Bri a sent in this ad, found in Interview Magazine, and we’d like to know what you think of it:
It reminds me, somewhat, of this post featuring a billboard for Playstation with a black and white woman fighting.
This website is simply a collection of pictures of women’s breasts. Not models or actresses, just women. It is a fantastic way to demonstrate the wide variety of natural body shapes. Below the jump are a few of the many pictures, with histories, on the website:
“I’m 26 and never been pregnant. Even though my breasts are quite small they’ve had stretchmarks forever, even the smaller one. I sometimes wish they were bigger and perkier and I always wear a padded bra otherwise I feel like my stomach sticks out more than my boobs! But I’m grateful I can sleep on my front and I’ve more or less accepted how I am. I think the human body is always a beautiful thing, even if it’s hard to see our own one that way. ”
“I’m 24 years old and I have never had children. I was very happy with my breasts four years ago till they suddenly sprung from smaller B’s to larger C’s, I had priviously been taking birth control and my doctor said this was all “normal”. I come from a German/Dutch background so I assume it has alot to do with genetics. I have some pretty severe bacne and it often spreads to my chest and breats. As you can see one is larger than the other and these are my areola at their largest. .. I also have LOTS of enlarged pores in my cleavage, stretch marks near my underarms which are only just starting to disappear due to about 20lbs weight loss.”
“I’m a young woman from Athens, Greece that happened to run across your site. I’m 25 years old, never been pregnant and considered neither slim nor obesse. I do have a couple of extra kilos on me. When I was a teenager my breasts grew rapidly and as a result of that I have fairly visible stretch-marks. I do sports and weight-lifting and maybe that has caused my breasts to be slightly pointing outwards. My right breast seems to be placed a bit lower on my chest, seeming shaggier that the left (in my opinion). A couple of years ago my breasts started growing (for no apparent reason-yet painfully) and from cup C I went to DD.”
“My breasts have always been small, some days I love them!! And some other times, I hate them!!! What I liked the least was the hair I had on my areolas. I’m getting laser hair removal now and it makes me feel a bit more comfortable about myself. I guess not having a stable relationship didn’t help much.”
“I am a 24 year old of a slim build. The fact that I have hated my breasts since childhood outrages me. I am healthy and beautiful and happy, but I have never looked at my breasts in the mirror without feeling sad. I am angry at a culture that makes women hate the beautiful uniqueness of their bodies, and learning to love my breasts will be a slow process that I am excited to tackle. All of the beautiful breasts on this website make me see how beatiful we all are! Bodies would be so boring if they all looked the same!”
“Hello. I recently found your site and it has made me feel alot better about my breasts. I started to develop breasts at 8 years old and they were small for a while and in just one year I went from an A to a C. I have stretch marks but they have faded. I was mostly worried about my areolas, I don’t think my breasts are done developing so I have learned to accept them how they are. I am 18 years old. I have gained and lost weight on and off my whole life. As you can see my areola is very light and I have blue veins, one which wraps around the left breast areola.”
See also these selections of bellies and vulvas, and this attempt to refigure imperfection.
Also in boobs, see boobs.
And don’t miss this post on how men, also, feel insecure about their “boobs.”
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.The New York Times features an interactive graphic about the wage gap between men and women. It shows how different types of professions are distributed along the wage gap. At the website, you can see click on each dot to see wage gaps for specific professions (e.g., female professors make 22% less than male professors).
Also about the wage gap, see posts here, here, here, and here.
Bloggers and journalists have enjoyed reporting the findings of a recent study that showed that people in socially conservative states subscribe to online pornography websites at a higher rate than people in socially liberal states. Here is some of the data from the paper:
The paper goes on to discuss what variables are correlated with higher versus lower subscription rates, but ultimately concludes:
On the whole, these adult entertainment subscription patterns show a remarkable consistency: all but eleven states have betweeen two and three subscribers to this service per thousand broadband households, and all but four have between 1.5 and 3.5. With interest in online adult entertainment relatively constant across regions, there’s little sign of a major divide.
The reporting on this study, which emphasizes the findings, but not the low variance, is a nice illustration of how studies can be warped when they are picked up by both journalists and bloggers.
Other state-by-state comparisons: obesity, sodomy law, home vs. hospital births, incarceration rates, the marriage market, minority kids, and percent of women in state legislatures.
Some people, especially men of color, report being harassed by police officers. They often feel that police are not for them, as they are for some members of our society, but against them… making their lives more risky, more dangeous, even deadly. Attesting to this, Jay at MontClair SocioBlog posted a graph he put together based on this article about the NYPD. It shows that, sure enough, when the police stop people on the street in New York, it almost always results in… nothing:
See also this post that shows, with data, that racial profiling doesn’t work.
That’s the refrain anyway.
But whose sex is sold? And to who? If it was simply that sex sold, we’d see men and women equally sexually objectified in popular culture. Instead, we see, primarily, women sold to (presumably heterosexual) men. So what are we selling, exactly, if not “sex” We’re selling men’s sexual subjectivity and women as a sex object. That is, the idea that men’s desires are centrally important and meaningful, and women’s are not (because women are the object to men’s subjectivity).
That women’s object status and men’s subjectivity is sold to women in women’s magazines (for example, Cosmo and Glamour always feature scantily clad women on the cover) in no way undermines the idea that men’s sexual subjectivity is being sold. It’s just that it’s being sold to all of us.
For example, if this ad was selling Tango with sex, they’d both end up naked in the fourth frame, no?
The new ad spots for M&Ms also illustrate this nicely. m&ms have been anthropomorphized in advertising for some time. There is only one female m&m and she is, by no accident, the green M&M. If you remember from elementary school, green is for horny. That, also, is no accident.
So male M&Ms come in multiple colors, flavors, shapes, and personalities, but female M&Ms are just sex objects.
In the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue this year, M&Ms went with the theme (found here):
The ad campaign extended beyond Sports Illustrated:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDoJNymbU1Q[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubChW7SLhKE[/youtube]
To sum, if it was simply “sex sells,” we’d see an even pattern of sexualization. But we don’t. More often than not, it is women who are sexualized. What is being sold, really, isn’t sex, but the legitimation and indulgence of (supposedly heterosexual) men’s sexual desires.
Kirsti M. alerted us to an M&M advertising campaign in Australia, where you could vote for your favorite color. All but one of the M&Ms are depicted as males (again, the female is Miss Green).
Here is a screenshot of the page for Red, a satirical take on a Marxist revolutionary:
Some highlights from the text:
Favorite quotes: “The revolution is now!”
Favorite books: “100 Steps to World Domination”
Weight: “Perfect for my shell”
A poster:
Here is a screenshot of the page for Miss Green (notice the others aren’t Mr. Blue or Mr. Red; only the female M&M has a title):
Highlights from the text:
Miss Green, working the polls.
About me: I may have a pretty hard shell, but I assure you I’m sweet on the inside.
Favorite quotes: “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.”
Favorite books: “How to Work the Polls”
Interests: Right now I’m focusing all my attention on the top position.
Campaign policy: All beaches to be nude beaches.
Age: Let’s just say I’m experienced.
A poster:
So again we see the sexualization of the female M&M (she’s “experienced,” focusing on the “top position,” she’s “working the polls” while wrapping her go-go-boot-clad legs around a tree in the manner of a stripper on a stripper pole, her arms and legs are much longer and thinner than the other M&Ms’ are).
In this vintage ad (1970s?), it is clear that it is his “plans” for her that are being appealed to:
NEW! These ads for hearing aids are apparently aimed at men only:
Other great examples include these posts with ads promoting organ donation, an air conditioning technical school, selling pasta, vegetarianism, aviation, cars, war, travel, dentistry, food, more food, houses, and mortgages. (To see the reverse dynamic, click here and here.)
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.Elizabeth C. sent in an English and Spanish version of a pamphlet for pregnant women from Kaiser. Here they are:
Translation (by member blogger Jeffrey):
A healthy pregnancy and care of your baby
You are going to have a baby!
We want to help you with your pregnancy, and therefore we invite you to the following classes:
1) Series of prenatal information. Information about labor, birth, and care for your baby, breast feeding, taking care of you after labor, and your recovery.
2) Take a look at the hospital. Make an appointment with us to see the facilities. Please register for these classes by the fourth month of your pregnancy.
3) Tubal sterilization. Includes all that you need to know if you do not want to have more children. Take this course by the fifth or sixth month of your pregnancy.
Notice the difference?
The English version of this pamphlet lists a series of options for pregnant women (“our classes include”), including Lamaze classes and classes on tubal sterilization.
The Spanish version says here are the three things we’d like you to do (“we invite you to”): prenatal info, hospital tour, and tubal sterilization.
In sociology, we call this targeted anti-natalism. Targeted anti-natalism is an effort to reduce the reproduction of certain populations and not others.
UPDATE! Socorro Serrano, representing Kaiser, posted a reply in our comments thread:
Greetings everyone: The initial posting on this topic is incorrect. Any suggestion that there was an intention to coerce Spanish-speaking women to take a tubal sterilization class is patently not true.
As bloggers Elena, Jaya, and Nora Ann have pointed out – This class is listed on both the English and Spanish flyers. And whether we say in English “Our classes include,” or in Spanish “le invitamos a las siguientes clases (we invite you to the following classes),” our goal is to provide information for a “Healthy Pregnancy & Baby Care,” or “Un embarazo saludable y cuidado del bebé.”
Also, please note that the hospital tour and free English and Spanish-language classes cover the same curriculum, including childbirth preparation (parto) and breast-feeding (lactancia materna). There has been no interest from Spanish-dominant parents for Lamaze classes, but if this changes, we would be happy to add this to our schedule of offerings.
Providing health care to our members in the language they prefer and in a manner that is respectful and culturally responsive is a core value for Kaiser Permanente. That is why your input and that of the communities we serve is so very important to us.