A while back 73man brought our attention to Vovic (a bottled water company) and their campaign to provide water to Africa (no particular country is specified). At the website, you get to take on the role of a boy walking through his community and seeing various people along the way. Most of the people have little blurbs about them, and you can click to learn more about them.
I took some screenshots. Here is Suleman, the doctor, and a nameless woman who has brought her children in (you’re the character of the boy on the left side in the red shirt).
Here we meet Abdul the farmer:
And Felix the teacher:
And…a nameless young mother:
The young mother is the only single adult figure you stop and read a blurb about who isn’t named in the entire interactive video-thing, even if you click on the “learn more” button.There is one example of adults who aren’t individually named, The Volvic and World Vision Team:
But when you click on the “meet the team” button, each person is named and has a video about them. The only other example of unnamed people with a blurb is of a group of children labeled “the local kids.”
You also pass this group of women and children at a well:
No blurb at all comes up here, though. You can look at them, but there’s no further information–they’re the only group you pass that don’t have any type of blurb about them pop up.
If you watch carefully as you go through the town, you’ll notice that every adult woman (other than those on the Volvic team) is shown holding children (and usually carrying buckets of water, a household chore), while the only adult men pictured with children are the doctor and the teacher–professionals who interact with children as part of their jobs.
This reminds me of the book Reading National Geographic, by Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins. They analyzed photographs published in National Geographic and found a consistent pattern of men being shown doing so-called productive (that is, money-making) labor while women were generally posed in front of or in their homes, surrounded by children. This serves to make women’s paid work and contributions to the family income invisible, and to reinforce the association between women, childrearing, and the home. For instance, in many countries in Africa, women do the majority of agricultural labor, especially growing crops, yet it is men who are labeled “farmers” in photographs.*
Now, this is just a little PSA about a company’s philanthropic activities (I’m not going to go into a discussion of the possible issues with this type of corporate philanthropy, since I’ve covered it before–see this post and all the links at the bottom for examples). I’m not all outraged or anything. I just think these images would be a good example to pair with a discussion of the patterns Lutz and Collins found, and how images tend to reinforce gender distinctions, particularly when people in developing countries are being presented for viewing by those of us in industrialized nations.
* Side note, because I’m an agriculture geek: Until the 1980s, the U.S. Census of Agriculture did not have a way to acknowledge *both* spouses in a farming couple as co-operators or co-farmers. There were two categories: “farm operator” (clearly assumed to be male) and “spouse” (presumed to be female). There was no category or way to respond to the question that gave both partners credit for operating the farm. On the other hand, if you co-owned the farm with a non-spouse, you could list them as co-owner/operator. The idea that women were productive contributors to farm families was just unimaginable. This actually worked to the benefit of some families during the mid-1980s farm crisis. Because women had been so totally ignored in farm financial dealings, farm debts were often only in the husband’s name. In some cases, when he defaulted on the loan and the farm was sold at auction, his wife was able to buy the farm back because she was in no way legally associated with the debts. It didn’t happen often, but I think it’s awesome that at least some families were able to exploit a loophole created by sexist agricultural policies that didn’t see women as having anything to do with farm decisions.
Told you I was an ag geek.
