Sociology Lens

www.grassrootsfeminism.net

It was recently announced that the radical feminist magazine Spare Rib is to be re-launched in the UK, with an online presence as soon as next month and a print version available in the Autumn. Spare Rib first launched in 1972 out of the 1960s feminist movement and made a point of covering taboo and controversial issues such as domestic violence, lesbianism and birth control, amongst many others. This re-launch has been greeted by many (myself included) with a hearty cheer, and has raised many questions with it. If this launch is successful, does this suggest a mainstream acceptance for feminist thought? Perhaps it will make feminism more accessible to a generation of young women, something it sorely needs. Either way, the re-launch indicates two key phenomena: a rejection of women’s magazines, and the increased visibility, acceptance and impact of feminist writing.

There is a wealth of sociological and feminist research (more…)

Source: jezebel.com

An exciting new journal is slated for release next year—Routledge’s Porn Studies. The journal, the first of its kind, will focus explicitly on erotic and pornographic materials, as well as sex work generally. As its call for papers makes clear, it aims to include interdisciplinary, intersectional, and global analyses. Such a journal is a brave endeavor because the topic of pornography is an incredibly volatile one in academic and activist worlds. The journal is still a year away from publication and has already sparked angry responses, highlighting an ongoing problem in approaches to pornography that will be the focus of my post. (more…)

whitematters.wordpress.co 

The CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, is up-front about his marketing and sales strategy: appeal to “cool” and “popular” kids to make the brand distinctive and desirable. While anybody can wear other brands, only those who fit an ideal body type can have the privilege of sporting Abercrombie and Fitch tees and jeans. How does Jeffries achieve this goal? The Abercrombie and Fitch advertisements use models who are “all American” (white and skinny), the stores employ similarly small and fit workers, and the largest size available for women is a size 10. Jeffries does have all of his bases covered: no one will mistake Abercrombie and Fitch as a brand that markets to the masses. (more…)

King Leonidas, left, and Xerxes, right (source: http://screenrant.com/330-prequel-movie-xerxes-sandy-109614/)

In a recent post, I discussed a longstanding trend in American (and Western) media of using racial Others to embody evil.  From adult action films to children’s animated features, we can find examples of villains whose malevolent nature is clear from the racial/ethnic stereotypes used to characterize them. But racial stereotypes are not the only stereotypes used to denote wickedness; we can also find many examples of non-normative sexualities and gender performances associated with evil. Importantly, this sexual Otherness is often developed alongside and in relation to racial/ethnic Otherness. (more…)

The History Channel’s miniseries, The Bible, has been lauded by some and scrutinized by others. Recently, some have raised questions about the show’s portrayal of the Satan, specifically the striking resemblance between the character and President Barack Obama (you can read a commentary at the HuffPost). The show’s producers have called the claims “utter nonsense” and insisted that actor Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni’s long record working on religious film sets made him an obvious choice for the role.

I’m no mind-reader and won’t speculate whether the producers intended any connection between Pres. Obama and the devil. I’ve raised this little controversy for another purpose, to demonstrate a long-standing film tradition of racializing villains. From spy flicks and action blockbusters to children’s animated movies and faith-based media, evil is often embodied by dark-skinned characters. Think about it—who are the bad guys in James Bond movies? What stands out about the animated character, Jafar, in Disney’s Aladdin? And what can we say about the Devil in the History Channel’s The Bible, especially compared to the heroic characters? They are all highly racialized depictions of racial/ethnic Others. They draw on nasty stereotypes designed to make us fearful. They are shown as morally corrupt and physically unattractive. Jafar, for example, conforms to ethnic stereotypes much more than Aladdin or Jasmine, both of whom could easily pass (in white westerners’ imaginations) as well-tanned Americans if not for their desert setting.

Source: fanpop.com

Edward Said famously wrote about this representational tactic in his book Orientalism (you can watch a documentary about Orientalism, featuring Said, called On Orientalism, on YouTube). Said explains that Orientalism is a patterned way of representing Arabs and Muslims as a unified cultural group (despite the fact that the terms aren’t synonymous, that Muslims live in many places outside the Arab world, and that “Arab” is used to describe individuals from many different backgrounds), less civilized than white Europeans or Americans, and capable of terrible things; in other words, Orientalism is a discourse that presents Arabs/Muslims as a dangerous threat. Not limited to specific media, Orientalism surrounds us and, from an early age, inculcates us with a particular way of understanding the Arab world. It gives us a specific language that governs how we conceive of Arab people and naturalizes our stereotypes. The Arab is a terrorist; the Arab is patriarchal—these terrible generalizations make sense and seem real in an Orientalist framework. (more…)

Source: Huffington Post and the Nu Project

In the past weeks, I’ve focused on the normative beauty expectations that govern women’s bodies and bodily habits. I was excited to see a recent article at the Huffington Post on one Minneapolis photographer’s attempt to challenge those norms. Matthew Blum, assisted by his wife/partner, has begun the Nu Project (warning: website NSFW), a multipart photography project in North and South America, in which he attempts to document real women’s nude bodies. All volunteers, the “models” represent a spectrum of bodies—different ages, shapes, weights, heights, skin colors, breast sizes and so on. Although Blum admits that he hasn’t fully achieved the diversity he envisions—relying on volunteers means he can’t seek out the “type” of women missing from the project—the photos do present a variety of bodies. As he explains the project, “The things that I had seen either used models with typical model bodies or average people who were made to look extremely unimpressive. I figured there was a way to treat women (of any size/shape) like models and photograph them beautifully, respectfully without a lot of sexual under or overtones” (quoted from HuffPost). Projects like this may encourage more women to appreciate their bodies, and because Blum refrains from sexualizing the women, the presentation resists objectification. Blum reports that many of the volunteers say participation has helped them see themselves as beautiful.

But do projects like this produce social change? That is, do they actually challenge our deeply held beliefs about beauty? And what happens when we consider representations of stigmatized male bodies? (more…)

Source: Wikimedia

In the past month, I have posted about the feminization of the Gardasil, the vaccine that prevents 70% of Human Papillomavirus (HPV)-related cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts. I started with the historical development and approval of the vaccine and continued with an examination of the research guiding girls-only vaccination strategies. In this post, I will conclude my discussion of Gardasil with some observations about the marketing and advertising of the vaccine, the continued focus on girls and women (despite approval for boys and men), and the messages aimed at women through these advertisements.

A number of researchers suggest that the marketing and advertising of Gardasil has been aimed at girls and women. The “One Less” campaign from the makers of Gardasil originally asked parents (well, really mothers) to help their daughters protect themselves against cervical cancer; their daughters would be “one less” to be affected by this disease. The makers of Gardasil now reach out the parents of sons, too, telling them they can help prevent HPV diseases in their sons. Still, scholars suggest that the marketing of Gardasil remains mostly targeted at girls and women. My own google image search confirms these findings. Of the first twenty one photos that appear using the search terms, “gardasil ads,” only two include or reference boys and men.

What I found most interesting about my own google image search was not the lack of advertising for boys and men. Clearly, the makers of Gardasil believe that girls and women are their target demographic and thus aim their advertising accordingly. Instead, I think the strategies and messages in the advertising aimed at girls and women are the more interesting observation.

There were two different types of ads that appeared in my search. The first type of ad focused around the protection of young girls. The makers of Gardasil imply that being a good parent means vaccinating your daughter and therefore protecting her from cervical cancer (an observation also made by Sociological Images). For example, one advertisement read, “How do you help your daughter become one less life affected by cervical cancer?” Another advertisement had a similar sentiment, stating “Your daughter can’t possibly know the importance of the cervical cancer vaccine, but thankfully, she has her mother.” This narrative of protectionism is not surprising. In other contexts, like sex education debates, the discourse about adolescent sexuality, and in particular, girls’ sexuality, reveals a desire to protect their “innocence.”

The other type of ad moves away from the narrative of protectionism and focuses on empowerment and choice. One ad stated, “I chose to get vaccinated after my doctor to me the facts” (emphasis in original). Another ad read, “I chose to get vaccinated because my dreams don’t include cervical cancer.” Instead of focusing on the ways in which girls and women can be protected, the ads suggest that girls and women need to protect themselves. It seems like the advertising department at Merck (the makers of Gardasil) recognize that they needed another strategy if they wanted to appeal to young women who feel empowered about their sex lives.

These two strategies are opposed to one another. One strategy suggests that girls and women need to be protected, while the other strategy relies on the ability of girls and women to be active and educated decision makers. Merck is tapping into two gendered narratives in order to sell to as many people as possible. This is, of course, the way that advertising works. But it does reveal the different, and sometimes contradictory, cultural ideas about women’s sexuality, ideas that advertisers will draw on in order to make a profit.

Suggested Readings:

Habel, Melissa A., Nicole Liddon, and Jo E. Stryker. 2009. “The HPV Vaccine: A Content Analysis of Online News Stories.” Journal of Women’s Health 18(3): 401-407.

Lorber, Judith. 1997. Gender and the Social Construction of Illness. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Google is a behemoth of an organization. Most everyone is familiar with its search engine (to the point where “Google” is a now a verb), and of the top 25 most-visited web sites in the world 6 are Google-branded, including YouTube. The company makes much of its money by selling targeted advertisements through its AdWords service, and has been wildly successful doing so. But Google has been busy with some interesting projects that fall outside its traditional role as search engine. One in particular should be of interest to sociologists: Google Fiber, a fiber-optic based Internet service very different from current offerings.

By some measures, the United States is an incredibly wired nation. One way to discern this is the number of devices connected to the internet. Since each device connected to the internet gets a unique address, called an IP (internet protocol) address, the number of IP addresses assigned within an area, say the United States, is a measure of how many devices are connected to the internet. The tech savvy among you will note this measure is far from perfect since multiple devices can share an IP address (e.g., two computers sharing the same wireless router), and you would be right. Nevertheless, the United States accounts for 146 million of 666 million total IP addresses worldwide – nearly 22%.

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

Characters with “disabilities” are being more regularly depicted in entertainment media: The lead character of House suffers from chronic pain and walks with a limp; Glee has characters with Down’s syndrome, severe OCD, and mobility restrictions requiring wheelchairs; Perception has a schizophrenic crime-solving professor. And, this coming October, Turner Classic Movies will be showcasing some 20 movies featuring disabilities and disabled characters in a series the channel is calling “The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film.” While not all depictions of minority groups in the media are necessarily good—in fact, we generally must be quite vigilant about how the media represents socially marginalized individuals—it has been nice to see an uptick in the visible presence of the differently-abled. Exposure through the media can help to normalize identities, bodies, and ways of being that seem abnormal or foreign.

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