It was amazing to see the reactions of moms dropping off their kids when they realized it was just us. Only once did I get asked "is there going to be a mom here with you?" but I know it was in a lot of their minds. But I never had one refuse to leave their kid with us. Over the years I've had plenty of moms eventually tell me how glad they were to see men working with kids.
I did get a chance for 2 years to run more "boy-friendly" activities at church. We did mock camp-outs, blanket forts, went outside for classes whenever the weather and sunlight allowed, and even had campfires outside during what otherwise would have been time spent sitting around a table trying to pay attention. Boys don't work well indoors trying to sit still and pay attention. They really do absorb more if they're outside and their hands are busy.
I even got to work with a special-needs girl that was horribly abused by her birth parents. (I'd happily beat her birth parents within an inch of their lives and worse if I ever met them.) In two years she went from screaming fits if an adult even accidently touched her arm to the point that she'd walk up and hug me. I was honored to be a small part of her recovery.
Its a shame that this is where our society is going and that being 'beyond reproach' means remaining one step ahead.
The next time you see a commercial that makes use of gender roles, swap the genders and see if the commercial would still be suitable. Most don't hold up to this scrutiny.
I used to find this mildly annoying. I thought that surely our society is sufficiently advanced that we might accept roughly equal occurrences of each gender as the goats in these commercials without it seeming disparaging to women.
But thinking this made me realize: having men as the goats is not disparaging to men, either. Now I choose to attribute the phenomenon to the conventional wisdom that men are generally less self-conscious than women. I believe there is some anecdotal evidence for this but have no idea whether it is actually true. What I do believe is that marketers perceive this to be the case and making commercials that make men look stupid will alienate fewer people in the audience, since humiliating somebody that a male viewer identifies with is, theoretically, less disquieting.
The same applies to sitcoms and movies.
The commercials say a lot more about women than they do about men.
Watching the commercials, it's hard to deny that a lot of women must like feeling superior to men, and that feeling will eventually cause them to buy a product.
Why this patronizing and sexist tactic works on anyone but a 13-year-old girl is a mystery to me, but it does. I guess it's the female equivalent of the dumb college buddy movie and beer commerical.
Ads targeted to men are just as, if not more, patronizing and sexist. One wouldn't think they would work on males older than 13 years old, but they apparently do.
Fuck off. Maybe it's just that advertising is mostly patronizing. Sad for their industry, really... Why not learn how to relate to people?
Selling to women? -Men are morons who can't understand this product like you can. -These women are better than you because they consume this product
Selling to men? -Women are items to be acquired through the use of this product. -These men are better than you because they use this product (or in the case of the Miller Light ad, "Here's what you look like when you don't drink Miller Light.")
Pardon my French, but what the fuck has the world come to? It really makes me sad how little solidarity there is in today's world where people become more insulated and afraid of each other for no rational reason. I love being very physical when I'm social, regardless of how well I know some people, and I am seriously worried about the day that the paedophilia thought police (PTPD) knocks on my door.
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It boggles my mind how so many things are going backwards as time moves forwards, even though you'd think the opposite would happen. In ten years' time, will Santa Claus be abhorred as a paedophile, or will Coca Cola have to cave to public pressure and feature Ms Claus instead, so children can still sit in the Christmas and share their adorable, naïve wishes?
If we ever get an equivalent to Mad Men that takes place in the 10s, I'm sure people will balk at things like these and wonder what the hell we were thinking. Or maybe things will have become much worse by then.
I spoke with the director and we both agreed that children spend too much time with women in school and day care. One of the reasons many young boys don't click with school is that they don't get male role models. Children who don't have a "man in the house" might get all the way to high school before they meet any male role models at all.