Following Through or Recursion?
Although the upsurge of visually androgynous models in western advertisements suggests a healthy transition in the appreciation of gender and sexuality, I believe that it is instead representative of how these cultures has not yet implemented basic gender equity. Fundamental to gender equity is the distinction between sex and gender, wherein sex describes the physical characteristics assigned at birth to individuals (Male, Female, Intersex) and gender describes the cultural definitions given to these physical characteristics (Masculine, Feminine, Trans). As such, gender is a social construct that prescribes the basic roles individuals assume in the structure of society.
Professor Sut Jhally in, “The Codes of Gender”, refers to Erving Goffman’s “Presentation of Self in Everyday life” as he elaborates …show more content…
Regardless of the century, he observes that “male models [are] erotic by virtue of their youthfulness, physical beauty, and scantily clad bodies” (Soldow 320). This is apparent in examples he provides from ancient Greece, Nazi Germany, and present Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs. Soldow argues that because perfection should appeal to all audiences, there is a lesser emphasis on searching for homosexuality or recognizing erotic from homoerotic imagery. Furthermore, because advertisements are not strictly pornographic but present an abstraction on the human form, a portion of the advertisements message is left to the recipient’s imagination where androgyny and eroticism can coexist and fulfill the receiver’s specific desires. This applies both to advertisements featuring a single androgynous model or those featuring two or more wherein the receiver may choose to fabricate a heterosexual or homosexual relationship for two nondescript, but posed models rather than attempt to identify their actual genders, sex, and
Although the upsurge of visually androgynous models in western advertisements suggests a healthy transition in the appreciation of gender and sexuality, I believe that it is instead representative of how these cultures has not yet implemented basic gender equity. Fundamental to gender equity is the distinction between sex and gender, wherein sex describes the physical characteristics assigned at birth to individuals (Male, Female, Intersex) and gender describes the cultural definitions given to these physical characteristics (Masculine, Feminine, Trans). As such, gender is a social construct that prescribes the basic roles individuals assume in the structure of society.
Professor Sut Jhally in, “The Codes of Gender”, refers to Erving Goffman’s “Presentation of Self in Everyday life” as he elaborates …show more content…
Regardless of the century, he observes that “male models [are] erotic by virtue of their youthfulness, physical beauty, and scantily clad bodies” (Soldow 320). This is apparent in examples he provides from ancient Greece, Nazi Germany, and present Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs. Soldow argues that because perfection should appeal to all audiences, there is a lesser emphasis on searching for homosexuality or recognizing erotic from homoerotic imagery. Furthermore, because advertisements are not strictly pornographic but present an abstraction on the human form, a portion of the advertisements message is left to the recipient’s imagination where androgyny and eroticism can coexist and fulfill the receiver’s specific desires. This applies both to advertisements featuring a single androgynous model or those featuring two or more wherein the receiver may choose to fabricate a heterosexual or homosexual relationship for two nondescript, but posed models rather than attempt to identify their actual genders, sex, and