Archive: Aug 2010

When I was a young adult there was a pervasive concern with unrealistic expectations of thinness for women and how this contributed to low self-esteem and eating disorders among young girls.  I don’t think this discourse is gone, but it’s definitely been joined by a competing discourse, the one that says that kids are too fat and need to diet.  In the latter category come these limited calorie snack packs from Disney (with Cars and generic princess themes):

When the anti-eating disorder discourse reigned supreme, I think this product would have been protested off the shelves.  They fit quite nicely, however, with the anti-obesity discourse.  From that perspective it makes perfect sense to teach kids to count calories.

The rise and fall of discourses is a fascinating topic.  What do you think?  Do the two discourses co-exist today?  Is anti-obesity winning?  What’s the future of the anti-eating disorder discourse?

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.

Jamie Keiles, of  the Seventeen Magazine Project and Teenagerie, wondered how racially representative Seventeen was compared to the U.S. population.  So she offered some data based on the May 2010 issue.  Her methods:

There are 332 faces in this month’s issue of Seventeen. I counted a face as a head with at least one visible eye. That is, backs of heads and disembodied mouths or eyes were not included in my data. I researched the races of the models and celebrities that I could identify. Those whose race I could not determine with reasonable certainty I’ve excluded from my data, making for 319 surveyed faces.

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 research by economists, sociologists, and psychologists, for challenging cognitive tasks, large rewards means worse performance.  So all of those GIANT bonuses going to workers on Wall Street are not necessary for the health of our economy, they may actually be hurting it.

Or so Dan Pink argues in this 11-minute illustrated lecture from Cognitive Media:

Choice quote: “When the profit motive gets unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen.”

* Hyperbole!

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.

Given the intense publicity given to Chris Brown’s violent beating of singer, Rihanna, and the subsequent release of her domestic violence-themed single, Russian Roulette, it’s hard to interpret her partnership with Eminem on the new song, Love the Way You Lie, as anything but symbolic.  Unfortunately, it’s also hard to interpret this video as anything other than the message that true love is violent.

Eminem sings about how he hates the woman he loves, and alternates between expressing shame for his violence and describing how badly he wants to hurt her.  Simultaneously, Rihanna’s beautiful vocals tug at the heart strings, representing the love side of the coin against Eminem’s angry voice.  Add to this the acting by Lost’s Dominic Monaghan and super-sex-symbol Megan Fox, who alternate between beating each other and appearing to be deeply, profoundly in love.  Eminem closes by threatening to kill her if she ever tries to leave him and, in the end, they lie in each others arms.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful song.  Rihanna’s vocals are gorgeous; it’s was hard to not feel heartfelt while listening to them.  And that’s the problem.  It’s a powerful form of socialization.  That we might internalize the message that passionate love and incontrollable rage go hand-in-hand is really very scary. It suggests not only that you should tolerate interpersonal violence but that, if there is no violence in your relationship, perhaps you don’t really love one another.  Better go out and find someone who will beat you.

I’ve never been in an abusive relationship of that sort but as a young adult I thought I knew what love felt like.  To me, it felt like fear.  I knew that I was in love when I became deeply frightened that someone would leave me.  It took me until around my 30th birthday to realize that a strong, loving relationship should make me feel secure, not terrified.  These messages are insidious and ubiquitous and I do believe they shape real relationships.

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.

Rachel C. sent in a video that shows changes in unemployment rates by U.S. county between January 2007 and May 2010, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Here’s a youtube version, but there’s a larger, less distorted version here:

Note that while the other colors all represent a range of 0.9% (say, from 2.0 to 2.9%), purple is a wider interval, from 7.0 to 9.9%, so there’s going to be more variation in unemployment rates in counties colored purple than those that are in the yellow or red range (but presumably less than gray, since that’s anything over 10.0%). Not sure why that particular interval division was used.

Depressing graphic, no?

Abby Kinchy sent in a link to a story at Colorlines about where waste from BP’s Gulf oil leak is being disposed of. Nine landfills have been approved as disposal sites. Robert Bullard, who studies environmental racism (particular how toxic waste dumps are often located in neighborhoods where racial/ethnic minorities are over-represented), posted his calculations of the racial makeup of the areas surrounding these nine landfills over at Dissident Voices. This map from Colorlines shows the location of the landfills, the amount of waste (which includes “oily solids,” waste from the cleanup, and so on) sent there, and the percentage of people living within a 1-mile radius that are People of Color:

I looked up the % who aren’t non-Hispanic Whites for each state (as of 2008), just to provide some context:

• LA: 38.1
• MS: 41.3
• AL: 31.6
• FL: 39.7

So if we compare the neighborhoods simply to the % of POC in each state, there are 3 in LA, 1 in AL, and 1 in FL that have an over-representation of non-Whites and/or Hispanics. On the other hand, 3 landfills are in neighborhoods with racial/ethnic minority populations significantly below the state overall. This, of course, is a very rough measure, since different racial groups are not evenly spread across a state. I just wanted to provide at least some background info.

According to a story at the Miami Herald, operators of the landfills say there is no danger:

…operators of the landfills insist the BP garbage is not unprecedented and is suitable for the type of landfills they’ve selected: disposal sites that take household waste, as well as “special waste” like contaminated soil. They note much of the waste is generated by the cleanup operation itself: soiled cleanup coveralls, gloves, sandwich wrappers and drink containers.

They point out that the BP waste makes up a tiny amount of the material taken to these landfills each day.

However, residents are concerned because the landfills are regular municipal landfills, not designated for toxic waste (since the EPA has not categorized the waste as hazardous). The Associated Press discovered problems, including a truck that was leaking and left a trail of tar balls behind it, waste in containers that were not lined with the protective liners BP is supposed to use, and uncovered containers, including one in a state park that was leaking liquid from the previous night’s rain. The AP concluded, “…the handling and disposal of oily materials was haphazard at best.”

I’m not an environmental toxicologist, so whether or not the waste is hazardous or whether the landfills can keep it from seeping into groundwater is, obviously, beyond my ability to judge. I’m more interested in perceptions of risk and confidence in experts. There are distinct differences by gender and race, with women and non-Whites expressing higher concern about environmental pollution/dangers and higher perceptions of risk compared to men and Whites. In fact, White men stood out from all other groups, rating potential environmental risks significantly lower than every other group. In the U.S., the gender gap is not explained by differences in scientific knowledge.

Given these differences, discussions of environmental safety and risk are often very contentious. Experts in both the private and public sector are disproportionately White men. Regardless of scientific knowledge, they may underestimate the risks involved compared to how women with the same scientific knowledge would (I don’t have similar data on how scientific knowledge might affect the racial gap). Science doesn’t just provide us with objective facts; researchers and those applying their findings must interpret the data. Individuals with the exact same level of expertise may interpret the same data on the hazardousness (or lack thereof) of a particular type of waste very differently, without anyone being intentionally deceptive or more clearly biased.

And not all groups have equal faith in science or, more specifically, the people engaged in scientific research. Scientists in the 1800s used supposed objective measures to prove that Whites were superior to non-Whites (and, thus, to justify slavery) and conducted the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which they allowed Black men to suffer and die of syphilis just to see what happened despite having a cure available. And the hazards of materials or pollutants often aren’t immediately apparent and may become clear only later (or may differ for adults and children, or due to cumulative exposure over time, etc.), which scientific analyses may not predict.

I’m not arguing that scientists studying the toxicity of the BP oil waste don’t have any useful information about whether or not it poses any danger to human health, or that data doesn’t help us come to more accurate judgments than we would if we didn’t take such information into account. However, in situations such as these that may be framed, particularly by scientists themselves, as an example of uninformed public opinion vs. fact-based expertise, the differences in interpretations and the fears of local residents despite assurances by researchers may be based in a number of factors that make the story, and conflicts over perceptions of risk, much more complex than it might at first appear.

Sources:

• James Flynn, Paul Slovic, and C.K. Mertz. 1994. “Gender, Race, and Perception of Environmental Health Risks.” Risk Analysis 14(6): 1101-1107.
• Bernadette C. Hayes. 2001. “Gender, Scientific Knowledge, and Attitudes toward the Environment: A Cross-National Analysis.” Political Research Quarterly 54(3): 657-671.
• Paul Mohai. 1997. “Gender Differences in the Perception of Most Important Environmental Problems.” Race, Gender & Class 5(1): 153-169.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

With the exception of the t-shirt (which only masquerades as gender neutral), in the U.S. clothes are designed for women or men, but never both.  Department stores and retail stores (unless they sell only men’s or women’s clothing) have separate men’s and women’s sections in the store.  There is no option to buy clothes, one must buy women’s or men’s clothes.

This is even true for children’s clothes. One might make the argument that adult males and females have different bodies (an argument I might argue with), but we can’t say that pre-pubertal children do.  Nevertheless, the cultural rules that require boys and men to dress differently than girls and women make such a clothing line seem impossible.

Well, Evie sent in an example of a UK clothing company trying to do the impossible.  The company, Polarn O. Pyret, explains:

Our unisex collection (UNI) consists of clothing that is based on situation and function rather than on gender. As a clothing manufacturer, we want to make it our responsibility to offer an alternative to clothing that is based on gender. There is really no reason to design different models and fits for small boys and girls since there is no great difference in the way their bodies are shaped. We have taken an overall approach to unisex clothing, and consider not only color but also pattern and fit.

Evie’s attention was drawn by this ad in a store window:

Their website, you’ll notice, doesn’t have the regular “girls” and “boys” section seen ubiquitously:

This company is nice evidence that the-way-it-is isn’t the-way-it-has-to-be.

UPDATE: Mary and Cheryl pointed out that, if you click on “babies” or either of the “kids” tabs, you get the option of “boys,” “girls,” or “uni” (unisex) lines.  So the company isn’t making a principled stand here.  They’re still willing to take the money of parents who want to dress their kids in gendered clothes, but they are offering an alternative for those parents who don’t.  It’s pretty telling that even this strategy — offering a unisex line alongside girls and boys lines — is so rare.

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.

This 40-second commercial for HSBC bank, sent in by Michelle F., is an excellent example of the way that non-white and non-Western people are often portrayed as more deeply cultural, connected to the past, and closer to nature than their white, Western counterparts.  Sometimes this is done in order to demonize a culture as “barbaric,” other times it is used to infantilize them as “primitive.” In this case, it romanticizes.

Running on both English and Chinese language channels, the commercial contrasts the wise Chinese man with the young, white man.  The music, the boats, their clothing and hats, and their fishing methods all suggest that the Chinese are more connected to their own long-standing  (ancient?) cultural traditions, ones that offered them an intimate and cooperative relationship to nature. Simultaneously, it erases Chinese modernity, fixing China somewhere back in time.

Other posts on the modernity/traditional binary:

Caveman Courtship

The White Woman’s Burden
De-Racializing the Modernity/Tradition Binary

Africans as Props for White Femininity
Women’s Bodies and the Modernity/Tradition Binary

Which Images Represent India?
The Unseen Middle East

The Primitive and the Modern in Kanye’s Love Lockdown
Our review of Avatar, the Movie
Porn Producer with a Heart of Gold

What Counts as Indian Art?
Whites can Reconquer the America’s with Kahlua

Primitive Child Offers Cures for Modern Ills

Or browse our tag on the false modern/primitive binary.

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.