40. "Gender Advertisements" by Erving Goffman (excerpts)

Excerpts from "Gender Advertisements",
by Erving Goffman,
Harper Colophon Books,
Harper and Row, Publishers,
1976
 
The following
passages
are found
under the heading:
"The Ritualization
of Subordination".
 
The special
un-seriousness
involved
in
childlike guises
and
clowning
suggests
a readiness
to be
present
in
a
social situation
garbed and styled
in
a manner
to which
one
isn't
deeply
or
irrevocably
committed.
 
Perhaps
reflected here
is
a readiness
to
try out
various guises
and
to
appear
at various times
in
different ones.
 
In any case,
in advertisements,
at least,
there seems to be
an
unanticipated
difference
between
men and women.
 
Men
are displayed
in
formal,
business,
and
informal gear,
and
although
it seems
understood
that
the
same individual
will
at
different times
appear
in
all these guises,
each guise
seems
to
afford him
something
he is
totally serious
about,
and
deeply
identified with,
as though
wearing
a skin,
not
a costume.
 
Even
in the case
of
the
cowboy garb
that
urban males
affect
recreationally,
little sense
that
one's
whole appearance
is
a lark
would seem
to
be present.
 
Women
in ads
seem
to have
a
different
relationship
to
their clothing
and
to
the gestures
worn
with it.
 
Within each
broad category
(formal,
business,
informal)
there
are choices
which are
considerably
different
one
from another,
and
the sense is
that
one may as well
try out
various possibilities
to
see what
comes of it --
as though
life
were
a series
of
costume balls.
 
Thus,
one can
occasionally
mock
one's own
appearance,
for
identification
is
not deep.
 
It might be
argued,
then,
that
the
costume-like
character
of
female garb
in advertisements
locates women
as
less
seriously present
in
social situations
than men,
the self
presented
through
get-ups
being
itself
in a way
an
un-serious thing.
 
Observe
that
the extension
of
this argument
to
real life
need not
involve
a paradox.
 
It is
a
common view
that
women
spend
much more
of
their time
and concern
in
shopping
for
clothes
and
preparing
for
appearances
than do
men,
and
that women
set
considerable store
on
the
appreciative
or
depreciative
response
they
produce
thereby.
 
But,
of course,
so does
an actor
in
a part
he
will
never
play again.
 
A concern
over
carrying
an
appearance off
does not
necessarily imply
a
deep and abiding
identification
with
that
appearance.
 
(This
argument
fits
with
the fact
that
women's styles
change
much more
rapidly
than
do
men's.)
 
+++
 
Adults
play
mock
assault games
with
children,
games
such as
chase-and-capture
and
grab-and-squeeze.
 
The child
is
playfully treated
like a prey
under attack
by
a predator.
 
Certain materials
(pillows,
sprays of water,
light beach balls)
provide missiles
that can strike
but
not hurt.
 
Other materials
provide
a medium
into which
the captured body
can be thrown
safely --
beds,
snow banks,
pools,
arms.
 
Now
it turns out
that
men play
these games
with
women,
the latter
collaborating
through a display
of
attempts to escape
and
through cries
of
alarm,
fear,
and
appeasement.
 
(Figure-dancing
provides occasion
for
an
institutionalized example,
the partners
who are
swung
off their feet
never being
men.)
 
Of course,
underneath
this show
a man
may be
engaged
in
a
deeper one,
the
suggestion
of
what
he could do
if
he
got serious
about it.
 
In part
because
mock assault
is "fun"
and
more likely
in
holiday scenes
than
in
work scenes,
it is
much represented
in
advertisements.
 
+++
 
[from pages 51 and 52]