Bic for Her

The past couple of meetings of our Gender and Visual Culture class have been about The Gaze. We have seen that there is a big difference in the way men and women are portrayed in paintings, movies and so on. According to Fanon, the gaze is a determining factor in the way men and women are portrayed, since the gaze fixates our identity and is never neutral. Men are often portrayed as active and strong, while the focus of images with women is often on a kind of body imagery, beauty, charm and an affirmitive exposure of female sexuality.

This striking difference between men and women made me think immediately about Simone de Beauvoir's book The Second Sex, in which she argues: "We are not born woman, we become woman." I think this statement of De Beauvoir is still relevant when we look at the dominant views on certain activities and ways of behaving that are described as 'the norm'. This norm has a big influence on the gaze, the way we look at people and objectify them, and also on the way identity is something that is being fixated by this gaze.

The video below shows the still existing difference between men and women in a fun way. In this video, American talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres speaks about a new product from the pen company Bic, called Bic for Her. This product is designed especially for women, though the only difference with regular pens is that they come in both 'lady colors' pink and purple and they are designed for a 'woman's hand'. Apart from being funny, Ellen also points out the still existing inequality between men and women and the dominant way in which women are seen.

Enjoy :)