In class yesterday we made a gender spectrum containing many different topics and things that people see and have to deal with everyday. I thought that the first category that we discussed was pretty weird. It was food and I did not know how food could be masculine or feminine. Then someone said that steak was one of the most masculine foods that a man could eat. I still was not really convinced that this was a true representation of masculinity until we watched the Taco Bell commercial. It was saying that a man should drink this, and drive that to be a true man in our American culture. Then at the very end of the commercial it announced that if you needed to be told how to be a man that the triple steak burrito wasn't for you. Steak! I have probably seen this commercial 10 or 15 times and I never made the connection that different foods are associated with different genders. Is this commercial saying that women can't eat their steak burritos? What is so special about the men that only they are asked if they want this product?
Later in class we began talking about feminists and what they actually stand for. Before this class period I thought that what people said about feminists was true. I thought that they were man hating people who wanted to be the superior gender. I cannot tell you where I heard this from. I can't really figure out why I thought this in the first place. Now I know that all that they want is for women to have the same rights and opportunities as men and I completely agree with that. I think that the reason that some people hate feminists or the word feminist is because they think that feminists hate men and want to be the superior gender, like I previously thought, but they are just uninformed on what they actually stand for.
Yeah, a lot of people really don't notice the amount of gender separating that happens in our everyday life - especially in advertising and mainstream media! Once you start to see this stuff, you can start to fight it and the harm it causes!
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