Archive: Aug 2011

Cross-posted at Scientopia.

A couple of days ago I posted a video about stereotypes of Native Americans in video games, including the Hot Indian Princess. Though the video discussed video games specifically, these tropes are common in other area of pop culture as well. Dolores R. sent in a great example. Over at Beyond Buckskin, Jessica Metcalfe posted about the 2011 Caribana Parade in Toronto. This year the parade theme was Native America, including various sections such as Amazon Warriors, Lost City of the Aztecs, Brazilian Amerindians…and Tribal Princesses. Here’s a Tribal Princess costume provided by one band, Callaloo (it’s now sold out).

A commenter on Metcalfe’s post takes exception with criticisms of these costumes and the parade theme, saying,

[This is a] celebration of historic alliances between African Diaspora peoples and Native peoples. In New Orleans, the tradition was a specific response to racist laws that placed Native and other POC communities in a common frame of reference. This tradition is almost 200 years old among Caribbean/Diaspora people in North America…you are making a tremendous mistake by attacking a part of Afro-Caribbean culture as if this was the same as an expression of White/Euro privilege.

So the argument is that this can’t be problematic cultural appropriation or propagation of the sexualized Indian Princess trope because it is part of an event meant to celebrate and recognize the histories and cultures of groups that have themselves been the target of discrimination and political/cultural exclusion. Certainly there is an important cultural and historical context there that, the commenter argues, distinguishes these costumes from, say, the current fad of “tribal” clothing in fashion.

And yet, that argument seems to discursively claim a right to represent Native Americans in any way without being subject to criticisms of stereotyping or cultural appropriation. For instance, the Apache were not a Caribbean tribe (though the Lipan Apache moved far into southeastern Texas by the late 1700s, coming into regular contact with Texas Gulf tribes). Does this sexualized “Apache” costume, as imagined by non-Apaches and sold to the general public, differ greatly from other appropriations and representations of Native American culture and identity as fashion statement?

This feels a little like a different version of the “But we’re honoring you!” argument used in efforts to defend Native American sports mascots — that any concern the viewer has is only due to their lack of understanding of the reason for the depiction of Native Americans, not because that depiction might be, in fact, problematic.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Cross-posted at Ms. and Jezebel.

In a previous post I’ve argued against framing a preference for boy children as “culturally Asian.” New data from Gallup, sent in by Kari B., shows that this preference is alive and well among Americans, at least among young men.  While women are most likely to have no opinion and about equally likely to prefer a girl or boy, men are significantly more likely to prefer a boy.  This preference is strongest among younger men, but still present among men over 50.  Whereas women become increasingly indifferent with age and, secondarily, begin to prefer girls.

The editors at CNN note that, since children are mostly born to young people, and indifferent women may bend to men’s preferences, new sex selection technologies threaten to create a gender imbalance in the U.S.

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.

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front.

Social Security is in Danger

The recently approved deficit reduction plan includes the establishment of a Congressional super committee that is supposed to propose ways to achieve $1.2-1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. Everything is on the table, including Social Security. It must complete its work by November 23, 2011.

While the committee could decide to spare Social Security, the odds are great that its final proposal will include significant benefit cuts. Most Republicans have long sought to dismantle the program and President Obama is willing to accept a reduction in Social Security benefits for the sake of deficit reduction.  Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the federal government’s credit rating only adds to the pressure.  The rating agency explained its decision as follows:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process.

Why Social Security is Important

There has been little media discussion of the importance of Social Security to those over 65.  According to the Economic Policy Institute:

The average annual Social Security retirement benefit in 2009 was $13,406.40, slightly above the $10,289 federal poverty line for individuals age 65 and older, but less than the minimum wage. While modest in size, Social Security benefits comprise a substantial share of household income for most elderly recipients.

The chart below shows that the poorest 40% of households with a head 65 years or older rely on social security for more than 80% of their income. Even the middle 20% depend on social security for more than 60% of their income. In sum, cutting social security benefits will hit hard at the great majority of seniors.

How the Change Will Undermine Benefits

If the super committee does decide to go after social security, it will likely do so by proposing that social security benefits be adjusted using a new measure of inflation. Right now benefits are adjusted using the CPI-W, which measures the change in prices of goods and services commonly consumed by urban wage earners and clerical workers. The new measure is called the Chained Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers.

This all sounds very technical, but the basic idea is simple. The CPI-W measures the increase in the cost of a relatively fixed bundle of goods and services. The Chained Consumer Price Index assumes that consumers continually adjust their purchases, giving up those goods and services that are expensive in favor of cheaper substitutes. The chained index would produce a lower rate of inflation because the goods and services whose prices are rising the fastest would be dropped from the index or given lower weight. The result would be a smaller annual cost of living adjustment for those receiving Social Security, thereby cutting Social Security outlays.

Those who support using a chained index argue that it is a more accurate measure of inflation than the CPI-W. In reality, it just masks the fact that people are unable to buy the goods and services they once enjoyed. If we are really concerned about accuracy, we could use the CPI-E, which measures the change in prices of those goods and services commonly consumed by seniors. The CPI-E has risen much faster than the CPI-W, demonstrating that current cost of living adjustments are actually too low, not too high.

The following chart should leave no doubt as to what is at stake in this “technical” adjustment.  A medium earner retiring this year at age 65 would receive $15,132.  The retiree’s real (inflation adjusted) earnings would remain constant over time assuming that Social Security benefits were adjusted using the existing CPI-W.  If benefits were adjusted using the proposed Chained CPI, the retiree’s real earnings would steadily decline, falling to $13,740 at age 95.  By comparison, benefits would grow to $16,131 if the CPI-E were used.

Why Social Security is the Wrong Target

Social Security shouldn’t be on the cutting board at all.   It is a self-financing system, one with a large surplus.  Some analysts say that the system will not have sufficient funds to meet its obligations by 2037.  In fact, this claim is based on very extreme and unlikely assumptions about future economic activity.  But, even if we accept these assumptions, we can easily escape the predicted crisis by applying the Social Security tax to labor income above $106,800.  Currently, earnings above that amount are exempt from the tax.  Removing the tax ceiling would ensure the solvency of Social Security through the next 75 years.

Cross-posted at Scientopia, Ms., and Jezebel.

Dolores R. and Andrew S. let us know about the report “The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings,” by researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, based on 2007-2009 American Community Survey data (via Feministing and Kay Steiger). Not surprisingly, higher education significantly increases lifetime earnings of U.S. workers:

But education doesn’t pay off equally for all groups. Women, not surprisingly, make less at every level of education than men do; in fact, their median lifetime earnings are generally on par with men a couple of rungs down the educational ladder:

Ah, but, you might think, women are more likely to take time out of the workforce than men, so perhaps that accounts for the difference. But the gaps calculated here are only for full-time, year-round workers and do not include periods out of the workforce — that is, this is the “best-case scenario” in terms of comparing gender earnings, and yet women still make about 25% less than men at the same educational level. When they include workers taking time out of the workforce, the pay gap would be significantly larger. The far right column in this table shows how much less women make compared to men based on the “typical” work pattern for workers in each educational category:

The benefits of education also vary by race and ethnicity, with non-Hispanic Whites generally making more at each educational level than all other groups, though Asians outearn them at the highest levels:

Though the authors don’t include a table showing the gap if you include workers who do not work full-time year-round throughout their careers, they state that as with gender, the gap widens significantly, since non-Whites are more likely to experience periods without work.

So does education pay? Undoubtedly, for all groups. But due to factors such as occupational segregation (especially by gender) and discrimination in the workplace, the return on an educational investment is clearly a lot higher for some than others.

Also see our recent posts on the gender gap in science and tech jobs, racial differences in job loss during the recession, unemployment among Black and White college grads, and trends in job segregation by sex.

Cross-posted at Family Inequality.

Buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal and get a toy: OK, I didn’t expect it to be enlightening.

But to hear Kevin Newell, the company’s executive vice president and global chief brand officer, tell it, that’s exactly what it should be:

McDonald’s is committed to playing a positive role in children’s well-being. The Smurfs Happy Meal program delivers great quality food choices, fun toys and engaging digital content that reinforces important environmental messages.

Awesome. Granted, the last time I saw a Smurf, it was about 1978, and he looked like this:

And I don’t recall being overly concerned with gendered toy representations at the time. Anyway, now I’m told by the Happy Meal box that, “Smurfs are named after their individual talents: there’s Farmer, Painter and Baker… Know your talent and find your Smurf name!”

The girls both got male Smurf characters, which struck me as interesting, because the counter person had asked us if the Meals were for boys or girls. Then I looked at the characters on the box. Then I looked at the complete list of them on the website (see the poster version here):

Then I wondered what Smurfette’s “individual talent” was that got her — the only female Smurf – named “Smurfette.” And at that point, if it hadn’t been for all the fat and salt and sugar in my meal, I might have stopped enjoying it.

In context

I’ve commented before on the gender segregation in film making. The gist of it is apparent in this graph from the Celluloid Ceiling report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Not many women in charge:

But isn’t it improbable that a blockbuster kids’ movie, which grossed more than $75 million in its first two weeks, could be so blatantly sexist? There are a few women in the cast of the movie version of The Smurfs, but all the Smurfs are still male except Smurfette. Next thing you know they’re going to turn the only female character in this promotion — which, remember, plays a “positive role in children’s well-being” — into an adult sex symbol played by Katy Perry. You’re kidding.

Is sexist even a word anymore?

In fact, sexism used to be a very common word. According to the Google Ngrams database of millions of terms from their vast collection of digitized books in American English, “sexism” was even more common than “bacon” during the 1990s (you can play with this yourself here):

Unfortunately, in my opinion, sexism has retreated from the language, and kids’ stuff seems to be more shamelessly gendered than ever. I think this sad state of affairs is at least partly the result of what you see in that green line above — the backlash against feminism (and anti-racism) that made it seem more unpleasant or unwarranted to make a “big deal” out of sexism than to treat girls like this.

P.S. I haven’t seen the movie. Please tell me it has a hidden feminist message I haven’t heard about.

Cross-posted at Scientopia.

The introduction of the internet has made pornography more easily available than any time in modern history.  Responding to this development, some have worried that adolescents are looking at and watching porn, and plenty of it.

Is this true?

Drawing on a telephone survey of 1,500 youth, Janis Wolak and colleagues present some data giving us a clue.  They find that less than half (42%) of 10- to 17-year-old internet users had seen online pornography in the last year.  Most of them that had, further, had not sought it out.  The majority (66%) had come across the pornography by accident (e.g., they had entered a porn site without meaning to, been emailed an explicit image, or seen a pop up).

The image below shows unwanted and wanted exposure to pornography for boys as they age.  Only 1% of the boys 10- to 11-years-old had sought out pornography, by 12-13 about one in ten have done so, and by 16-17 over 1/3rd have (38%).  Unwanted pornography is a problem for boys of all ages. Seventeen percent of boys 10-11 encountered unwanted porn and this number increased as the boys aged.

Few girls seek out pornography: 2% of 10- 11-year-olds had sought out pornography, rising to 8% by 16-17.  Girls have the same problem with unwanted exposure to pornography; it happens about as frequently as it does for boys among 10- 13-year-olds and even more often among 14- 17-year-olds.

So there’s some data.  Whether it justifies the hand-wringing is for you to debate in the comments.

Source: Wolak, Janis, Kimberly Mitchell, and David Finkelhor. 2007. Unwanted and Wanted Exposure to Online Pornography in a National Sample of Youth Internet Users. Pediatrics 119, 2: 247-257.

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.

Dolores R. sent us a link to a video posted at Racialicious about stereotypes of Native Americans in video games. Beth Aileen Lameman, the director and narrator, discusses a number of frequent tropes used when depicting Native Americans in games, such as the half-breed hero, the wise old Indian sage, and, of course, the hottie Indian princess, as well as the tendency to conflate many different tribes and cultures. It’s a great summary of common representations of Native Americans in pop culture more broadly:

Native Representations in Video Games from Elizabeth Lameman on Vimeo.

Katie L. sent along a fascinating Starbucks commercial. In it, a succession of workers grow, harvest, roast, taste, and prepare coffee from scratch for a hypothetical customer named “Sue.” At first glance, I thought that the commercial did a nice job of at least acknowledging their workers (if in an overly romanticized way), unlike some commercials for agricultural products that erase them.  But I thought again.  Because the entire commercial revolves around Sue, the inclusion of all the workers isn’t meant to focus our attention on them, it’s meant to highlight how much work goes into pleasing Sue.  We’re supposed to identify with Sue, not the series of workers.

This reminds me of a post about a “hand-rolled” tea sold at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  The consumer was supposed to be excited about the tea not because of its flavor, but because, as I wrote, “it takes a significant amount of human labor to “hand-roll” tea leaves into balls… What could be more luxurious than the casual-and-fleeting enjoyment of the hard-and-long labor of others? ”

This ad has a similar feel.  The workers are portrayed only in order to make the intended consumer feel special.  They work with Sue in mind, tending carefully to Sue’s future pleasure intently and with care.  They find satisfaction in Sue’s satisfaction.  Sue is everything.  Everyone is for Sue.

This tells us something interesting, no doubt, about American cultural values.

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.