You may, or may not, have noticed over the last few years that there are many adverts on TV which depict a hapless male and a competent female. Here are a few recent examples from the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpvm87ueSec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuzV01C29ug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-5AxFtf_n4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQl8zcCy1mU

There are many, many more commercials aside from these few examples, I really try not to watch TV, let alone advertising, but I can think of several more that I've vaguely seen.

There are also quite a few articles about this, here are a few:

http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/welcome-to-adland-where-all-men-are-morons-20100713-108un.html

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/adland-ditch-male-stereotypes/1359546

http://bryanappleyard.com/the-resistible-rise-of-the-hapless-male/

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/helpless-men-tv-adverts-eleanor-tiernan-530782-Jul2012/

By no means is this the first time in history that one gender has been characterised negatively in advertising (and women also continue to be depicted negatively in a different way). This is a diametric shift from what is depicted in Mad Men (I haven't seen Mad Men, but I know what it's about). In the past, it was quite common for women to be depicted as airheads or completely incapable, which is wrong and I would certainly oppose that. But equally the reverse is now happening, and the reason for this is quite simple.

Advertisers have long since worked out that marketing to women is more effective because if you get women onside then men will naturally follow. They simply won't have any choice. We always have to live up to women's estimation of what is attractive, desirable and preferable.

So the aim of advertising of this nature is really is to inflate women's sense of self, make them feel that they are superior to men, make them feel that men have to compete for their attention (which is always going to be the case anyway) and then define that this attention should ultimately result in the idealised, materialistic bourgeois existence. This is thus often backed up by advertising depicting women's desires as being extremely legitimate or possessing primacy, as exemplified by the notorious L'Oreal “you're worth it” campaign.

The idea is to get women to see the world in terms of material possessions, make them believe that they deserve these material possessions, make them think that men are their route to acquiring these material possessions, and make them think that men (a) have to earn their right to mate by providing these possessions, and (b) that women not men should be in control of relationships because men cannot be trusted to do anything for themselves.

One thing I will say is that this isn't necessarily reflected in women expecting men to buy things for them or generally pay for things. I have found that women are very fair about this, and I've never been out on a first date where the woman hasn't offered to split the bill. So the relationship between our behaviour and advertising is not quite as simple as one might imagine. But I think where we do see this aspect of advertising and the popular culture reflected is in relationships and social dynamics.

My impression of couples today, my friends who are in relationships, members of my family and my mum's husband's family, is that the woman wears the trousers in the overwhelming majority of couples. They really dictate what happens, and the man's role is simply to please them. And I'm sure most people would agree that the most enthusiastic devotees to the “materialism is good” creed are women. So this inevitably results in our lives being defined by these material wants, most of which are completely irrational, and this leads to many undesirable consequences.

For example, I occasionally observe the marital relationship of my mum's husband's daughter. I try to keep this down to a bare minimum as the entire family are utter morons. However, as far as I'm concerned she is a total bitch. I tend not to express this opinion at family gatherings! But her husband works 60 hours per week. 60 hours! And then I can't remember how I acquired this information, but after working a 60-hour week, she was then expecting him to install a new kitchen when he got home from work! Essentially, she expects him to run around like a blue-arsed fly after her, satisfying her desires. She doesn't give a toss about him or his desires.

This is quite an extreme example, but actually it's not that extreme if you observe many couples. I find that my friends have to ask for permission from their girlfriends to do anything. This is before they had kids; this was just from day one. This cannot be a healthy situation, any more than it would be for men to be dictating to women precisely how they should behave.

The hapless male and competent female has become such a prevalent theme of advertising that companies are beginning to use it even when it makes no sense. Typically there are two forms of advertising which remain unencumbered by this trend – aspirational products such as cars, which usually make men look cool and sexually desirable for obvious reasons, and products that men tend to buy when they are young and single, most obviously exemplified by beer commercials.

But even the Foster's advert listed above has veered into this trend of making a man look hapless and ridiculous. It's supposed to be some minor victory for him that despite the fact he has made himself look absurd, he has got a free ticket to a rugby match. That's supposed to be an aspiration for us...yes, okay, the girls all look cool and sexy and I look like an idiot, but at least I don't have to pay to get in (although none of them do either)! How is that supposed to make me want to drink Foster's?

It is notable as well that the new Foster's campaign replaced this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4AvLnt3P6Q

I don't particularly like blokes like that, they are a bit tiresome and one-dimensional. But at least we can recognise that there is some truth in that. At least they are displaying some signs of masculinity. What must have happened is that some advertising executives sat round a table and reflected that their overly masculine and laddish commercials (and I hate laddishness) were sending out the wrong message, and they needed to adjust the image of the brand. How did they decide to do it? By making an advert in which their target market is made to look ridiculous!

A consequence of this is that not only are women fitting the required archetype in society, but increasingly men are as well. Many men are becoming the stereotypical Homer Simpson character (much though I love the early Simpsons). Many men are doing little other than drinking, eating junk and playing video games. And many men simply cannot take the initiative in a relationship.

Whenever I read problem pages, I keep seeing the same complaint over and over again from women. He doesn't challenge me, he never initiates sex, he's lazy and sits on the sofa all day, he always agrees with me, he never takes me out anywhere, he never makes any decisions, etc. This isn't 45 year-old men, these are young men who should be at their virile peak! I believe that they have simply been browbeaten into this behaviour, to the point where they have either no self-confidence, genuinely think they should behave that way, don't want to offend the woman because they realise that she is the controller of the relationship, or a combination of the three.

But what is particularly notable is that actually women are not happy being around men like this because they desire masculinity, they desire a leader, they desire someone who will make them feel feminine. And that's steadily being trained out of the society. Women are ending 80% of marriages; I'm surely this is partly because some men behave unreasonably and are unfaithful, but is this always the case? Are women in fact ending relationships in many cases because men aren't men any more and therefore they cease to have any value once they've donated their sperm?

Beyond simply selling things to people, always a major concern of a society driven by profit, this trend also serves the useful social purpose of neutering masculinity, which is extremely dangerous for social controllers. When masculinity is allowed to be expressed, it is usually in useless fields that are of no danger to the social controllers such as sport, or avenues that actively serve the status quo, such as the military and policing.

This advertising theme has become so common that when I saw the reverse depicted recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cml1_oXRQuk

..it just seemed so incongruous and I couldn't believe that the people who had commissioned the ad had made such a dire error of judgement!

What I will say finally is that many women see through this and remain fairly pragmatic.

Do you agree with my views? Can you provide any recent examples of commercials with a competent male and hapless female if you do not? Or if you agree, can you provide examples of other commercials that reflect this theme? And is TRP a reasonable counter-balance to this general trend?