Article review
What is the name of the article you read and who is the author?
The name of the article is “Is Diet Soda Girly?” and the author is Libby Copeland.
Summarize the thesis or primary claim of the article.
In this article the author describes the gender division in marketing. Many marketing companies produce gender-specific products. Many of these products attract consumers’ attention because of colors (e.g. pink for women and blue for men) and trigger words (e.g. “Be a man. Use *** shampoo” and so on). So, women do not buy things ‘for men’, and men also do not buy items ‘for women’. This factor increases the rate of products sales because everyone tries to buy item which corresponds to his/her gender and, so, one family may have several similar items which differ from each other by colors or such words as “for men”, “for women”, “for girls”,etc.
What problem is the author identifying in their essay? How does the author show us that this is a problem that matters - that is it a problem we should care about?
Even if producers try to produce the specific-gender items for increasing the product’s consumption, the problem with which this article deals is that many neutral items are associated with the specific gender as, for example, Dove beauty bar or Porsche. Men think that these products were made only for women that may decrease the consumption rate of these products. While men do not like to buy women things, many women nowadays tend to buy men items due to the changing gender roles. They earn money and aspire for higher position and successful career, and men items have the association with power and status.
I do not think that we should care about this problem. Nowadays many women want to be independent not only financially but also socially. It means that people tend to have stereotypes about different things. It should not be like that Porsche is for women and sport cars are for men.
Now that you have summarized the claim and problem the author lays out, I'd like you to write your reaction to the argument: Did the author succeed in getting you to see that their problem matters? Do you agree or disagree with their claim?
Works Cited
Copeland, L. ‘Is Diet Soda Girly?’ Slate. N.p. 2013. Web. 12 Aug. 2013.
<http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_contamination_when_ women_buy_a_product_men_flee.html>
