Women: laugh, cry, doubt, make mistakes and hesitate

"In advertising, women are described as, or permitted to be, laughing, crying, doubting, making mistakes, hesitating: women alone are seen as nurturing or as providing emotional support for children and men. When, for example, a company represents itself in a service capacity or as particularly accommodating, it uses a female figure and reinforces traditional attitudes by this symbolic imagery." - Some Aspects of Design from the Perspective of a Woman Designer by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Is this true? STILL?! In the 21st century?! Damn straight it's true. How often do you see a commercial for a cleaning product, for example, that features a MAN cleaning? Uh...never unless it's trying to make some sort of joke through it.

And what does this say about our society as a whole? Can we still not handle the thought and vision of men cleaning or nurturing or worrying or crying? Are we still in such an infantile stage with equal rights that this cannot be shown without being ridiculed?

The other bothering fact is that women are seemingly taking over in the design field...which means WE are part of the problem now. WE are approving those ads that are stereotyping us and our male counterparts. Do we realize what we are conveying to the viewers? How we are influencing our own fate? We are helping this false image of ourselves to be accepted and reinforced each time an ad is falsely representing us.

If this country is really ever going to try to be equal to both sexes, we have to get involved with the advertising, it's one of the most influential impacts on human life. We can't get away from it no matter what we do and we need to use it to our full advantage and change the way the world looks at women and men's differences. It would not only change our biased views of the sexes but it would promote more equality in our every day lives.

It's not only in ads that women are still considered to be all those beforementioned...it's in the workforce and relationships as well and until we start changing this viewpoint in advertising, it's going to be harder to persuade everyone that this image of women is NOT true.

Women can and are "serious, decisive, professional and assured" (Bretteville). And the same goes for men. Men cry, laugh, doubt and most definately make mistakes just like the stereotypical woman does. When we acknowledge this, then equality will start to really evolve and an openness towards one another as a society.