Unmanly?

Now that my school semester is over, I suddenly have lots of time to sit around during the day and watch ESPN to my heart’s content. Not much makes me more content than that. However, once SportsCenter goes to commercial, I continually find myself going right back into feminist mode (not to be confused with Depeche Mode).

From an ad where football players distance themselves from one of their teammates who knows a great deal about jewelry, to an ad where MMA fighter Randy Couture tries to shame the viewer into buying a Total Gym or whatever it is by calling them “princess,” sexism and gender role stereotypes run rampant through these commercial spots. It does make sense, though. The world of sports is typically a masculine and often-sexist enterprise, so advertisers know exactly what they’re doing by pandering to the men who are watching. Every time I watch, however, I can’t help but get more and more perturbed at the prospect of men getting scared into general male stereotypes (which, by the way, don’t think particularly highly of women).

As with a couple of my previous blog entries, my general theme here isn’t so much that these evil ad agencies and corporations need to be stopped, nor do I think that my ranting will enlighten these people and compel them to run completely gender-neutral ads on a usually hyper-masculine television network. Rather, my intended audience is the consumer. It’s okay to watch these commercials and laugh at them; heck, I think some of them are hilarious despite their obvious biases. Just keep in mind that you don’t have to help the advertisers out by conforming to these stereotypes for fear of shame or embarrassment. You are your own person, and you don’t have to subscribe to an agenda that anybody else attempts to provide for you, only the one you provide for yourself.