Engendered Culture
I read… a lot. And, David Giffels new book, All The Way Home, is the latest non-business non-fiction title to join my nightstand stack. His tale resonates both for its old-house renovation descriptions AND for its wonderful interweaving of life/relationship lessons.
The house trials and tribulations in and of themselves will feed the needs of the vicarious house restorer in all of us. But, he insights on gender relations and culture scattered about were a pleasant bonus. Here are two separate passages that struck a chord:
1. (This one is paraphrased, because I forgot to note the exact page number when I came upon it.) “We [men] engage in shared solitude. Even in our most communal rituals, we are alone.”
2. (From page 168) “Popular culture has falsely simplified this dynamic [between men and women] down to a sitcom Man-vs-Woman thing. Ha ha ha we’re so different we don’t even speak the same language laugh track ha ha ha. In truth, the idea of diametrically valid points of view seems less a result of gender differences and more a result of the intensity of the relationship. There are few more deeply intimate relationships in human life than marriage. A marriage is, after all, not two separate people coexisting (those are “roommates”), but rather one unit comprised of two formerly separate units, just as water is something completely different from hydrogen or oxygen.”
On the first quote, the where and why men need gendered space question is one that certainly has implications for men as consumers (and is one that I’ve been interested in for some time).
The second quote brings up a worthy topic – the common pop culture depiction of “ha ha – isn’t it funny how men and women just will never get along or be able to communicate.” Laughing at that with close friends in mixed company is one thing – as there may be “moments” we each do very gender stereotypical things we wish we didn’t do. However, leveraging that tone for marketing – without a lot of consumer research beforehand – is another thing altogether (and, quite unwise).
A blog post I read today actually delves into the topic a bit more deeply, and closes with this sentence:
“Anyone else like to think we have moved beyond these stereotypes as a society, but still fall for them on a personal level?”
