That an advertisement uses certain symbolism with a certain intent doesn’t mean one has to agree with that intent or even pay attention to it. Refuse to be pigeonholed in your own mind and the view of others regarding you begin to have little to no weight. Let others think of you what they wish, YOU know who you are, don’t you?

When shopping, do you shop for what you want, what you need, what makes sense for you personally … or do you shop for what you’ve been told to purchase?

Much advertisement works only because of the intellectual laziness of the average human being. You can change that … if you choose.

Frankly, I’m buying whatever’s cheapest because that shit eats money. My grandmother has extremely severe dementia and can’t take care of herself, so she moved in with my mother about 6 years ago. A few years ago, I became disabled and moved back in with my parents, so now I help with Gran too. Gran is completely incontinent. Every two hours, we have to change her diaper and it’s always completely soaked, ALL OVER, not just in the middle-ish area where women’s urethras point. Damn, adults pee a lot! And damn, I wish I wasn’t so accutely aware of that fact!

And inky, let’s speak in averages. The average male is physically stronger than the average female, that’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t women out there who are stronger than the average men, obviously. And yeah, they could perform better at certain tasks that are gendered as masculine. But that’s not the point of what I said.

What I said is that things are inevitably gendered because of the differences between male and female, and it is only natural. It is normal that one would automatically associate being a construction worker with being male. It doesn’t mean females should be forbiden to take such work, or that they should be ridiculed for that.

We don’t need to deny gender diferences to fight gender discrimination.

Also, there’s an inherant flaw in stating that the bodily differences between men and women cause men to be inherently better at certain tasks. All women are not weaker than all men. There are plenty of women who have much greater upper body strength than some men and thus would better perform specific tasks gendered as “masculine” tasks.

@jfruh Actually, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I remember those gendered ads for Pampers a few years ago (absorbancy in the middle for girls and in the front for boys) and you know what? It is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. My daughter’s pee does not stay in the middle, it goes in the front, in the middle, and sometimed even in the back. And there is no way in hell I’m buying a diaper that isn’t absorbant in the front because she’s a girl. I imagine it isn’t different for adults either.

Even though the second ad is aimed at women and is selling a product to women, you hear a man’s opinion before the woman is allowed to speak.

Now there’s also the physical differences which also inevitably create gender roles. The fact that man are physically stronger already makes certain jobs be related to man instead of women. There’s also the influence of hormones and, some may call it a myth, but also the way the brain works in man and women.

I don’t think it brings any good to deny that man and women are different, because they are. Evolution built us to be different. Not being deterministic here, just saying that we shouldn’t completely deny gender differences.

I wonder if there’s correlation between the “me-centric” advertising/technology that’s becoming popular (iPhone/iTunes, Facebook, twitter, etc., the “do what makes you feel good” meme ads) and the gendering of every new damn product that comes out.

either way, it’s annoying because it perpetuates the “women are from venus, men are from mars” stereotype.