All this 'kids and mums' in advertising, why don't men care?

[AnnieLobeseder]

We women, feminists especially, get quite rightly upset by all the 'mums and kids' advertising on the TV. How it's implied that women are the ones looking after every aspect of their children's lives. There's just been an ad on now for school uniforms, all about how kids and mums love them. Dads left completely out of the picture.

My DH is all equal opportunities, he grew up in a country with very little gender discrimination (well, in mainstream society anyway), probably better than here, we share all domestic stuff 50/50.

So I asked him if it bothered him that, according to adverts like that, he has no relevance nor interest in the lives of his children. He just shrugged and said it's only an advert, he does't care.

I doubt he's alone in his view. So why don't good, decent men, who are very much involved in their children's lives, care that they are written out of advertising as irrelevant?

I don't think it's because they don't get discriminated against elsewhere, are in a position of privilege as men etc etc. While the patriarchy favours men overall, it damages men who don't conform to the 'masculine norm', SAHDs etc. So I would imagine they would notice and object to being well, not so much misrepresented, as not represented at all.

Any thoughts? Perhaps I should ask Dadsnet!

Heads, tummies and bums = women. Men can only get sick through manly exertions, so backs, muscles, tendons are for them.

Although we may have a nod towards man flu through our marketing of lemsips, etc.

The yorkie ads make me want to vomit. Can't advertise it as just chocolate cos that's too girly, so need to make it MANLY chocolate. How to make it manly chocolate? By looking down on girliness. It's chocolate FFS! Deal with it!

Is it Ariel where it's just a man calmly doing his own washing? That's quite good.

Well, I know we all agree that advertising is full of sexist bullshit.

But my question is does it bother men that they are never portrayed as having anything to contribute to the raising of their own children?

SGM, I agree with you, but also it probably is still the woman that does these things in the majority of cases. Would the advertising industry be at the forefront of changing this? Hmm...

I'm trying to think of any car ads that show a woman driving if only one driver is portrayed, or that show 50% or more of women driving if a number of drivers are portrayed. I'm drawing a blank so far.

So Nicole never drove her renault clio. It's easy not to see if you only look for faux outrage.

Novack, that is true re Nicole. Had forgotten that one.

I don't see any faux outrage in my post, though.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18243577

List of most complained about ads.

DH comments all the time, the latest one being that awful "mum and me" range of toiletries, because obviously men never bath their babies or change nappies.
Unfortunately it seems like things have gone backwards in the last 20 years.

Reason 73 we don't have a TV.

It's important to remember that advertising doesn't reflect real life. It's not meant to. It's meant to provoke a response, basically something that will get you to buy what they're selling. They test stuff out on focus groups, but still they often get it wrong, particularly when the advertisers/companies producing the product or service, can't shift from their "comfort zones" (which often means gender and other social stereotypes.)

I love having opted out of all that. I love it, too, when crappy ad campaigns bomb.

But why don't men care? Fair enough, for some it will be that they leave everything to do with the kids to their wife anyway. But there are plenty of men who are just as involved in their children's lives as their wives are.

Annie - possible reasons are over in your Dadsnet thread, which surely you have read.

The 'Mum & Me' range is for pregnancy as well as babies (stuff to rub on your bump etc) so it's actually quite an accurate name.

Advertisers aim their ads at the people they think make the 'purchasing decision', which is presumably why there are always women in nappy ads and ads for household products etc, as women are the main buyers of those products (whether or not we think they should be).

But I think they're really missing a trick. I think a lot of women would respond positively to brands that showed men being actively - and unexceptionally (ie as part of normal life, not 'ooh, look at the good dad 'helping' with his kids) - involved in these sorts of activities. I certainly felt much better disposed to Sainsbury's after their ad with the dad looking after the little boy.

One ad I despise is for a painkiller (Feminax maybe) where the woman pulls a lever on her sofa that causes her husband/boyfriend to get flung out of the window. Imagine if that were reversed and it was a man doing it to a woman.

Pisses my husband off a lot. The same way as it pissed him off when one nursery nurse only ever talked to me, not to him, when he was right next to me.

PS To answer the question in the OP, some men do care. My DH loved the Sainsbury's ad and hated the P&G campaign. But then he does at least 50% of the childcare and most of the housework.

Anyone seen the VW advert it positively shows men in a wonderful light doing everything for their daughter right up to buying a 'safe' car for her to drive in.

It really angers DH, but since having DS we've noticed (more than expected) how often people ignore DH when discussing DS. They'll always turn to me, not him. Despite us dealing with DS equal amounts.

I don't think my DH is particularly bothered - or at least we don't watch much tv with adverts, tend to FF through them. The odd time we do watch ITV while at the PILs we are always surprised by the general crapness on mainstream telly and the casual sexism, agism and classism of advertising.

I think mass advertising is a dying industry anyway. It is going much more personalised. Whether this will breakdown stereotypes or reinforce them I dont know.

The thing that does piss DH off are the assumptions by teachers, PTA, school etc... that it is all about 'kids and mum'.

I was thinking about this. Specifically this bit of the OP: 'So why don't good, decent men, who are very much involved in their children's lives, care that they are written out of advertising as irrelevant?'

Apart from the point already made above that at a population level, men tend to do (far) less than women, I think it is to do with the history of gender roles.

Women have fought for decades to be associated with more than housework, domestic chores and childcare and to be taken seriously professionally. Portraying women as the primary carer reinforces a position that many women have fought against; hence (some) women object to such advertising.

Men, or at least the majority of them, have not fought for decades for an equal role in loo-cleaning, clothes-washing and general domesticity, they do it because they are enlightened enough to realise it makes home life easier, they realise it is fairer or because they are organised into it by the women in their lives. But it doesn't (generally) effect their primary identity which is generally professional, it is an add-on. I would reckon that the men who do object are the ones where their childcare and domestic obligations do impact on their professional lives and they want (disproportionate at a population level?) recognition for that fact.

That may make little sense as I am very tired.

Good points, summerflower.

That does make sense, thanks, summerflower.