Whats expected of us

The documentary "Killing us Softly" takes us outside of the box when we look at ads around us- we simply see women advertising wine, foods, clothes. But if we look closely and examine these ads we could notice a stereotypical message that these ads are trying to portray into the American society. The ads show women with large breast, amazing barbie- like bodies, and having a vulnerable sexual appeal to them. The creator of this document, Jean Kilbourne, demonstrates pictures of magazine, news paper, and billboards ads that tell us everyday that women are here to do nothing but to be objects for men, not subjects. Most of the bodies, faces and skin of women that are shown in these ads are photoshopped by computers, which it would be impossible to get in real life. Kilbourne informs us that ads have become a main priority in America, yet they do much do then just sell. In the year 1979, advertisers would use about $20 billion on ads per year, today advertisers use over $180 billion in ads. An average American watches 3 years of commercials during their life time and believe it or not we see around 3,000 ads per day!
this is terrible considering the fact that what these ads are portraying is a negative image towards women and these ads even cause violence! Some ads show images that resemble violence and hostility as erotic and they imply that women want sex at all times- forced. Kilbourne show ads that quote "he said he liked you for your personality- he lied." and "if you you got it, flaunt it. And if you don't, create it." these messages give a green light to men so they could treat and see women as nothing important. Ads tease us that in order to be accepted we have to be "painfully and naturally thin" and that sex is used to sell everything and get anything. And because of this, America has the highest teen pregnancy in the world. though some messages out there express equality and beauty of any size, age or color there still isn't 100 percent equality with men in women in America because today the ads still show what they believe women should be- objects.

The "Call to Men" was a short video of a man telling the audience the difficulty of growing up and becoming a man the way everyone expects you to be a man. He tells us that he has two children, a girl and a boy that are 15 months apart. when the girl comes crying to him, he hugs her make her feel comfortable yet when the boy comes crying to him he says things like "hold your chin up!" and "stop crying." then he remembers when he was growing up, when his brother died and his father never cried until all the ladies stepped out of the limousine- he didn't want the women to see him in a moment of weakness. And his father would apologize for crying and was congratulating the son for being so strong and not crying in his brothers funeral.

He explains to us what a man box is, a man box is a imaginary box that holds what a man should be: aggressive/ dominant, heterosexual, don't be like "like a woman". And in some societies, if you walk out of this man box you are not a man. He remembers a time when he was 12 and he lived in the Bronx and he looked up to a 16 year old trouble maker, and one day the 16 year old takes him to a room where a girl was in and the 16 year old tells him to have sex with the girl. He is petrified because he didn't want to have sex, so he made believe he had sex with the girl, unbuttoned his jeans and walked out, and when his friends asked him how was it having sex with the girl, he said " it was good". He felt relieved he didn't get caught an everyone saw him as a man but he felt terrible and that poor girl was being used and looked at as an object. And as he grew up he came to the conclusion that society has to teach men that it's okay to cry, to hug and to feel weak at times, because if a man is out of his "man box" he will be free.

These two videos are related to socialization because socialization means to become aware of ourselves as part of a group and 'learn behaviors expected of us' what's expected of women is to be weak, innocent, and to depend on men. A mans expectation is to be dominant and strong, and get what he wants. In every religion this concept exist- Women are less dominant then men, a always in any group theirs a dominant leader.