Until patriarchy is dismantled, it will be almost impossible for an ad to be truly as sexist in its depiction of men as in its depiction of women. Dad as completely out of it and Mom as running the household is a very old comedy trope, but it does not really have any sexist juice in it, partly because for most of human history, even if Dad WAS a dolt, he had the power.

These kinds of ads caricaturing Dad are usually fun and affectionate. Sexism toward women is much more insidious and toxic. I won't take the time to build this case, but any argument to the contrary is usually ingenuous. Years ago, a woman argued to me that ads are now just as demeaning to men as to women because young attractive men are being portrayed in their underwear too. Those poor young fellows were being exploited, turned into sex objects. This would be true only if our society had, sometime before the ad was made, become completely egalitarian, with both sexes equally autonomous and the usual games of sexual politics a thing of the past. Maybe I will believe we have reached that promised land if I visit a high school and find that, to designate a young man who gets a lot of action, there is a term as contemptuous as "slut."

We have made strides bringing women into the economic and political life of the nation on an equal basis, although the naked misogyny of the recent campaign coverage should give us pause even about that. However, I also define patriarchy as an emotional economy, where a man thinks first about what he wants and the woman thinks first about what her man wants. This is borne out in Cary Tennis and elsewhere in Salon repeatedly: when the boyfriend is acting really badly toward her, the girlfriend writes to ask how she can be more understanding toward him.

I'm a man, and I have benefitted all my life from this asymmetry. Any study that says "men are victims too" has to be analyzed very closely. Obviously it can happen, but women need to keep their eyes wide open.

My husband told me years ago that he was sick of men being made to look like dolts in every ad he saw.

I hadn't really noticed, or had been mildly amused, but once he pointed it out to me, it was so obvious.

And it just kept on coming.

I believe it's an easy way to appeal to women who have a low opinion of themselves - beat up on the man and make him look like a doofus.

I just wish the advertising companies would get a new meme.