Christoph B. sent in these Goldstar Beer ads, found at BuzzFeed, that show the differences between men and women:
I know that I, for one, immediately start thinking about marriage every time I meet a guy. My new male neighbor waved at me the other day, and I ran out and bought a wedding dress, just in case.
The other thing here is the assumption that a) the viewer is definitely a man and b) of the two options, the “man’s” life is always preferable. I suppose in the second two ads that might be reasonable–although I never experience all that many problems using public restrooms, but whatever–but why is it automatically better to have sex with no emotional attachments or expectations of ever interacting again? I doubt that all men enjoy such encounters, any more than all women are thinking of marriage every time they have sex with someone.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Comments 20
elbu — January 7, 2009
What annoys me most is that the woman can never, never choose beer in these ads. As beer is my default drink, I must be a man. I think. Perhaps I can ditch the handbag then?
pharmacopaeia — January 7, 2009
Reminds me of the ads for a mens clothing chain called Hallensteins whose motto is 'it's good to be a guy'. The ads invariably involve 20-something men standing around playing pranks, doing goofy things, talking about penis size, and drinking beer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kMbzIrs8cE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cGnI0YBkD8
Abby — January 7, 2009
Huh, evidently men do not wear clothes. Buck naked, they go straight for the beer.
Esme — January 7, 2009
And they never need to use the toilet, only the urinal. That's right, men do not excrete solid matter.
I thought it was supposed to be women who never poop.
chuk — January 8, 2009
These could also be read as popular depictions of inequality. What's more troubling to me is that people might think that they're funny--inequality is funny? The fact that the marketers think that enough people can identify with them to guarantee the success of their campaign is promising in a way. In other words, people recognize the inequality. Now if we can just get them to stop laughing at it, get them to feel disturbed by it--get them to do something about it.
Which brings me to the implicit assumption which ensures the success of all the the adds (the first two more so than the third), and their harmlessness to the orders that be in another sense, and which needs to be dealt with directly: That women are irrational. An empirical assumption to boot (which I beg is false and demonstrably so).
You can do a lot with a little deconstruction and some social science. Unfortunately the two are rarely combined.
Matt Weiner — January 8, 2009
The first is astonishingly misogynistic -- if a woman has sex with a man twice before engagement, she will end up pining away alone and eating ice cream straight from the container. And I'm not sure what the horse represents.
NL — January 8, 2009
Matt -- there's a tiny knight on the horse. It's her knight in shining armor.
Matt Weiner — January 8, 2009
Thanks! And, for those wondering, I think the flower on the right is "He loves me, he loves me not." Which, can I say this is almost as insulting to men?
Esme, I give them this, that drinking leads to urination more than to defecation -- but the third one is just gross.
fennek — January 16, 2009
This ad seems to be popular these days, being e-mailed as "funny spam" to friends. A friend of mine sent this to me on Monday morning - what a great hererosexist start of a new week!
Apart from the stereotype of a sheepish and insecure woman, the ad can be offensive to men as well, reducing them to beer-drinking sex machines
Natural — January 19, 2009
I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too...
kerryalina — March 3, 2009
I've just found this website (via Shapely Prose) and am fascinated and currently trawling through the archives, hence the comment on an "old" post. I just wanted to point out that in the email that I received with these pics attached, it was mentioned that they were bathroom advertisements. If this is true, the "assumption that a) the viewer is definitely a man" is pretty valid :)
Alex — March 18, 2009
i've never coordinated my shoes to my drink.
Carys — June 26, 2009
They're funny and creative ads meant to sell something, it's not a personal attack on your womanhood and gender identity. For goodness' sake, get a sense of humour.
How about when men poke fun at women, we stop playing the sexism card and start getting our own back? =]
What We’ve Been Up To Behind Your Back (August 2009) » Sociological Images — September 1, 2009
[...] Ronni S. found a “Thank God you’re a man commercial” in which a woman becomes hysterical and men drink beer. We added it to our post featuring ads that suggest that being a woman sucks. [...]
beer notes #36 « beyond bagot — December 21, 2010
[...] But back to the stars: this beer doesn’t rate any although it is purportedly better than Maccabee, which I was forbidden to drink by our lovely host Michaella who, along with boyfriend Niv, was a willing imbiber. The beer colour is the most interesting thing about it (albeit brown = hardly ground-breaking), but doesn’t follow with any distinguishing taste. It’s worth having a look at their funny if, on reflection, misogynist advertising. [...]
Deviantproxy — October 10, 2011
Well America is a gynocentric society I am not surprised men are lashing out with things like this. We'll stereotype ourselves if it means insulting the favored majority