7 Bizarre Gender Stereotypes You Always See In Stock Photos

7

Women Get Fancy To Clean The House

Let's be fair to stock image photographers on this one: Most of the 20th century was filled with images of beautiful housewives in heels tackling wet pubes stuck on toilets and wet pubes stuck on baseboards. (TV shows usually didn't show the pubes, but why else would anyone ever clean anything, if not for wet pubes?)

The point is, because of TV and advertising, we don't expect women to be less than glamorous when tackling grimy household chores, no matter how nasty they are. Men, on the other hand, are smart enough to understand that household pubes require T-shirts and tennis shoes, not tuxedos and shiny shoes. Men! They'll never stop being geniuses!

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"One layer of semen stains gone, only seven to go!"

If stock images are to be believed, women can't tell the difference between dressing for prom and dressing for vacuuming. That would be pretty patronizing if it weren't for the fact that in 2014 women on average put in a full hour more than men cleaning and maintaining the home per day. Women, in other words, are pretty much experts on household maintenance, and experts are smart enough to not tackle a dirty job in a cocktail dress and heels.

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"Well it is after 3 p.m."

6

Professional Women May As Well Be Porn Stars

Despite still taking the brunt of the housework, it is 2015, and more and more women are forging a path through the workforce. Whether it be mothers who work, women holding traditionally male positions, or women obtaining degrees, statistics across the board have gone up over the past 50 years. Yet we as a society still refuse to credit this progress, choosing instead to view these hard-working women as the stars of boner fantasias.

Male firefighters (which can be easily found using the search term "firefighters"; specifying gender is not important) are epic badasses who spend their days running into raging infernos with as much stoic calm as a cool guy walking away from ... an explosion ... that started a fi- holy shit.

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"Cleaning up after Willis and Schwarzenegger put my kids through college."

Of course, there are pictures of the stereotypical male firefighters beefcaked out. But in the first 10 pages (there are well over 100) of stock photos, only five can be found. That's one sexy fireman photo for every two pages. There are actually more photos of children pretending to be firemen in the first 10 pages than there are images of hot firemen -- correction, sexy firemen, because obviously they're all pretty hot. Because fire.

5

Men Sleep Hard; Women Sleep Pretty

Based on the stock photos we've seen so far, men are clearly hard-working providers spending all their time lugging bacon to and from the office, whereas women languidly drape their bodies over whatever particular tool is most associated with their given trade.

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And, apparently, all that transporting of salty pig meat is exhausting.

Of course, because society believes professional women don't actually work, we seem to believe women don't actually sleep either. They just elegantly pose themselves on various pieces of furniture. Their countenances are quiet and tender, like they just ate a cursed fruit salad. Miraculously coiffed hair frames their heads like halos.

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If your posing composition resembles what newspapers would dub "The Angel Killer,"
you may want to reconsider your photography approach.

4

Toilet Stereotypes Are Bizarre

Another necessary biological function is toilet time. In Stockphotosylvania, men have violent relationships with their commodes. Guys are constantly unloosing painful bowel ballast all over the place. Are those happy, house-cleaning dudes from earlier living a lie? Yes.

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"This isn't actually a poop face; I just remembered my father walking out
on us when I was 4." -First guy

When they aren't, they're still hard at work, because remember, men never stop working.

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Toilet desk: where no idea is too shitty.

3

Men Are Pigs; Women Don't Eat

Let's shift focus from what comes out to what goes in. In a spectacular attempt to prove society looks down on both genders equally, let's take a look at how people are depicted while eating.

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Hmmm, maybe all you guys should be wearing the napkin bib.

Men. Are. Pigs. That's the only thing that can be taken away from this. In every shot they open their mouths wide and just cram that food all up in there. Stock-photo men are ravenous idiot boar-slugs who shit on encyclopedias and don't know their mouths from their nostrils (and probably call their nostrils "oxygen assholes").

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2

Sports Stereotypes Are Pretty Specific

After eating like brontosauruses, guys need to get out there and work off those carbs, right? That's why we see them kicking ass and taking names:

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"OK, fine, fine, you can have 'Jacob'!"
"I want the last name too."

And dunking in an epic manner that puts now-dead Air Bud and his stupid now-dead dog kids in their stupid now-dead dog places:

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But since women don't actually eat, they don't have anything to burn off, or any energy to do it with, for that matter. So when it comes to exercise, they are too tuckered to wear shirts:

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"Naw, this is totally normal for a stock sports photo. Sly went topless for Rocky. Trust me."

1

Women Shave Their Legs In The Most Goddamn Complicated Way

Fact: Sports make people sweaty and gross. Second fact: Hair traps in sweat odors. It has been scientifically proven the No. 1 way to make a person less sweaty and gross is to make them take a shower. Shaving is also recommended by four out of five dentists as the best way to remove sweat-scented follicles. Try it; we'll wait.

What did you do in the shower? Wait, don't answer that. But we're betting it was something along the lines of half-assedly moving shampoo around your head, crying a little when that shampoo got in your eye, crying a little more after you cut yourself shaving, and then just saying fuck it and throwing your clothes on without even bothering to towel off, because grooming is hard.