Codes of Gender - Documentary

I think I posted this here before, but it's an interesting video definitely worth a viewing, or maybe a second viewing. This documentary offers a cogent analysis (using Irving Goffman's examination of advertising and the contemporary commercial landscape) shows how influential advertising media is in communicating "normative ideas about masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms."

The Codes of Gender

The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman’s ground-breaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture’s most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

In striking visual detail, this film explores Goffman’s central claim that gender ideals are the result of ritualized cultural performance, uncovering a remarkable pattern of masculine and feminine displays and poses.

The film looks beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that focus on biological difference or issues of objectification and beauty, to provide a clear-eyed view of the two-tiered terrain of identity and power relations.

With its sustained focus on how our perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman get reproduced and reinforced on the level of culture in our everyday lives, the film is a great introduction to socially and culturally constructed gender roles.

KATHRYN DEHOYOS - NEW STUDY: Macho Advertising Encourages Hyper-Masculinity

From The Good Men Project, a brief report on how macho advertising leads to hyper-masculine behaviors in men. The research, published in the May issue of Sex Roles, found that “print ads targeting men also encourage them to aspire to an unrealistic and potentially harmful brand of masculinity,” what is often referred to as hyper-masculinity, defined in the paper as “gender-based ideology of exaggerated beliefs about what it is to be a man.”

Nearly all advertising aimed at men is essentially "macho," so this problem is so pervasive that it seems unlikely that it will change any time soon.

NEW STUDY: Macho Advertising Encourages Hyper-Masculinity

MAY 9, 2013 BY KATHRYN DEHOYOS

Hyper-masculine advertising has been found to encourage men to an “unrealistic and potentially harmful brand of masculinity.”

A new study published in the most recent issue of Sex Roles suggests that sexist advertising aimed at men is just as damaging as that aimed at women. According to the report, researchers found that “print ads targeting men also encourage them to aspire to an unrealistic and potentially harmful brand of masculinity,” otherwise known as hyper-masculinity, which the paper defines as “gender-based ideology of exaggerated beliefs about what it is to be a man.”

Psychologists from the University of Manitoba studied the ads in 8 US men’s magazines which were published in 2007-2008, the publications were “differentiated by readership age, education, and household income,” and the ads were analyzed for any “hyper-masculine depictions.” What researchers found was that at least 50% of the ads in most magazines, and as many as 90% in some promoted one or more of the following hyper-masculine beliefs:

• Danger is exciting.
• Toughness is a form of emotional self-control.
• Violence is manly.
• It’s fine to be callous about women and sex.

The study indicates that throughout the ads which were analyzed, “The beliefs that toughness equals control and that danger is exciting were more common than the belief that violence is manly or callousness towards women and sex.” Research also showed that hyper-masculine ads were significantly more common in magazines geared toward “younger, lower-income, and less educated readers.” In other words, those who are most at-risk for “appropriating such beliefs and behaviors.” The study also asserts that the perpetuation of the hyper-masculine images in the advertisements is problematic because it “exposes readers to these beliefs and normalizes them.”

Photo: FontShop/Flickr

* * * * * * *

Full Citation:

Vokey, M,  Tefft, B, Tysiaczny, C. (2013, May). An Analysis of Hyper-Masculinity in Magazine Advertisements. Sex Roles, Volume 68, Issue 9-10, pp 562-576. DOI: 10.1007/s11199-013-0268-1

An Analysis of Hyper-Masculinity in Magazine Advertisements

Megan Vokey, Bruce Tefft, Chris Tysiaczny

Abstract

Hyper-masculinity is a gender-based ideology of exaggerated beliefs about what it is to be a man. HM consists of four inter-related beliefs, namely toughness as emotional self-control, violence as manly, danger as exciting, and calloused attitudes toward women and sex (Zaitchik & Mosher1993). Adherence to HM is linked to a host of social and health problems in North America, such as dangerous driving and violence toward women (Parrot & Zeichner 2003). Advertising is believed to play a role in constructing hyper-masculinity (Kilbourne 1999). In this study, eight U.S. men’s magazines published in 2007–2008, differentiated by readership age, education, and household income, were analyzed for hyper-masculine depictions in their advertisements. Using a behavioural checklist with good inter-rater reliability, it was found that 56 % (n = 295) of 527 advertisements depicted one or more hyper-masculine beliefs. Some magazines depicted at least one hyper-masculine belief in 90 % or more of advertisements. In addition, reader age, education, and income were all inversely related to the prevalence of hyper-masculine beliefs, with HM depictions presented more often in advertisements targeting young, less educated, and less affluent men. Implications of these findings for the well-being of men and society are discussed.

Men's Magazines Target Hyper-Masculine Advertising Images to Adolescents

This article appeared recently in the XX Factor column at Slate (What Women Really Think). Amanda Hess offers a summary of a new article from Sex Roles that looked at how advertising in magazines aimed at young, lesser educated men define masculinity and manhood. The view is not good - the stereotypes being presented are very limited and limiting.

According to a survey of the advertising, a "man" is a "stomping, yelling, shooting, drinking, fucking, tough guy. He has big muscles and a limited emotional range—stoic, angry, horny. He exists in dark alleyways, war zones, and fast cars. He holds his beer bottle over his crotch to approximate a boner."

How Men's Magazines Sell Masculinity to Young, Low-Income Men

By Amanda Hess | Posted Friday, March 1, 2013

A group of psychologists read Playboy for the ads

What makes an ideal man? Page through the advertisements placed in a standard American men’s magazine, and you’ll find one idea: He is a stomping, yelling, shooting, drinking, fucking, tough guy. He has big muscles and a limited emotional range—stoic, angry, horny. He exists in dark alleyways, war zones, and fast cars. He holds his beer bottle over his crotch to approximate a boner.

If advertising is meant to be aspirational, these ads are presenting a pretty sad version of what American men can aspire to be. And advertisers aren’t selling this hyper-masculine ideal to just any man: They’re specifically targeting the younger, poorer, less-educated guys in the supermarket aisle. In the latest issue of the journal Sex Roles, a trio of psychologists at the University of Manitoba analyzed the advertising images in a slate of magazines targeted at men, from Fortune to Field and Stream. They counted up the adsthat depict men as violent, calloused, tough, dangerous, and sexually aggressive—what the researchers call “hyper-masculine”—then indexed them with the magazine’s target demographics. Hyper-masculine images, the researchers found, are more likely to be sold to adolescents, who find higher “peer group support” for manly-man behaviors. They’re also sold to working-class men, who are “embedded in enduring social and economic structures in which they experience powerlessness and lack of access to resources” like political power, social respect, and wealth, and so turn to more widely accessible measures of masculine worth—like “physical strength and aggression.”

The magazines pushing this image most aggressively are Playboy and Game Informer, whose ads play on hyper-masculine tropes about 95 percent of the time. (Compare that to magazines like Golf Digest and Fortune, which rely on those images for about 20 percent of ads). Playboy and Game Informer represent two different segments of the hyper-masculine demo: The playboys and the gamers are both bringing in a low annual household income, but the playboys are older (the target age for readers is 30 to 39) and less likely to have attended college than their gaming peers. So while Game Informer’s socially-mobile twentysomethings can conceivably age out of these hyper-masculine tropes, Playboy’s readers are stuck with them.

These advertising trends speak to the latest development in Hugh Hefner’s sexual revolution. When Playboy launched in 1953, it was billed as a liberating, sophisticated, and intellectual response to conservative sexual norms. It featured icons like Marilyn Monroe and Ray Bradbury. It was not, in fact, inconceivable to read it for the articles. Sixty years later, the magazine’s advertisers are chasing a readership of middle-aged men who are undereducated and underpaid. Its vision of masculinity now looks constrictive. And its titular image—that of the wealthy man of leisure—plays ironically. Playboy’s version of sexual revolution was never very empowering to women and gay men. But if the tactics of its advertisers is any indication, it’s not a very liberating mold for straight guys, either.

That Dude Is Hung Like a Cucumber . . . Or Was that a Zucchini?

[Possibly NSFW - no nudity, but suggestive content.]

The men is this new PETA ad are hung like a cucumber . . . or was that a zucchini? Possibly an eggplant? And I'm sure I saw a banana. I generally dislike PETA and their unethical science wing (The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM]), which tried to claim the bloating suffered by Dr. Atkins (of the Atkins Diet fame) while in a coma following a fall onto the ice outside his home was a result of following his diet. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) has censured these "physicians."

Be that as it may, this is a funny commercial. I'm sure some people, maybe even guys will be offended, but it's funny, and if it's not YOUR sense of humor, don't watch it.

In honour of World Vegan Day, watch this spicy video, which gives a wink to the sexual benefits of going vegan by showcasing men enthusiastically and proudly showing off some healthy protrusions from their trousers.

PETA: Stay Firm and Fresh

The Secret Lives of Men - Mad Men on the Couch with Dr. Stephanie Newman

I have never seen an episode of Mad Men, which probably makes me one of the few guys in the country. Still, it's impossible to not know something about the show, which made this an interesting episode of The Secret Lives of Men - Dr. Blazina speaks with Dr. Stephanie Newman about her new book, Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the Hit TV Show.

Mad Men on the Couch Dr. Stephanie Newman

by Secret Lives of Men

Tue, April 3, 2012




Mad Men has captured the imaginations of millions of viewers, winning fifteen golden globes and four Emmys. In Mad Men on the Couch, Dr. Stephanie Newman analyzes the show’s primary characters through the lens of modern psychology.