Erin S. sent in this screencapture of a set of ebay gift suggestions:

Erin says,

For her?  A Roomba automatic vacuum!  For him?  A new sports car, of course!

Apparently Zunes are an androgynous gift, which is good to know.

Random, non-sociological story: My ex-stepdad once got my mom a mop for their anniversary. For her birthday he got her a live mouse trap–the type that doesn’t kill them but just keeps them contained so you can take them outside. She actually liked these gifts better than the time he got them “both” a rifle for their anniversary, as a “shared” gift. Ah, romance.

Thanks for the image, Erin!

NEW! (July ’10): Carissa sent in an image of an advertisement for an eBay Coupon Event that provides suggestions for different groups. There’s a clear assumption of who would be most interested in the different categories, with the other gender thrown in as an afterthought. But it’s also an example of how we insist on dividing things by gender, even when there’s absolutely no reason to do so. If you’re acknowledging that both men and women might like everything listed, why bother to categorize them by gender at all? Why not just have  a list under “All Categories” and leave it at that?

Edward L. sent in a link to Ultra Culture’s post about trailers for the new Will Smith movie “Seven Pounds” market the movie differently depending on whether the target audience is men or women. Ultra Culture’s analysis is funnier than anything I’d say, so I’m just going to quote it.

Here’s one trailer:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kpK1fKzoDs[/youtube]

Ultra Culture says:

WOMEN!
This is the film for you! Its got that sexy Will Smith in it (from Hitch!) and just look at all the emotional turmoil he’s going through with Rosario Dawson. And did you see that? It’s directed by the guy who did Pursuit of Happyness! What a lovely, life-affirming film that was.

Another trailer:

Again from Ultra Culture:

MEN!
This is the film for you! Its got that cool Will Smith in it (from Hancock!) and just look at all that fast paced action he’s going through with that gruff-voiced man. And those fast cuts, whooshing noises and gradually fading words remind me of Enemy of the State! What a heart-pounding thrill-ride that was.

You might pair this with a discussion of how other products are marketed differently to men and women, such as cars or food.

Thanks, Edward!

Naama Nagar sent in these images from a “booklet that was intended to assist male bosses in supervising their new female employees at RCA plants,” according to the National Archives, Southeast Region (found via Michael Zilberman’s history blog; sorry it’s in Hebrew):

Text:

When you supervise a woman…Make clear her part in the process or product on which she works. * Allow for her lack of familiarity with machine processes. * See that her working set-up is comfortable, safe and convenient. * Start her right by kindly and careful supervision. * Avoid horseplay or “kidding”; she may resent it. * Suggest rather than reprimand. * When she does a good job, tell her so. * Listen to and aid her in her work problems.

Text:

Finally–call on a trained woman counselor in your personnel department…to find out what women workers think and want. * To discover personal causes of poor work, absenteeism, turnover.  * To assist women workers in solving personal difficulties. * To interpret women’s attitudes and actions. * To assist in adjusting women to their jobs.

Text:

When you put a woman to work…Have a job breakdown for her job. * Consider her education, work experience and temperament in assigning her to that job. * Have the necessary equipment, tools and supplies ready for her. * Try out her capacity for and familiarity with the work. * Assign her to a shift in accordance with health, home obligations and transportation arrangements. * Place her in a group of workers with similar backgrounds and interests. * Inform her fully on health and safety rules, company policies, company objectives. * Be sure she knows the location of rest-rooms, lunch facilities, dispensaries. * Don’t change her shift too often and never without notice.

These are interesting from a gender perspective, of course, but they’re also sort of fascinating for what they tell us about changing assumptions about what the workplace is (or should be) like. While there were many problems with the World War II (and post-war) workplace, there was also a certain assumption that companies would take care of their employees to some degree in return for employees’ loyalty and hard work. This comes through in instructions such as “Assign her to a shift in accordance with health, home obligations and transportation work” and “Don’t change her shift too often and never without notice.” The idea is that workplaces, including factories, should think about their employees’ lives and how their work schedules fit in with their other obligations, as well as provide things like dispensaries. Now, I’m sure many companies didn’t actually meet these ideals, but this booklet sent out to managers at least acknowledges that they exist. Today, most workplaces don’t even pretend to aspire to such ideals. While some privileged white-collar workers may have options like flexible hours or working from home, many workers find that their hours and schedules change from week to week, making it difficult to arrange child care or work around other obligations. McDonald’s is well known for making workers sign out during slow periods during their shift to keep payroll down (workers are expected to be available, however, should business pick back up) and Wal-Mart has been sued for failing to pay overtime or for asking workers to work off the clock, again to reduce payroll costs.

So these might be useful for a discussion of work and what we expect from the worker-employer relationship. Is it simply a contractual financial exchange? Do workers and employers owe each other anything besides an hour of work and an hour of pay at the agreed-upon price? How have employers pushed concerns about schedule disruptions and payroll reductions off on workers, forcing them to accommodate the company’s needs?

Thanks, Naama!

I saw this bumper sticker yesterday:

Text:

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you’re reading it in English, thank a soldier.

It reminded me of when Lisa and I visited the Atomic Testing Museum here in Vegas last year (inspired posts here and here). There was a video about atomic testing in Nevada with a lot of scientists who took part talking about it. Several of them said things to the effect of, “Yeah, ok, so it turns out testing nuclear bombs had some negative effects for people, and we’re sorry about that. But we had to do it, and if we didn’t, you’d be living in the Soviet Union right now!”

I understand that the point of the bumper sticker is that speaking English means we haven’t been taken over by some other country that doesn’t speak English (apparently we don’t have to worry about Britain, Canada, or the many former colonies where at least a large minority speak English or where it is the language used for official government matters) and haven’t been forced to adopt their culture. But I have to say, when I think of things that would worry me if some other country took over the U.S., whether we’d continue to speak English wouldn’t be my top concern.

Velanie W. sent me this video (found at here), in which the parents clearly think it’s funny that when their toddler daughter says “sparkling wiggles,” it sounds like she’s saying something very different:

(after the jump b/c it automatically plays and that gets annoying)…

Now, if it was just a video of a little girl mispronouncing some words, this video wouldn’t be sociologically interesting–kids have trouble enunciating, and they can’t help it if the way they say things sounds like something else, perhaps something offensive, to adults sometimes.

What struck me, though, is the parents egging her on to repeat it, and to say things like “Get a job, sparkling wiggles!” To them, the fact that when she says “sparkling wiggles” it comes out sounding like a racial epithet is funny and endearing, enough so that it’s worth getting her to repeat sentences with the phrase in it.

This is an example of what I think of as casual racism. By casual, I don’t mean unimportant or harmless. What I mean by that is the type of prejudiced behavior and language that doesn’t necessarily reflect a deep-seated hatred or extremely bitter attitude, but rather is a taken-for-granted way of acting or speaking about non-Whites. Several of my family members do this. They don’t hate non-Whites in the way we think of prejudiced people being angry and resentful; they don’t think African Americans are taking their jobs or hurting them in any specific way. I doubt my grandma has spoken to an African American more than a few times in her life. But it is just part of their worldview that it is acceptable to use offensive racial epithets in conversation. It is a sense of entitlement to use degrading and prejudiced language to describe non-Whites, and to expect, when challenged, that saying “I’ve met some nice Black people” or “I’m nice to Black people when I meet them” should protect them from charges that they are racist.

I could be wrong, but that’s what it sounds like is coming from the parents in this video: they don’t sound hateful or bitter, they just sound like they think it’s fine to laugh at (what sounds like) racist language, and to share it with others, and that there are contexts in which even such racially-charged words are cute. It’s the sense of entitlement to use offensive language and then, if criticized, to claim it was “just a joke” and that the criticizer doesn’t have a sense of humor or is hyper-sensitive, meaning they have the problem. Of course, this helpfully deflects criticism by turning it into a debate about “political correctness” and such instead of people continuing to think racist language, imagery, etc., is funny.

Thanks, Velanie!

Recently Lisa posted some photos of what resource extraction looks like. I thought I would show a different side of this phenomenon: what an oil bust looks like. I grew up in the Middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma. The area has been through two oil booms, one in the 1920s and one in the 60s through the 80s.

But with any energy boom eventually comes the energy bust. I took some photos I took showing what communities looks like if their economy is disproportionately based on oil and the oil companies leave, which were reproduced at Business Insider.

Oil wells that have never been installed sit around on empty lots, slowly rusting. Many oil wells that were in use at one time now sit motionless. Because of high oil prices in the last few years, some oil wells have been put back in production; it’s the first time since I was a kid that you can look across pastures and see many of the oil wells actually pumping. Pipes crisscross the landscape, often slowly tumbling downhill from lack of maintenance. When they get old and rusty enough they start breaking apart, leaving jagged edges that occasionally lead to trips to the doctor for a tetanus shot. An old storage tank, long past any usefulness, slowly rusts.

In an energy bust, real estate prices plummet. If there aren’t many other industries in the area, there’s no way to attract buyers, and houses flood the market as people move looking for work. Houses, many of them perfectly serviceable, slowly decay from lack of upkeep. Families that became wealthy from oil lose their fortunes. The house below was owned by a family that became wealthy from the 1920s oil boom. When that oil bust hit, they lost everything. Their house sits far out in the country and slowly crumbles. Downtowns die and the buildings sit empty and deteriorate over time. Towns don’t have enough children to run independent schools, so rural school districts consolidate. This school was sold off and a local resident told me that it has been, at various times, a bed and breakfast, internet cafe, and beer-only bar, between bouts of sitting empty.

Ponca City is centered around the Continental refinery plant. Continental was owned by Conoco until 1984. There used to be a significant Conoco presence in the town, and as with Bartlesville, it has faced hard times since the Conoco-Phillips headquarters moved to Houston. Some neighborhoods were polluted by the refinery, leading the company to buy out homeowners and tear down the houses (some owned by private individuals, others by the Ponca tribe). In one area where this occurred, the land is now a park. Local residents have heard that Conoco is planning to tear down a lot of its old administrative buildings so it doesn’t have to pay insurance or maintenance costs, meaning there will be even more large swaths of empty land scattered around the city.

There’s nothing exceptional about the experience of these communities. They simply represent a story played out in many towns as oil booms fade and corporations move their headquarters to larger cities. Now, as the Keystone XL pipeline project goes forward, many such communities gear up for their next ride on the energy roller coaster.

Ben O. sent us this 1941 ad for Fletcher’s Castoria (found at I’m Learning to Share), in which mothers are warned (by a bratty kid) that they better give their children Fletcher’s laxatives or their children will hate them:

Text from section 2:

It all started when Mary needed a laxative. She hates it, and this time she simply refused to take it. I tried to force it down her and she splattered it all over the carpet. So I slapped her and said she was a bad girl. Then came the tantrum!

I’d say slapping her daughter is more of an indication of what type of mother she is than which laxatives she chooses, but whatever. Apparently the company liked to use corporal punishment in its ads; here are some more examples (both found at Corpun). In this first one, we learn that even parents who don’t believe in spanking may be driven to it if they use the wrong laxative (in section 2, she gives him an “unmerciful spanking”):

Text from sections 1 and 2:

I don’t believe in spanking children. But darn it all, sometimes a youngster can sure drive a grownup wild. Like mine did me–yesterday. It all started innocently when Billy wouldn’t take his laxative. At first I tried coaxing. But that didn’t work. Then when I started to force it on him, he sent the spoon flying out of my hand. So I lost my temper and gave him an unmerciful spanking.

From section 1:

Whenever Tommy gets a spanking, our whole family is upset. Big Tom hates to do it and mopes for hours afterward. And Tommy’s little nervous system gets so upset he can’t eat. So last Friday I decided to put an end to spankings…

Fletcher’s Castoria: the way to digestive and family harmony. Without it, you might end up slapping the kids around (though I have to say, that girl at the top would probably test to the utmost my opposition to violence).

Just a question: I’m not a parent, but I don’t hear my friends talking about giving their kids laxatives all the time, and I don’t remember being forced to take them as a kid (though I do remember us forcing a horse to drink a lot of castor oil once). Was this just a health fad at the time that people thought kids needed that has fallen out of favor? Did kids in the ’40s have some unique digestive problems we’ve, um, eliminated since then? Or do my friends’ kids go around constipated all the time because they don’t know to make them take senna laxatives?

Thanks again, Ben!

NEW! Sarah N. sent us another example of an add that implies laxatives lead to happier moms and better family lives:

Part of the text:

“My mum loves me now. I can tell because her hands are gentler…her voice is sweeter…and her kisses are softer. I know know what I did. But all of a sudden she just started loving me!”

Linda, dear, you didn’t do anything. It was Mum’s chemist. He gave her Bile Beans…

In case you thought the craze for sanitary or anti-bacterial products was new, here’s a Cremo cigar ad from the 1920s (found at the Microfilm Gallery) that scares consumers with the specter of cigars covered in “mites of malice”:

Text:

Just think! On the hands of a cigar-maker may lurk many different kinds of disease germs…crippling ‘mites of malice’ that you may draw into your mouth through hand-made cigars. To awaken men to this invisible danger…I want to tell the truth about Cremo–the only cigar whose purity I can truly certify. Every tobacco leaf entering the Cremo factory is scientifically sterilized by U.S. Government approved methods. Cremo is fit for you mouth, because it is not made in stuffy, dingy lofts and stores…but in air-flooded, sun-bathed, scientifically-clean factories. Not by antiquated methods…but by marvelous inventions that fold, wrap, and tip the cigars with sanitary metal fingers. This scientific, Cremo-method of manufacture guarantees you cigars of the same high health protection that you get in certified milk! What’s more…Cremo purity is quickly sealed in individual sanitary foil. Thus Cremo reaches your lips with a pleasure that you can trust!

What I like here is the total faith in technology and mass production. It’s safer! It’s innovative! It’s sanitary! It’s a striking contrast to the concerns often expressed about scientific innovations and their possible negative effects. It would also be a good example for talking about the way that perceptions of manufacturing methods have changed. In the 1920s, the idea of mass-produced cigars was exciting and modern. The fact that they were made with “metal fingers” was a selling point. Today, on the other hand, the techniques referred to in this ad as “antiquated” might be called “artisanal,” a word that connotes craftsmanship and quality. According to About.com,

The novice smoker may be tempted to start by trying those machine made brands sold in Drug Stores, such as Dutch Masters or El Producto. However, the aspiring connoisseur should consider spending a few more pennies and moving up to hand rolled cigars, which are sold online or at a local tobacconist.

Maybe someday we’ll think of soap that isn’t anti-bacterial as a high-quality, artisanal product.