December
9th 2012
Dear
Parents and Future Parents,
The
media has an extraordinary and often understated influence in the life and
ideals of a modern citizen. In recent decades, the primary source of proper
social norms and conduct outside someone’s family has been from the various
forms of mass media. Because of this, the characters portrayed and discussed in
television shows, commercials, and written media have played a large factor in
acting as a reference point for gender roles in our society. The media’s traditional
version of men and women has been clearly defined, with male characters portrayed
as the providers of financial stability, and females as the master of a stable
home life that caters to the needs of their husbands and children. Times have changed, however, and gender roles
have begun to blur and homogenize in a way that mass media has yet to mirror. More and more men are choosing the life of
homemakers, and women are becoming full time career-holders. With the many decades
of the worn out message “women belong in the kitchen, men belong in the office”
engrained into the minds of the American public, these stereotypes are hard to
break but not impossible overcome, with the influence of equally evolving mass media.
The American way of life is changing, and both the media and American public
need to change with it, so that anyone who wants to take on the role of
homemaker can do so and be proud of that role, regardless of his or her gender.
All too often,
television commercials depict a woman in cleaning the house, making the meals,
rearing the children, and fulfilling other stereotypical responsibilities of an
older female, but how often do you see a man take on that position with ease in
the media? The answer is rarely, if ever. In the past, the American media has
portrayed men in homemaking positions as buffoons unable to manage the simplest
homemaking tasks such as making a lunch or using a vacuum. For example, in the
1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire, 20th
Century Fox displays Robin Williams in female clothes performing the work of a
traditionally female housemaid. In his first attempt in the kitchen, he lights
himself ablaze while trying to cook a dinner for his children. Even though the
premise is slightly absurd, this film instills an underlying assumption that
men, even when they’re dressed as women, should not be in the kitchen because
they are incompetent at such tasks and likely risk burning the kitchen down.
There have been many major film productions that have taken part in poking fun
at the male homemaker, such as the 1987 film Three Men and a Baby, where, as the title suggests, three men take
on the supposedly inconceivable and overwhelming task of attempting to raise a
baby without the help of a woman. These
tasks are similarly difficult even with men in nuclear families, like Michael
Keaton’s character in the 1983 film Mr.
Mom. In the film, Keaton cannot manage traditionally female
responsibilities without the help of his female companion. Male figures in the
media are made out to be inherently incompetent and comical instead of capable homemakers
and fathers.
These film examples
are decades old, and America has begun to see a shift in the male homemaking positions
portrayed in the general media, and especially in children’s shows such as Johnny Test on Cartoon Network, which
portrays a father figure as a competent homemaker, alongside a full time
working mother figure. The comedic
stories in Johnny Test do not mock
the father figure staying home or acting incompetently, and instead focus on
the everyday foibles of family life. However, on the same channel, viewers can
watch the antics of father figure in a show called The Amazing World of Gumball. While the father in this show is
accompanied by a full time working mother figure, he repeatedly acts
incompetently and at times quite unintelligently performing his duties at home.
Although young American viewers growing up now are beginning to see more instances
of the male figure portrayed as caretaker in the home, these characters are
still often portrayed, at best, as barely competent. While Johnny Test is a good example of portraying a male homemaking
figure without using that concept as a source of comedy, in order for these
types of TV shows to make a true difference to the growing generations of young
Americans, these competent male figures must be norm and not the exception,
with networks such Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon ensuring that both genders
are portrayed as reasonable caretakers in the home.
During the last
decade, the number of stay-at-home dads in the United States has doubled. In the year 2000, the amount of male
homemakers was estimated to be around 94,000. According to the Census Bureau’s
website, since 2010, the number of stay-at-home dads has gone from 154,000 dads
in 2010 to 176,000 in 2011. That
increase of 22,000 in just one year alone is impressive, and should be
acknowledged more in the media as a sign that gender roles are rapidly shifting.
Many of the major media sites attribute this rise in “Mr. Moms” to the economic
downturn of 2008, believing that the lack of jobs in the male dominated fields
has lead for more women to take action and go out into the working world, with fathers
left to stay at home. This has been
discounted by research done by Boston College’s Brad Harington, who told the
Fox News channel in an interview in June 2012, “The hype around stay-at-home dads is due to the ‘man-cession’
but the census data shows that during the economic downturn the numbers were
down.” Though Harington discredits the statistical probability that this
change was due to the recession, many continue to believe that men are staying
home more only because they have lost their place in the workforce. The dissonance
between the number of actual fathers that stay at home and the proportion
portrayed as staying at home in the media is staggering. Not only does the
media typically portray traditional and outdated imagery that inherently discourages
the modern evolution of gender roles, but there is a danger that if child sees
a family in a show or cartoon that doesn’t represent their family configuration,
he or she might feel ostracized. Ultimately the media should work to remedy
this inconsistency by offering a more common sight of male homemakers in
various mediums.
The man’s place in the office is a common sight
in media, as well his place in construction work, as a doctor, as an engineer,
and in many other jobs we as Americans often associate with men. This imagery
of traditionally male-dominated careers, like the imagery of the
women-dominated home, is outdated and deceiving. With the rise in men in the
home has come the rise of women in the workplace. While the number of stay-at-home
moms is still in the millions (5.02 million to be precise), this number is
shifting, slowly but surely. With the societal acceptance of women working in
high ranking and male-dominated positions, this is a chance for moms, and women
in general, to help pave the way of acceptance of changing gender roles,
alongside efforts of a changing media. Women have a long history of fighting
for equality amongst the elite in our patriarchal society, and with this fight
the “extreme feminists” have caused a riff in the system, calling for equality
by pointing blame, and placing stereotypes of their own. To create equality, society
must ensure that all involved are treated equally, and understand that people do
not gain rights and equality by stripping someone else of theirs. The degree to
which women’s rights groups have gone to offset the image of women depicted in
the media is impressive, but in that same effort, what has been done to protect
the image of fathers? To gain the gender equality in the media, it must be
sought for both sides, and for the same reasons that are used to replace
previously-instilled concept – the stay-at-home father must be defended just as
much as the working mother.
In addition to movies and TV shows, the American
public is constantly bombarded with mom-focused product slogans. A common
commercial the American public has been exposed to since 1978 is General Mills’
commercial for their cereal Kix,
which coins that they are “kid tested and mother approved”. This slogan, among many,
is directed to the approval of mothers for consumption, but completely ignores
the opinion the father. Another well-known and recent catchphrase is the famous
P&G tag that ran during the Olympics, stating that P&G is the “proud
sponsor of moms”. This implies that Olympic athletes are accomplished due to
the encouragement and hard work of their mothers, saying nothing of the
father’s role. It is clear that many companies cater their messages to mothers to
sell their products, but very few include the father figure, which may be a
lost source of revenue from the growing population of stay-at-home fathers who
are the primary caretakers and decision-makers for their children. Fortunately,
not all companies have ignored the changing roles of fathers. Jif, a company that produces peanut butter,
has used the famous tagline “choosy moms choose Jif”, since the 1990’s, but
recently has started using the newer line “choosy moms and dads choose Jif”. This
is an example of the forward moving thought process that many companies should
make, but much like cartoons and movies, the American public doesn’t see this
as much in media as it should.
Single mothers have already begun to change the
perception of family in the United States, and it is becoming more common and
accepted for fathers to raise children on their own. Society no longer treats
these single parent families as taboo or a derided concept. Having grown up in
a single mother household full of women, my image of the ideal father did not
come from my own family. I didn’t have a male figure in my life to base my
understanding on, so I went to the next available source: the media. Fathers in
the media I watched and read were usually these passing figures in cartoons - behind
newspapers, in front of televisions and grills, usually in business attire with
out a homemaking care in the world. In
fact, most of the father or male figures I remember from my childhood were
animals in Disney films, which are characters that don’t give much of a real
impression of the world at all. Although Timon and Pumba were great caretakers,
they weren’t an accurate depiction of what a man’s role should be, or what it
could be. Children often learn by listening and watching examples of what they
should do in TV shows or movies, and although I knew and saw my father, I had
the sneaking suspicion he didn’t quite live up to my impression of the father
figures of the Serengeti. It may seem like a funny situation, but many
children’s families aren’t represented in the media, and they may feel left
out, or fell as if their families are atypical. This is where the media can
make huge stride, by including the male figure in many different roles
including homemaking and as single fathers.
Compassionate
male figures taking homemaking and caretaking positions are an important image for
children and Americans to be exposed to on a regular basis. If the media takes
the important steps to show a wider range of possibilities for men in the home,
then current and future generations of children and adults alike will be
exposed and ultimately accustomed to the shifting gender roles in the country. In
the media, women have forever held the reigns when it comes to keeping a house,
and it’s time to let go and allow the new cowboys of the kitchen to take hold, because
when America abolishes one stereotype it can abolish them all, one step at a
time. This change in the media will drive the continued equalization of genders
throughout the rest of society, and ultimately speed up the pace of this
societal change by broadcasting to the entire country our new ideals, leaving
behind outdated traditions and ignorant biases.
Sincerely,
A lover of media and equal rights
Krista
S.
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