Doing Gender

Doing Gender

a) People "do gender" in many different ways, but it is primarily in their appearance. The men in the Avis commercial are doing gender by wearing a suit and tie and looking very businesslike. The men in the Lumbajac video are doing gender by wearing loose shirts and baggy, sagging pants, as well as flat rimmed baseball hats. The women in the Lumbajac video are doing gender by wearing very revealing, short shorts and tight, low cut tops. The men in both videos use their bodies to do gender in almost the same way. However, while the men in the Lumbajac video are bouncing around with ghetto hand motions like they mean it, the white men in the Avis commercial are clearly making some sort of joke about it. The women in the Lumbajac video are using their bodies to assert their sexuality as women. By dancing seductively and putting their hands up in the air, they seem to be attempting to show that they are sexy, which is something today's culture idealizes in women. They also swing their hips when they walk past the men in the video, sexualizing them even further. The objects used in the Lumbajac video also contribute to how they "do gender." At one point, one member of the group is riding a large bike in front of two expensive looking cars, which seems to assert that he is so manly he can afford to buy two nice cars and then simply ride a bike if he feels like it.

b) Though both the Avis commercial and the Lumbajac video are accompanied by the same song, the settings are completely different. The men in the first video appear to be upper-middle class white collar men. They are wearing suits, and the Lumbajac song is interrupted when their boss calls to check in on them. In contrast, in the Lumbajac video, the men may have a lot of money due to their newfound fame, but it's clear that they come from a lower class background. The cultural capital of the first group of men allows them to segue from their mock-ghetto lip syncing to speaking formally to their boss with