Cleo Rants: Gender Roles too enforced?

I did a poll of friends to discuss whether Irish Spring was a male soap or a unisex soap. It started off as a friendly debate between someone, but I needed to validate one of our points. After all, someone has to be right.

Overall, most people only remembered the original scent of Irish Spring. You know, the big green or blue bar that will leave your wash rag tinted iwth that color. Those I will stand by the point made by the opposition in that those may be masculine, but others like aloe and micro clean are unisex. What man is ready for lemon scent? I think that Colgate (the distributor of Irish Spring) markets more for me because if they make the soap seem too girly, men won’t buy it. And you have to appeal to the larger market.

Men who use Dove or other “girly” soaps often deny it, or hide it. And why? Because of how people will perceive them?

Now think of this, how does this extend beyond the superficial of what we are talking about? Why do things always have to be assigned a gender? Their are “girly” cars and then “manly” cars. No one wants to be perceived more masculine or feminine than they actually are, correct? Is this more true for me? Are there more implications associated with a male for being deemed as too feminine?

Did it make me question myself when it was made a point that my soap was a masculine soap? Nope, not at all because I’ve used this soap since the dawn of time and am secure in my woman-ness. But would i want to be perceived as tom-boyish, probably not. Perception is the reality these days. Don’t be a victim of perception deception!