What are the masculine and feminine ideals in the U.S.? Where does knowledge of both ideals come from?
When we talk about societal expectations and what society projects through media as the ideals for what masculine and feminene behavior and qualities should be, a couple of things come in to play.
Of course one thing is culture. People are heavily influenced interms of their own masculine and feminine ideals by what their specific culture reinforces. Breaking away from one's family culture we also have America's general culture and how it shapes us, which is very complex and varies, but does have some connecting themes that you see across the board.
Another important element that comes in to play is consumerism. I believe that big buisness uses their understanding of human psychology to shape our society into believing we must match certain masculine and feminine ideals that require us to spend our money to meet the demands.
Its not as though big buisness installs theese ideals in our minds entirely. I think truly, theese ideals are more shaped by our culture, and in taking advantage of this buisness uses advertising to pair their product with a model who's fufilling the standard cultural expectation that are seen across the board.