With advertisements for both the Superbowl and Valentine’s Day cluttering the media this time of year it was only natural that a survey (sponsored by a beer company) would come out saying…
...a large percentage (44 percent) of men put more time and energy into making Super Bowl plans than making Valentine’s Day plans.
It’s a charming little terminal moraine of gender stereotype and commercial holidays — a perfect cultural set piece arriving just in time for us to cuddle up to our favorite clichés, deliver a few “tut tuts,” or “aw honeys” or “hey-ell yeahs” and… then go buy a little more beer this week and a nicer card, or box of chocolates two weeks later.
I dunno. If you choose to look at the thing with suspicion about stereotypes questions start coming up.
- How does that 6656/44% breakout compare to women, or the aggregate of men and women, who spend time and energy making both Superbowl and Valentine’s Day plans?
- How much time and energy is required to plan for either the Superbowl or Valentine’s Day anyway?
- How much time and energy is required to plan any sort of group gathering (say, a dinner party for six) vs. any sort of individual outing (say, a date with one’s significant other?)
- Is there much variation between men and women in the amount of time they spend planning a dinner party vs. a date with their significant other?
Anyway, the point being that surveys like this is all part of the libretto of a stylized, overplayed opera, one we’re supposed to know so well we just hum along without really listening, and certainly without questioning who to clap for and who to hiss.
And is anybody really happy if an old curmudgeon comes along, scowls at the playbill, and asks…
Hallmark rather than Coors had sponsored the same survey would the headline have been “6656% of men put more time and energy into making Valentine’s Day plans than making Superbowl plans?”
Submitted by 1179 (not verified) on Tue, 2007-01-30 14:48.
Teeny tiniest nitpick: it'd be a 56/44% split, otherwise we're talking about 110% which is another Superbowl cliche. :)
[Doh! Take that Lawrence Summers. :-) I've corrected the error. Thank you, Danielle. --fl]
Submitted by 1179 (not verified) on Tue, 2007-01-30 23:21.
Haha! Someone else who analyses this kind of thing!
Personally, any "survey" or "study" that feels the need to pander to gender stereotypes and then basically dance around like "see! You are different! Admit it!" pisses me right off.
...But maybe that's just the way I see things like this :)
[Thanks, Dana! --fl]
Submitted by 1179 (not verified) on Wed, 2007-01-31 13:16.
I'd like to note that I spend nothing on "VD" and about 20 bucks (for beer and chips/dip/pretzels) for the Superbowl. I wonder what that says about me.
[It says you're like a lot of other men and women who enjoy sports but don't have a steady partner. Thanks, Watergirl. --fl]
Submitted by 1179 (not verified) on Wed, 2007-01-31 23:36.
And what about those of us that put almost no thought into either (other than deciding not to go out for dinner that night because the seating will be slow and being surprised when you turn on the television and it's football)? (and it's by no means because I'm alone and unloved, we're just not really fans of big commercial holidays or sports).
Why is the assumption that it's a 56/44 split? Why not 44/44/12 (or something along those lines)?
[Excellent point, of course, Colette. I actually picked 56% to make the point that even in a beer-industry survey leading up to Superbowl weekend less than half the male respondents answered the way stereotype predicts. But yeah, it was a rhetorical point, not a statistically accurate one. :-) Thanks. --fl]