Axe body spray is so powerful, a woman will give up all her dreams and become putty in your hands if you wear it.

Axe and Dove are owned by the same company, so keep that in mind when you encounter the “pro-woman” Dove ad campaigns.

Today Gwen and I went to the by now well-known Bodies exhibit that displays preserved human cadavers, purportedly so we can learn more about the human body (and give up smoking).

As we went in we joked about how there probably wouldn’t be any female bodies until the part on reproduction. We were royally pissed off to discover that we were right. This is a great illustration of the way in which men are neutral and women deviants from the standard (that is, men are people and women are women). The first 8 or so bodies were all male and all in action doing masculine things.

The first female body we encountered (there were only two out of more than a dozen) stood immediately outside the fetal development hall and alongside the dissections of the genitals and reproductive organs.* Not only was this the first female, she was arranged not in action, but in a pose for the male gaze. She was standing with her hands on her hips, with her breasts and hips thrust forward, and on her tip toes as if she were wearing high heels. We couldn’t find any pictures of her on the web (and we weren’t allowed to take any), but we did find an image of a female cadaver from another exhibit. She was both pregnant (fulfilling her biological destiny) and positioned like a pin up (fulfilling her role as sexual object for men). So, in addition to marginalizing the female body, they gendered both male and female bodies. Male bodies are on the move, but female bodies are good for only two things: babies and sexual provocation.

The last body (male) had a sign over it that said “Your Body” because, of course, the male body is just the neutral human body that represents us all.

* As we entered the fetal development hall there was a sign that warned people that they should take a second and think about whether they wanted to see the fetuses, while assuring us that all of them died of natural causes (that is, not abortion). I think it’s bizarre that we’re supposed to find these fetal bodies disturbing, but not the bodies of people who lived lives and loved others and were loved and all that good stuff. There is something weird about the priorities here, as if the fetuses were somehow more human than the adults. Also, while we were looking at the deformed fetuses, a woman standing next to us said that all teenagers should have to see the deformed fetuses because “that’s what gonna happen” if they start having sex.

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.

These photos are from a February 7th New York Times story in the Style section (p. E1 and E6) about changes in what male fashion models look like. This first picture shows some male models from the 1990s.

These three photos show the new ideal: very thin, lanky, and pasty.

These anti-statutory rape PSAs were made by advertising agency Serve for the United Way of Milwaukee. They created enough of a controversy that they were pulled (see an article at Salon).
In response to the controversy, the advertising agency put a little over 2 minutes of focus group footage on youtube:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61-gu2X_57k[/youtube]

Lisa and I are completely confused by these ads. We at least get the first one–her boobs are so big in a Wonderbra that they honk the horn while she drives. And the other I guess means she can’t see to put out her cigarette?But the other two? Is the coffin one supposed to imply that her breasts are too big for the coffin to close? I shouldn’t have to think this hard to understand an ad![youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O45b6bpoEI[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksUddNDJYHI[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-5gu7HKdA[/youtube] 

First, defining our terms:

Income is the money in your paycheck.  It’s what you make from your job.  Wealth, in contrast, is everything else. It includes stocks and bonds, home equity, other properties, investments, your retirement funds etc.  Importantly, you can inherit wealth directly, but you cannot inherit income directly (most of the time).

The relationship between IQ and income is somewhat correlated; in general, people with higher IQs make more money:

But the relationship between IQ and wealth is all over the map:

This suggests that there is some meritocracy in the distribution of income, not so much in who owns yachts and has deep investment portfolios.

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From Zagorsky, Jay. 2007. Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress. Intelligence 35: 489-501.

Thanks to Conrad H.

Chris M. noticed something bizarre on the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) website.

If you scroll about 1/4th of the way down this page, there is a list of pdfs and videos about security on airplanes. There are separate videos for the female and the male “business traveler.” They both show liquids in a plastic bag, but apparently only men carry laptops and women are relieved from having to take off their shoes.

Chris thought it was especially interesting to see this on a .gov site. Nice find Chris!

Another Super Bowl ad using racial/ethnic images: cars.com has a “witch doctor,” clearly based on stereotypical images of African “tribes,” as African peoples are always called.

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