A 1926 eugenics poster (from autistics.org):

From left to right the boxes say (and the left two are what we need less of, the right two what it says we need mroe of):

This light flashes every 48 seconds. Every 48 seconds a person is born in the United States who will never grow up mentally beyond that stage of a normal 8 year old boy or girl.

This light flashes every 50 seconds. Every 50 seconds a person is committed to jail in the United States. Very few normal persons ever go to jail.

This light flashes every 16 seconds. Every 16 seconds a person is born in the United States.

This light flashes every 7 1/2 minutes. Every 7 1/2 minutes a high grade person is born in the United States who will have ability to do creative work and be fit for leadership. About 4% of all Americans come within this class.

Here’s another example of the use of pseudoscience to make racial arguments (via):

Notice that the “woman mulatto” is draw to appear extremely unattractive, and that while the white man and mulatto woman have a “pass-for-white” daughter, the son on the far left isn’t “pass-for-black”–he really is black. The idea of “passing for black” made no sense at the time, while “passing for white” was a major concern. I am surprised to see here, though, that the baby of the pass-for-white woman and the white man is defined as entirely white.

Of course, none of this makes any logical sense at all, but lots of supposedly scientific studies at the time applied many statistical and other methods to prove various racial arguments.

Adeste S. sent in this performance by two women about the difficulties and frustrations of being transgendered:

Performed at Brave New Voices.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): Ryan sent in this video of Sass Rogando Sasot speaking to the United Nations about transgender rights. From an article at Coilhouse:

Her speech, titled “Reclaiming the Lucidity of Our Hearts”, addresses the need for vastly improved acceptance, support and protection of transgender citizens worldwide.

Her entire presentation is very moving, but about 8 minutes into this clip, something shifts in Sasot’s voice and delivery. What began as an engaging speech swiftly transforms into something far more urgent, immediate, and beautiful.

Emma B. sent in an image of this wonderful toy:

As Emma pointed out, commenters on digg seemed to mostly interpret it as a hotel housekeeper’s trolley, though the website referred to cleaning the house.

There is nothing inherently wrong with toys that allow kids to mimic doing household tasks. Kids like to play at doing what they see adults doing–in fact, it’s an essential part of development. I had a toy grocery cart as a kid and thought it was awesome, particularly when I forced my cat to ride in it (he was very patient).

What annoys me is the way these products are so clearly gendered–in this case, blatantly so (“girls only“). Girls learn that playing at household chores is fun fun fun:

To my surprise, though, I found one site that showed a boy playing with the cleaning trolley:

I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a cleaning toy with a boy pictured playing with it. And that’s awesome. Though for reasons that are not clear to me, this site listed the trolley at $158, while it was $35-45 at all the other websites.

So I was able to find one example of a boy playing with a housework toy, but the overall marketing message was still clearly that housework is fun for girls…only.

NEW (Dec. ’09)! Lynne S. sent in these photos of housework toys at Toys ‘R Us that include both girls and boys playing:

 ALSO NEW (Dec. ’09)! Fia K. found some examples too:

See also this post featuring screen shots from a site that advertises masculine toys primarily with girls.

But see these posts on the Rose Petal Cottage, rigidly gendered Sears and Amazon catalogs, and Mom/Daughter domesticity by Nintendo.

Tom Schaller at FiveThirtyEight.com posted a summary of the book Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics:

…authoritarianism is really about order–achieving it, maintaining it, and affirming it–and especially when citizens are uncertain or fearful. This, they say, is why authoritarians seek out and elevate, well, authorities–because authorities impose order on an otherwise disordered world. They provide a useful review the existing literature on authoritarian traits, which have been connected to negative racist stereotyping, a belief in biblical inerrancy, a preference for simple rather than complex problem-solving, and low levels of political information.

The authors, Marc Hetherinton and Jonathan Weiler, provide a breakdown of average levels of authoritarianism in the U.S. based on various characteristics:

Over at the Huffington Post, Weiler discusses the connection between authoritarianism and racial attitudes:

Authoritarian-minded individuals are, after all, likely to judge more negatively minority groups and those negative judgments, in turn, inform a host of political positions…

We find that in a politics organized by authoritarianism, even non-racial issues are becoming a matter of race and, more broadly, are taking on more visceral symbolic significance…

In sum, there is reason to think that beneath the arguments about government intrusion into the health care market, death panels, and such, a much more visceral dynamic is at work. To be perfectly clear, it is far from the case that every opponent or skeptic of significant health-care reform is a racist or racially motivated in her or his thinking. But there is, at the least, very strong circumstantial evidence that views of race and beliefs about health care reform are linked significantly among many Americans, which probably explains why the debate on health care reform has caused a much stronger uproar in 2009 than it did in 1994.

For an example of this type of racial resentment, see our recent post on Rush Limbaugh’s description of “Obama’s America.”

Mary M., of Cooking with the Junior League, took a moment out of her busy Dodgers-watching schedule to send me a link to some posters for products aimed at African American women. They were displayed at the Negro Industrial Fair in NYC in 1939 and contain some fascinating ideas about femininity, beauty, and attracting a man.

Given that a woman’s best chance at economic stability was often through marriage, this one probably wasn’t all that off-base:

Of course, it takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to be sure your beauty is “constant.” But it’s necessary, because beauty is the true way to get a husband:

Notice the message in that one: you might be incredibly skilled in some areas of traditional femininity (say, cooking), but it’s not enough if you can’t combine it with beauty. And you can get charm and beauty through purchasing the right products:

See also our post on Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair“and a woman gets fired for having an Afro.

Tracy H. and a friend were shopping in some expensive kitchen/housewares stores in Kits, an upscale  neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver. In one store they came upon a display of kitchen utensils (salt and pepper shakers, timers, and so on) designed to look like Asians, complete with slanted eyes and what Tracy calls “rice-paddy hats”:

Here’s another set in the display case:

So we have a display case in an expensive store full of utensils meant to be cutesy and funny, and where items shaped like monkeys, rabbits, faceless blobs, and Asians are all presented as equivalent adorable, humorous, hip options.

UPDATE: Commenter London Mabel gave us a link to the National Palace Museum in Taiwan’s website; the Asian kitchen utensils are part of the “Chin Family Series’:

Drawing his inspiration from a picture of the young Chin seen on a visit to the NPM, one of ALESSI’s main designers Stefano Giovannoni created The Chin Family series– “Mr. Chin” and other items in the series including the salt & peppershaker set “Mr. and Mrs. Chin”, the eggcup and timer…Customers around the globe will have the opportunity to take home a piece of ancient Chinese history brought tastefully into fashion!

So what do you think? Cute? Neutral? Problematic? Does it make a difference that the majority of people who see them probably don’t know about the context and just seem them as Asian-themed utensils? Would people of Asian descent living in the U.S., Canada, and other countries possibly feel differently about seeing things like this on display or sale than the directors of the museum?

Other examples of modern racial caricatures on sale: golliwogs, mammie souvenirs in Georgia, and an Icelandic reproduction of 10 Little Negro Boys.

Sometimes you see an image or video that is pretty subtle and complicated, and it takes some mental wrangling to figure out what it’s conveying and what cultural ideas it’s drawing on or contradicting.

And then there are things like this, sent in by Joshua B.:

1. Normalization of heterosexual male gaze (until the very end)

2. Girls getting naked

3. While washing a car ‘n stuff

4. And they come in various ethnic flavors

That’s pretty much it.

About the man at the end, reader Victoria says,

I think it’s still the male gaze – just adding gay men to the mix at the end. The “Or, if you prefer” (or whatever they say) seems to clearly speak to the men in the audience.

I agree.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life just released the results of a global study of Muslims. The interactive map lets you hover over a country and see what percent of its population is Muslim, and what percent of all Muslims reside there. It will be a surprise to many people to see what a small proportion of Muslims live in Arab countries.

This map weights each country by population size (larger version here):

By region:

Full report here.