Shirley A. sent in a Zellers sale flyer that is really interesting in light of the recent post we did on a Best Buy promotion. Whereas the Best Buy promotion was aimed directly at men, you’ll see that this flyer, for a store that sells household items instead of fancy gadgets, is aimed staunchly at women… who have to buy for their whole family and their home as well as themselves.

For more on gender and responsibility for the home:

First, check out this longitudinal data on how much housework wives and husbands do.

Then, for more examples of how women are responsible for the home, see this KFC advertisement offering moms a night off, this a commercial montage, Italian dye ad with a twist, women love to clean, homes of the future, what’s for dinner, honey?, liberation through quick meals, and my husband’s an ass.

See also these humorous illustrations: I love it when you talk clean to me, men do housework fantasy calendar, the househusbands of Hollywood, and porn for new moms.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

In this 20 minute video, novelist Chimamanda Adichie describes, with insight and grace, the problem of the “single story.”  She says, “Show a people as one thing, and only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”  Focusing on her experience as an “African” in the U.S. (she is from Nigeria), she also describes her own experiences with realizing that she has heard only a single story, whether of rural Nigerians or Mexicans.

Highly recommended (or read the transcript here):

Via Stuff White People Do.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Amanda C. caught John McCain with some interesting presumptions! The contact part of his webpage has a drop down menu for the senders’ honorific(s) (see a close up below):

Close up:

So, the list is heteronormative (no “Mr. and Mr.” or “Ms. and Ms.”).

Further, because no write-ins are allowed, it also forces people who aren’t gender-typical to choose a gender if they want to send McCain a note.

And it bizarrely erases women doctors (no “Mr. and Dr.” or “Dr. and Mr.”).

Nice catch, Amanda!

UPDATE: After seeing this, Danielle F. sent in a screenshot of the honorifics choices that came up when she ordered tickets to “The Nutcracker” at the Detroit Opera House:

So you could theoretically be a single female Rev., Col., Capt., and so on, but the married versions of those all assume a female spouse. Notice they also have a listing for King, but not Queen.  I guess they get a lot of male royalty at the Detroit Opera House.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Students at my college, Occidental, are required to live on campus through their junior year.  So most students live in the dorms.  I saw this flyer, advertising what I am sure is intended to be a harmless and fun competition, taped to the door of my building:

Of course, having the “best room on campus” is only partly about creativity.  A person with money would have a significant advantage in this competition, as you can clearly see in the flyer itself (extra pillows, a rug, two extra lamps, extra furniture, etc).

I am sure that the people behind this had no intention of reinforcing a class hierarchy on campus.  But I’d bet my extra money that they were middle class or better.  Part of class privilege is the ability to forget that some people do not have the resources to put together a bangin’ room.   And part of being an economically disadvantaged student at a private college sometimes means being alienated from many of your peers for just that reason.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Los Angeles is widely reviled as the city in which no one walks. But Los Angeles is not the most car dependent city according to this data:

Via Matthew Yglesias.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Eloriane sent in a photo shoot for V Magazine (September 2009) that is both fascinating and confounding.  I noticed two things:

First, while the women are more or less fully-clothed, the men are naked.  Really naked.  Well, about as naked as they could be.  But the effect is really eerie, with one model looking like some combination of distressed, surprised, and high in most of her shots.  It’s nothing like our previous post featuring a photo shoot with clothed women and naked men, where the women appear gleeful about the situation.  To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it, but my instinct is that, for some reason, this is not reversing the gendered power dynamic we typically see.

Coincidentally, Elle P. sent in a Dolce & Gabbana ad to similar effect.  You can see it below as well.

Second, the photo spread is titled “Wild Things” and subtitled “Adopt a Neo-Hippie, Anything Goes Approach to Dressing with Furs, Fringe, and Everything Animal Print.”  Then the photo titles refer to American Indians (“Warrior Princess,” “Navajo Sun,” and maybe “Indigo Girl”), Asians (“Eastern Promises”), Gypsies (“Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves”), and Africans (“Tribal Council”) alongside animals (“Animal Instincts,” and “Wild Things,” of course), and Bohemians (“Boho in Paradise”; more akin to “neo-hippies”?).  So, again, we have the association of people of color with animals and human primitivity (here, here, and here)… even as no actual people of color show up in the photo shoot.

Images after the jump because WAY not safe for work:

Here, also, is the Dolce & Gabbana ad sent in by Elle P.  Again, I don’t see a confident, strong woman in this ad; I see a woman in spike heels trying to fend off three men who are being aggressive with her and each other.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

I hate you, Zach A., for making me play the Klondike Bar Mancave video game.

Are you bored of companies targeting their products at men with tired and insulting stereotypes? Well, too bad. Because ya’ll keep sendin’ them to us and it’s our job to show them to you.

In this installment of “men-are-idiots,-let’s-try-to-sell-them-shit-p.s.-women-are-annoying”: the Klondike Bar.

First, the Klondike Bar “Mancave” home page:

Notice the Mardi Gras beads?  Nice touch.

Also, is that splooge in the corners?

If you click on the video game, you get to the entry page.  It is for “Big Boys” only:

Poor Pete.  He lives in the (domesticated and feminized) suburbs and wears khakis.  Accordingly, he has become a woman:

Gah.  Being a family is so crappy.  It involves hiding in the basement while your wife takes care of “her” kids, until she cock blocks your cock rocking of course:

Not being able to watch violence and sex makes Pete’s testicles shrivel up:

And when he pops in his secret porn DVD (featuring college age women, of course), your wife just nags and nags:

YOU LOSE:

So, tell me why this guy is so appealing to so many men?  The man is selfish: his wife and the babysitter are desperately trying to get the kids to bed and he retreats from the chaos; it’s annoying that the TV is set up so as to make sure his kids don’t watch violence and sex; he hides a stash of porn featuring college age women from his wife.  But at least doesn’t have to do housework!  Amirite!?  Oh yeah, and women are annoying!  Go dudes!

It’s pathetic, really.  Sociologically, I mean.

Finally, in case you thought Klondike was equal opportunity, here is the screen shot of the generic (non-Mancave) website.  It leads you straight there:

“Dude,” now it’s “thicker.”

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Before Sociological Images was widely read (when it was just us and our friends), we used to occasionally title posts “Sigh.”  But these days, what with people following us on twitter, we must offer more imaginative titles.  But really, my instinct was to title this with good ol’ resignation:

Via Racialicious.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.