Sociological Images

Sarah Glassman, a graduate student at Michigan State University spotted this sign in a campus dining hall restroom.  It’s a neat example of how a sign can avoid centering whiteness and instead be inclusive of people with different skin tones.

Thanks Sarah!

Emily J. sent us a link to a segment of “That’s Gay” from the TV show Infomania. In this piece, Bryan Safi takes a look at a number of recent commercials that ridicule men for being insufficiently hetero-masculine:

For other examples, see homophobia as gender policing, Brut lets you slap the Old Spice guy, mocking a hockey player with femininity, lite beer makes you girly, McCoys crisps give lessons on being a real man, Cosmo warns against turning your guy into a girlie man, Dockers issues guys a man-ifesto, are you manly enough to wear BVDs?, and a whole bunch of stereotypes about masculinity in advertising.

This 1942 ad for Lifebuoy soap is a great example of shifts in collective cultural awareness of homosexuality. From a contemporary U.S. perspective, where most of us have heard homophobic jokes about not dropping the soap in the shower, two men showering together (even or especially in a military context) and using language like “hard” and ”get yourself in a lather” is undeniably a humorous reference to gay men.

I think, however, that this was not at all the intention in 1942, where the possibility of men’s sexual attraction to other men wasn’t so prominent of a cultural trope.  It simply wasn’t on people’s minds as it is today.  Accordingly, the ad seems to be a simple illustrated recommendation, complete with a nice heterosexual prize at the end.

From Vintage Ads.

Justin G., an adjunct instructor in the Department of Sociology at Marymount University, recently received a gender lesson from his local Target. I’ll let him tell the story:

I grabbed the pack of eight depicted in the photo because they match our towels and bathroom wall colors and, to my surprise, when I scanned them for the price, I was told by the machine that they were “feminine casual” washcloths! I stood there and wondered how much darker the shades of blue and green would need to be for them to be “masculine”? Even when it comes to washcloths, it seems that Target and/or the manufacturer feels we need to be told what color we should be comfortable scrubbing our naked bodies with in the privacy of our own showers.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

The cartoon character SpongeBob lives in a city at the bottom of the sea. It’s called Bikini Bottom.  So this “Bikini Bottom Groom and Go!” kit for kids three and over, sent in by Julia R… well, let’s just say that the picture is of a boy pretending to shave his face, but the words suggest a girl dreaming of someday presenting a whisker-free crotch to the sun.

Though it’s impossible that the meaning of the word “bikini” eluded the producers of SpongeBob Squarepants, it seems possible that how the word works in this context may have gone unnoticed. Then again, giving the new pressure for women to shave and trim their “bikini areas” (whether they intend to go to the beach or not), I wouldn’t be surprised to see this pressure aimed at young girls. Indeed, we already have.  See, for example, our post in which a mother teaches her young child to tolerate the pain of plucking eyebrows.

Discussion as to whether the photo might be faked prompted the anonymous photographer to send in the original.  After the jump:

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In another example of masculinizing items associated with women to make it ok for men to use them, Hope H. let us know about Hardware, a line of vegan hair and body products. The company seems to have taken Hyperbole and a Half’s satire seriously:

All the elements are there: images of tools to make sure it’s clear these are hard-working manly products, the association of men with toughness, and product names that reference hard physical labor. The different product lines include Impact Wrench, Angle Grinder, Jack Hammer, and Tool Belts (aka, gift certificates). The descriptions also refer to tools and cars:

Every perfectly balanced machine needs maintenance. No this is not a sales pitch mate. You would not skip an oil change or two in a 67 Shelby Mustang now would you.

Thus, using these non-animal-ingredient-based products isn’t about being girly. It’s about maintenance, which all machines need!

For more examples, see our posts on hair products labeled things like “maneuver,” “retaliate,” “stand tough,” “work hard,” and “bulk up”; make-up for men named with terms like“power face mask,” “confidence corrector,” “mission balm,” “battle scars repair cream,” “cream me face base,” and “blo-job bronzing powder.”; and shaving your pubes marketed with the suggestion that it will make your penis look bigger.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Since Lisa posted about the Old Spice guy today, I thought I’d post about a reaction to it. Stephanie V. let us know about Brut’s new feature on their website, Some Men Just Need to be Slapped. The…game (?) presents Man in a Towel, clearly meant as a parody of the Old Spice character:

You are then invited to slap him with various items:

In each case the hand shown slapping him is a woman’s, though for some reason when you click the option to slap him with Brut, it’s just an empty hand, not the actual bottle. Presumably her palm has Brut on it.

You can also then choose who should be the next slapping option — a character called The Incident (a parody of The Situation from Jersey Shore) or a mime:

Brut is going with the theme common in men’s hygiene products, which is to reinforce a certain stereotypical type of masculinity. Their website refers to Brut as “essence of man”:

As Stephanie says, “I didn’t even know they still made Brut — but clearly they’re trying to hone in on the Old Spice crowd by challenging their manhood.” And how better to denigrate a guy as insufficiently masculine? Show him being slapped by a woman, of course.