Sexism, and why it isn't everywhere.

Sexism and why it isn’t everywhere.

Recently online, I stumbled across a situation that was not too uncommon. I seem to never be more than a few clicks away from left-wing comedians making jokes about Trump, pornography, or strangers vexing their opinions on social inequalities. Today, it was the latter of the three that had my attention. A regular, bland online advertisement portrayed the following, seemingly harmless scenario. A man and a woman, seemingly a couple, were found reclined in bed together. Our man in question, sat with his slicked back, jet black hair and paisley-print pyjamas, held in front of him a copy of a financial broadsheet. To his left, his equally attractive partner sat with a delightful array of breakfast options, somehow managing to fit both English and continental options onto one tray, placed elegantly beside her. A somewhat harmless image so far, with the only striking thought so far being what the man could find so funny in a financial paper.

Yet I had not come across this in its usual medium. This was to be the first of many occasions in which I would find an advertisement facing major backlash from the general public. But what was it about this setup that had caused such anger? Indeed, the chap’s neat hairdo seemed unrealistic after having seemingly only just woken up. And our lady’s maquillage too gave off an air of unrealism. But alas, neither were the cause of the anger. Our pair had come up against the war on gender stereotypes. I was perplexed at the range and depth of anger, annoyance and utter hatred that had been displayed towards a seemingly harmless image. Cries of ‘sexism’ could be heard from all around as the advert in question, belonging to an Australian hotel, was forcibly removed. And this bugged me. A lot.

I failed to see how the ad could be deemed sexist; there was no prejudice or discrimination here. Apparently, this scenario had portrayed the man in question to be interested in finances, and his partner in food, and somehow this was deemed outrageous by supposed feminists. The advert had never said that women, too, cannot be part of the financial world, and neither did it assume that the man here should work and a woman in his life must cook for him. Yet somehow this was the message taken away by a large number of people who viewed it. It is as if the general public are actively searching for these little scenarios, that, although not sexist or racist or body shaming in any way, could be twisted and distorted so that they appear to be all three.

Another fitting example that was reported on recently was a high street shop advertising some clothing for children. One image saw a small, maybe 6-year-old boy, in a t shirt with a monkey on the front. The boy’s skin in question happened to be brown, which caused a disproportionate amount of backlash from those who saw it. Now I am fully willing to bet that the clothing designers in question, as well as the merchants selling them, are not racist, and never aimed to produce a racist product advertisement. And yet this was the label slapped onto them, as they were promptly forced to remove it from their website. This sort of behaviour just screams contradiction to me. Somewhere and somehow, someone has seen a boy with brown skin, juxtaposed with an image of a monkey, and put the two together to brand a company ‘racist’. The company here isn’t the one acting in a racist manner; the commenter that believes a monkey on a t-shirt gives of racist undertones is the one reading too much into the setup, and forging their own racist views. If you just sit for a moment, and actually begin to pick apart the thought process that would go into such a remark, it only becomes more evident how backwards the claim is. “Well, there’s a boy, with brown skin, and sometimes ‘monkey’ can be used a racial slur; so, the two together mean that of course the company is calling the boy a monkey”- it’s just ridiculous.

I have never been one to use the term ‘snowflake’, and I hate when bigots such as Piers Morgan can get away with horrid, out of date views, and the public get behind him to express their equally ugly views, all because he ‘says it how it is’. However, it seems to me that every day, we slip closer to a society that sees discrimination everywhere. The public almost expects to be offended, it wants to be, or even worse, offended on somebody else’s behalf; it pains me to even begin to think that my views may be aligning with Piers’. There are many men who work in finances, and many women that enjoy cooking. Seeing that in the media does not mean that the roles cannot be reversed. One image of a couple in such a way does not mean that this is what is expected of everyone. This is one scenario, that is very plausible, and occurs many times across many parts of the world. The fact the couple is a man and a woman, does not mean to say that homosexual couples are not normal. The fact that the two people are white does not mean to say that the hotel doesn’t cater for other races. Stop looking to play the PC card when it isn’t appropriate. It is those that look for such misogyny and hatred in the world, that actually spread it more than anyone else.