Life magazine offers a really neat set of photos of women soldiers, from many countries, during World War II.  Below are some of my favorites.

Women firefighters aim a hose at the fire after the attack on Pearl Harbor:

A member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Britain):

Italian resistance fighters:

A member of the Finnish paramilitary:

England’s first female military pilot: Pauline Gower:

Chinese women soldiers:

Via Shakesville.

In this 11-minute video, Dalton Conley interviews Victor Rios about the youth control complex.  He argues the that punishing arm of the state (the prison system) and the nurturing arm of the state (the education system) work together to criminalize, stigmatize, and punish young inner city boys and men.

Rios’ ideas apply very well to the treatment of Latarian Milton, the 7-year-old boy who was charged with grand theft auto for taking his grandmother’s car for a joy ride.

On the heels of our recent post about non-corresponding English- and Spanish-language advisories, Sara P. sent in a photograph and an interesting question. The photo is of stacked billboards for CitiBank.  The top one reads “You’re never too young to learn how important money is.”  The bottom one, in Spanish, says the opposite.  Sara translates it as “Don’t wait until you have a lot of money before you realize that it isn’t what is most important” (my emphasis).

Sara asks:

It makes me wonder what the strategy is behind this kind of marketing. 75% of the population will only understand the first billboard, which by itself has an entirely different meaning than when it is paired with the second.

I have no good answer for her.  You?

In the midterm election last week Republicans took the House and won eight seats in the Senate. Their win, however, as Matthew Yglesias puts it, doesn’t simply reflect the “national mood.”  Instead, it was partly a reflection of a shift in the demographics of the voters who turned out. Young voted still lean Democratic, and many more of them stayed home last Tuesday than two years ago.

See also our post on historic trends in voter turnout.

Via Jose Marichal at Thick Culture.

Hegemony is a word used by sociologists use to describe how the status quo can be preserved through consent as well as coercion.  One way to gain consent for the status quo, even if it is unjust, is to make the social arrangements that are in the best interests of the dominant group appear to be in everyone’s best interests.  When hegemony works, we see social cooperation where there would be conflict

Capitalism is a great example of a hegemonic ideology.  Nearly all Americans will argue that capitalism is a fair and effective economic system, even though it, by design, benefits some more than others.  Instead of banding together and saying “this may be working for you, but this isn’t working for us,” however, even the poorest of Americans will typically defend capitalism as the best and most just option for the U.S.

Capitalism, though, is not hegemonic everywhere.  F. T. Garcia sent us a link to a photograph snapped by a student of Economics Professor Greg Mankiw and posted on his blog.  The photo is of a price sign at Mercado Bicentenario in Caracas, Venezuela.  The student translated it as follows:

Description of the product: Diana Oil.

Fair Price: 4,73 Bfs.

Capitalist Price: 7 Bfs.

% of savings: 32%.

In this little narrative, capitalism is an unfair economic system that overcharges consumers.  It is by definition not a fair price.  A very different narrative about capitalism than we typically hear in the U.S.

Named after the classic New Orleans cocktail, the Sazerac bar excluded women until 1949 when the hotel’s owner, Seymour Weiss, moved it to the Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel and opened its doors to women.    Long thirsty for the best Sazerac in town, women crammed into the bar on September 26th.  The moment was captured in this fabulous photo:

Last month the Roosevelt had an event commemorating 60 years since the “stormin’ of the Sazerac.”  My friend and photographer Brian Huff captured the re-creation:

If anyone knows the photographer who took the 1949 photo, please let me know so that I can credit him.

We’ve documented dozens of instances in which products are coded with gender (e.g., with colors and patterns) but sometimes, as in the example of a toy cop car, it is specified that items are for girls or for boys.  More than simply following gendered themes and allowing us to infer their meaning, these items offer a gendered prescription for use.

Kelly, for example, sent in a JC Penney page for a Hello Kitty sewing machine that specifies that it is for girls (it was also specified as for girls at Target):

Likewise, Coley L. bought a shorts-and-shirt swimsuit for a daughter.  The green swimsuit, however, was labeled explicitly for boys:

And MP sent in a link to a downloadable foldable gift card holder that specified whether it was for him or her in the url:

Dolores R. sent us a photo from Olvera St. in downtown Los Angeles. Olvera Street is a historic site/tourist attraction that commemorates a pueblo founded in 1781.  Some call it the birthplace of Los Angeles.

The photo is of a sign pleading with visitors to behave.  It is written in both Spanish and English but, as Dolores observes, the message in each language is slightly different (translation below).

Dolores explains:

Translation is mostly the same, with the exception of the part regarding the plants. The English says, “Do not touch plants.”

The Spanish version says (literal translation), “Abstain from touching anything, cutting or etching names in the cactus.”

Thoughts?

See also our post documenting differences in the English and Spanish versions of a Kaiser pamphlet for new moms (hint: only one of them emphasizes sterilization).