Alice Blogs Gender & Sexuality

I know I’m linking to a LOT of Sydney Morning Herald articles - but basically, it’s because I’ve found they publish more articles on issues related to gender and sexuality than most of the other mainstream local newspapers I’ve been monitoring. The News Corp papers really don’t focus on such issues as regularly.

Anyway, a recent SMH article titled A change is brewing examined the way the “sweating, beer-swilling Aussie bloke is dying out as wines creep into the market and women work up a thirst for the amber fluid”.

The article demonstrates how gender relations, characteristics and stereotypes, have changed, and also how Aussie culture has changed, by showing the changes in our beer drinking habits (a big part of Aussie male culture).

It explains that in the past beer was always marketed to men, using very true-blue male imagery, characters, music and phrases - the major themes of the ads were usually mateship, sport, hard-yakka and larrikinism. Perfect examples are the old VB ads, which portrayed images of sweaty men licking their lips in anticipation of a cold VB, while “John Meillon solemnly intoned the ways in which you could work up a ‘hard-earned thirst’ for Victoria Bitter”.

Although they now use the occasional throwback to these old ads, eg. the new ad featuring iconic cricket legend David Boon, the ads created for beer companies are now very different (as are the beer-drinkers) - they portray more metro-sexual type men as well as women drinking beer anywhere but in the pub. They have to develop new ways to market beer as they face stiff competition from wines and ready-mixed drinks. Plus, as the article states, “today’s Australian male is more likely to be pushing a pen than wielding a pickaxe”.

Apparently, women now account for a quarter of beer drinkers, so to reflect this, women are also playing a more active role in the ads, eg. the Tooheys New advertisement that features a woman opening the bottletop with her belly button.

On the same day, the Herald published another article about the beer market, titled Tapping a circle of care - for any occasion. It’s written by Julian Lee, the same person who wrote the first one, and although it provides different info, it’s about the same issue. The first lines read, “PITY today’s beer marketer. He must weep when he looks back at the days when an Aussie working man would spend as much on beer in a week as he did on his mortgage. Back then your choice of beer said as much about you as a man as the car you drove or the team you supported. Occasionally you might have a light beer — if no one was watching. There was little else on offer. Today, the average Aussie has at least six drinks in his “repertoire” and scores of brands of spirits, wines and beers.”

It analyses the “average” young Aussie male’s drinking habits, but unlike the other article, doesn’t mention women.

By publishing these types of articles that analyse changes in gender characteristic, stereotypes, relations, as well as changes to Aussie culture, the Herald is acting as a social commentator - drawing public attention to the way our society has changed over time.

Many gender-related news reports in Australian newspapers seem to derive from studies undertaken to compare and contrast gender characteristics. Most of these types of articles seem to perpetuate the attitude that men and women have different gender-related personality traits and behaviours, highlighting various natural divisions between the sexes.

One such gender-based article, recently published in SMH, was titled Evidence of online sexual divide. It begins with an old cliche - “that men are loath to ask for directions” and states that this cliche “is borne out by facts - on the internet, at least.”

It states that a recent US study found that American men and women use the interent very differently, and for different purposes - while “men probe deeper into the web’s hidden depths and use it for entertainment, women are much more likely to go online for practical purposes and to talk to friends.”

Apparently, men are more likely than women to check weather forecasts, read news, find diy info, track sports scores, look for financial information, research jobs, listen to music, and download software.

Women use the internet more to communicate with others, to seek health and medical support, and to look for religious consolation.

It presents findings that support preconceived stereotypes about gender differences - that more women use the internet to look at maps or to seek directions, and that more men visit adult websites. Hardly surprising…

The exact same article was also published on the News.com.au site, although titled slightly differently - Study probes online gender divide.

And surprisingly, the same article (excluding a bit of additional info at the end), was published in the same paper the very next day, but titled differently - Net difference between the sexes goes all the way down the line. However, this time it was printed in the Technology section of the paper.

Since these articles are the same, it can be assumed the information has not only been sourced from press releases - it’s basically a direct copy of a press release. The byline on all three articles does read ‘Agence France-Presse’. I often read similar articles to this one - facts regarding gender characteristics, derived from studies, and the reports are always similar in terms of the facts and details they present, as well as the style they’re reported in - that is if they’re not exactly the same, as in this one. I’m surprised that they don’t take any time to go out and do some additional journalistic research, even if only to make the information more relevant to an Australian audience…obviously these Ozzie papers wouldn’t be reporting such info if they didn’t think American trends reflect Australian trends. You’d think that if they think the issue’s important enough to print the article, it’d be worth their while to do some extra research and create a more comprehensive report, rather than relying on the press release.

And I guess these types of observations imply that these studies supply evidence for broader gender differences, eg. females’ usage of the internet reflects broader behavioural patterns of females. They perpetuate an oversimplified gender divide, as journalists play a role in “affirming and maintaining the social order” (Barkin, 1984).

An article titled Why do parents spend more on boys than girls? was recently published in The Guardian. A UK survey found that “parents spend an average of £223 on Christmas presents for sons, whereas the equivalent figure for daughters is £127.”

The article commented that although the figures may seem to be a sign of parental sexism, the figures relate more to the fact that boys and girls have very different gift preferences. Predictably, the top boys’ toys this season are technological, while girls ask for toys that combine cutesiness with budgetary modesty. Moreover, girls tend to keep their toys for longer and are not as demanding for the latest craze. Boys tend to ask for the newest toys as soon as they’re released.

Although the study was conducted in the UK, I’d say the figures would reflect Australian trends.

A SMH article titled What Women Want features a new mobile phone being marketed to women this Christmas. The pink Samsung E530 mobile includes a shopping list, a fat calculator, biorhythms and an ovulation calendar.

Marketing manager Jenny Goodridge believes that most mobiles on the market are skewed towards men, while this phone is one of the only ones designed specifically for women.

“According to AMR Interactive analyst Jason Juma-Ross, women are big buyers of technology. If there’s any surprise there, it’s that manufacturers are not pushing more girly gadgets into the shops. Marketers are becoming more aware of the buying power of women in the technology market place and responding with more targeted products,” Mr Juma-Ross says.”

So, maybe males tend to desire technological products more than women do because they are generally marketed to men…..