JDeal: Save Some Money on Sexism

Crossposted from Jewschool.com

Oh, jdeal. How charming is your (possibly unintentional) play on the stereotype that Jews are cheap. How clever you are to leap onto the Groupon/Living Social phenomenon. How sexist and small minded are your advertisements.

Let’s examine some evidence, shall we? First, there’s this excerpt from a jdeal for Always for You Flowers:

“Calling all significant others: Whether you’ve stayed out too late with the boys, insulted her cooking or forgotten her birthday (a shonde!), a bouquet of flowers may be just what you need to make amends.”

As my friend pointed out, what we can extrapolate from this is:
“1. Only men buy flowers for women.
2. Women do the cooking.
3. Women are crazyyyy. “
4. (my addition): Women are materialistic and can be easily manipulated by pretty things.

Here’s another one, for a Father’s Day massage:

“Strange that it’s the women who always seem to be running to the spa when it’s the men who have to move the new wardrobe, assemble the do-it-yourself furniture, and carry the entire family’s bags to the car for the shlep to the mountains.”

It IS strange that women seem to be running to the spa when they’re also busy raising all the children, isn’t it? Women are so freaking lazy! And indulgent! Dudes have to do everything, including impregnate ladies and benefit from male privilege.What’s really super charming about both of these ads is that they’re a great example of how sexism hurts everyone by pushing men and women into narrow boxes via limiting concepts of gender, and how committed Jewish communities are to continuing the perpetuation of those roles, even when they’re trying to save you some cash.