This graphic, found at ChartPorn, compares the average number of work hours per year and per week across selected countries.  After the graphic, I listed the countries in order just for fun.

hours/country

27 Germany
27 Netherlands
27 Norway
30 Belgium
30 France
31 Ireland
31 Denmark
31 Spain
31 Sweden
32 Austria
32 Switzerland
32 U.K.
33 Australia
33 Canada
33 Finland
34 Japan
34 New Zealand
34 Portugal
35 Iceland
35 Italy
35 Slovakia
35  U.S.
36  Mexico
38 Czech Republic
38 Hungary
38 Poland
41 Greece
44 South Korea

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

The figure below, borrowed from U.S. News and World Report, shows that the wage gap between women and men, for nearly all age groups, has narrowed significantly between 1979 and 2008.  It also shows that the wage gap is smallest for men and women aged 20-24, grows for men and women aged 25-34, grows even further for men and women aged 35-44, and remains steady after that.

These data are for men and women in the same jobs working full time.  So what would explain this change?  Sociologists have found that much of the growth in the wage gap over the life course is due to the fact that women are held disproportionately responsible for childcare and housework (see some data here).  As men and women start to have children, women (whether by choice or necessity) find themselves sacrificing their careers more so than men.  On the flip side, mothers are discriminated against by employers more often than fathers and women without children. (See, for example, this clip of Gov. Rendell commenting that Janet Napolitano is a good candidate for secretary of Homeland Security because she has no family.) That’s why you see the wage gap increasing during prime childbearing years (25-44), but not afterward.

For more on the wage gap, see our posts on the wage gap for college grads, comparing different kinds of wage gaps, the role of job segregation, gender and the wage gap in different professions.

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

Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (preventing a vote on a bill with continuous speech–or at least the threat of it, since often now a Senator just has to state that s/he intends to filibuster; if there aren’t 60 Senators to vote for cloture, they often just pretend the filibuster happened without making a person actually do it)–has been increasing over time:

Why? Greg Koger at the Monkey Cage has a fascinating explanation (via Matthew Yglesias):

So why did the Senate change? The stock answer is that the chamber’s responsibilities grew with the size and scope of the federal government, so it became more costly to sit around watching obstructionists kill time. There is some truth in that explanation. Also, however, senators’ work habits changed. The introduction of railroads, cars, and (especially) air travel made sitting around in the Senate chamber so…boring. Tedious. Totally lame. During the mid-20th century, the Senate increasingly became a Tuesday-Thursday club, and individual senators began insisting that major legislation be kept from the floor to accomodate their travel schedules. A serious attrition effort would mean cancelled speeches in Manhattan and Chicago, no trips to the Delaware coast, and waiting longer to return to the ranch back in Texas.

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

We often present a single example of a cultural pattern.  If you’re a member of the relevant culture, that single example might ring true.  That is, you might recognize it as one manifestation of something you see “out there” all the time.

But it’s still just one example and it’s not very convincing to someone who is skeptical that the cultural pattern exists, especially if it’s subtle.

But one advantage of this blog is that it’s cumulative.  We can put up single manifestations of a cultural pattern and, even if it’s not very convincing at the time, the other evidence on the blog (and the evidence yet to come) may sway some skeptics.

In that spirit, I offer you this screen shot of the front page of the Gap website (borrowed from stuff white people do).

Notice that there is only one black woman included and she is wearing the “curvy” jean.  This could be random, but I am going to suggest that it’s not.  For more examples of black women’s butts and thighs being fetishized in U.S. culture (that may or may not convince you that this is a pattern) see here, here, here, and here.

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

It’s always fun for me to have my own gastronomical assumptions revealed. Earlier we posted a cross-cultural example (soup for breakfast in South Korea) and historical examples (mmm aspic, 7-Up with milk, and prunes are for kids!).  On Shakesville, Deeky posted this photograph of ice cucumber-flavored Pepsi being sold in Japan:

UPDATE (June ’10)! In another flavor-shake-up, BoingBoing posted these Pringles from Singapore in Seaweed, Soft-Shell Crab, and Grilled Shrimp:

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

I found these ads for Matchbox via Copyranter.  In them, war toys are sold by situating small boys in realistic, not at all playful, conditions.   The blurring of the lines between pretend and real war is really interesting.  Whereas pretend war could be fun, real war is certainly not so.  And, oddly, the facial expressions and postures of the children in the ads do not suggest that they are having fun at all.  The ads seem to reveal, more than most, how play is also socialization.

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

At one time in history (vague, I know), elite sons would make their mark on the world, first, in battle.  Increasingly, however, in the U.S., elites use their privilege to avoid military service.  The most recent wars have been fought, disproportionately, by men and women from the working class.

The military knows this, as illustrated by this Army National Guard recruitment pamphlet sent in by Leafan R., who found it on the Rutgers University campus:

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

We recently posted about a baby doll pulled from Costco shelves after concerns that it was racist.  Early news stories reported on a black doll called “Lil’ Monkey” and a white doll called “Pretty Panda.”  As the story developed, it became clear that both dolls came in white, black, and Hispanic versions.  It made for an interesting discussion:  (1) Given the history of associating black people with primates, would it have been racist had the doll only came in black monkey and white panda versions?  And (2) given the history of associating black people with primates, was it racist, regardless, to make a black “Lil’ Monkey” doll that potentially triggered and/or effectively ignored this history?

The CBS affiliate in Denver linked to our post and discussion in their story about the controversy…

…which was published under “weird news.”

Screenshot:

I am trying to keep my cool here.

Justification for African slavery was built on an association of black people with primates designed to deny black humanity.  Institutional, social psychological, and symbolic racism is ongoing in the U.S. and profoundly inhibits the life chances of black and brown people.

And yet when people say “hey, this makes me uncomfortable,” they are ridiculed and slotted into “weird news.”

It doesn’t even matter whether the intent or effect of the doll is racist.  Let me say that again: For this discussion, it doesn’t matter whether the intent or effect of the doll is racist.

Concerns about racism are trivialized when raising the question is defined as simply “weird.”  Even more, it is yet another way to deny the humanity of people of color.  When they and their allies raise their voices to weigh in on what representations of blackness are acceptable, they are dismissed like petty children or lunatics.  It is nothing less than a stunning lack of empathy.

If you needed evidence that we are not post-racial… well, there you have it.

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