Say something good about the application of traditional gender roles to consumer product marketing

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Pink vs blue, action figures vs Barbie dolls, fantasy novels vs Babysitter's Club, that kind of thing.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 21 July 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Gives you something to rebel against, I suppose. I have such a problem with the consumer culture aspect that I can hardly get to all the problems that I have with the gender stereotyping!

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

for the people who want to make money from it: fantastic
for society: lame

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

But society is the one going along with it, marketers are not foisting these things unwillingly across the populace. If suddenly there was a massive market against buying Barbies for girls, they'd change their strategies stat.

(this is not an endorsement of gender roles in society)

― Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

what is a "market against"?

i mean how does it manifest?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

They bar the doors to the Toys 'r' Us, obv.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

hence the separate statement:
for the people wanting to make money: fantastic

for society (not consumers, but the larger social system made up of economy, family, government etc): lame

individual consumers are a causal effect (they buy what we tell them to, Richard A. Petersen has a classic article on this; and there is a lot of research on the music business that shows that people learn to like what they are given from sheer repetition, and hence they buy it. this refers to mass consumption and production, not to small market share labels and music scenes.

Case in point-the song that drives you nuts at first but then you hear it so much you end up liking it/buying it.

RE: markets. See Joe Dimaggio et al . Audiences can be markets, and social networks can become institutionalized. Oh hell, just go get a sociology of culture degree.

I'll stop before I bore you to death.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Tell me more about the Petersen article, Orbit, that sounds interesting.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:18 (twenty-two years ago)

by market against I meant people stop purchasing, that seems the evident point of my poor phrasing but whatever, I haven't had enough coffee.

my point is that these stereotypes come from somewhere since they existed prior to the advent of mass marketing on television/radio so I don't think the consumer product market is really to blame for this one.

― Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Richard A Petersen was influential in the "Production of Culture" perspective in sociology. This is augmented by Howard S. Becker's "Art Worlds" approach, and contrasted in general by feminist and post-structuralist (marxist) approaches.

In the history of soc of culture the classic debate has been:
Consumer as idiot (the Frankfort School) vs.
Consumer as active participant, remaking meanings (marxist/feminist/po-mo)

Petersen did not consider the politics or implications of mass culture, he just looked for patterns in production and consumption. For more info see Diana Crane's _The Production of Culture_. 1992.

Reference for the Petersen article:
"Cycles in symbol production: The case of popular music". American Sociological Review, 40, 158-173. 1975.

The main point is about innovation in music actually: new music isn't produced because we are innovative or brilliant but because novelty is intrinsic to the recording industry--you must produce something for the people to buy.

The reference for the "people learn to like what they are given" appears in several places; but I have just realized not in this exact article.

The best reference for that would actually be Roland Barthes _Mythologies_ where he points out that sheer repetitions of images in popular culture leads to fibs that we believe, and become part of our taken for granted cultural reality.

Another reference is Howard S. Becker's book _Art Worlds_ where he talks about audiences and the power of repetition (in terms of "conventions").

I have an entire library of work on gender and culture, and I'm not even sure where to *start*; there is not a thread big enough to contain it.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 21 July 2003 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

people learn to use what they are given

(btw what's the alternative to "what they are given"?)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:14 (twenty-two years ago)

the necessity of repetition (in terms of anyone having any idea what anyone else is on about)

haha check out classics of sociology — like even genuinely insightful and well-written ones — for their bold avant-garde avoidance of stylistic and disciplinary conventions

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

If anything, "mass media" shows that something else exists beside your local hometown stereotypes. I think you'll find that since the advent of mass media, gender role stratification has got better, rather than worse.

Or let's go back to wearing corsets and dying in childbirth, that's much better.

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't have a sociology of culture degree but I do have a career in market research, and what I've learned from that is that it is in practise fucking difficult to get people to buy what you want them to buy. Marketing is a terribly inefficient pseudo-science which is why you get gender stereotyping (and age/race/lifestage sterotyping etc) to such a degree - the only way for producers to hit even some of their targets is to make their marketing as broad and unsubtle as possible.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 08:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Stereotypes and gender roles existed before mass media, yes. But nowadays, when it's generally accepted that gender roles aren't "natural" or "biological", mass media still reinforces them. Of course you can still say that media only reflects popular attitudes, but it's also true popular attitudes are shaped by the media; in other words, it's the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. But that's not the most important question - the question we should ask is, what can we do about it? Trying to change the images in media can indeed have positive effects. For example, the current acceptance of gay people (as well as the former condemnation of them) has a lot to do with mass media; it's a good example how traditional gender roles can be partially decoded using media images.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 09:10 (twenty-two years ago)

It also I think has a lot to do with marketing Tuomas - once a demographic has been identified as having ready cash that demographic (literally) earns respect and the tide of opinion can turn. On the other hand to what extent are gay people 'accepted' now only within a media-friendly/media-defined range of 'gay' activities?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, last year my country finally gave homosexuals the right to marry, and I think that wouldn't have happened without the miles of media coverage on the subject, as well as TV and movie showing gay people as ordinary decent human beings. But I see what you mean, gay people fall victim to mass media's stereotyping as well, and homosexuals in non-typical are probably harder to accept - could you imagine an openly gay prime minister? Tarja Halonen, the current Finnish president, was actually labeled "a lesbian" by some bigots because she's worked for the Finnish association for sexual minorities (this despite the fact that she's twice married to a man).

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 09:40 (twenty-two years ago)

' nowadays, when it's generally accepted that gender roles aren't "natural" or "biological"'

by who?

― dave q, Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

In the history of soc of culture the classic debate has been:
Consumer as idiot (the Frankfort School) vs.
Consumer as active participant, remaking meanings (marxist/feminist/po-mo)

Petersen did not consider the politics or implications of mass culture, he just looked for patterns in production and consumption. For more info see Diana Crane's _The Production of Culture_. 1992.

Reference for the Petersen article:
"Cycles in symbol production: The case of popular music". American Sociological Review, 40, 158-173. 1975.

The reference for the "people learn to like what they are given" appears in several places; but I have just realized/remembered not in this exact article.

Another reference is Howard S. Becker's book _Art Worlds_ where he talks about audiences and the power of repetition (in terms of "conventions").

I have an entire library of work on gender and culture, and I'm not even sure where to *start*; there is not a thread big enough to contain it.

― Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

oops sorry abt the double-post; I didn't realize the 1st one went through because it was when ilx crashed. My comment about the soc of culture degree and gender related to the frustration of trying to explain two huge fields of study/theory/reseearch within the pithy confines of an ile post. I think it is just beyond me, but if you are really interested in there are many fine works out there, classic, esp Howard S.Becker.

― Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

theres nothing good about it. gender roles can kiss my ass.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 23:45 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah there's a lot of good lit on that too,

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd forgotten why I stopped watching television

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 04:04 (twenty-two years ago)

nine years pass...

http://renirabbit.tumblr.com/post/32283292865/why-i-am-really-pissed-off-about-gender-roles-and-bad

:~(

― barthes simpson, Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:31 (thirteen years ago)

"he is brave but i dont want him to be alone"

poor little girl and her hulk

― The Most Typical and Popular Girl Rider (Crabbits), Friday, 28 September 2012 00:47 (thirteen years ago)

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Friday, 28 September 2012 01:08 (thirteen years ago)

I had a weird conversation with office people today where three women in the office were insisting that they wanted (or would want) their daughters to be girly, and me and one other male associate were saying how we'd be happy if our daughters (we both have daughters) excel at sports, math, computers, etc and we don't particularly care if they are traditionally "girly." And the women were saying stuff about how they shouldn't play certain sports because it will make their shoulders too wide or something like that. WTF?

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Friday, 28 September 2012 01:10 (thirteen years ago)

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