Summary Of Men's Women By Steve Craig

Steve Craig in the essay, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” suggests that while producing television commercials the gender of the audience has an impact of how they portray males and females. Craig concludes an analysis on four different commercials where he discusses a men’s men, a men’s women, a women’s women, and lastly a women’s men. In his analysis of a men’s men commercial he finds that they focus on a man's masculinity and independence to do as they please (Craig 186). We can see this commonly today where proving one’s masculinity plays a big role in the male gender. In Craig’s study of a men’s women he finds that stereotypically women play the part of a beautiful sex object, or follow “the rules of patriarchy” (Craig 188). Seeing a woman portraying her body in a provocative way on modern day social media such as Twitter and Instagram with men lusting over the photograph proves as an example.

Thirdly he discusses a women’s women, where typically females focus on their physical aspects to exemplify their beauty (Craig 190).

Women typically have insecurities of their physical bodies and try so hard everyday to hopefully exemplify an aspect of they like to look or feel beautiful. Lastly, Craig explains the characteristics of a women’s men in which he shows his sensitivity to her, does not mind showing a romantic side, and of course having good looks (Craig 192). For example, a woman stereotypically has a fantasy of a man in touch with his feminine side not afraid to show it to her. Steve Craig’s purpose of his essay can serve as an eye opener of the gendered categories in commercials to raise awareness of gender bias in television. With that said, gender bias not only lives in the television industry but as well as in pay wages for employment, where males and females earn a different amount of money for the same type of

work.
One may wonder what factors even contribute to wage discrimination or how it can even occur when laws are in place to prevent such a thing. The Equal Pay Act even states that both males and females must earn the same amount of money for the same job. However, employers may pay an employee differently considering they must have advanced skills to perform their job, the effort it takes to complete their job, if they acquire important responsibilities, and if their working conditions differ (citation). Many may debunk that a pay gap between genders really exists due to wage discrimination but from data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics states otherwise (citation). The U.S. Census Bureau posted a figure titled “Female-to-Male Media Earnings of Full-Time, Year-Round Workers 15 Years and Older by Sex:1960 to 2015” concluding in 2015 men earned a median of $51,212 and women earned a median of $40,742. If the pay gap difference continues at the current rate females will not be expected to have pay equity with males until 2059, 43 more years to go (Citation 4). For a change in the pay gap to occur sooner we must must understand how the discrimination in wage between genders became a norm in our history making it difficult for women to find equality in our society, political representation, and economically in the United States.