The idea that wearing a dress or seeming girly is a sign that one is gay is also completely ahistorical. If wearing a dress as a child means boys are gay, then there should have been essentially no straight men for much of American history. Until the 1920s, infants and small children, whether male or female, were dressed and looked alike, often in long hair and dresses (source: Jo Paoletti). Behold, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945):
Roosevelt may or may not have been gay then, but this outfit and hairdo certainly cannot be read to suggest that he was, at least not anymore than it can for young people and adults today.
The Stonewall Inn is a bar in Greenwich Village in New York. In the ’60s the bar was frequented by, among others, gay, lesbian, and transgender locals. On June 28, 1969, in response to frequent harassment by police, the patrons rioted. The description on Wikipedia, I must admit, is worth the read. Suffice to say that the police were roundly trounced. The riot is often cited as the birth of the LGBT rights movement.
This is purported to be the only photograph of the riot:
And this is a picture of the Inn, three months later, with a sign in the window that reads:
We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village.
In the 1940s and ’50s dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a synthetic pesticide better known as DDT, was used to kill bugs that spread malaria and typhus in several parts of the world. DDT was argued to be toxic to humans and the environment in the famous environmental opus, Silent Spring. It was banned by the U.S. government in 1972.
Before all that, though, it was sprayed in American neighborhoods to suppress insect populations. The new movie Tree of Life has a great scene re-enacting the way that children would frolick in the spray as the DDT trucks went by. Here are two screen shots from the trailer:
Searching around, I also found some vintage footage (the person who uploaded the clip doesn’t specify the documentary):
The scene reminded me of an old post we’d written, below, featuring advertisements for the pesticide, one with the ironic slogan “DDT is good for Me-e-e!”
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DDT was a pesticide marketed to housewives (and many others). We later discovered it to be an environmental toxin. Below are three of the advertisements (via Mindfully and KnowDrama and noticed thanks to John L.):
“The great expectations held for DDT have been realized. During 1946, exhaustive scientific tests have shown that, when properly used, DDT kills a host of destructive insect pests, and is a benefactor of all humanity.
Pennsalt produces DDT and its products in all standard forms and is now one of the country’s largest producers of this amazing insecticide. Today, everyone can enjoy added comfort, health and safety through the insect-killing powers of Pennsalt DDT products . . . and DDT is only one of Pennsalt’s many chemical products which benefit industry, farm and home.
GOOD FOR FRUITS – Bigger apples, juicier fruits that are free from unsightly worms . . . all benefits resulting from DDT dusts and sprays.
GOOD FOR STEERS – Beef grows meatier nowadays . . . for it’s a scientific fact that compared to untreated cattle beef-steers gain up to 50 pounds extra when protected from horn flies and many other pests with DDT insecticides.
FOR THE HOME – Helps to make healthier and more comfortable homes . . . protects your family from dangerous insect pests. Use Knox-Out DDT Powders and Sprays as directed . . . then watch the bugs ‘bite the dust’!
FOR DAIRIES – Up to 20% more milk . . . more butter . . . more cheese . . . tests prove greater milk production when dairy cows are protected from the annoyance of many insects with DDT insecticides like Knox-Out Stock and Barn Spray.
GOOD FOR ROW CROPS – 25 more barrels of potatoes per acre . . . actual DDT tests have shown crop increases like this! DDT dusts and sprays help truck farmers pass these gains along to you.
FOR INDUSTRY – Food processing plants, laundries, dry cleaning plants, hotels . . . dozens of industries gain effective bug control, more pleasant work conditions with Pennsalt DDT products.
Katrin sent along a link to a Los Angeles Times article reporting on how family composition in the LA area has changed in the past decade. The short story is that families are less “traditional” than they were ten years ago. Only 23% of households are now made up of a married couple with kids (down 10% since 2000). Meanwhile, single-parent families, non-married partners (with and without kids), and same-sex couples (with and without kids) have all increased by 20-25%. Married couples without kids are up too (by 4%), they’re now 26% of all households.
The maps below show the percent of households in each census tract that include an unmarried couple living together. Darker orange means a greater percentage. You can see that this convention-breaking isn’t evenly distributed. I think the big orange blob underneath Burbank is Silver Lake/Echo Park, a notoriously hip part of the city where you find lots of “hipsters,” and Hollywood, where the population of same-sex couples is likely higher.
Los Angelenos, do you see anything else interesting?
Teachers read papers. Thousands of papers. Even tens of thousands of papers over our careers. Like someone who develops an incredibly sensitive ear for jazz or taste for fine wine, we have an eye for margins. Fonts, margins, spacing… we’re like eagles, we spot even small deviations from standard formatting as if it were instinct, and it makes us want to go in for the kill.
Anyway, I was lol-ing about a format finesser with my friend Jordan G. the other day (do they really think we can’t tell?), and he forwarded me this cartoon (at Abstruse Goose):
What makes top news today: a Southwest pilot’s homophobic, sexist, and vulgar commentary; it was kept quiet for some three months. This happened on March 25th, 2011, broadcast accidentally over the air route traffic control frequency during the flight. It’s now almost July. The FAA, the pilot community and Southwest Airlines kept this under wraps for eighty-nine days. Amazing.
Here’s the transcript of exactly what was said (trigger warning):
Southwest Pilot: “Well, I had Tucson to Indy all four weeks and, uh, Chicago crews…11 out of 12 …there’s 12 flight attendants, individual, never the same flight attendant twice.
“Eleven fucking over the top fucking, ass-fucking homosexuals and a granny.” (silence)
“Eleven. I mean, think of the odds of that. I thought I was in Chicago, which was party-land.”
“After that, it was just a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes…”
“Well I don’t give a fuck. I hate 100 percent of their asses.”
“So, six months, I went to the bar three times. In six months, three times.”
“Once with the granny and the fag, and I wish I hadn’t gone.”
“At the very end with two girls, one of them that was part do-able, but we ended up going to the bar and then to the crew at St. Louis, and all these two women wanted to do was, one wanted to berate her sister and the other wanted to bitch about her husband.”
“Literally, for three hours, me and the F.O. (First officer). When that was done, got back to my room, I’m like why the fuck did I stay up?”
ATC: “OK, whoever is, uh, transmitting, better watch what you’re saying.”
Southwest Pilot continues: “They’re still both (inaudible), you know what I mean? I still wouldn’t want anyone to know if I had banged them.”
“So, I mean it was a complete disaster for six months.”
“Now I’m back in Houston, which is easily where the ugliest bases. I mean it’s all these fucking old dudes and grannies and there’s like maybe a handful of cute chicks.”
In interview with Tom Costello on the NBC Today Show this morning, Aviation Analyst, John Cox defended the airline industry, saying the pilot’s comments are a throw-back to a different age in the cockpit: “It was more common in the past, but in today’s environment you see a lot more focus on the professionalism and you don’t hear these kinds of things very often anymore.”
Really? Mr. Cox, you don’t hear these kinds of things often, anymore? Spend one moment to Google “Southwest stuck mic”; you will find pilot aviation forums yucking it up already in defense of the pilot saying, “Well, at least he was honest!”
Is it any wonder only six percent of all commercial pilots are women? The cockpit is not a place of equal opportunity. Never was. Isn’t today. What’s more, there’s a cover-up. Outside of what airlines now call a “flight deck”, the pilot fraternity defends itself saying, “yeah it used to be like that, we’re more professional now.”
Try to find the pilot’s name. You can’t. Southwest will not identify the pilot. He was initially suspended without pay, but is now back in the cockpit under the good-‘ol-boy protection program and after involuntary “diversity” training.
Aviation market studies indicate women make up 26% of the prospective pilot population. Only 7% of all pilots are female. Unless serious action is taken, I doubt anything will change soon.
Stephen Wilson is an aircraft salesperson, flight instructor, and former air safety investigator who takes interest in his profession from a sociological viewpoint. He posts aviation and personal commentary on his blog, from where we borrowed this post.
Over the past few months, a number of readers have sent in examples of college-related advertising with a distinctly sexual theme. There’s something interesting here. College pursuit, preparation, and achievement are being conflated with sexual prowess (the size of one’s dick, no less). I suppose it was never was really about smarts. Still, the overt conflation of (masculine) sexual superiority with academic achievement seems new to me. Am I wrong?
Scott M. and Ed A-N. sent in which penis size is used as a proxy for preparedness for the LSAT:
Stephanie A. sent in this ad for MyEdu, a college management site (whatever that is) that makes an obvious reference to Viagra (the little blue pill that makes for not-so-little erections):
Last but not least, Becky E. and Monica Y. sent in this facebook ad encouraging women to apply to a school loan by suggesting that very-sexy-ladies do the same:
Many Westerners are constantly reminded that (very) thin women are sexy to men and (even slightly) chubby women are not. In fact, men’s desires vary quite tremendously and often include a much wider range of body types than the media would have us believe. This is often kept secret not just by media executives, but by men themselves who might feel “weird” if they don’t prefer the culturally ideal type.
Both of these facts are nicely illustrated with this single example, from PostSecret, in which a man feels the need to confess that he prefers his wife chubby, even though she diets to try to “look good” for him.
Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry. Read more…
