To many Americans, globalization may mean Americanization but, in China, globalization is Koreanization. This is the impact of Hallyu (the Korean word for “Korean wave”), which began in 1997. Hallyu began with Korean television dramas and today extends throughout Chinese life: k-drama, k-pop, movies, fashion, food, and beauty.  It is argued to be the only example of a cultural power “that threatens the dominance of American culture.”

Its influence is impressive. For example, when a star on a Korean soap opera ordered chicken and beer for dinner — Korea’s chi-mek (or chi-meak) – and claimed it as her favorite food, Chinese audiences went crazy for the combination. Korean beer exports rose by over 200%:

Even the standard of beauty in China has been altered due to Hallyu. During this year’s National Day holiday (10/1-10/7), about 166,000 Chinese visited Korea. They flocked to top shopping districts to purchase a wide range of Korean products like cosmetics, each spending an average of $2,500.  Some of these Chinese tourists visited the Gangnam district (Apgujeng-dong), the capital of plastic surgery in Korea. They want to look like k-drama stars. They want to have Korean actresses’ nose or eyes.

The obsession with Korea has caused Chinese leaders a great deal of angst. It was a major issue at the country’s National People’s Congress where, according to the Washington Post, one committee spent a whole morning pondering why China’s soap operas weren’t as good as those made by Korea. “It is more than just a Korean soap opera. It hurts our culture dignity,” one member of the committee said.

Their concern isn’t trivial; it’s about soft power. This is the kind of power states can exert simply by being popular and well-liked. This enables a country to inflluence transnational politics without force or coercion.

Indeed, the Korean government nurtured Hallyu. The President pushed to develop and export films, pop music, and video games. As The Economist reports:

Tax incentives and government funding for start-ups pepped up the video-game industry. It now accounts for 12 times the national revenue of Korean pop (K-pop). But music too has benefited from state help. In 2005 the government launched a $1 billion investment fund to support the pop industry. Record labels recruit teens who undergo years of grueling [sic] training before their public unveiling.

It’s working. According to the Korea Times, China has made a trade agreement with Korea allowing it an unprecedented degree of access to the Chinese people and its companies, an impressive win for soft power.

Sangyoub Park, PhD is a professor of sociology at Washburn University, where he teaches Social Demography, Generations in the U.S. and Sociology of East Asia. His research interests include social capital, demographic trends, and post-Generation Y.  Lisa Wade, PhD is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

In statistics, a little star next to a coefficient generally means that the result is statistically significant at the p<.05 level. In English, this means that there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the finding just popped up by pure random chance. In sociology, that’s generally considered good enough to conclude that the finding is “real.”

If one investigates a lot of relationships, however, this way of deciding which ones to claim as real has an obvious pitfall.  If you look at 20 possible but false relationships, chances are that one of them will be statistically significant by chance alone. Do enough fishing in a dead lake, in other words, and you’ll inevitably pull up some garbage.

Thanks xkcd, for making this funny.

Flashback Friday.

When it comes to forming an opinion on poverty, some Americans just can’t seem to understand why poor people can’t just stop being poor. One of the things that gets harped on is the idea that poor people spend money on frivolous things; somehow some people believe that, if the poor just gave up their cell phone and Nikes, they would pop up into the middle class.

What these people don’t realize is the extent to which being poor is living a life of self-denial.  To be poor is to be forced to deny oneself constantly. The poor must deny themselves most trappings of:

• an adult life (their own apartment, framed pictures on the walls, matching dishes);
• a comfortable life (a newish mattress, a comfy couch, good shoes that aren’t worn out);
• a convenient life (your own car, eating out);
• a self-directed life (a job you care for, leisure time, hobbies, money for babysitters);
• a life full of small pleasures (lattes, dessert, fresh cut flowers, hot baths, wine);
• a healthy life (fresh fruits and vegetables, health care, time for exercise);
• and so, so many more things that don’t fit into those categories (technological gadgets, organic food, travel, expensive clothes and accessories).

They have to actively deny themselves these things every day. And, since most poor people remain poor their whole lives, they must be prepared to deny themselves (and members of their families) these things, perhaps, for the rest of their lives.

So when someone sees someone (they think is) poor walking down the street with a brand new pair of Nikes, perhaps what they are seeing is someone who decided (whether out of a moment of weakness or not) to NOT deny themselves at least one thing; perhaps they are seeing someone who is trying to hold on to some feeling of normalcy; perhaps what they are seeing is a perfectly normal person who just wants what they want for once.

I was thinking about this today when I saw a postcard at Post Secret (which, to be fair, may or may not have been submitted by someone who struggles financially).  The postcard, featuring a PowerBall receipt, reads “It’s the only time I feel hopeful”:

For many poor people, hope and the absence of fear and worry are also luxuries they live without.

Originally posted in 2009.

Thank you all for a truly fantastic year!

We rounded it out with more than six and a half million page views.  We almost doubled our Facebook followers — from 35,000 last December to more than 68,000 today. We are honored to enjoy over 21,000 Twitter followers, 13,000 on Pinterest and 20,000 on our one-year-old Tumblr page.  Much gratitude to everyone for your enthusiasm and support!

Highlights:

Two of us published textbooks!

• Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, coauthored by myself and Myra Marx Ferree. I started accounts for it on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest and you’re, of course, welcome to join.
• Frequent contributor Philip Cohen is also super proud to announce his new book, The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change.

What else!

• Our 7th birthday happened.
• We were Tumbld by Wil Wheaton! And that post — about how activists are motivated by logic, not emotion — was liked or tumbled over 50,000 times!
• A SocImages post got me interviewed at NPR.
• Sezin Koehler’s post on gender and nudity on HBO made TV Guide.
• We shared a 7-year-old girl’s letter to Lego about the lack of adventure to girls, sent to us by her parent, and it struck a nerve. It was covered by dozens of major news outlets.
• We recieved the 2014 award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources from the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.
• We made two new Pinterest pages: Pinkwashing Ridiculousness and Racist Antics at High Schools and Colleges (see them all here).

I’ve also signed contracts to write two more books, one on hookup culture and a Introduction to Sociology text. I’m excited to keep writing!

Best of 2014!

Over the last week I’ve highlighted my favorite and your most loved posts from 2014.  Here’s are the lists in case you missed it last week!

Reader’s Choice (plus # of likes/shares before we re-posted)

• When force is hardest to justify, victims of police homicide are most likely to be black (24,700+)
• #instagrammingafrica: The narcissism of global tourism (17,300+)
• Teachers offered personal loans to buy school supplies (15,000+)
• What do professors do all day? (11,400+)
• Doing gender with the face, featuring Erika Linder (6,900+)
• How to change the world one shrug at a time (5,900+)
• Snickers mocks the idea that men can respect women (5,400+)
• Concern for equality linked to logic, not emotion (5,100+)
• A little theory of homophobia (5,000+)
• In employers’ eyes, for-profit colleges are equivalent to high school (4,300+)
• How to lie with statistics: Stand Your Ground and gun deaths (4,200+)
• The sexual politics of veganism (2,700+)
• U.S. schools teach children that Native Americans are history (2,700+)

Most loved humor!

• Marx, Weber, and Durkheim on a tree falling in the forest… (5,000+)
• Girl pants: No pockets, no justice (2,800+)
• Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts (1,600+)
• Statistically significant others (1,500+)
• Academic writing MadLib (1,300+)
• How professors argue (1,100+)
• Confirmation bias expert convinced everyone suffers from confirmation bias (1,100+)
• The best thesis defense is a good offense (1,000+)

Editor’s picks

• That’s fishy: From scent to suspicion and back
• “Trophy scarves”: Race, gender, and the woman as prop trope
• What sociologists can tell us about serial killing
• A reluctant defense of sunscreen for men
• Girl-on-girl action: A new visual landscape
• Cuteness-inspired aggression is actually a thing
• A proper entrance: Creole culture and the front door
• How the bird hat craze almost killed the dinosaurs… and inspired the Audubon Society
• Reading the camouflage: “You are now enemy combatants”
• The baby dolls of Mardi Gras

Happy New Year everyone!  Here’s to wonderful things in 2015!

SocImages News:

As we entered December, I collected a set of SocImages posts relevant to the deaths of black Americans at the hands of police. It includes sections on race and police work, the link between black men and criminals in our minds, proof that we have less empathy for black people, and evidence of the way that racism is deeply institutionalized throughout American society. I hope it’s a useful resource.

Meanwhile, at SocofGender…

I have made a lot of progress toward building a Soc of Gender Pinterest page to accompany my textbook, organized by chapter and concept. Please feel free to visit and use it even if you don’t adopt the book. I’ve built 48 boards so far. Here are some of my favorites:

• Boys don’t have eyelashes
• Gender across cultures
• What sexual dimorphism really looks like
• Intersectionality, visuals and data
• Men and the rule to avoid the feminine

Look at how numerous and pretty!

Best of December!

Christmas favorites:

• An SI theory nerd review of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Did the Nazis celebrate Christmas?

Readers’ picks:

• Women in apocalyptic fiction shaving their armpits (4,000+ likes)
• The teaching evaluation experience (3,300+ likes)
• The paradox of women’s sexuality in breast feeding advocacy and breast cancer campaigns (1,600+ likes)
• Tropicana ad says that girls should be “easy” (1,100+ likes)
• Angela Davis: “No idea what black people have gone through” (800+ likes)

Women in apocalyptic fiction shaving was also the month’s winner on Tumblr, with over 78,000 likes and shares!

Editor’s pick:

• Inequality in the skies: Applying the Gini Coefficient to airplanes

Elsewhere on the Net:

SocImages’ Pointlessly Gendered Products was featured at i100: Nine Products that Have Been Pointlessly Gendered. They apparently especially liked one of our newest examples, bagpipes, and also went for one of my favorites, pickles.

And I had the pleasure of being quoted in a couple articles:

• The Dangerous Lessons Kids Learn from Sexist T-Shirts, a great article explaining why it’s not “just a t-shirt,” by Jessica Samakow at Huffington Post
• The Magnetic Appeal of Male Friendship by David Grossman at Stereogum

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and Pinterest.  I’m on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, and @jaylivingston.

Finally…

In honor of the special place the anglerfish has in my heart — being so ugly and strange — here’s some rare footage of the fish in action. Want to learn more? Here’s the most humorous way.

Anthropologist John Ziker decided to try to find out.  With his collaborators — Matt Genuchi, Kathryn Demps, and David — Nolin Ziker recruited a non-random sample of 16 professors at Boise State University and scheduled interviews with them every other day for 14 days.  In each interview, they reported how they spent their time the previous day.  In total, he collected data for 166 days.

It’s a small, non-random sample at just one university, but here’s what he discovered.

All ranks worked over 40 hours a week (average of 61 hours/week) and all ranks put in a substantial number of hours over the weekends:

Professors, then, worked 51 hours during the official workweek and then, in addition, put in ten hours over the weekend.

What were they doing those days?  Research, teaching, and service are the three pillars of an academic workload and they dominated professors’ time.  They used weekends, in particular, to catch up on the first two.  The suspension of the business of the university over the weekend gave them a chance to do the other two big parts of their job.

This chart breaks down the proportion of time they spend on different activities more clearly. Ziker is surprised by the amount of time faculty spend in meetings and I’m particularly impressed by the amount of time they spend on email.  Most professors will probably note, with chagrin, the little bars for primary research and manuscript writing.

Interesting stuff.

This was just a first phase, so we can look forward to more data in the future.  In the meantime, I’ll add this data to my preferred answer when asked what I do all day:

Cross-posted at Business Insider, Pacific Standard, Networked Scholar, and the Huffington Post.

Don’t you want to pinch it and squeeze it and bite its little face off!?

You’re not alone.

Rebecca Dyer and Oriana Aragon, graduate students in psychology, brought subjects into a lab, handed them a fresh sheet of bubble wrap, and exposed them to cute, funny, and neutral pictures of animals.  Those who saw the cute ones popped significantly more bubbles than the others.

Cute things make us aggressive!  It’s why we say things like: “I just wanna eat you up!” and why we have to restrain ourselves from giving our pets an uncomfortably tight hug. An aggressive response to cuteness, it appears, it “completely normal.”

The authors suggest that humans non-consciously balance extreme emotions with one from the other side of the spectrum to try to maintain some control and balance.  This, Aragon explains at her website, may be why we cry when we’re really happy and laugh at funerals.

In the meantime, if this makes you want to inflict some serious squishing, know that you’re in good company.

Photo from 820453820 flickr creative commons.

Perusing my Facebook feed, I came across a photo proudly posted by a former student — now a hair and makeup artist — of two brides at a wedding.  It was beautiful and the young, conventionally attractive brides were leaning in for a kiss.  Or engagement celebrations, like this:

Embed from Getty Images

When I saw the image, my mind immediately pulled up similar images it has in storage — frequently described as girl-on-girl action — and I was struck by the similarity of the images and their powerfully different messages.

Until recently, “hot girl-on-girl action” was the primary visual that involved women kissing.  In mainstream culture, genuine and open female same-sex attraction was almost entirely invisible, hidden and denied.  Today, the proliferation of same-sex marriages offer a new visual landscape for framing what it means for two women to kiss each other.

The meaning, moreover, could not be more different.  Though often women with same-sex desire use this assumption to explore real attraction, girl-on-girl action shots are ostensibly between two heterosexually-oriented women who are kissing for male attention.  These brides are presumably doing the opposite of that.  They are displaying love and commitment to one another. The kiss is for them and no one else and they are, implicitly if not actually, openly committing to making themselves sexually unavailable to anyone else, male or female.  This is far from the notion that they are just kissing a girl to get guys to think they’re sexy.

I wonder how these images — ones that depict sexual intimacy between women who love one another and do not seek male attention — will ultimately change how we think about “girl-on-girl” action in the U.S.  As they proliferate, will they push back against the male-centrism and heterocentrism of our society?  I think they very well might.