My dear friend, Julie, has a lovely blog. In her recent post, You Can Spread it With a Paper Knife, Julie once again expresses the heart of so many of us as we strive to feed our children and families and souls real food, real life, and real love.
Julie’s post deals with our need for things that are real, rather than the cheap imitations with which we often fill our lives. And, as always, she shares her insights in a thoughtful and compelling way. I encourage you to read Julie’s post, and then come back to Living . . . Simply because there is another aspect of the commercial Julie refers to and our culture I would like to discuss and which Julie doesn’t address, since it would be off topic for her post. — But it goes to the heart of mine.
I’m concerned about an issue which Julie’s example brought to mind, and that is the issue of stereotyping and disrespect– a serious problem well exemplified by the commercial she cites. Sadly, advertisements really haven’t changed that much in thirty-four years. Just swap the titles of Mr. Expert and Mrs. (Incompetent) Williams to read “Ms. Expert” and “Mr. (Incompetent) Williams” and you’ll have a modern day ad for any number of interchangeable items.
Advertising that paints either gender as idiotic and incompetent is abhorrent. The fashions change regarding which one is in style to portray negatively, but just because it’s now fashionable to paint men and boys in the style previously reserved for women and girls doesn’t achieve the equality and respect so many women are trying to underscore. In fact, it undermines it.
The little boys currently being indoctrinated into the “men are incompetent” mindset are NOT the men who recorded the “you can spread it with a paper knife” commercial over thirty years ago. THOSE men are in their fifties and sixties and perhaps even their seventies and eighties now.
Today’s little boys are also not the ones responsible for the crazy Volkswagen Beetle magazine ad from 1964
which states, “Sooner or later your wife will drive home the perfect reason to own a VW beetle . . . Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things. . . . VW parts are inexpensive to replace so it won’t cost you much to fix the car . . . when your wife goes window shopping and crunches the fender.”
Volkswagen couldn’t run this ad today– unless it was reworded to replace “your wife” with “your teenage son”. — Not daughter, mind you, but son. Only males are allowed to be described as foolish or clumsy in today’s advertising milieu. And, as a mother of daughters, it disturbs me that this is what my daughters’ future husbands are being force fed. It also troubles me that my future grandchildren are going to have to deal with the fallout that comes from this foolishness.
Little boys and little girls don’t need to be told boys and men are incompetent. They need to be told– and have demonstrated for them– that both men AND women can be bright and can achieve a great deal– that both boys and girls “can do ‘most anything”.
Sure, scapegoats sell things. But why not make it a priority to sell respect for all first?
If the current practice continues, the pendulum will ultimately swing back the other way– and woe to the little girls who get slammed in 50 years when it does.
Disrespect in advertising is a bad practice all around.
Julie deals with a different point in her post– an excellent point. As we choose to make this world a better place, we must make choices that leave this world better than we found it. Choosing “the real” rather than the cheap imitation is a part of that path. Kindness is another.
Picking a new and different category of people to hurt is not the way to achieve greatness. Laying down the weapons of ridicule and disrespect and teaching mutual respect for both men and women, girls and boys, is.
Both the Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish) and Aborigines are quoted as teaching their children, “We do not inherit the land from our fathers. We are borrowing it from our children.” Let us set aside the wounds of our childhoods and our parents’ youth in order to choose the path of wisdom for ourselves and our children and leave the world a better place for all our descendants.
Congratulations, Julie, on getting a comment from Rose!
Maximum Grace 