Eleven readers sent in this wonderfully simple campaign to discourage people from dressing up like racial or ethnic caricatures for Halloween.  Or dressing their dogs up as such.

Kudos to the STARS students at Ohio University behind this campaign!  The costumes that they’re holding up, by the way, are real; we’ve featured several of them in previous years at SocImages.

Thanks to Norma M., Amias, Katrin, Dmitriy T.M., A.M.S., Joe F., Sarah D., Sara P., Molly, Patrick C., and Washburn University professor Sangyoub Park!  It’s exciting that so many readers sent this in and that the campaign got so much attention. It suggests that many people were hungry for a clear message against this phenomenon.

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.

“Just another example of how children are placed into gender roles,” writes Belinda, who sent in this page from an Australian Kmart catalog:

The girls are, of course, dressed in “pretty” costumes, such as a fairy, a ballerina, or a ladybug. Or they placed in a “domestic” role, such as the cook. The boys however get to be a pirate, a police officer, a doctor or a firefighter. Unsurprisingly, the boys are mainly dressed in costumes that are actually plausible career options, the girls however are placed in the domestic sphere or the realm of fantasy.

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.

Imogen H. sent along this photograph of a group of women dressed up for Halloween as Laughing Alone with Salad:

If you have no idea what’s going on, see the laughing alone with salad post.

Photo and story at Hairpin.

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.

People seem to love to draw distinctions between social categories. Gender, race, age, class, sexual orientation, religion… you name it; difference is something that we all tend to be a bit obsessed with. But even when there is difference, there is overlap. Often, lots and lots of overlap.

Case in point, sent in by Christie W. and Jordan G.: reactions to the super scary bit at Nightmares Fear Factory in Niagara Falls. These photos suggest that no matter who you are, scary is scary! There are lots and they are just as awesome.

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.

Bemoaning how Halloween has turned into an opportunity/requirement for women and girls to dress sexy is nothing new.  The trend isn’t just about Halloween, however, it reflects an everyday expectation for women.  Women are expected to dress in ways that reveal their body and please a hypothetical male gaze daily.  Men just aren’t.

University of Akron sociology graduate student Will LeSuer took some great photographs illustrating the different expectations for men and women.  The same idea for a costume is sexualized when it’s a woman in it and not-at-all sexualized when it’s a man.  Notice, too, that the sizing is different.  The costumes for women come in three sizes, while the men’s is usually just one size.  This is because women are expected to wear clothes that reveal the shape of her body, so the exact size is more important.

You might have observed, also, that the costumes aren’t called “men’s” and “women’s.”  They’re all just “adult.”  So women could, if they wanted to, buy and wear the non-sexy version of the costume, and vice versa for men.   And we might imagine a woman doing that.  But would a guy do that?  Probably only as a joke (unless they’re in a queer-safe space).

This pattern — women can dress like men, but men don’t dress like women — suggests that there is, in fact, something demeaning, ridiculous, or subordinating about presenting oneself to the male gaze.  Most men feel stupid, gross, or vulnerable when they do it.  This isn’t just about conformity to different gendered expectations.  If it were just about difference women would feel equally weird dressing in men’s clothes.  Instead, when women adopt masculine ways of dressing and moving, they often feel empowered.

So, when men do femininity they feel ridiculous and when women do masculinity they feel awesome. This is what gender inequality looks like.

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.

At the intersection of the trivializing of horrific violence aimed at ethnic/religious groups and the pornification of American culture, comes this “Anne Skank” costume:

[APOLOGIES: We were asked to remove the photograph and complied.]

Yes that is, indeed, a woman dressed up like Anne Frank, the Jewish child who hid from the Nazis for two years, only to be discovered and moved to a concentration camp where she died from Typhus.  Her companions are dressed up like Nazi soldiers.  The Halloween revelers who made the choice to sexualize and laugh at this 15-year-old victim of the holocaust are graduate students in a Creative Writing program.

UPDATE: Comments thread closed.

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.

The Economist posted a graph, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, that shows how U.S. consumer spending changed between 2007 and 2010. The results provide a good snapshot of the economic trade-offs Americans are making (i.e., we’re buying more canned veggies and eating out less), as well as which industries are taking the biggest hit as consumers redefine their products as less essential.

The “nominal” numbers refer to the unadjusted overall changes in spending; the “real” numbers are adjusted for the fact that prices rose by about 5.2% on average, so consumers are getting less for what they spend. So the light blue bars tell you the absolute change in what we’re spending; the dark blue bars, the change in spending relative to how much we’re buying. When adjusted for price inflation, consumer spending fell by about 8%:

Via Talking Points Memo.

Okay so I did a google search one day and I stumbled across two images that… well, I just have to show them to you:

(Victoria’s Secret models, found here)

(Disney fairies, found here)

I seriously don’t want to make too big of a deal out of this. I really don’t.  I highly doubt that one of these images was modeled after the other or that there was some deliberate attempt to link Victoria’s Secret with Disney or sexy models with little girls.

That said, the two images point to a common visual trope. In this trope, a group of sexy women get lined up (often touching each other).  They look almost identical, with the exception of a tiny bit of variation in skin color and hair.  And they’re costumed in such a way as to make them look both alike and different (e.g., all in underwear of different colors).

The effect is to erase their individuality, but multiply the impact of the image. We don’t see a five or six women, we see Woman with a capital “W” (or Fairies in the second case).  It’s like seeing a buffet from afar, you see Food, but not necessarily macaroni and cheese, little tuna sandwich triangles, fried okra, and fruit salad.

Let’s call it the there’s-no-such-thing-as-too-much-conformity-to-the-male-gaze trope.  Or, I-like-my-women-like-I-like-my-collectibles (lots of ’em, all of a type, and on display).  Or, women-come-in-a-rainbow-of-colors-just-kidding.

Do you have a better name for it?

UPDATE: Here’s another one, sent in by Ann T. (says Ann’s boyfriend, “I know it makes ME think of cancer”):

And here’s one I found on the Ms. blog:

Caroline Heldman counts this as a form of sexual objectification.  In these cases, women are shown as interchangeable, like objects.  And, she writes, “like objects, ‘more is better,’ a market sentiment that erases the worth of individual 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.