Archive: Jul 2010

Bundle presents the following infographic detailing how much people in various U.S. cities spend restaurants and groceries (some highlights below): The average household in the U.S. spends 37% of its food and drink budget in restaurants. In Hialeah, Florida, 69% of food and drink spending is spent on groceries instead of dining out; the largest proportion of spending in eating in. Atlanta is on the other side of the spectrum, with 57% of the food budget spent at restaurants. Households in Austin spend the most on food ($12,447) with more than half of that spent dining out. In contrast, people in Detroit spend the least ($2,246), As the graphic notes, “five average Detroit households can eat on one Austinite’s food budget.” On average, in U.S. households 17% of spending goes towards food and drink. The largest proportion of spending allocated towards food and drink is found in Denver (22%), but my city, Los Angeles, is not far behind (21%). Hat tip to Flowing Data.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

According to this 1935 ad for canned corn, the key to a man’s heart is his stomach.  Mr. Thomas T. Twiggers was a miserable husband, so miserable that Mrs. Thomas T. Twiggers booked a trip to Reno for a quickie divorce.  But then she fed him Niblets canned corn.  With proper feeding, a man and a marriage can be happy as can be!

Vintage Ads.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Kelly sent in a photo she took of a flyer she found on her car windshield recently. The flyer advertised an event at a local bar:

Notice that women ladies paid no cover all night, but men paid $5. In addition, men had to be 21 to get in, but women only had to be 18. And from 8-10 p.m. Sex on the Beach drinks, stereotyped as girly, were free.

It’s a particularly striking example of how bars use women as lures to get men in to buy lots of drinks. Ladies’ nights technically discriminate against men, who have to pay a cover while women don’t. But at the same time, women are being used by the bars letting them in for free.

Why let in women who can’t legally drink but not men of the same age? Because these establishments don’t see women as the real money-making customers. Letting some women in who might take up tables without buying expensive drinks is worth it if it gives the bar a reputation for having hot female patrons and, as a result, draws in men who will buy drinks, both for themselves and for women.

This works because of gendered norms in which men actively pursue and buy things for women they’re interested in, but not vice versa, and that men date younger women more than women date younger men. Given these assumptions, there’s no point in (intentionally) allowing underage men in or to let men in for free while charging women. The norms of dating make it unlikely that groups of women would show up and buy enough drinks for themselves and the men in the bar to make up for the free drinks the guys drank or the waived cover charges.

We see ladies’ nights much more frequently than guys’ nights or whatever the equivalent would be because patterns of dating and sexual interest make women passive players whose job is to attract male attention, largely by paying attention to how they look and dress. Men’s job is to see a woman they find attractive and then pursue her, partially by paying for drinks, dinner, movies, etc.

And bars such as this one capitalize on this by sacrificing some profits (through free drinks and no cover) to get more women to come in and as a result attract the male customers they count on to spend the majority of the money. Gendered norms of dating thus provide a pretty good marketing strategy for bars.

A huge number of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) have been devoted to the topic of disability, but capturing disability in 30 seconds is like editing War and Peace down to a novella. You might get the message, but it’s rarely the full picture. But that isn’t to say PSAs can’t be poignant, effective, and positive.

Disability-related PSAs cover a wide range of topics, but generally there are three main categories that the message falls into: how people with disabilities are viewed/treated by society, their value in the job market and society, and what their lives are like. Although these are pretty straightforward messages, there is a great deal of variety in the ways in which these basic messages are presented.

First, there are those that I like to call the “twist ending” PSA, where you see a person doing something difficult or exciting and it is not revealed until the last few seconds that the person in question has a disability. These are a very common form of PSA and they are meant to challenge the assumption that disabled people can’t do things that an able-bodied person can do. They show that disability does not stop people from living a successful and exciting life. The revealing of the disability at the end is meant to get an emotional reaction from the viewer. It’s meant to surprise and to get the viewer to rethink the capabilities of people with disabilities.

Second, there are the “interview gone wrong” PSAs that show the unfair scrutiny placed on job candidates with disabilities. Usually this involved one or more insensitive able-bodied people asking inappropriate or condescending questions to a job candidate. Sometimes it’s presented in humorous way, where the bumbling interviewer unintentionally offends the applicant over and over again. These try to show you the kind of discrimination and misunderstanding that can happen in the workplace (sometimes in an exaggerated manner).

Finally, there are PSAs there are the “just like us” PSAs that show people with disabilities talking about their lives or doing something ordinary. The message is simply to show what it’s like to be disabled. Sometimes these PSAs are used to describe the extra challenges disabled people face from day to day, like inaccessibility or being constantly forced to prove their intelligence and worth. They also show that disabled are pretty much like everyone else and want the same rights and privileges. This is one in a series of animations of real interviews:

This one also shows a person with a disability doing something ordinary, but also shows how the simplest actions are often misjudged by able-bodied people:

Since disability is a broad but personal topic, I am curious to see which style you find most compelling. I feel that the ”twist-ending” PSAs have an unintended negative undertone. I understand that the point they are trying to get across is that people with disabilities can be super successful, skydive, ride a horse, or do anything they want. But I feel the problem here is twofold. First, the “surprise” ending paints the person as a novelty and reinforces the thought that people with disabilities don’t normally do awesome things. They are expecting the viewer to be shocked that the person relating her amazing skydiving experience is blind. Second, it doesn’t take into account that there are people that can’t jump out of a plane or work a traditional 9-5 job. These people can enjoy an exciting and fulfilling life too. So I feel like these types of PSAs are excluding a lot of people.

The ”interview gone wrong” PSAs can help the viewer see how ridiculous the stereotypes can be by making fun of the person who stereotypes the job candidate. But some people may feel that this message trivializes the disproportionate amount of scrutiny people with disabilties face in the job market. I would not be surprised if many suc people have been in a similar work situations and it’s probably not so funny then.

Personally, I think the creature discomfort videos have the most straightforward and effective message. Having real people describe their experiences reveals that they have basically the same desires as everyone else. If the goal of the PSA is to put a human face to disability, then what better way is there to do so than to listen to actual people. Some may think that using animated animals instead of actual people is a cop-out since it avoids engaging the viewer with disability directly. But I don’t think the animals are used just to make disability friendly to the eye (although it’s possible that that plays a role). I’m thinking they used the animals because they are relate-able but very attention-getting, probably more attention-getting than video clips or animations of people.

I am curious to see which style you find most compelling and why.

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Lauren McGuire is a SocImages intern and an assistant to a disability activist.  She recently launched her own blog, The Fatal Foxtrot, that is focused on the awkward passage into adulthood.

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

The Center for American Progress released a report detailing the state of border policing and the projected impact of immigration policies.  First, notice that spending on border patrol and the number of border patrol agents in the southwest have increased significantly between 1992 and 2009:

Still, despite this, the number of people illegally crossing the border has increased:

So the policing hasn’t deterred a rise in disallowed border crossings, but it has made it more dangerous:

So, the U.S. is spending a lot of money trying to keep undocumented non-citizens out.  Is it worth it?

The report also discusses projected changes in the GDP under three different scenarios: immigration reform, allowing temporary workers only, and mass deportation.

The figure suggests that undocumented workers are making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the U.S. economy, one that would decrease under conditions of mass deportation.  Temporary workers are helpful, but real immigration reform that would bring in greater numbers of permanent and temporary workers is the best thing for America.

Hat tip to Graphic Sociology.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

NEWS:

Happy July everyone!

Gwen and I were traveling in June so there are only a few enriched posts to peruse (below) and little SocImages news to impart.  There is exciting me news, however.

I took a tumble and broke my leg this week.  This has the excellent upside of earning me a two week visit from Gwen!  So if any of you Los Angelenos would like to meet for cocktails, we’ve got lots of time and good reason to drink!  Send us an email at socimages@thesocietypages.org.

And take pity on me and sign up to follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook (where we update with a featured post everyday).

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! June ’10):

Two more boobs for our two boobs posts!  Dmitriy T.M. sent along a boob scarf; yeah so we added that to our booooooooooooooobs post.  And Jay Livingston found another ad in which a product that is not a boob is made to look like a boob.  Maybe NSFW.

We added seaweed-flavored Pringles to our post on culturally-specific flavors.

Lauren McGuire spotted another vintage ad for weight gain, we added it to our collection.

Thanks to Stephanie DeH. and Lindsey Dale, we have a handful of new ads to add to our post on truly unlikely things sold with sex… including archery.  We also included an ad from Lindsey’s site that we added to our post on ads selling homes with women’s bodies.

We added a snapshot of pink handguns for sale in Oklahoma to our ad featuring, well, pink guns marketed to women.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.