Lately we’ve seen a number of instances in which men are portrayed as babies. We saw it in a Jack in the Box commercial featuring men being pushed around in a stroller, in the recent advertising for the movie Life as We Know It, and now Australian Ikea has opened Manland, a “day care” for men, a place where women can drop off their husbands while they shop. Thanks to Andri, a brand new student of mine, and readers YetAnotherGirl, Laura E., and LM for sending it in.
The idea that men are like babies is pretty damn obnoxious and should be offensive on the face of it (see especially the Jack in the Box commercial). But this is more insidiously problematic even than that. It tells women that they can’t expect men to be grown ups. And if men can’t be grown ups, they we certainly can’t expect them to do their share of the dishes or the hard work of raising families or, for that matter, be a true and equal emotional partner.
We see a similar pattern of insulting men in a way that undermines women in the new “mediocre man” genre. As I’ve written elsewhere, the mediocre man (think Judd Apatow movies and Hard Lemonade commercials):
…is a self-deprecating character who undermines idealized masculinity by being likeable despite being decidedly non-ideal… The viewers are meant to identify with the mediocre men, who revel in each others’ company, happy to be dudes free from the clutches of the women in their lives, even if they aren’t sleeping with supermodels. The mediocre man may be kind of a loser, indeed, but he can thank God he’s a man.
In both the man-as-child and the mediocre man tropes, then, the portrayals manage to simultaneously mock guys and support patriarchy. Pretty amazing.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 75
MK — September 21, 2011
This is pretty silly. Here's a scene from the movie 500 days of Summer that includes a playful acting out of gender roles in an Ikea.
http://vimeo.com/8287816
Caleb — September 21, 2011
Our Crafts Direct recently replaced their "Husband Center" with a coffee bar. I have never seen a man use the Center, but the coffee bar seems to be doing great. I never really understood the concept of a husband nursery. Why go together at all if you are going to split up? Why go if you aren't going to shop?
Oliver Crosby — September 21, 2011
Homer Simpson, or in fact any of the sitcoms in the 80's and 90's where the men were idiots and the wives knew everything. Home Improvement did this too, Tim was a complete moron. I don't think the mediocre man is a new thing, are you suggesting it's getting worse?
P.S. Am I supposed to feel guilty that I DO in fact hate shopping in Ikea with my wife? I suppose I do suck it up and behave like a grown up, but I truly hate that store.
Jason Empey — September 21, 2011
When I first saw this ad it reminded me of every time I sat outside of a changing room with another male waiting waiting for our female partners to try on 10 different ______. It made me smile. But we male partners are there as emotional partners - we'd rather be sharing an experience with our partners than vegitating in a daycare.
rvcs — September 21, 2011
Why is home furnishing presumed to be (unpaid) women's work? It is especially arduous work at IKEA.
Quiet Riot Girl — September 21, 2011
My take on this is slightly different. But then I don't believe in the conspiracy theory that is 'patriarchy'.
http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/fagland-where-fags-can-be-fags/
Bruce McGlory — September 21, 2011
I'm so goddamn sick of being portrayed like a useless buffoon. In addition to being a useless buffoon for being male, I'm also apparently non-existant, as I'm gay.
Yrro Simyarin — September 21, 2011
So, wait... when women are portrayed as incompetent and childlike, it hurts women. But when men are portrayed as incompetent and childlike... it also hurts women. When a woman is shown as being an emotional child whom her husband needs to sooth with candy, doesn't that "tell men that they can't expect women to be grown ups... and do their fair share..."?
Either these sorts of things should be taken as tongue in cheek, in which case neither side is injured, or they damage everyone.
Anonymous — September 21, 2011
If my husband doesn't want to go shopping, why wouldn't he just stay home? He doesn't need a daycare any more than I do when he goes to buy stuff he needs.
WTF IKEA?
Aeon Blue — September 21, 2011
It's sad because the average person blames this sort of thing on feminism. If it insults women, it's human nature. If it insults men, it's feminism.
Nora Reed — September 21, 2011
It's sorta sucky because it seems like the idea of a little waiting area with some games and maybe coffee and magazines or something for people who don't want to do the actual shopping would be pretty great, if it wasn't gendered and patronizing and stupid.
Anonymous — September 21, 2011
You know, I'd rather play games and relax too instead of shopping for furniture (I'm female, if that matters). But that isn't why you go to Ikea. You go there because you need to buy cheap (ish) furniture. Otherwise, your time is better spent someone else or with someone else. Maybe at the arcade?
Anonymous — September 21, 2011
But . . but . . . but I WANT to play x-box while my wife does all the hard hard shopping.
Obligatory Jonathan Coulton Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGkalRgGMhs
Missdisco — September 21, 2011
I totally think this is an April Fools are something? The Buzzers? The buzzers! Like they'll leave the store thinking 'hmmm, i'm sure i forgot something....'
Women, remember, if this is how your man behaves when you go shopping for furnishings together remember to buy the fuggest, demasculating, coded 'pink' shit that will make them rue the day they left you alone to make decisions.
Can't they go to the coffee shop or whatever, don't they have those there? Why do they need a special games area, which, my god, that guy is way too into that football table thing! - his girlfriend needs to lose her buzzer.
Missdisco — September 21, 2011
and why the hell don't you all just shop online? Then everyone gets to stay home, in their man caves and the kitchen or equivalent gendered spaces.
Candice Greatbanks — September 21, 2011
This is a phenomenon that could only be a recent one. Interest in furniture hasn't really been a gendered thing in the past*, it was an age/responsibility thing (couldn't fathom why my mum and dad would spend so long looking at furniture when they could just spend it all on TOYS and FUN STUFF when I was a kid). But it seems that immaturity in men today is more accepted as the norm (even if men may not be getting any more immature in reality), so all of a sudden men are expected to have the same attitude to furniture-shopping as kids?
It's gross and insulting that they call it a "daycare", either way. Like others have said, men are completely free people unlike children, so why they can't just go do some other shit for half an hour, I don't know (oh wait: because IKEA might make more money this way).
*You could argue it has more to do with the home than the public sphere and was thus somewhat feminine, but in my experience even typically macho men seem to at least take an interest in home comforts if not home decor, and when to spend money on luxury furniture, or other possessions like cars and garages, for instance.
Anonymous — September 21, 2011
First off, this is a thing I've seen on men's rights blogs, complaining about degradation of men, which it very well may be... but the question is, would these men in the playpen really leave all decisions about their furniture to their wives? It doesn't look like it's intended that way
Secondly: IKEA did this? The Kamprad clan actually approves of this? Pardon my nationalism, but for a chain overdosing on Swedish culture that's a bloody disgrace! (Blame it on the right wing, I say)
Boon_jackson — September 21, 2011
So first of all, just to get it out there. I am a man who shops at Ikea. I have tons of stuff from the place. Cheap and sometimes crap but in general it works. I have shopped there many times on my own, and of my own freewill. But...I hate, hate, hate shopping at Ikea for more than 20-30min. My girlfriend on the other hand loves the place, could spend hours looking at stuff. I can get into it sometimes but after an hour of picking things out for her kitchen, bathroom etc. (we do not live together) I can go a little crazy. I think this game/chill space is great. It would be perfect to be able to let her have fun continuing to shop while I, having fufilled my duties as a general support and advisory position regarding purchases that would affect the both of us, enjoyed a relaxing video game or a nice read on a couch. Now some have said, 'if you don't want to be there, don't go or else go somewhere in the meantime'. Ah, but first I might actually want to be there for some short amount of time, to buy something new for myself (or act in a stylistic or financial advisory capacity). Second, even if this trip to the great blue and yellow box is not on my to do list I still might have to go, if only because gas is expensive, time is money etc. Ikea is usually kinda far away from metro centers, at least it's kinda far for me. So when my girlfriend and I go we usually hit a bunch of places in the area, some stuff I want, some she wants, some we both like. This last fact, that my significant other and I have different but overlapping wants and needs as consumers, just as we do in general, and that some of these consumptive needs are related to our gender and how we perform it makes me wonder if there would be a way to acknowladge gendered consumer habits without failing like this? If in a capitalist society much of our identity is derived from our consumption (or abstention from consumption) of goods, then gender (being simply a series meaningful coded performances) in our society is strongly connected to consumptive signifiers. How then can we discern which gendered acts are self actualizing and which are superfluous? I'm going on strong intuition here but I would say that this "Manland" is an example of a unnecessary gendered act, but I'd like something more than just intuition.Basically, this is all I ever wanted to happen to my Ikea experience and it is very unfortunate that the promotion of this "Manland" is so roughly gendered as it really does not have to be. Lots of women love video games, and taking a break from shopping. But if we want to play devils advocate, why can't playing video games in Ikea be one single act in a myriade that occur daily that allow individuals to perform maleness. Is is simply because women do it too? That can be said for anything that men do, and visa versa. Women can and do do anything and everything men do in not only the quotition but also important life decisions. I don't think we want to fall into the fallacy of essencalized or medicalized gender, stripping away the very important semiotics of womenhood and manhood.
Guest — September 21, 2011
What I find interesting is that in "Here's Your Sign Live" comedian Bill Engvall lays bare the reason for the "mediocre man." He says that if he portrays himself as a big manly macho man then he has to work hard to fulfill that gender role. But if he presents himself as "just a guy" then he can slack off and let his wife do all the work. You can see how well this strategy works here:
"[Engvall] often speaks about how much he loves his wife and how she
must be a saint to put up with him. He fondly admits she is the boss
and he is "just a guy"."
http://katri.hubpages.com/hub/Send-Me-To-Heaven-With-a-Slim-Jim--Bill-Engvall-Comedian--Husband--Father
The value of this discursive strategy is that it has the form of feminism but not the function; that is, it appears to value women while it actually frames relationships in such a way that the women end up doing all of the work while men are still the center of everything. Gender roles shift, but androcentrism continues.
Outsidethebox28 — September 21, 2011
This is one of the most stupid things I have ever seen. I am female and I LOVE video games and pinball machines. In fact, I am studying video games in school because I love them so much. I would rather sit on my ass and play games than wander aimlessly through ikea. If you are going to do something like this, DON'T GENDER IT. That is so last century. Besides, I know lots of men who love going to ikea. One of the supposed pleasures of the store is that the space is designed to engender a type of play in shopping. A lot of the little gadgets are weird and the spaces are almost hallucinatory - going in and out of rooms that looked lived in but aren't really. Its kind of a trip. Ikea is a game in and of itself.
PG — September 23, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html
This research seems to show that shopping and making decisions is actually very mentally draining. I am impressed by people that are good at shopping and making decisions to the point of actually liking to do it as a pass-time.
Di — September 24, 2011
This is the most ridicuolous thing ever. So then, do you have to be male to be left in "manland"? I would love to see other non-interested shopping companions that are female hang out there.
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stafferty — September 30, 2011
A) Leaving your girl freind alone in a store for a half hour can backfire on your bank account and having a house full of ugly F**king lamps.
B) Men should be making decisions about home design. Just because our fathers and grandfather's had no input doesn't mean we shouldn't have any. http://homes4men.com/2011/09/14/don-drapper-tyler-durden-and-why-men-dont-discuss-interior-design/
Janice — October 4, 2011
It was open for a grand total of 4 days. I dont see what the issue is really; clearly IKEA did it for a publicity stunt and it worked.
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lowessurvey — August 6, 2024
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