Simmel And Errvin Goffman's Relationship Between Gender And Gender Roles

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Gender issue is something that could possibly determine the different types of gender roles assigned unconsciously and the expectations of the society for the different sexes. Although our society is becoming much more equal than the past, this issue is still a significant matter in our world and it has been addressed by a variety of people in the field of sociology, with different interpretation and theoretical approaches to it. In this essay I will be taking up Georg Simmel and Ervin Goffman’s interpretation of gender issues and discuss the different ways in which they approach this issue with their theories. 
 First I would like to look at Georg Simmel, who puts emphasis of the importance of interaction between people. As he mentions in …show more content…

The female has the ability to swing back and forth between the “erotic decisions” (135) but without stopping at neither end, which makes the male lack in satisfaction although he is attracted to the female. The duality in the act of flirtation according to Simmel is that it is a game of endless possibilities where the “relationships between the sexes provides the prototype for countless relationships between the individual and the inter-individual life” (Simmel, Oakes 149). The difference between flirtation and prostitution is that flirtation, which happens just out of pure pleasure without any significant goal does not hurt the subject, whereas prostitution has the ability to degrade the …show more content…

They want to show a “sparkling version” of the product and that implicates that, “if you buy the one, you are on the way to realizing the other” (26). So the portrayal of gender is essential in advertisement when it is trying to catch the viewer’s attention, since gender norms can be considered as a form of silent language in the society. Simply put, it can be said that gender roles are “a language which needs no complex translation by the viewer, just transmission through the image” (Capener 3) and therefore it is important for the advertiser to utilize the imagined gender roles within the advertisement

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