warren@ihnss.UUCP (Warren Montgomery) (11/29/84)
The next time you are at the tube and those comercials start to come on, try this experiment. Count the number of commercials with male announcers and those with female announcers. In several breaks of counting, I heard only one narrated by a woman (and that was a plug for an upcoming program, not a product). This is certainly curious, as I can see no inherent reason why men or women should be more convincing selling things, and you don't even have to do any subtle analysis to see someone believes differently. The point here is not that women are being descriminated against in the job market for commercial announcers (though they may be). Picture yourself as the statistically average american sitting through 5 hours of drivel nightly listinging to those smooth, confident voices that always seem to know the best brand of cars, computers, or even frozen TV dinners. Now walk into a strange office looking for help or for someone to give an assignment to with unknown men and women in it and guess who you will head to. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH ((312)-979) x2494
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (11/29/84)
It isn't quite true that more men do commercials then do women it is just that women do commercials for such invaluable things as papertowels, fabric softener toilet tissue, clothing,cosmetics,jewelry and other such necessities (??) of life while men sell minor things like cars, computers and banking services and other non-essential things. It *IS* clear that men are being descriminated against by being placed in a position of never being allowed to do anything which has real meaning. I think it is time we gave more men a chance, say replacing Linda Carter in the swimming pool pushing lipstick or Nancy Walker selling paper towels. _Jeanette Zobjeck_
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (11/30/84)
> Picture yourself as the statistically average american sitting > through 5 hours of drivel nightly listinging to those smooth, > confident voices that always seem to know the best brand of cars, > computers, or even frozen TV dinners. Now walk into a strange > office looking for help or for someone to give an assignment to with > unknown men and women in it and guess who you will head to. I would head for a woman, since, from listening to all those commercials, I would know that a man would just bullshit me. Seriously, I think TV commercials carry far more explicit stereotyping in their visuals and their scripts. The preponderance of male announcing is probably the least of their problems. Peacshhhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... Jeff Winslow
demillo@uwmacc.UUCP (Rob DeMillo) (12/04/84)
> > I looked at the ads in five popular magazines. I chose > magazines that were not clearly geared toward one sex or the > other, but were instead aimed at the general public. These > were: Macleans (May 21, 1984); Psychology Today (August and > September, 1984); Newsweek (October 17, 1983); Life (December, > 1983); and Rolling Stone (November 24, 1983). > > > The data, from all five magazines, exhibit the following > features. 32% (125) of the 390 people portrayed in magazine ads > were women, 68% (265) were men (a ratio of approximately 1:2). > Women do not appear in ads as often as men by a wide margin. > However, this margin increases dramatically when one examines > occupations: 15% (23) of the 155 people portrayed in jobs were > women and 85% (132) were men (a ratio of approximately 1:6). > Clearly, there is very little portrayal of women in occupations. > > marc staveley (Editor's note: The above was written by Marc's wife) > UUCP: ...!{utzoo,decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!watmath!mstaveley > ARPA: mstaveley%watmath%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa > CSNET: mstaveley%watmath@waterloo.csnet Although I have no statistics to back this up, the ratio would change quite sharply, I'd believe you'd find, if you were to examine magazines aimed at women: Cosmo., Woman's Day, Playgirl, etc... From what I've seen of those mags, the ads in them are mostly women in either sexual-suggestive positions, face shots, home-maker shots, body-part shots (legs, arms, chest, etc) or some other "non-career orientated" position. The message? Oh, probably something like: "Women! You must either be mommies, sexual objects, or hygenically clean." Or, perhaps, we are simply getting some idea of what type of person ad people think read different magazines...or then again...etc. --- Rob DeMillo MACC ...seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!demillo "...I don't know what this is, but it's pointing in your direction..."
mayer@rochester.UUCP (Jim Mayer) (12/05/84)
The Apple Macintosh user manual is a very well done, illustrated, slick publication. It has 7 pictures of men using Macs, about ten examples showing apparently male hands, and no pictures featuring women. All of the men appear to be college students or young businessmen. To be honest I didn't notice the discrepency at all -- my girlfriend was leafing through the manual and said somthing along the lines of "hmmmm... I thought as much". I guess Apple knows where the money is. -- Jim Mayer (arpa) mayer@Rochester (uucp) rochester!mayer
chabot@amber.DEC (L 'Deathwish' Chabot) (12/10/84)
Jim Mayer == > > Summary: Counting pictures in the Apple Macintosh manual > > The Apple Macintosh user manual is a very well done, illustrated, slick > publication. It has 7 pictures of men using Macs, about ten examples showing > apparently male hands, and no pictures featuring women. All of the men appear > to be college students or young businessmen. To be honest I didn't notice the > discrepency at all -- my girlfriend was leafing through the manual and said > somthing along the lines of "hmmmm... I thought as much". I guess Apple knows > where the money is. No, Apple is just deciding what sex of humans it's selling to--I've been turned off by just that in Macintosh manuals and ads, and by the ads for other pcs. I refused touch a copy of Omni for years because of some sexist advertising they had in a Northwest Computer Show flyer (-: or maybe I picked up the wrong edition of the flyer--but I didn't see any pink ones for the girls :-). Sometimes this business of only putting males in pictures (including putting only or a preponderance of male children in ads for pcs aimed at the home and home learning) is especially griping if you can catch the slant that they didn't leave women out of the picture because that way the product is taken to be more serious, professional, or difficult to learn. It's really nauseating. In my case, the advertising is self-fulfilling--they don't have pictures of women customers so they don't get any women customers. L S Chabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA shadow: [ISSN 0018-9162 v17 #10 p7, bottom vt100, col3, next to next to last]
seifert@mako.UUCP (Dave Seifert) (12/10/84)
> > Occupations held by Males > > bellhop doctor Olympic official waiter > business executive doorman Olympic runner water inspector > > _____ > When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro. > Excuse me, but I always thought that the Olympics were supposed to be a contest for *amateurs*, not *professionals*. tsk! tsk! tsk! the Bavarian Beagle, Snoopy tektronix!tekecs!seifert
daf@ccice6.UUCP (Hungry Tadpole) (12/10/84)
> The next time you are at the tube and those comercials start to come > on, try this experiment. Count the number of commercials with male > announcers and those with female announcers. In several breaks of > counting, I heard only one narrated by a woman (and that was a plug > for an upcoming program, not a product). This is certainly curious, > as I can see no inherent reason why men or women should be more > convincing selling things, and you don't even have to do any subtle > analysis to see someone believes differently. > It is obvious. There are more male announcers than female announcers because males are considered more logical. Everyone realizes this, subconciously if not conciously. This is proven right here on the net by the existence of net.women when there is no need for net.men. I am glad I could straighten you out. -- Amphibian Defender
carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) (12/11/84)
I heard an ad for PC, jr. this morning, along the line of "Does your sister use the pc"..."No, she just messes up the keyboard" "How old is your sister" "Two" (All male voices...) Patty