-An ad that our grandparents might have seen from 1942 (What boys can do v. girls to help win the war)

-A current ad campaign for the army

Religion and Gender Roles....some humor.

A man and his wife  were having an argument about who should brew the coffee.
 
The husband said, " You are in charge of the cooking around here so you should do it."
 
The wife replied, "No you should do it, and besides it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
 
The husband replied, "Yeah, right!" So she showed him in the Bible where it says:  "HEBREWS"



TEN REASONS GOD CREATED EVE
10. God worried that Adam would always be lost in the garden because he knew men would never ask directions.
9. God knew that Adam would one day need someone to hand him the TV remote because men don't want to see what's on television, they want to see WHAT ELSE is on television.
8. God knew that Adam would never buy a new fig leaf when the seat wore out and therefore would need Eve to get one for him.
7. God knew that Adam would never make a doctors appointment for himself.
6. God knew that Adam would never remember which night was garbage night.
5. God knew that if the world was to be populated there would have to be someone to bear them, because men would never be able to handle it.
4. As "Keeper of the Garden" Adam would never remember where he put his tools.
3. The scripture account of creation indicates that Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.
2. As the Bible says, "It is not good for man to be alone." He only ends up getting himself in trouble.
1. When God finished the creation of Adam, he stepped back, scratched his head and said, "I can do better than that."

"Confections" by Amy Stevens

The work of Amy Stevens is a reflection of the significant role cake has played in the lives of women.   She hand makes cakes, knowing that she cannot perfectly imitate Martha Stewart or fulfill the expectations set for her by society.

-Audi A.

See more of her work here.

Amy Stevens Confections Statement

"The Confections series began as a response to turning 30. It was a celebration of birthdays, color, pattern and obsessive absurdity. My original idea was to bake 30 birthday cakes for myself and photograph them. I didn’t quite make it to 30 cakes in time for my first show, but I sure got a lot of ideas from those first cakes.  I ordered a kit from Martha Stewart.com and watched an instructional video on decorating cakes. When I quickly discovered my cakes were never going to look like the ones in the video and the pamphlet, I decided they were better off in their exuberantly imperfect states.

Cakes are the centerpieces of celebrations and symbolic trophies evoking nostalgia and awe.  Historically, cake has played a significant role in women’s lives.  Women have used cake as both an outlet of creativity and a symbol of female power politics.  The woman who made the best cake held a certain power over the other women in the community, according to Sherrie Inness in Cooking Lessons: The Politics of Gender and Food.

In the ever-evolving constructions of these images over the past six years, I am commenting on cake as a rich cultural symbol as well as the domestic fantasy world of contemporary home decorating magazines and television shows. It’s a fantasy world where entertaining, cooking and decorating unite. It’s a place where one needs to have a beautiful home, decorated seasonally, in order to entertain friends with gourmet meals and elaborately concocted desserts.

My email subscription to Martha Stewart Craft of the Day has inspired much of the background props in the newer Confections (adorned) series.  Most everything in these backgrounds are also handmade, with the exception of found antiques and fabric." - Amy Stevens

(Source: http://www.amystevensart.com/) 

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

-Timothy Leary

While his experiments with mind-bending drugs might be a bit suspect, O'Leary certainly offers us some food for thought with this quote.

- Tara W.

Gender Roles

Gender Roles

Gender roles are the roles that society assigns to men and women based on their gender. They especially influence relationships between men and women.
Gender roles have been changing in Western society in recent decades, and generally have become more flexible. However, traditional gender roles still have some influence.
For example, it used to be expected that men would experiment sexually before marriage, but that women would not. Women who went against this expectation were considered "loose" or "fallen" women, while men who went against the expectation were considered less than manly.
Years ago another expectation was that women were supposed to get married and stay home to raise a family. The man was expected to go out to work to support his family.

If the woman chose to have a career, she was considered "barren" or "lacking in maternal instinct", and her partner was often considered inadequate, as it was assumed he was not a "good provider".
                                                                                      -Philita J.

"A mark of culture."

From the Milligan College Handbook for Girls, 1937-1938.

-Tara W.

"Congratulations, Television! You Are Even Worse At Masculinity Than Femininity"

photo: Art Streiber/CBS 

David Hornsby & Kevin Dillon in How To Be A Gentleman

In this article Linda Holmes of NPR discusses one example in which gender roles are not only affecting women-- men are also suffering.  She describes why she feels "more comfortable with what scripted television thinks being a woman means than...with what scripted television thinks being a man means."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/09/29/140915714/congratulations-television-you-are-even-worse-at-masculinity-than-femininity?sc=fb&cc=fp

-Audi A.