Archive: Jul 2012

SocImages News:

We hit milestones on both our Facebook and Twitter pages this month, exceeding 18,000 at the former and 8,000 at the latter.  We also celebrated our 5th birthday and almost 4,500 posts.  Congratulations to us!

And congratulations also to Christina Barmon, Georgia State University.  Barmon has written guest posts for us — on health advice to men and women in the 1920s and, most famously, on sitting, standing, and peeing — but, more importantly, she was awarded the ASA/SAGE Teaching Innovations & Professional Development Award this year! Congratulations Christina!

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

Lisa has started booking talks and lectures for the fall.  Her first talk will be at Indiana State University (Sept. 17th-19th) where she’ll be giving a featured lecture at the International Crime, Media & Popular Culture Studies Conference.

Newest Pinterest Page:

We now have a Pinterest page featuring our collection of material glamorizing violence in fashion (trigger warning).  It’s a depressing ride, if you want to take it for a spin.  We have 17 other boards, too, if you’d like to check out the list.

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

In case you’re new, we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisadwade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, @jaylivingston, and @wendyphd.

In Other Very Important News…

We visited a little-known private, non-profit zoo in Moapa, NV called Roos n’ More.  They let us hold and pet monkeys, lemurs, bear cats, zebra, camels, toucans, wallabies, and, kangaroos!  The best part, though, was being swarmed by otters!  Here’s Gwen getting an otter kiss:

And here’s Lisa smiling as an otter goes down her shirt and comes out again.  Rawr!

This experience in no way undermined our belief that animals prefer us above all other humans.

Links and Quotes This Month:

• Gala Darling and Feministing both picked up our article arguing that one way to “have it all” is to not have kids.
• Jezebel linked to our posts about gender, groupies, and musical taste and an old post about the dropping age of first menstruation.
• We were quoted at Disinformation, the Huffington Post, and Boing Boing.
• AdiosBarbie in a post about the absence of the female gaze in fashion, linked to our posts on passive women on Chinese and Japanese book covers, romanticized violence against women, and twisted and warped women’s bodies in fashion editorials.
• Finally, Bitch and Feministing both linked to the first post in our series on sexual objectification; Bitch also linked to Caroline Heldman’s review of Magic Mike, as did The Portland Mercury.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Last year Lisa posted about Wonder Woman’s pose on a Justice League cover and the way it revealed performative aspects of gender. DC Comics recently released a new Catwoman series. Majd Al-Shihabi sent in a link to the cover of Catwoman #0. The cover drew a lot of attention for the degree of sexualization of Catwoman, whose unrealistic and painful-looking pose maximizes the prominence of her breasts and butt:

I tried to imagine how you’d have to hold your body to even approximate that pose, but at a certain point it hurt to even think about it.

Gamma Squad posted a number of parodies that highlight the over-the-top sexualization of this female superhero. From Josh Rodgers, of Mushface Comics:

From King of the Siams:

And some time ago Hark! A Vagrant presented Strong Female Characters, which awesomely parodies the “it’s not problematic to sexually objectify all your female characters as long as they’re able to kick ass ‘n stuff!” argument (thanks to Erin R. and Gabrielle M. for sending it in). Here’s just one panel; I recommend following the link to check out the whole thing:

Gamma Squad has several other examples, including one where someone tries to use a graphics design program to reproduce the Catwoman pose without breaking her spine. Results: can’t be done.

Opponents of abortion have long targeted the “demand side” of abortion by passing legislation aimed at dissuading patients from going through with an abortion. Examples of this type of restriction include parental consent/notification laws, waiting periods, and mandatory counseling. Research shows that targeting patients has had little impact on national abortion rates; they’ve been declining, but several factors are likely contributing to the decrease, including increased accessibility to contraceptives.

New approaches to restricting abortion have focused on the “supply side” of the abortion equation — that is, targeting the doctors and clinics that provide abortions. These regulations often require certain staffing and equipment requirements, resulting in clinics being shut down (often due to the expense of implementing the regulations). Reduced access to clinics often means that women have to travel further for an abortion — increasing costs (the procedure itself, travel, and accommodations), especially when a patient has to navigate waiting periods and counseling requirements.

Mississippi’s sole abortion clinic, for example, the focus of abortion opponents for many years, faced closure recently because of a law that changed licensing procedures. The law now requires all doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals (difficult for the out-of-state doctors to acquire). The clinic was granted an extension to meet the requirements, though the law was allowed to stand.

So, does targeting the supply side of abortion work to reduce the procedure?

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine did a natural experiment to answer this question.  In 2004, Texas passed two new restrictions on abortion, one on each side. The “demand side” legislation required that women receive information about risks at least 24 hours before an abortion can be performed. The “supply side” legislation required that abortions after 16 weeks of gestation be performed in a hospital or an ambulatory surgical center instead of a clinic. At the time the law was passed, none of Texas’ non-hospital based clinics met the legal requirements, and very few abortions were performed in hospitals.

If the “demand side” legislation had an effect, the number of abortions would decrease at all levels of gestation. As Chart A illustrates, there was no change whatsoever in the number of abortions performed before 16 weeks — indicating that the demand side legislation had almost no impact.

If the supply-side legislation had an effect, the number of abortions provided after 16 weeks should have dropped.  In fact, Chart B shows that the number of later abortions performed dropped 88% after the legislation was implemented.

So, targeting the supply side reduced the number of abortions performed in Texas, but did the  women carry their baby to term?

No. Some of these women left the state to receive an abortion; in fact, the number of who received an out-of-state abortion more than quadrupled from 2003 to 2004. Accordingly, the average distance women had to travel to receive an abortion after 16 weeks increased from 33 miles in 2003 to 252 miles in 2004.

As has been noted on this site before, nations that have highly restrictive abortion laws do not have lower abortion rates; in fact, in those countries where abortion is illegal, many of those abortions are unsafe, resulting in high numbers of maternal deaths. Although targeting the supply-side of abortion might be appealing, it will probably not reduce the abortion rate nationwide. Instead, it likely places onerous restrictions on women with fewer resources, since they will be less able to meet the increased costs that result from having to travel for abortions.

Thanks to ­­­Jenna for the submission!

————————

Amanda M. Jungels is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University, focusing on sexuality, gender, and cognitive sociology. Her dissertation focuses on disclosures of private information at in-home sex toy parties. She is the current recipient of the Jacqueline Boles Teaching Fellowship, given to outstanding graduate student instructors.

A while back readers absolutely fell in love with a vintage Lego ad from 1981, featuring a red-headed befreckled girl in pigtails and overalls.  It, and two more in the series, reminded us that advertising doesn’t have to impose rigid gender stereotypes the way that most advertising today and the newest Lego marketing strategy certainly does.

Joanne M. dug up two more examples, both from Family Circle in 1978.  Feast your eyes on these happy children:

David Pickett, by the way, wrote us an amazing four part history of Lego’s (failed) efforts — or lack thereof — to reach out to girls.  It’s a truly comprehensive and fascinating story.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Steve Grimes, a once guest blogger who will be starting a sociology PhD program at Rutgers this fall, asked us to comment on the new “man aisle” in a grocery story in one of my old haunts, the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The New York Post reports that the store COO and CEO conceived of the idea after reading a study showing that 31% of men now shop for their families, compared to 14% in the 1980s.  Ironically, the man aisle they designed doesn’t suggest that men are productive and useful members of their families. Instead, it reinforces the notion that men are all about leisure.  The items sold — you already know what they are — include condoms, Ramen noodles, beer, snack foods, and a surprising amount of condiments.
Because women are as likely to work for pay as men are, but continue to be held more responsible for housework and childcare, men do, in fact, enjoy more leisure time than women (in the U.S., almost 40 extra minutes a day).  Media frequently portray women as responsible for families or hard-working careerists and men as eager for nothing but a good time.  We see it in “for him” and “for her” news items and contrasting magazine content, and this idea is part of the message of the man aisle too.

Nothing about the man aisle suggests that he’s buying for anyone but himself, except insofar as  he might be stocking a man cave for his man friends.  This is unfortunate, because many men are productive and useful members of their families.  Also, some men hate beer, are allergic to wheat, are on diets, and think beef jerky is gross.  These men are invisible here too.

Meanwhile, the very presence of a single aisle for men marks the rest of the grocery store — the toilet paper, the diapers, the cleaning products, the greeting card aisle (*shudder*), the baking supplies, and the healthy food that you have to cook — as for women.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) recently released a report about low-wage workers — those making less than $10 an hour. In 2011, 26% of private-sector jobs in the U.S. were low-wage jobs. These jobs were highly concentrated in a few industries. Just over half (52.1%) of all low-wage workers were employed in five sectors:

Most low-wage workers are employed by large businesses, those with more than 100 employees. NELP looked at the three largest employers of low-wage workers — Wal-Mart, Yum! Brands, and McDonald’s. All three have seen significant profit growth over the last four years:

The heads of these corporations are doing quite well, too:

Care 2 posted about the report and included additional details about low-wage workers. The relative worth of the minimum wage continues to decline, since prices for common consumer goods increase while the minimum wage is stuck at $7.25 an hour:

Finally, over at the Economic Policy Institute blog, David Cooper posted a table that provides an overview of the demographics of those who would be affected if Congress passed Senator Tom Harkin’s proposed bill that would raised the minimum wage to $9.80/hour:

Thanks to Dolores R. for the links!

Thanks to YetAnotherGirl and Kari B., we can now feast our eyes on this ad from Unik (“unique”) Wax Center.  It’s a promotion offering 50% off hair waxing for girls “15 and younger.”  The Consumerist reports that all procedures are fair game, including bikini waxes.

The usual concerns regarding the sexualization of young girls apply here.  Why do girls this young need to be concerned about how they look in bikinis?

Perhaps more interesting is the frame for why such a girl might want to undergo waxing. According to the 4th of July-themed ad, it’s to “celebrate freedom and independence.”  Implicitly, hers. So, to follow the logic to its endpoint, a girl of 15 or younger can’t feel free unless she’s hairless.

The company, responding to criticism, gave arguments along these lines.  They framed waxing as a “regular activity” and a “process in life” that “goes along with our country.”  Moms are coming in to get waxed (as all women do), explained the corporate offices, they’re dragging their tweens along with them (obviously), and the girls “have questions” and “get bored,” so the next step is to initiate them into the ritual.

So, the whole process is “natural,” as the ad copy specifies.  It is just an inevitable step in a supposedly universal way of (female) life.  And one that liberates women from… um, I don’t know what… embarrassment, I guess.

The ad is reminiscent of many similar campaigns aimed at adult women, ones that frame consumption of clothes, make-up, jewelry, and cosmetic procedures as expression of freedoms.  In this way, it’s a capitalist appropriation of feminism/liberation ideology.  It’s also a naturalization of what is, in reality, a lifetime of compulsory, expensive, and sometimes harmful beauty practices.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

If you pay much attention to politics in the U.S., especially during this presidential election year, you’ve probably heard someone assert that politics is getting more polarized — that is, that there is less consensus and fewer people in the middle, making it more difficult to agree on policies or get anything done. But is it true?

A recent Pew poll sent to us by Katrin indicates that it is. The Pew Research Center has tracked responses about 48 political values for over 25 years now. Over time, the percentage-point gap between Democrats and Republicans has nearly doubled:

Which issues do Republicans and Democrats most disagree about? Providing a social safety net, environmental protection, the role of labor unions, the role of government in ensuring equal opportunity, and the overall scope of government had particularly large gaps, and all have grown substantially since 1987:

Political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal looked at polarization among federal legislators from the late 1800s through 2011. If we look at party means for members of the House, we see that after a decrease in polarization mid-century, the gap has increased again since the 1980s. Though Democrats have become somewhat more liberal, the change is is largely due to Republicans in the House becoming more conservative on average:

The Senate:

David Roberts posted about the trend at Grist. The changes we’re seeing in the Pew data, he argues, are not due to big value changes among the electorate. Instead, we see that people are sorting themselves politically in a more consistent fashion. The parties used to contain coalitions that united liberal and conservative voting blocs, but both parties are becoming more ideologically consistent.

There are Blue Dog Democrats, who are more conservative than the party overall, and some moderate Republicans who are fairly liberal on social issues. However, there is less and less room for these individuals. Those seeking elected office find it difficult to win primaries within their parties. Citizens increasingly associate conservatism with Republicans and liberalism with Democrats, and choose their party affiliation accordingly. Thus, without any great change in the actual values of Americans, we get a more starkly politically divided nation and federal legislature.