But anyway: the problem with the Super Bowl's "I'm a MAN" commercials is not so much that they are insulting to women (though they are) or even that they are insulting to men (which they most definitely are also), it's that a huge (inter)national media event like the Super Bowl reaches its icky, capitalist-fueled gendered message tentacles into the homes of millions: millions of CHILDREN. Though I do a kind of disgusting amount of research on the gendering of boys and the devastating effects of hegemonic masculine ideals enforced by peers, parents, and fucking football commercials on young men, I want to talk about the lady children. Yes: GIRLS. Though I am now a dirty, hairy-legged feminist academic elitist man-hater who is able to view cultural productions like advertising and pick apart the gendered messages therein and sometimes make oversimplified jokes to my gentleman consort like, "Get it? 'Cause [insert consumer good here] is totally like a PENIS!" I was once a young girl. Ahhh, those were the days.* (The following discussion is incredibly heteronormative, so sorry lovely gay readers, I am not quite so familiar with how gendered media messages fuck with your relationships too--or not! Feel free to lay some knowledge on me in the comments.)
Growing up in my pre-ex-Mormon days as a kind of proto-feminist girl, the messages I received from role models, peers, and the media made me kind of terrified of men. And I don't mean in a child molester kind of way, though getting leered at by teens and adults while still in elementary school and reading too many of my mother's Woman's Day and Better Homes and Gardens magazines certainly made me aware of my inherent vulnerability to assault or abuse because of my gender. No no, I mean in a "I really like boys and I want to get married one day and hopefully have a boyfriend as soon as I'm allowed to date when I'm 16 and whatnot, but from what I understand, male people are assholes who are stupid, lazy, mean, and just want to fuck me." Though this sentiment probably manifested more as a kind of nebulous, anxious discomfort and with less swearing in my head. See, I have older brothers, and though they are far more masculinely gendered than really seems necessary, they are, after all, PEOPLE with all the complexity that that entails and I experienced the good and the bad the way you do with regular, three-dimensional humans growing up with them. My dad is also happens to be an awesome guy who clearly has feelings, cares about people, is very smart and competent, and appears to be the best kind of partner to my mother.
So when my (kind of proto-feminist herself) mom would say things like, "[Mormon] men have to have the Priesthood because it forces them to help people." I thought, "WTF? Like dudes are incapable of caring about people or something? That doesn't jive with the masculine-identified human beings I am acquainted with." Something really rang false when responding to some friends and me talking about a teenage boy we knew being creepy to a younger girl, she said, "All boys care about is sex. If they didn't, they wouldn't ever want to get married and have kids." As much as I cringe at thought of my own our anyone else's parents' sexuality, I (internally) called bullshit even then. I'm pretty sure my dad WANTED to marry my mom and WANTED to have kids for other reasons besides being able to get it on. Gross. And though in elementary school the occasional asshole boy in my class would try and tell me girls were bad at such-and-such task, it always sounded particularly stupid since I was inevitably smarter than whoever was saying it and probably most if not all of the other kids in my class too and I assumed it was mostly motivated by jealousy. Don't worry, my self-esteem took the culturally-sanctioned nosedive at puberty.
So while the sexist messages that got blatantly expressed didn't seem to gibe with reality, they caused me a good bit of anxiety (shock, shock). I knew plenty of stupid dudes, immature dudes, creepy dudes, etc., but I figured that any place before college wasn't really the place to find the semi-gender-nonconforming man of my dreams. I think being friends with/having crushes on/being like by so many cool dudes who ended up eventually coming out as gay helped me keep hope alive for men who did not adhere to the arrogant, violent, insensitive dude stereotypes I had been taught were the inevitable elements of masculinity. And though I've never gone for the manly-man type and they're not likely to go for me either, it did take me a few relationships to figure out that just because someone doesn't overtly present as super-masculine doesn't mean they don't buy into certain stereotypes of acceptable male behavior. Casual misogyny in the guise of intellectual arrogance, "irony," or complete inability to comprehend the emotional life of others does not a feminist man make. And while I realize everybody has their flaws and it is difficult to just shrug off our life-long gender training, it becomes clear, at least in retrospect that shit I put up with from men was due to (at least) these three factors:
- Insensitivity, cluelessness, or even cruelty become self-fulfilling prophecies for men who grow up in a society in which these attributes are if not exactly encouraged, then at least tolerated as unalterable parts of the male psyche. Being a terrible and immature partner is CUTE and ENDEARING, see? Just ask Judd Apatow!
- Male privilege insulates young men and boys from being called on certain behaviors that are unhealthy and I would say unacceptable in interpersonal relationships. Because jackassery has been tacitly or overtly condoned by parents, teachers, previous partners, and probably mostly male peers, many men think that being a jerk is the appropriate masculine performance for heterosexual relationships. Heaven forbid you become "pussy-whipped" and learn empathy! But can I just point something out? Acting like an asshole doesn't make you more of a man, it makes you more of AN ASSHOLE.
- Perhaps most troubling, us ladies grow up if not exactly believing in these stereotypes in full, at least having been beaten over the head with them so often as to be complacent when they may be enacted in our real-life relationships. I put up with unacceptable treatment from male partners who were supposedly pro-feminist or at the very least "progressive" because I expected such behavior to a certain extent, and figured that at least they were liberal dudes who didn't REALLY hate women and I couldn't really do better anyway.
*At 26, I still think of myself and most of my female friends as "girls" as opposed to "women" most of the time, but I would be pissed if someone who had power over me and/or I didn't like called me one. I think that's part of the reason I've latched onto "ladies"--it is kind of silly but still sounds more mature than "girls" without having to claim the full adulthood that "women" entails. I THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS, PEOPLE.
