the danger of the single story about men. They do not have to worry about one stereotype conforming character. Because the media is dominated with stories about men, written by men, with men in mind. On TV and film, men are the majority of fools, the majority of wise people, the majority of villains, the majority of hereos, the majority of goofy people, the majority of serious people, the majority of well, everything. Even shows with women as leads are chock full of a variety of characters who are men, who speak on screen to each other about something other than a woman.
Oh, you are referring to the Bechdel Test! It is so rare to find a movie that passes.
http://bechdeltest.com/
God, I can’t stand most sit-coms – they make EVERYONE look like idiots.
I’m just happy to finally have a positive portrayal of someone like me on TV – a smart geeky perky goth girl. Yup, I’m talking about Abby Sciuto from NCIS. Love her!! Sending many thanks to whichever TV exec clued into that fact that being obsessed with death and wearing black doesn’t actually mean a person is depressed all the time 🙂
Here’s an article about women TV pilot writers that I find to be tangentially relevant: http://jezebel.com/5799909/a-paradigm-shifts-for-women-screenwriters-in-2011
Fun fact: Fox TV network produced NO pilots written by women in 2010. 0. Zero. None.
Money Quote: Male writer reporting his (male) agent’s opinion to female writer, vis a vis her career:
“He was talking about how you’re lucky because of what you are…You’re a mid-level female writer. People are always going to need one of you in the room. It’s great. You can go from failed sitcom to failed sitcom for the next six or seven years. You’re all set.”
http://www.youtube.com/embed/4wT7zM8XgXQ
Women Drivers Compilation – 2009
http://youtu.be/mI2a1TTSgpQ