Sociological Images

Alexandra O’Dell, a student at North Idaho College, does a great job of integrating data, interviews, and images in this 11-minute video about the sexualization of young girls in the media:

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

April 15th was World Art Day.  A museum in Stockholm, the Moderna Museet, celebrated with what appears to be a chocolate and red velvet cake in the likeness of a caricature of member of a generic African tribe.  The cake was designed by an artist, Makode Aj Linde, who wanted to draw attention to the practice of female genital cutting, which occurs in parts of Africa (and elsewhere).  Accordingly, the cake was in the shape of a woman’s shoulders, breasts, belly, and genitals; it was covered in black fondant.  The head was the artist himself, painted black with cartoon-ish eyes and mouth reminiscent of American minstrelsy. Neck coils tied it all together.  
The Swedish minister of culture, Adelsohn Liljeroth, was asked to cut the cake.  Playing along with the “art,” she began at the clitoris.  After slicing herself a piece, she fed it to the artist (it’s unclear if that was planned or improvised).  Each reveler carved out more and more of the genitals, revealing brown and then red cake inside.  With each cut, the artist let out a yell and cried.  People attending the exhibit reportedly gawked and generally went along having a good time.

Kitimbwa Sabuni, a spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association, called the cake a “racist caricature of a black woman” and criticized the event, writing:

The ”participation [of the minister of culture], as she laughs, drinks, and eats cake, merely adds to the insult against people who suffer from racist taunts and against women affected by circumcision.”

The minister shrugged rhetorically, saying  ”Art needs to be provocative.”  On his Facebook page, the artist was nonchalant, writing about the above photo: “This is After getting my vagaga mutilated by the minister of culture…”

I will go on the record saying that this is obviously racist, trivializes genital cutting, is wildly insensitive to women who have experienced cutting, and fails to accord any respect to members of communities that practice genital cutting.  It’s a shameful mockery.

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UPDATE: It occurred to me that it’s possible that the artist intended to trap a mostly white audience into participating in this obviously racist game, all with the intention of revealing that they would.  Sort of like Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, where the fictional African American tv writer, asked by his White boss to write something “Black,” wrote the most racist thing he could think of… only to discover that audiences loved it.  So perhaps the artist meant to provoke the same sort of horror that Bamboozled provokes in its real audience.  And that is provocative indeed.  But I’m guessing that this message will be lost on the vast majority of people at the same time it provides a satisfying opportunity to object to something obviously racist (as I did); meanwhile, more subtle discrimination and institutionalized racism remains un-examined.

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One of my main areas of serious academic research involves trying to understand how Westerners think about female genital cutting, and what motivates them to understand it in the way they do.  I must say, though, that I am at a loss to explain this.  My research on American perceptions of the practice (not Swedish, notably) suggests that we take the practice extremely seriously, framing it as (one of) the worst human rights abuses imaginable.  From this perspective, this approach to raising awareness — from the party-atmosphere symbolized by the cake to the almost comical and obviously fake protestations from the artist/actor — takes the issue far too frivolously for comfort.

Caricaturing Africans, however, and seeing them as lesser humans is also part of what drives American condemnation of genital cutting.  U.S. discourses often frame Africans as either ignorant or cruel.  We routinely dehumanize both women and men in these discourses.  They are seen more as objects of intervention than human beings.  Accordingly, it doesn’t surprise me too much that the (mostly White, Swedish) people viewing the performance felt enough distance from the practice of genital cutting to enjoy their cake.  Nor does it surprise me to hear at least some of them dismiss the concerns of the spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association.

The video, in all its glory:

Thanks to Sharla F., Samira A., and an anonymous reader for sending in the tip to this story!

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Cross-posted at Inequality by Interior Design.

There is not actually a great deal of literature on “man caves,” “man dens,” and the like–save for some anthropological and archeological work using the term a bit differently.  There is, however, a substantial body of literature dealing with bachelor pads.  The “bachelor pad” is a term that emerged in the 1960s.  It was a style of masculinizing domestic spaces heavily influenced by “gentlemen’s” magazines like Esquire and Playboy.  Originally referred to as “bachelor apartments,” “bachelor pad” was coined in an article in the Chicago Tribune, and by 1964 it appeared in the New York Times and Playboy as well.

It’s somewhat ironic that the “bachelor pad” came into the American cultural consciousness at a time when the median age at first marriage was at a historic low (20.3 for women and 22.8 for men).  So, the term came into usage at a time when heterosexual marriage was in vogue.  Why then?  Another ironic twist is that while the term has only become more popular since it was introduced, “bachelorette pad” never took off–despite the interesting finding that women live alone in larger numbers than do men.  I think these two paradoxes substantiate a fundamental truth about the bachelor pad–it has always been more myth than reality (see here, here, here, here, and here).

The gendering of domestic space had been a persistent dilemma since the spheres were separated in the first place.  Few men were ever able to afford the lavish, futuristic and hedonistic “pads” advertised in Esquireand Playboy.  But they did want to look at them in magazines.

A small body of literature on bachelor pads finds that they played a significant role in producing a new masculinity over the course of the 21st century.  As Bill Ogersby puts it, “A place where men could luxuriate in a milieu of hedonistic pleasure, the bachelor pad was the spatial manifestation of a consuming masculine subject that became increasingly pervasive amid the consumer boom of the 1950s and 1960s” (here).  The really interesting thing is that few men were actually able to luxuriate in these environments.  Yet Playboy – along with a host of copycat magazines — spent a great deal of money, time, and effort perpetuating a lifestyle in which few men engaged.  Indeed, outside of James Bond movies and the Playboy Mansion, I wonder how many actual bachelor pads exist or ever existed.

In the 1950s — despite a transition into consumer culture — consumption was regarded as a feminine practice and pursuit.  Bachelor pads — and the magazines that sold the images of these domestic spaces to men around the country — helped men bridge this gap.  More than a few have noted the importance of Playboy’s (hetero)sexual content in helping to sell consumption to American men.  Barbara Ehrenreich said it this way: “The breasts and bottoms were necessary not just to sell the magazine, but to protect it” (here).  Additionally, the masculinization of domestic space took many forms in early depictions of bachelor pads with ostentatious gadgetry of all types, beds with enough compartments and features to be comparable to Swiss Army knives, and each room designed in anticipation of heterosexual conquest at a moment’s notice.

Paradoxically, bachelor pads seem to have been produced to sell men thehistorically “feminized” activity of consumption.

I’m guessing that many of the “man caves” I’ll see in my research wouldn’t necessarily fit the image most of us conjure in our minds.  But the ways men with caves talk about them are replete with images not yet fully realized by men who are most often economically incapable of architecturally articulating domestic spaces without which they may never feel “at home.”

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Tristan Bridges is a sociologist of gender and sexuality.  He starts as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the College at Brockport (SUNY) in the fall of 2012.  He is currently studying heterosexual couples with “man caves” in their homes.  Tristan blogs about some of this research and more at Inequality by (Interior) Design.  You can follow him on twitter @tristanbphd.

In our post devoted to vintage douche ads, we present a number of examples of such ads that warn women that if they do not take steps to control their smelly, disturbing girly parts, they risk permanently alienating their male partners. Such ads encourage women to feel shame and anxiety about their bodies, which require constant vigilance or they become offensive to men.

Jeff S., Saed A., and Yvette send in a Indian commercial for Clean and Dry Intimate Wash that includes the same theme. The commercial starts out with a despondent-looking woman who cannot get her male companion’s attention. But a quick shower is just the trick; Clean and Dry apparently lightens as it deodorizes, with the word “fairness” appearing as the darkish smudge on the cartoon image magically disappears. According to the product description,

To be used while showering, its special pH-balanced formula cleans and protects the affected area, and even makes the skin fairer. Life for women will now be fresher, cleaner, fairer!

And presto! She’s confident, sassy, and suddenly has her boyfriend’s full attention; all is right with the world:

Via Jezebel.

In a fantastic editorial in the New York Times, sociologist Amy Schalet interprets new data from the CDC that shows that young men and women are now losing their virginity at about the same age.  Never-married males between aged 15-19 have essentially the same probability of being a virgin as females:

Schalet draws on her own research comparing American and Dutch teenagers to explain this trend, citing fear and love.  Regarding fear, she writes:

…I found that American boys often said sex could end their life as they knew it. After a condom broke, one worried: “I could be screwed for the rest of my life.” Another boy said he did not want to have sex yet for fear of becoming a father before his time.

The other reason for the increase in the age of virginity loss among boys is romance.  Even in the face of cultural narratives that tell boys that all they want is sex, they tell personal stories of love and emotional connection (yes, even to grown-up lady sociologists).  This loosening of rigid gender roles can be credited to feminism, Schalet contends, and even if it has “largely flown under the radar of American popular culture,” it is nonetheless given boys the “cultural leeway to choose a first time that feels emotionally right.”

For more about Amy Schalet’s research, see Consequences of U.S. and Dutch Approaches to Teen Sex and Talking Sex, Relationships, and Teen Health with Amy Schalet.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that when we find certain traits sexually attractive in others it may be because they signal reproductive fitness.  It goes something like this: People who have been sexually attracted to traits that tell the “truth” about genetic superiority have been more likely to choose mates with superior genetics and, therefore, have been more likely to produce healthy offspring that live to an age where they, in turn, can reproduce themselves.  Accordingly, nature has selected for individuals attracted to people who display signs of genetic excellence.

(source)

Culture throws a wrench in this theory because human can create their own systems of meaning, collectively convincing each other that certain traits are desirable regardless of the relationship between the trait and reproductive fitness.  The thinness ideal for women is an excellent example.  Judging by pop culture, heterosexual men have a strong preference for very thin women.  In fact, however, the weight idealized in mass media is not conducive to reproductive fitness; women won’t ovulate or menstruate below a certain weight because their body recognizes that it can’t support a pregnancy.

A new study – by Leigh Simmons, Marianne Peters, and Gillian Rhodes — offers another tantalizing piece of information regarding the relationship between attractiveness and reproductive fitness.  Pre-existing research shows that men with lower voices are judged more sexually attractive, so the authors decided to measure one indicator of their reproductive fitness, sperm count.

The results? Voice attractiveness is related  to sperm count, but in the opposite direction expected.  Men with higher voices, in fact, have higher sperm concentration, not lower.

The jury is still out about what this means, but it’s an intriguing addition to the ongoing conversation that social and biological scientists are having about how culture and nature interact to shape human experience.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

W.W. Norton released a couple two-minute interviews in which I talk about hook up culture, part of their collection of academics talking about their research.

In the first clip, I discuss the difference between hooking up and a hook up “culture.”  In the second, I respond to the concern that there is something “wrong” with casual sex on college campuses.  There is something wrong, I argue, but it’s not unique to casual sex. Instead, the problems students face on campus — heterosexism, gender inequality, and a relentless pressure to be “hot” — don’t go away with graduation.

In that sense, for better or worse, college is a “functional training ground” for the friendships, marriages, workplace interactions, and other types relationships that students will encounter after college; social inequalities threaten the health of all of these relationships.  Instead of shaking our fingers at college students, then, we should recognize that the acute problems we see on campuses are symptoms of the ills that characterize our wider sexual culture as well.

I’m speaking about hook up culture at Harvard and Dartmouth this week. If you’re in the area, please come by and say “hello!”

• Monday, Mar. 26th at 8:00pm: “Sex Lives and Sex Lies: Hooking Up on Campus” (Harvard University, Science Center D)
• Wednesday, Mar. 28th at 7:30pm: “Sex Machines vs. Sex Objects: How Stereotypes Subvert Sexual Pleasure” (Harvard University, Fong Auditorium)
• Thursday, Mar. 29th at 4:30pm: “The Promise & Perils of the Hook-Up Culture”  (Dartmouth University, Rockefeller Center “Rocky” 2)

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.