{"id":41498,"date":"2011-11-09T11:43:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T16:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=41498"},"modified":"2011-11-12T22:52:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T03:52:59","slug":"the-brute-strength-of-%e2%80%9cdad-mom%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/11\/09\/the-brute-strength-of-%e2%80%9cdad-mom%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brute Strength of \u201cDad Mom\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Arlie Hochschild, in her book\u00a0The Second Shift<\/em>, discusses a modern tension in American households resulting from a \u201cstalled gender revolution,\u201d i.e., the fact that women and the social construction of femininity have changed and men and masculinity have not caught up with these changes.\u00a0\u00a0These tensions erupt when assigning responsibilities in the second shift of household labor and childcare, which often fall upon wives\u2019 shoulders.\u00a0\u00a0Traditionally, the dominant construction of masculinity does not allow men to participate in housework, such as laundry, since it is threatening to their sense of masculinity.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, as argued by Julie Brines, the economic model of dependency holds for women but not for men.\u00a0\u00a0Men can essentially trade in their salaries for the domestic labor performed by their wife; however, when women out-earn their husbands, they cannot seem to strike a similar bargain.\u00a0\u00a0In this case, since the man is not fulfilling his traditional role as provider, he essentially refuses to further damage his reputation by engaging in \u201cwoman\u2019s work\u201d in the home.<\/p>\n

Enter Tide:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

In this Tide commercial, we see this threatening element of housework, as the \u201cDad Mom\u201d tries to justify his laundry proficiency by reasserting his masculinity.\u00a0\u00a0At the end, he confirms that he is still a man as he declares that he will \u201cgo do pull ups and crunches,\u201d one would assume in order to build up his manly muscles.\u00a0\u00a0Beyond this direct statement of his attempts to embody masculinity, throughout the commercial, we see three themes — normative heterosexuality, competition among men, and the codification of laundry as feminine — used to excuse his role as homemaker.<\/p>\n

He first makes the claim that he is at home \u201cbeing awesome,\u201d and proceeds to explain how.\u00a0\u00a0He stresses his unique (and alluring) mixture of masculinity and nurturing.\u00a0\u00a0By describing himself in this way for the sake of the \u201cMom Moms,\u201d he alludes to his heterosexuality, a basic element of hegemonic masculinity, in an attempt to establish some sex appeal.<\/p>\n

Second, there is a competitive element to his dialogue as he boasts to other dads about his ability to dress a four-year-old and skills at folding a \u201cfrilly dress with complete accuracy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0By making it a competition, he rationalizes his participation in housework.\u00a0Boom!<\/p>\n

Finally, this \u201cdad mom\u201d uses the \u201cbrute strength of dad\u201d in combination with the \u201cnurturing abilities of my laundry detergent\u201d to complete this basis household task.\u00a0\u00a0The task of doing laundry and the detergent, itself, is codified as feminine.\u00a0\u00a0This combination is a \u201csmart\u201d one because this is exactly what women need: more men doing the laundry.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Amanda M. Czerniawski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Temple University.\u00a0She specializes in bodies and culture, gender and sexuality, and medical sociology.\u00a0\u00a0Her past research projects involved the development of height and weight tables and the role of plus-size models in constructions of beauty.\u00a0\u00a0Her current research focuses on the contested role of the body in contemporary feminist discourse.<\/p>\n

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our\u00a0Guidelines for Guest Bloggers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arlie Hochschild, in her book\u00a0The Second Shift, discusses a modern tension in American households resulting from a \u201cstalled gender revolution,\u201d i.e., the fact that women and the social construction of femininity have changed and men and masculinity have not caught up with these changes.\u00a0\u00a0These tensions erupt when assigning responsibilities in the second shift of household […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2096,2095,2088,2087,272,54,76],"class_list":["post-41498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-marriagefamily","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41498"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41505,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41498\/revisions\/41505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}