Sociological Images

On the heels of our guest post describing the surprising rise in hypersexually-objectified women on the cover of Rolling Stone, comes troubling research out of cognitive neuroscience, sent in by Dolores R.

Mina Cikara and colleagues did a series of experiments — using Implicit Association and fMRI — to test whether sexist and non-sexist men’s cognition varied when looking at sexualized versus non-sexualized images of women. In fact, when men who tested high on a scale of sexism were shown images of sexualized women, they associated them more easily with words that implied an objectified “thing” than a thinking “person.” This was reflected in the fMRI study.

The take home message? When sexist men are exposed to strongly sexualized messages, they are inclined to dehumanize women, to see them as things.  Seeing someone as a thing is the first step towards treating her like her desires, thoughts, and preferences do not exist (because objects don’t think).  In other words, it facilitates sexual assault.

So… hmmmm… who to pick on here.  How about American Apparel…

American Apparel, this is brain poison (after the jump; NSFW):

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In 1964, in Jacobellis v. Ohio, a case regarding an allegedly obscene film, Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter Stewart famously wrote in his opinion,

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [of hard-core pornography]…But I know it when I see it…

Of course, the problem is that not everyone has the same reaction to what they see. While the 1964 case specifically dealt with a film, and a judgment on whether it crossed the line from pornographic (legal) to obscene (not), similar arguments are common regarding what is appropriate on TV. The Federal Communications Commission may impose penalties, including large fines or revoking a broadcaster’s license, on networks that air “indecent or profane programming during certain hours.” Last month the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case regarding the FCC’s regulations and whether they violate free speech guarantees.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in a segment from The Daily Show that highlights some of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the FCC’s standards for prime time, and the seeming arbitrariness of decisions about what is “indecent”:

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have the pleasure of giving public lectures on hook up culture at several colleges and universities.  I draw on my research in these talks, but I also always give a shout out to Paula England, a sociologist who has collected tens of thousands of surveys from students at dozens of schools.   My talk would be a shadow of itself if I couldn’t draw on her excellent work.  Accordingly, I’m pleased to be able to feature England giving a presentation about what she has discovered about hook up culture.  I suspect that you’ll be surprised, no matter who you are:

For more on hook up culture, see my 3-minute appearance on MTV Canada or my 40-minute talk at Franklin & Marshall College (slideshow and transcript if you’d rather read).

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

Zeynep P. sent in a commercial for Teleflora, a company that delivers flowers, that, as Zeynep points out, combines objectification with the explicit message that women exchange sexual favors for gifts from men:

The ad normalizes the idea that women would manipulate men with sex, and that men would expect that doing things for women (especially spending money on them) should result in sex. It’s a winner all around.

Dr. Bethany Pope sent in a segment from a National Geographic show about animals’ sexual behavior. The clip is an amazingly gendered discussion, describing animals’ motivations and behaviors through the lens of what is considered normative masculine and feminine sexual behavior, the correct place of males and females in the social hierarchy, and the assumption that males and females are locked in a zero-sum game.

The anthropomorphizing of other species begins at the outset, when we learn female hyenas want “more than equal rights, they want to beat males at their own game.”  In fact, “Africa’s plains are among the most macho places on earth…they’re testosterone-fueled battlefields,” filled with “swaggering” males.

Bethany sums up the tone regarding hyenas, saying, “The documentary presents them as an abomination, usurping male gender roles.” Indeed, at about a minute in we learn that hyenas “seem mixed up.” A hyena “swaggers,” “confident” and “cocksure,” its penis swinging “low and proud.”

But what’s this? The swaggering, cocksure hunter “has a secret”! That’s not a penis, it’s an enlarged clitoris; our hero is a she! Not only that, there’s not a penis anywhere to be found, as this is an all-female pack; “these female are some of the most masculine in the world — and they like to sniff each other an awful lot, too. Compounding the “confusion,” they have a “bulging” sac, like a scrotum. And not only are female hyenas masculinized, but the poor males are emasculated, reduced to being “subservient, servile, and scared.”

It is rather stunning example of anthropomorphizing the natural world and applying gendered norms of sexuality to other species, and worth sitting through the full six minutes to get the full effect (the video might not be safe for some workplaces; there are a lot of lingering shots of penises and clitorises. A lot.):

Originally posted at Shameless.

Marilyn Monroe is often held up as the antidote to the idea that only thin can be beautiful. “Marilyn was a size 10/12/14,” goes a common refrain (though sizing basically means nothing these days, so what does that even prove?). There have been a couple Marilyn Monroe memes floating around Facebook in the past couple months, and both are troubling. The focus is on Marilyn’s curves, and how her swimsuit clad body is different from what movie stars look like today (oh, the tyranny of the “Best Beach Bodies!” issue). What’s supposed to be an empowering message to women – you don’t have to be a Victoria’s Secret model to be beautiful – is completely undermined by two much older memes: divide and conquer and the male gaze.

In the first photo, Marilyn is compared to another woman in a bikini, who is much thinner. The text reads: “This [pointing to Monroe] is more attractive than this [pointing to the other woman].” While I can totally get behind the title “fuck society,” and add “and its stupid expectations” for good measure, there’s nothing anti-establishment about what’s being done here. This is a common tactic, in which women are pitted against each other, so that we lose sight of the real problem: namely, society. If women are fighting amongst ourselves about who is more “beautiful,” if we compare ourselves to other women endlessly, we don’t have time to notice that we’re trapped in a hamster-wheel of low self-esteem. Society hopes that you’ll buy things, to try and make yourself feel better. In the meantime, it’s hoped that we as women won’t critically examine what beauty is, what’s being sold to us, and most importantly, who profits from all this. Fuck Society, sure, because society tells you that if you’re not extremely thin, you’re worthless. However, extremely thin women? They’re still people. Further, bodies are just bodies. They have no intrinsic worth, no moral value, other than what we assign them. The thought behind this comparison photo is to turn the dominant paradigm on its head, but what it really does is reinforce that for one woman to be good, another must be bad. And that kind of thinking isn’t going to get us anywhere.

The second is the same photo of Marilyn, this time alone in the Motivational Poster style. The text reads: “PROOF: That you can be adored by thousands of men, even when your thighs touch.” From the start this would seem like a better message. No comparison photo, no pitting women against each other. For some reason, though, this photo troubles and angers me more than the first one does. Because here’s the thing: you are worth more than what men think of you. Marilyn Monroe was, to put it mildly, very sad, very often. She was a sex symbol, and thus, stopped existing as human being, a regular girl. Almost everything that fucked up Marilyn’s later life had to do with being “adored” by men. Men used her, or deified her (and that’s a hard come-down for those dudes when they found a human being in their bed the morning after). Political brothers purportedly passed her around like a toy. Conventional wisdom, political conspiracy aside, has it that Monroe killed herself. Being “adored by thousands of men” didn’t stop her demons from consuming her. It angers me to no end that, again, in the name of self-esteem we’re going to make a poster girl (literally) out of a woman who was notoriously down on herself.

I want very much for us to stop thinking that there is only one body type that is acceptable. I would prefer the focus be on health, rather than appearance. The Monroe Meme seems about the furthest thing from healthy. This is a woman who abused alcohol and sleeping pills later in her life, this is a woman who (probably) died due to depression. But, hey, as long as someone thinks she looks good, I guess that’s what matters.

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Heather Cromarty has written for The Walrus Blog, and writes about books and bookish miscellany at In The Midst of Life, We Are in Debt, Etc. Follow her on Twitter: @la_panique.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

I don’t know if “subliminal” is a real thing or just a layperson idea, but when I talk about media in Introduction to Sociology I show some images to show just how carefully advertisers are steeping their material in raw sex. I start with the image below.

I ask: Notice anything interesting about this image? Even in very large classes it usually takes a long time for anyone to see…

…that the shadow of the liquor bottle is pointing directly between her nearly bare breasts.

Here are some more:

This is a picture of an ad at the Burbank airport.  Notice the profoundly phallic shape of the foaming surf that happens to be pointing directly at the woman’s crotch.  The foam mimicks the crown printed at the top of the Budweiser bottle (in the upper left hand of the image in red).

And where is the rocket going?

This ejaculating bottle is in an ad for clothing in a magazine aimed at gay men:

What image accompanies the word “come”?

That’s Salma Hayak and Campari… or should I say Salma Hayak’s boobs and an ejaculation fantasy.

I love this one. Just underneath the banner you see two nuts, a thick pour and, let’s face it, a chocolate vaginal opening.

A vintage ad for Bright and Clear lipstick (found here):

Finally, Chappell E. sent in this Brookstone cover featuring a woman an an, errrr… automatic wine bottle opener:

See also our posts on ejaculation imagery, booby products, “boobs” in ads, other subtle and not-so-subtle sexual imagery used in advertising, and using sex to sell the most unlikely things.

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