The topic of media and gender is one we all have learned about before but also one that we have all consciously ignored. Us girls know that the beautiful confident women in ads is just the advertisers way of tricking you to buy the product, yet we still willingly spend our money in hopes of becoming like her. Most men have been taught all their life to respect women, yet they still find a lot of content on TV or the internet that degrade women to be funny. Speaking of men’s sometimes-distasteful sense of humor, today I would like to talk about a line that I have heard every guy I know in high school say at least once that goes like “Make me a sandwich”.
“ “Make me a sandwich,” is a catchphrase often used by male internet users to mock, discredit or annoy female internet users, playing off of the sexist trope[1] which states that women belong in the kitchen. “ – knowyourmeme.com
That definition of the saying sums it up pretty well. It mocks women as it degrading joke that men says make women feel inferior because of the gender stereotype that women “belongs in the kitchen”. It discredits women as it implies women are only good for cooking and lack knowledge beyond the kitchen. And it really annoys the hell of women to hear that and to realize that their gender counterpart is still as shallow as ever.
I have personally heard the phrase used so many times as an attack to insult girls and it always goes a little something like this: girl outsmarts boy, boy feels stupid and embarrassed in front of his friends so boy tells girl to just go make him a sandwich, and the rest of the boys laugh and forget everything smart the girl has just said. It is so sad how even in our highly advanced society today; such jokes still exist and people still find making sexist jokes based on gender stereotypes to be funny. And it is so frustrating to know that women’s achievement and knowledge still gets disregarded by men so easily due to such old fashion sexist views. And the main contributor to the existence and popularity of this saying is of course, the media.
The saying originated on Saturday Night Live in 1995 and has been used in many stand-up comedy specials and TV shows like That 70s Show, or the X-Files and has been told many times by the popular comedian Dave Chappelle. With the rise of Facebook and rage comic sites like 9gag.com, the saying has grown even more popular and widespread. The phrase itself has dozens of Facebook pages with thousands of fans and there are more than 19,000 videos related to the saying on YouTube. The popularity of memes has made it a worldwide pastime to come up with different offensive jokes using “make me a sandwich”. And while the men may find it to be funny and try to “out clever” the previous meme, the women are being offended constantly and the gender stereotype regarding women is growing stronger and harder to overcome.
Fact is, women are just as smart, powerful and successful as men in all different areas and field. Women can do all the work a man can do and saying that they belong in the kitchen is simply ignorant and stupid. Yet still in 2013, the media has created a disaster and made it okay for men to degrade women with sexist jokes. Society has been trying so hard to move forward with equal rights between men and women and etc, yet the media has done nothing but drag people backwards into old fashion sexist thinking. To all the men out there, yes your mom and girlfriend may spend hours in the kitchen sometimes, but that’s only because they care about you and want you to be fed well, they only do it because they love you and not because they have nothing better to do.
“ “Make me a sandwich,” is a catchphrase often used by male internet users to mock, discredit or annoy female internet users, playing off of the sexist trope[1] which states that women belong in the kitchen. “ – knowyourmeme.com
That definition of the saying sums it up pretty well. It mocks women as it degrading joke that men says make women feel inferior because of the gender stereotype that women “belongs in the kitchen”. It discredits women as it implies women are only good for cooking and lack knowledge beyond the kitchen. And it really annoys the hell of women to hear that and to realize that their gender counterpart is still as shallow as ever.
I have personally heard the phrase used so many times as an attack to insult girls and it always goes a little something like this: girl outsmarts boy, boy feels stupid and embarrassed in front of his friends so boy tells girl to just go make him a sandwich, and the rest of the boys laugh and forget everything smart the girl has just said. It is so sad how even in our highly advanced society today; such jokes still exist and people still find making sexist jokes based on gender stereotypes to be funny. And it is so frustrating to know that women’s achievement and knowledge still gets disregarded by men so easily due to such old fashion sexist views. And the main contributor to the existence and popularity of this saying is of course, the media.
The saying originated on Saturday Night Live in 1995 and has been used in many stand-up comedy specials and TV shows like That 70s Show, or the X-Files and has been told many times by the popular comedian Dave Chappelle. With the rise of Facebook and rage comic sites like 9gag.com, the saying has grown even more popular and widespread. The phrase itself has dozens of Facebook pages with thousands of fans and there are more than 19,000 videos related to the saying on YouTube. The popularity of memes has made it a worldwide pastime to come up with different offensive jokes using “make me a sandwich”. And while the men may find it to be funny and try to “out clever” the previous meme, the women are being offended constantly and the gender stereotype regarding women is growing stronger and harder to overcome.
Fact is, women are just as smart, powerful and successful as men in all different areas and field. Women can do all the work a man can do and saying that they belong in the kitchen is simply ignorant and stupid. Yet still in 2013, the media has created a disaster and made it okay for men to degrade women with sexist jokes. Society has been trying so hard to move forward with equal rights between men and women and etc, yet the media has done nothing but drag people backwards into old fashion sexist thinking. To all the men out there, yes your mom and girlfriend may spend hours in the kitchen sometimes, but that’s only because they care about you and want you to be fed well, they only do it because they love you and not because they have nothing better to do.
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