While surfing the internet a few days ago,
my girlfriend and I came across an advert for a jewelery store that depicted a girl sitting with her legs crossed and a man proposing in front of her. The next image is of the same scene, but the man has opened the box and is displaying the diamond to the lady - her legs were now open as well. Implying, in short, that a diamond from that store would get a guy laid.
My girlfriends reaction was "Oh my word, that
is so degrading to women" because it implies that women are willing to trade
sex for valuables - in essence, a prostitute accepting a different form of
payment.
I thought about it for a few seconds and my
response was that it is degrading towards men as well, because it implies that
sex is the ultimate end goal - in essence, that a diamond - or whatever activity
that men do while dating - is for the purpose of getting laid.
After a further few seconds of thought, I
had to wonder if the advert is really that wrong?
There are a lot of women out there that do
get into relationships with their primary motivation being money, women that
will open their legs at the offer of being spoilt financially or with gifts -
sometimes this will be on purpose where financial gains and gifts are the aim,
other times it would be because their parent's bought their love with gifts and
they now equate gifts with love. In other words - they know no better. For a
woman like this, the size of a diamond would logically represent the amount of
money that the man can afford to pay, so the advert does make sense here.
The other implication of this advert is
that women are viewed as pieces of 'meat'. The primary influencer of people's
perceptions is how something is 'advertised'. Go to any club or bar in a major
city area and have a look at how people advertise themselves - these places are
not known as "meat markets" for nothing. If a woman dresses in a way
that puts her "meat" on display, she will attract the men that want
meat as the primary characteristic of their relationship. Sex does sell in the
advertising world, and it is not because people see a sexy advert and think
"Gee, she looks like she has a really nice personality and could make a
delicious roast lamb." - While the second part of that statement can be
taken another way, you get the point.
On another note, if a woman consistently
dresses in this way, then she wants and likes the attention that she gets from
dressing in that manner. She is putting creative garnishes around the 'fillet
mignon' that she is advertising, hoping to be ordered - either just to get
attention and acceptance, or she likes being desired because of her meat (for
some, this is easier than being desired because of personality, brain power, or
value that you have added to the world). The thing to remember here is that the men that are
after meat, are after meat in general, they do not want to eat chicken for the
rest of their lives - their eyes (and other parts of their anatomy) will
satisfy his appetite for other sources of protein.
As for the implication that men are only
after the meat, well... no one can really argue with this point because most
men are shallow and stupid creatures with the maturity level of a thirteen year
old that has just entered puberty.
Men can essentially be classified into
three types. First the type of man that views a woman as a piece of meat. You
will meet these men in bars and clubs generally, and when they are not there (or
at work) you will probably find them in a strip club oogling over some woman
that does not mind being a butcher shop window – with all her meat on display,
or on the internet browsing for other pieces of meat bending themselves into
all kinds of positions.
The second type of man is the chauvinist,
this type of man can have the same view as the carnivore mentioned previously,
but also believes that men are, in a way, superior, that women should be
submissive and that they have - and should know - their place.
The third kind is the decent guy that you
can take home to your mother. The type of man that believes in monogamy, that
opens the door for a lady, that pulls out her chair at the dinner table and
will punch a guy’s lights out if a woman is disrespected in his environment (I'm talking genuinely here - not someone who is doing this just to get laid, they fall into the first category).
The unfortunate truth about this is that the carnivores account for majority
of the male population, the chauvinists account for a smaller portion and the decent males - only a minute portion.
In respect to the general population, the
implications of the advert are not wrong and it actually does not degrade
men or women, but instead grades many of them quite accurately - it is
only the minority of men and women that are not accounted for in the advert.
This
does of course bring up a chicken-and-egg type argument, whether people are this
way because of the media, or whether the media portrays men and women in this
way because of their behaviour – while this argument does make for a fun and
interesting discussion, it is irrelevant here - because people have full
responsibility over how they present themselves and how they behave, so they do
have the ability to choose whether they would like to be seen as elegant or as
a shallow piece of meat, or in the case of a man – to be a respectable man or a immature delinquent.
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