Benno K. sent in a link to some ads he saw in the Netherlands for the Discovery Channel, which Benno describes as “the channel that used to be for science, but is now mostly explosions and motor bikes.” In both posters the men have “women’s” eyes–that is, they appear wide-eyed and long-lashed, with mascara:

The caption says:

Not for women’s eyes. Discovery Channel has television men want to watch. Exciting, smart, interesting, adventurous, and most of all real. Watch for yourself.

I know that as a woman, I hate smart, interesting stuff. It’s just too hard to understand and it makes my brain hurt. I try to only watch TV shows that are dull, dumb, boring, cautious, and totally fake.

Chelsea S. snapped a photo of this ad outside of Macy’s in the King of Prussia mall:

Two things here: the assumption that men have wives to purchase their clothes for them (gendering of marital roles, anyone?) and the implication that having to wait while your wife does so is such an annoyance. Maybe this is just me, but if someone else is doing errands for you, the least you can do is not act like it’s a burden to accompany them.

Gwen M. and David B. sent us a link to a story on the Globe and Mail website about a video game that has a gay scene in it and the reaction in the gaming community:

The game is Dragon Age: Origins, which, according to the website, is “an epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal.”

From the Globe and Mail article:

Earlier this year, to promote Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II , one of the biggest games of the year, the game’s developer, Infinity Ward, released a video online asking players to Fight Against Grenade Spam. The company eventually pulled the ad following complaints about the acronym.
…
Last year, Microsoft was accused of homophobia after banning gay-related gamertags – the names created by Xbox users to identify themselves online – such as theGAYERgamer and RichardGaywood.

As the article points out, it’s not that gay or bisexual characters/scenes haven’t appeared in video games before, but they’ve often been portrayed in very stereotypical or negative ways. And while some gamers have reacted positively, many have basically responded with “ew, gross!”

As Gwen said, this effort to normalize gay relationships in a popular video game, and the reactions to it, are “both encouraging — and saddening.”

When thinking about how media coverage affects public perceptions, many people think of it in terms of an “injection model”–that is, media outlets “inject” ideas into a passive public, directly affecting what they think (or, anyway, what everyone else thinks, since most people are convinced that they personally aren’t affected). Many researchers have argued this model depicts media audiences as having little agency when it comes to interpreting things they read or hear. People do ultimately decide what they think of issues, though the media play a large role in defining what issues are worth thinking about.

I have spent the last several days being mystified and annoyed by the number of news stories I’ve heard about Tiger Woods and his wreck and apparent affairs. I do not understand why this is national (and even international) news, and why news outlets from Fox to NPR found it worthwhile to have on commentators to talk about the fact that an athlete cheated on his wife.

Upon hearing my grumbling, my friend Larry (of The Daily Mirror) sent in this Google trends graph showing searches for “Tiger Woods” and “Afghanistan” during the last month:

The top graph shows searches for those terms; the bottom graph shows the frequency of them in news stories distributed by Google News. What was interesting to me is that news coverage has actually been higher for Afghanistan, with the gap growing during the days following the Tiger Woods story, but searches have followed the opposite pattern, with the enormous spike in searches for Tiger Woods in the last few days. It’s possible that TV media outlets have covered the Tiger Woods issue more than print media, so that could show a different trend.

But from what we see here, it appears that public interest isn’t being driven solely by media coverage, and any increases in news stories about Tiger Woods may be a response to an appetite for more information. That doesn’t mean media coverage doesn’t play a large part in framing public discourse–after all, we wouldn’t even know about the Tiger Woods story if it didn’t get some initial media coverage–but media outlets don’t decide what to cover in a complete vacuum, with the ability to get the public interested in any story they report on.

UPDATE: Larry sent in this image that contrasts searches for those terms with searches for “porn”:

Sigh.

Also see our posts on CNN questioning whether Jon and Kate’s divorce was getting too much coverage, which missing children get media coverage, the media shape reality, and coverage of Obama and Clinton.

Ricardo G. of Bifurcaciones sent in this ad from a catalog sent to homes in the U.K. by the company Hillier (via):

“Coordinating accessories available.” How thrilling. It reminds me of this post about how housecleaning is depicted as a joyful activity for women.

After being inundated with complaints, the company apologized, claiming it was a joke but they recognize it was inappropriate and should not have gone out.

While this does illustrate the gendering of housework, I think there’s another angle worth thinking about here. A number of the complaints weren’t just about it implying housework is women’s responsibility, but also that it is unromantic and therefore offensive to pose as a potential gift. I’m really interested in the idea of what makes an appropriate gifts, and that gifts between spouses should always be “romantic.” Romantic gifts are often things that have little intrinsic value; their value comes from the emotional and social implications attached to them.

Jewelry, flowers, lingerie–none of these are really helpful items, and they don’t make the recipients’ daily lives easier. A clothesline might, in fact, be a gift that would improve the lives of people who have to hang their clothing to dry. In my family,  both men and women highly value gifts perceived as practical and useful, rather than simply sentimental or romantic. One year my mom and uncle got my grandma an air compressor because she would find it very useful on the ranch; she was thrilled. Once I paid to have my mom’s dog spayed and vaccinated because she’d been too busy to have it done. Men in my family regularly get leather work gloves and tools, and they never seem disappointed.

I think there may be a class element here. In Making Ends Meet, Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein discuss how low-income women often partially rely on the contributions of boyfriends to buy the things they need each month. The women complained, however, that boyfriends often bought unnecessary things they thought the women would like, but that did not really improve their lives, such as a stereo or purse. The women often referred to these gifts as a waste of money, something that was already in short supply. They much preferred to receive gifts that they found useful.

So not to defend a clothesline as a suggested present to women–even my mom got mad when my stepdad gave her a mop for either Mother’s Day or their anniversary–but the construction of “unromantic” gifts as inherently offensive is fascinating, and assumes that everyone believes money should be spent on non-essential items in order to display emotional attachment.

Josh W. emailed to let us know that he was recently browing the website Toys to Grow On and was surprised when he noticed that girls were used to model a number of toys that we’d normally see with boys:

The degree to which toys are gendered really struck me when I realized how surprising these images are–that a girl dressed up as an FBI agent, or using tools, was something to be excited about because it’s so unusual.

Interestingly, I looked through the rest of the site and didn’t find an equivalent effort to show boys playing with stereotypically feminine toys. In fact, boys were quite underrepresented on the site–there are many more girls than boys. If I had to just hazard a guess, I’d think this has something to do with the fact that we tend to imagine gender equality as a world in which women have access to the same things men have–jobs, equivalent pay, and so on. We worry that girls are being harmed if they’re told girls aren’t good at math, never see images of women as doctors, and so on. Most people are less likely to think boys are being treated unfairly by not seeing images of boys playing with dolls or an Easy Bake oven, so the absence of those types of images don’t get as much criticism or attention.

UPDATE: Commenter Alyssa nicely summarizes why see this difference:

Unfortunately, we don’t see boys as being treated as unfairly when they don’t get to do “girl things” because girl things are considered inferior. It seems natural to people that girls and women want to do boy/men things because we see these activities as worth while. But a boy or man doing girl/women things is seen as somehow deviant because they are seen as wasting their time doing something useless.
But the truth is things that are usually labeled as feminine, are worthwhile. Boys certainly are disadvantaged when they are discouraged to learn how to take care of themselves. They are disadvantaged when they are discouraged learn empathy and social skills. Our view of all things feminine are inferior hurts both boys and girls.

Larry Harnisch at the Daily Mirror dug up this gem, a 1909 story from the Los Angeles Times about prominent Chicago-area women’s rights advocates pushing back the time they served Thanksgiving dinner in order to go see the British suffragist Emiline Pankhurst:

“…one of the women voiced the sentiment that ‘every suffragist is a militant suffragist at heart’.” Well, obviously, if you’re willing to postpone Thanksgiving dinner, no matter what this woman says:

Those British suffragists must have been something if stoning legislators was part of the discussion.

Kate M. sent us a link to a story in the Times Online about the recent suicide of model Daul Kim. Kim had worked for a number of high-fashion companies, including Chanel. Her blog contained many posts about the pressure and loneliness of being a model. Kate points out that the links surrounding the story undermine any message that we should actually care about this topic:

Notice on the side the “Lingerie for Christmas” feature on the side, with a scantily clothed, very thin woman; it lets you “make your missus a pin-up.” Below that you can “dress her in exquisite baubles.” Women are sexy, thin, mostly naked playthings for you to dress up and play with at will. How could that possibly have anything to do with the thinness ideals models and other women are pressured to meet?

The “Ralph Lauren model dropped for being too fat” story refers to the woman we wrote about in this post, where her body had been photoshopped beyond recognition.