Selling a Sense of Power
Imagine that you have everything you could ever want. You landed your dream job and have plenty of extra cash, an astounding education, a nice house, and everything else to complete a comfortable life. All that you strive to possess is handed to you for just acting how society says you should act. But what if you were always told you would have it all, and it was taken away? You now struggle to make ends meet; you try to get an education, but never make the cut, and you feel lost. Would you not want to feel powerful again? Welcome to the world of the modern male. Men are no longer the dominant gender, and advertisers are responding to their newfound insecurity by making their products give them an illusion of power.
Even though gender roles have long been a part of our society, change is happening and advertisers are seizing the opportunity to profit from …show more content…
For example, Peg Tyre states that until the 1950s, more men than women graduated from high school, and many more men than women went on to college (36). But Tyre also declares that in 2005, 57.2 percent of the undergraduates enrolled in American colleges and universities were women (32). This shows that there is a strong trend in women being more educated than men. With education comes economic power and the ability to fill high corporate and government offices, which give social power. Debra Goldman also delivers the same message, that the collapse of male authority in popular culture is not just a matter of image, but a reflection of a real shift in the balance of power between the sexes. If the balance of power has shifted in women’s favor, then men have lost power. This loss of power has left the modern man feeling insecure because he has always been told that he should lead and be the breadwinner. Since men now wish for their status back, they look for that feeling of being in charge wherever they can find
Imagine that you have everything you could ever want. You landed your dream job and have plenty of extra cash, an astounding education, a nice house, and everything else to complete a comfortable life. All that you strive to possess is handed to you for just acting how society says you should act. But what if you were always told you would have it all, and it was taken away? You now struggle to make ends meet; you try to get an education, but never make the cut, and you feel lost. Would you not want to feel powerful again? Welcome to the world of the modern male. Men are no longer the dominant gender, and advertisers are responding to their newfound insecurity by making their products give them an illusion of power.
Even though gender roles have long been a part of our society, change is happening and advertisers are seizing the opportunity to profit from …show more content…
For example, Peg Tyre states that until the 1950s, more men than women graduated from high school, and many more men than women went on to college (36). But Tyre also declares that in 2005, 57.2 percent of the undergraduates enrolled in American colleges and universities were women (32). This shows that there is a strong trend in women being more educated than men. With education comes economic power and the ability to fill high corporate and government offices, which give social power. Debra Goldman also delivers the same message, that the collapse of male authority in popular culture is not just a matter of image, but a reflection of a real shift in the balance of power between the sexes. If the balance of power has shifted in women’s favor, then men have lost power. This loss of power has left the modern man feeling insecure because he has always been told that he should lead and be the breadwinner. Since men now wish for their status back, they look for that feeling of being in charge wherever they can find