The Ethical Adman’s Tom Meggison sent along a new ad campaign by Molson. The campaign coins the word “guyet,” a supposedly masculine alternative to “diet.”
If dieting is working out in order to be thin, then guyeting is “working out to justify eating the foods you love… Bacon, nachos, and burgers.”
There’s a very simple thing going on here: things associated with women are NOT-FOR-MEN, so anything that rings feminine must be covered in bacon, dipped in beer batter, and fried masculinized. See, for lots of examples, our Pinterest page on the phenomenon with almost 100 examples.
Importantly, this isn’t just about maintaining a strong distinction between men and women, it’s about maintaining gender inequality. We disparage and demean femininity, which is why men want to avoid it. Listen to the tone of voice that the narrator uses when saying the word “diet” at 21 seconds:
Dieting is stupid ’cause girls and everything associated with girls is stupid. Guyeting is awesome ’cause guys are awesome.
The reverse doesn’t apply. Women who do things men like to do — drink whiskey, play sports, become surgeons, have dogs, etc — somehow rise in our esteem. Men’s worth, in contrast, is harmed by their association with femininity. This is a layer of gender inequality above and beyond sexism, the privileging of men over women; it’s androcentrism, the privileging of the masculine over the feminine. Since women are required to do femininity, it means being required to do trivial, demeaned, and disparaged things. Meanwhile, men have to come up with stupid excuses for participating in basic healthy activities like going for a jog.
More posts on androcentrism: “woman” as an insult, being a girl is degrading, making it manly: how to sell a car, good god don’t let men have long hair, don’t forget to hug like a dude, saving men from their (feminine) selves, men must eschew femininity, not impressed with Buzz Lightyear commercial, dinosaurs can’t be for girls, and sissy men are so uncool.
UPDATE: Comments closed.
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 40
Mouse — February 3, 2013
I find it interesting that in a lot of ads like these, bacon is usually specifically called out. I think it's one of those foods that "everyone" likes, and most likely it has a sort of luxury feel to it.
People are vegetarian for lots of different reasons, politics, dietary requirements, healthy lifestyle, but this type of message tells men that they aren't supposed be vegetarian. As a counter though, all of the vegetarian men I have met have been bigburlybeardedmountainmen hipsters, so they're performing a different type of masculinity. Note, that is not the scientific term.
Men Go on “Guyets” Because Girls are Stupid » Sociological Images | digitalnews2000 — February 3, 2013
[...] on thesocietypages.org Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in [...]
Sage Basil — February 3, 2013
wow, fuck sociology. if you guys can quit moralizing for ten seconds, maybe you would learn something, but as long as this is the parameters of the conversation, of course women an the oppressed underclass who are made fun of by their superior overlords.
Ask a woman if she feels oppressed, suggest to her ways in which she is oppressed, tell her her mind is colonized. Then ask a man if he feels like an oppressor, tell him ways in which the women are oppressed, tell him he is blinded to his own privilege.
The concept of "guyet" is something i have never heard of, apparently it comes from a beer commercial, but let's use this space to comment on how men hate women, and love bacon.
CS — February 3, 2013
From another SocImages post (July 24, 2011):
"We feminists typically view dieting — and, particularly, the diet industry – as an expression of patriarchy that is bad for women. As a scholar who studies the harmful effects of our culture’s beauty standards, I agree with this. Diets (which FAIL 95% of the time) drain women’s energy, happiness, and wallets – often while risking our health. Hence, “RIOTS, NOT DIETS!” has become a well-known rallying cheer for many feminists.Dieting can also be understood as a type of “patriarchal bargain” (an individual woman’s decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women-as-a-group, in exchange for whatever power she can wrest from the system)."
Couldn't this ad be seen as supportive of the viewpoint expressed above? I.e. diets aren't bad because they're associated with women but rather because they relate to beauty standards, harmful expectations for women, etc. Guyets aren't about any of that -- it's about doing something healthy to feel less bad about doing things that are enjoyable but unhealthy. Note how it only says the guyet helps people "rationalize" doing those things; it doesn't say anything about weight, appearance, etc.
Penguin — February 3, 2013
I'm noticing the definition of "the noun".... as far as I know, this is what women around me do as well lmao and surprise, with the same food... some times. I'm sure men's diet vary as well? :P
Jessica Conifer — February 3, 2013
it seems that the best way to insult a man is to suggest that they are women or acting feminine or homosexual, the best way to insult a woman is to suggest that they are not "F***able"
WeeItsNookies — February 3, 2013
This politically correctness crap is getting out of control, it appears that a good bit of commercials Superbowl related someone was able to find some fault with. How much of a friendless, pain in the ass moron do you have to be to watch a commercial like this and then deem it sexist? More importantly get something like that from said commercial. Holy shit.
Possible stereotypes? Yes. Harmless stereotypes? Yes. Sexism? No.
Women are more prone to dieting. Not necessarily a fact of course, but an observation and generalization. Women are also much more prone to make major sacrifices when it comes to diet, the same as above, not a fact, just a stereotypical generalization. Guys are much more prone not wanting to eat frigging salad while dieting..So basically this commercial is stating men exercise, so they can still eat unhealthy foods. Then they label it a "guyet"..If anything, this is sexism towards men. Feminists and moronic women need to STFU and get laid. I think this is reason #298,323,423,232 why you can't take feminists seriously anymore..
Some_Dumb_Douce — February 3, 2013
"Dieting is stupid ’cause girls and everything associated with girls is stupid"
Actually, guys think that dieting is stupid because chicks do all kinds of food related shit (like bulimia and anorexia) that objectively is stupid. And then chicks try to blame these diseases on our patriarchal culture, which puts "enormous pressure" on girls to be thin, which sounds like bullshit to most of us misogynists because we really hate anorexic chicks.
Objectively, of course, douchebags like me do put some pressure on the ladies, because we don't like fat chicks either, but that doesn't mean we are responsible for your bulimia, which is still a stupid disease to have, just like Type II diabetes, or pancreatic cancer from smoking four packs a day like Patrick Swayze.
mimimur — February 3, 2013
But- but.... he's policing his body... he's burning off calories as a trade off for unhealthy foods... Gah, just saying it's different from dieting doesn't make it so!
ViktorNN — February 4, 2013
We can always count on Ms Wade to look at phenomena where women in this society enjoy greater freedom to engage in both "masculine" and "feminine" acts and see anti-female sexism and androcentrism there.
And on what planet are whiskey drinking, sports playing, dog owning, and being surgeons seen as being strictly "masculine" activities? Certainly not in the USA circa 2013. What a particularly bad set of examples. Try again.
WeeItsNookies — February 4, 2013
This politically correctness crap is getting out of control, it appears
that a good bit of commercials Superbowl related someone was able to
find some fault with. How much of a friendless, pain in the ass moron do
you have to be to watch a commercial like this and then deem it sexist?
More importantly get something like that from said commercial. Holy
shit.
Possible stereotypes? Yes. Harmless stereotypes? Yes. Sexism? No.
Women are more prone to dieting. Not necessarily a fact of course, but
an observation and generalization. Women are also much more prone to
make major sacrifices when it comes to diet, the same as above, not a
fact, just a stereotypical generalization. Guys are much more prone not
wanting to eat frigging salad while dieting..So basically this
commercial is stating men basically eat what the hell they want while being able to stay fit..and they obviously called it a guyet. You girls call make a diet and call it "Woet"
lorvothemagicbean — February 4, 2013
"Men go on 'Guyets' because women Are stupid"
Well...I mean, women ARE stupid. So...I don't see the problem with this. You ladies are dumber than a bag of rocks.
De gereedschapskist: zelfhaat begrijpen « De Zesde Clan — February 11, 2013
[...] Al te vaak: ze mogen er niet zijn, symbolisch, maar ook letterlijk. Al te vaak: mannen zijn goed, vrouwen zijn minderwaardig. Als vrouwen succes hebben, vormt dat een probleem en moeten we er iets aan [...]
This Is a Man’s Randomly-Generated Sequence of Letters and Numbers! | Cryptic Philosopher — November 21, 2013
[…] We have specially-formulated (I assume) manly calories in our low-carb soft drinks. We have the guyet, a masculine alternative to girly diets. And whatever would we do without brogurt, which is totally a real […]