THEM & M’s: Sexualized Media and Emphasized Femininity

by Jillian Nord
Over the course of the past year, M&M’s have been plastered all over the news, social media, and even Super Bowl commercials. In January 2022, Mars Wrigley gave the brown M&M shorter heels and replaced the green M&M’s boots with sneakers in a push toward more inclusive marketing.  What resulted was outrage. Tucker Carlson became […]

TV Doesn’t Have Space For Fatness

by Victoria Lieberman
Television distorts, mocks and marginalizes fat people. Fat characters are reduced to caricatures whose stories and identities aren’t developed and don’t matter. In one study by Tzoutzou et al., all 36 compliments about appearance given to women were for thin women. Not one positive message was included for a woman of an average or overweight […]

From Redlining to the Court: How Systemic Racism Shaped Basketball Culture in NYC

by Sharif Nelson
Picture this. Walking down 135th street in Harlem, you spot a park in the distance. As you walk closer, you hear a basketball bouncing and kids yelling. It’s a small, outdoor court, well-maintained with fresh paint and a sturdy chain-link fence surrounding it. The ball is constantly in motion, being passed, dribbled, and shot from […]

Editor and Principal Writer

Evan Stewart is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. His research on political culture and institutional distrust and disaffiliation has appeared in journals such as Social Forces, Sociological Theory, Social Currents, and The Sociological Quarterly. Evan holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota and a BA in political theory and social policy from Michigan State University.

Founder

Lisa Wade, PhD, is the founder of Sociological Images. Born and raised in California, she earned a BA in philosophy from UC Santa Barbara, an MA in human sexuality from NYU, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is an Associate Professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, with appointments in Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Newcomb Institute. Her recent book, American Hookup, is an open-minded, compassionate, and unflinching account of the new culture of sex on campus. She is also the author of the bestselling textbook Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, with Myra Marx Ferree, and the co-editor of Assigned, a book about life with gender. Forthcoming is a rousing, tide-turning take on the introduction to sociology textbook: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can join Lisa on Twitter and Instagram. Or, you can visit her website for her curriculum vitae, syllabi, information on public speaking, and more.