Space, Place and Gender

This article is written by Dorren Massey who presents her idea that how every space and place is gendered according to how we perceive it and has many different ways in which they are represented but it varies from culture to culture and changes over a period of time. She then exemplifies the United Kingdom’s local decentralization that began in the mid-1960s and lasted to early 1970s. She discusses the reasons behind women hiring post-deployment of men.

She also talks about gender roles and gender relations that are locally constructed at which I would like to add on. Today, gender equality is all over being talked about. Women are no more behind men in any way at all. In fact, it’s been a common trend that I have been hearing this that women today, are leaving men behind in the field of education and now also at work.  But here comes the disappointing state when I hear highly qualified people commenting that ‘what would you get out of your efforts, at the end of the day, you will end up looking after your home, kids and husband’ meaning that the notion of homemaker is binary to women apparently.

Also, I would like to highlight a few misperceptions regarding women such as women are not good drivers, they are not so tech-savvy, they are weaker, emotional fools, dumb and also considered bimbos who only knows to dress up and look pretty.

For example, this ad also portrays her as a bimbo, dumb and who cannot handle technological equipments.

The Ariel Detergent India has changed their ad campaign very interestingly. In their last years campaign, they show a housewife while the latest advert shows a working woman.

Women are taking place of men. Women are equally working and sharing the financial burden of the so called breadwinner but no one shares their burden. She looks after everything in the house and all family relations and that too, after working equal hours as the men do. Hence, men’s responsibilities are shared but not women’s at all. She does not even get a break or a holiday from her domestic job and yes, she works double the men. Another point that comes to my mind is that when a woman works both in and outside the house, she is a super-women but when a man does a house chore he is referred to as girly or may be it becomes a matter of masculinity.

The association of these gender roles have given women their place which they have been raising their voices for but the line of ‘defined’ gender roles in patriarchal society is still very sharp. I think its time to shift the focus towards men and let them be free from their specified gender roles so that they play their part sharing the burden.

Link to Ariel 2014 Advertisement:

http://www.ytpak.com/?component=video&task=view&id=27PyirxbOjI

Link to Ariel 2015 Advertisement:

http://www.ytpak.com/?component=video&task=view&id=8L1cHHNHrYg