Gender Codes & Roles

My name is Aashiana, and I am seeking out information regarding gender and sexuality. I am hoping to enter the conversation about how the media via internet constructs both aspects of gender and sexuality. I am currently seeking areas of Gender coding and Gender roles.

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What are Gender Codes?

Gender codes are portrayals of both men and women when it comes to the media advertising their products to the public.

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Gender roles are cultural and personal. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, and interact within the context of society

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/sciences/sociology/sex-and-gender/gender-roles

[wereallsexyasfuck]

I saw the 'women do not have to' post and decided to make one for men!

Men do not have to:

be the provider

be ‘muscular’

pay for everything

not cry 

wear traditional forms of ‘guy’ clothing

have a girlfriend to be straight

have short hair

watch sports

drink beer

have a deep voice

be tall

have a penis

be in sports

be sexually attracted to women

have mostly guy friends

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jeffreestar's Instagram feed

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Jeffree Star is an example of someone who doesn't follow gender codes. Star has many supporters, a little over a half of million followers. He sets a great example for both adults and children to be yourself, and be different.

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♡'s Instagram feed

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Guide for boys

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Easy Bake Oven promotes girls to buy this oven. The commercial is demonstrating the vibrant Pink and the strong Purple of the Oven is showing that its not generally for boys.

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"Silverado: "Her Horse" - A Woman and Her Truck"

Chevrolet makes a powerful commercial that sparks many supporters. Although, in the comments, there are some males that aren’t as on board as others. 

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🌸 gırʟʏdesıresωeʟoѵe 🌸's Instagram feed

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The guide of how to be a girl.

[aerostudyspace]

Everyone has a voice to make a change

There’s this girl who stood up against Hasbro’s Easy Bake ovens being marketed to just girls- watch it!

[wtfsocialjusticearchive]

i loved lego when i was a kid. i hated it when i got the think bricks stuck together, lol. but none of my legos were pink or purple.

do they even sell pink or purple legos?

[malloryanne97]

Tumblr on We Heart It http://weheartit.com/entry/99571366/via/TiinaBlah

[flavorwire]

Because that’s what we really need: more advertising beating you over the head with antiquated gender roles. Thx, Dr. Pepper!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zza3GqEL5B0 

[nationalpost-blog]

New Bic pens ‘for her’ spark online ridicule: “ask your husband for some extra pocket money so you can buy one today!” Consumer product giant Bic, which has long differentiated its razors by gender, has discovered that marketing differently to men and women doesn’t necessarily go quite as smoothly when it comes to another signature product: Pens.

The company’s “Bic Cristal for Her” line of writing instruments — which boast a “sleek pen silhouette and jeweled accents [that] add style,” plus a thinner design “for a better handling for women,” and come in bright colours including pink and purple — are drawing criticism and ridicule from women who consider the campaign condescending and reliant on outdated concepts of femininity.

The products were introduced to the Canadian market in late 2011, but the growing number of derisive customer reviews of the gender-specific pens on Amazon.com are turning Bic’s marketing brainwave into a mockery.

[iamproudcampaign-deactivated201]

LEGO ad from 1981.

Made for boys girls  fun.

Read more about the evolution of children’s toys here.

[amylspence]

Top avon representative in the north east last year was male and coincidently so was my best customer. Also the current issues sell products which claim to be exclusively “for men” in the title. Perhaps a rethink is needed on the slogan avon…

[kculhane11-deactivated20140527]

Chapter 2: In 2013, The Huffington Post published an article on Photoshop ‘Body Evolution’ that shows how photos of models are created from start to finish in magazines. This caused people to look deeper and break down the “beauty” that they see in magazines and advertisements everyday. Gender Stories explains that, “Despite the fact that all of the elements of the world are socially constructed, most things in the world are likely to seem solid and very real.” I believe one of these socially constructed elements that seems “very real and solid” is the beauty of women. This is because we are constantly being shown what it looks like or means to be beautiful. That shouldn’t be the case, since everyone is truly beautiful in their own way.

[stfutvcommericals]

In this Nutella commercial, the mother is taking care of her children, getting them to eat a complete and balanced nutritious breakfast with the help of just a smidgeon of this chocolate spread.  

By having the mother in this commercial know the answers to all the questions, sometimes before the questions are even asked, Nutella is saying that mothers who choose Nutella are smart and know how to take care of their family. It is very manipulative, but not necessarily beyond normal marketing standards. 

However, it does employ the trope of “Mom knows best.” This trope is meant to embody the SAHM as the goddess of domesticity and cements the societal idea that the home is the mother’s domain. In doing this, they are alienating the father, which results in the father falling into the gender role of doing less housework and childcare than the mother (source). 

This Nutella commercial magnifies the idea of the father being alienated in the home by having the father treat the mother exactly the way the children do. He asks her absentminded questions, she knows where his phone is the same way she knows where the son’s backpack is, and she feeds him Nutella on toast the same way she did her offspring. That parallel is undeniable. 

The problem with enforcing these gender roles is that we already know it makes many heterosexual marriages unhappy due to the imbalance of household chores and child care (source). We also know that there are far more SAHMs than stay-at-home-dads, another facet of society rigidly enforcing gender roles. This commercial is one in many presenting the traditional woman-at-home while man-goes-to-work family structures, but it goes beyond that by infantalizing the father. Presenting the male figure in this light is unfair to men everywhere, let alone the women who are now being told to take care of their husband the same way they do their children.

And, of course, the biggest problem with gender roles is …

  Make sure to check out our disclaimer on SAHMs and gender roles.