Newspapers report facts – thing that actually happened. They run photos of things that actually happened. They don’t make stuff up. But they do choose which facts to report, and they do choose which photos to run. Usually the two are congruent.
But not always. Wonkette ran this photo of a page from the Washington Post:
Wonkette and other sites have contrasted the photo with this video of a cop deliberately firing a tear gas canister at close range directly at a group of demonstrators who had come to aid of someone who had been hit in the head with a tear gas canister.
But what’s also noteworthy is the contrast between the photo (nice cop, nice kitty, nothing violent happening here) and the Post’s own lede: “Police fired tear gas and beanbags. . . .”
A confession to PostSecret this week inspired me to add to and revise this post from 2009.
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I have posted before on the way that black people are fetishized in the U.S. It is as if they are, literally, more colorful, more interesting, cooler, hipper, even spicier than white people. Whites, in contrast, can seem bland, boring, vanilla, even whitebread. From this perspective, being a “boring white” person can seem, well, boring. Both of these confessions can be read as suggesting as much (though there are surely other readings as well):
It’s important to remember that this projection of soulfulness and other positive characteristics onto black people specifically is problematic, even if it’s not derogatory (for posts on the “magic negro,” see here, here, and here). People of color often report that they feel like white folks are friends with or date them specifically because they aren’t white. This is no compliment. Most of us desire to be friends with people who see us as individuals and not stereotypes.
Christie W. sent in an idea that inspired me to revive our pointlessly gendered products post. It’s a fun one. I’ve added Christie’s submission — a super-pink for-her version of a continuous positive airway pressure machine for people with sleep apnea.
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At this point, the gendering of things like phones doesn’t surprise me, such as this set, sent in by Ben C.:
But really…pink ear plugs?
We seriously need our own earplugs that are “silky soft”? Starchy G., who sent them in, says:
I’ve been told that these things have the extra-feminine side effect of dying one’s earwax pink.
Lovely.
Feminist Philosophers found this delightfully marketed pair of earplugs for, um, I’m gonna guess working class men:
Michelle at The Red Pill Survival Guide took this photograph of gendered lollipops. But not just any lollies: “Girls Enchanted” and “Boys Adventure” mixes. Sigh:
Em wanted to download Style XP to customize Windows XP, but had to decide between men’s and ladies’ versions:
Em says,
The Man theme “gem” and the Lady theme “gucci” look pretty much the same. Still I’m glad it’s called “gucci” so I know it’s for me. Me and my lady friends are going to giggle about it then go online shoe shopping together. I just hope they’ve added extra-easy installation instructions to that version.
Christie W. sent in a pink version of a continuous positive airway pressure machine, and related items, for people, er women, with sleep apnea:
Over a dozen more ridiculous examples, after the jump.
Guest Blogger David Paul Strohecker on October 26, 2011
I am a huge fan of the television series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I want to problematize some of the humor we often take for granted in the show. In a recent interview with Conan O’Brien, Charlie Day discusses some of the changes introduced into the upcoming season of the show. Specifically, about 1:30 in, they discuss the weight gain that Rob McElhenney (“Fat Mac”) accomplished in pursuit of a “funnier” character (image via):
Notice how Charlie Day and Conan laugh—freely and unapologetically—at the prospect of Mac contracting diabetes (especially Conan’s mocking “Go America!” response to the image of “Fat Mac”):
Continue watching the interview to the 4:45 mark; Conan broaches the topic of mental retardation contained in an earlier episode (Season 3 Episode 9: “Sweet Dee’s Dating a Retarded Person”). You will notice that Charlie Day seems more hesitant and calculated in discussing the topic of mental disability. For one, he uses the word “mental disability” rather than the more pejorative “retarded.” You will also notice less of an audience response, a less raucous reaction to the prospect of someone being mentally disabled than to them being fat.
Mental disability, as a largely ascribed status, serves as a less-viable source of humor. That is, laughing at someone who is born a particular way, or gains that status for reasons beyond their control, violates our precepts of political correctness. However, being overweight is often interpreted as caused by a personal character flaw (laziness, gluttony, etc.) and therefore an achieved status. Laughing at fat people, then, is not only socially acceptable, but often encouraged in American comedy.
This highlights the centrality of individualism and personal responsibility in American society. We hold the obese and the overweight accountable for their corporeal deviations. We tend to believe that those who are overweight (and those who contract Type 2 Diabetes) are responsible for their conditions. It then becomes socially acceptable to mock them. On the flipside, mental disability, as an ascribed status, is more likely to be defined as “off limits” as a source of humor. When it becomes a source of humor, as in this case, comedians must save face by saying things like “Nothing against the mentally disabled, but…” as Charlie does at the 5:25 mark—a form of hedging he didn’t feel obliged to include when laughing at someone’s weight.
Who we can laugh at, and whether we have to apologize for doing so, reveals larger cultural discourses, and analyzing humor allows us to understand some of the prevailing moral assumptions we take for granted.
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David Paul Strohecker (@dpsFTW) is getting his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies issues of intersectionality, consumption, and popular culture. He is currently doing work on the popularization of tattooing, a project on the revolutionary pedagogy of public sociology, and more theoretical work on zombie films as a vehicle for expressing social and cultural anxieties. He previously wrote for the blog Racism Review and currently blogs at Cyborgology.
It’s the kind of finding to warm the hearts of us liberal, Larry-Summers-hating, gender-egalitarians. Summers — you saw him in “The Social Network” as the Harvard president who had no patience for the Winklevoss twins (he didn’t have much patience for Cornell West either and probably many other things) — suggested that the dearth of women in top science and engineering positions was caused not so much by social forces as by innate sex differences in math ability (more here and many other places).
As others were quick to point out, those differences are greater in societies with greater gender inequality. That’s why the math gender gap in the U.S. has become much narrower over time. In societies with greater equality, like Sweden, Norway, and Israeli kibbutzim, the male-female gap in math disappears. But even in those societies, males still score higher on one type of mathematical skill: spatial reasoning.
I’m sure that evol-psych has some explanation for why male brains evolved to be more adept at spatial reasoning. I’m equally sure that those who favor social explanations can find residual sexism even in Sweden to explain spatial differences. That’s why a field experiment reported last summer is so interesting.
The research team (Moshe Hoffman and colleagues, pdf) tested people from two tribes in northern India — the Karbi and the Khasi. These had once been a single tribe but had split recently — a few hundred years ago. (Recent is a relative term, and we’re talking evolution here.) So they were similar economically (subsistence farming of rice) and genetically.
The Karbi are patrilineal. Only the men own property, and they pass that property to their sons. Males get more education.
Khasi society is matrilineal. Men turn their earnings over to their wives. Only women own property, which is passed along only to daughters. Males and females have similar levels of education.
Researchers went to four villages of each tribe, recruited subjects to solve this puzzle:
They offered an additional 20 rupees if the subject could solve the puzzle in 30 seconds or less.
In the patrilineal society, women were much slower to solve the puzzle than were men. But among the matrilineal Khasi, the difference was negligible.
I’m not sure how much weight to give this one study, mostly because of sample size. Is the sample the 1300 villagers who worked the puzzle? Or is it 1 – one inter-tribal comparison? But the results are encouraging, at least for those who argue for greater gender equality.
A while back, Lisa posted a video of clips of Bob Barker harassing women — sorry, “girls,” as he invariably referred to them — on The Price Is Right. Sadly, that video has been yanked from YouTube. But reader Melissa sent in another example of harassment and general creepiness on game shows, this time from the 1980s Canadian show Just Like Mom. Host Fergie Olver seemed to have a running gag of trying to get the young female contestants on the show to kiss him, even trying to sneak kisses after girls had very clearly said no (Note: A couple of readers suggested a warning that the video might be particularly uncomfortable or upsetting for some viewers because of the content):
Aside from the harassment, it’s a great example of changing social norms. Presumably many people may have found the behavior disturbing at the time the show (and others with similar behavior) was on the air, but it was sufficiently acceptable for an adult man to try to force young girls to kiss him that he was allowed to do it repeatedly on air. While harassment and infantilization of adult women is still widespread on reality TV, the increased stigma surrounding pedophilia and moral outrage about sex offenders makes me suspect that a male host forcing kisses on girls week after week today would meet with a significantly more negative response.
I often find myself bemused at our insistence on using sex (i.e., male or female) as the defining thing that describes our sexual orientation. We are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, right? These words supposedly mean that we are sexually attracted to the same sex, the other sex, or both. Right?
No! Not by a long shot! Essentially no one is attracted to men, for example, no matter what their sexual orientation. I’m straight and female, but I am attracted to a very, very, very small subset of men. I’m generally only attracted to men within a certain age range, with kind faces (I find the chiseled look a bit intimidating); also, I prefer them to be relatively clean. If I can add non-physical characteristics, then being aggressive with buddies or rude to waitstaff or prone to jealousy are all turn-offs, as are certain politics. I’ll stop here. Suffice to say, suggesting that I’m attracted to men is a vast overstatement. Sexual orientation, as we think of it, simply doesn’t describe my proclivities. I suppose this is true for most of us.
I was reminded of this idea when I came across an OK Cupid post. Christian Rudder drew on the profiles of over 250,000 heterosexual users, discovering that a large percentage of them had (positive) sexual experiences with people of the same sex, or wanted to (source).
Thirteen percent of self-identified straight men have had a sexual encounter with another man. Seven percent of them enjoyed it. Another 5% haven’t had the pleasure, but they would like to.
Significantly more self-identified straight women, 33%, have had a sexual encounter with another woman. Twenty-six percent of them enjoyed it. Another 18% haven’t, but they would like to. Less than half reported that they hadn’t and figured they never would.
Reported sexual orientation, then, simply doesn’t map perfectly onto desires or behaviors, in addition to failing to capture the full complexity of our sexualities.
Take a look at these two images. The people in Image A and Image B are identical, save for their relative heights and the way that their heads are tilted in order to maintain eye contact. Now how do you think each of these images would be independently perceived by the average person? How do you perceive the events depicted in these images?
Do one of these men seem “assertive” while the other seems “submissive” or “pushy”? What would you imagine the woman is thinking in each of these images? How would you rate the social esteem of each of these men? Which one seems to have the most business acumen? The most leadership potential? Which man would you rate as more attractive? What do you think these two people are talking about in each image? Does your perception of what is happening in the conversation change from image to image?
If you are being honest with yourself here, you probably are imagining many differences in the social interactions depicted in these two images that don’t actually exist outside of our cultural framework. From the age that we become aware of our environment we are bombarded with cultural images, traditions, behaviors, and ideals (both expressly and implicitly conveyed) which foster heightist concepts within our psyche.
These heightist concepts come into play along with our perceptions of gender. Masculinity is culturally tied to “Tall” and femininity is culturally tied to “Short.” Therefore, the negative cultural perceptions that apply to “feminine males” also apply to “short males” and the positive cultural perceptions that apply to “masculine males” also apply to “tall males.” That is why we perceive Image A and Image B differently, even though there is no story behind the images beyond what we imagine.
Perhaps (to some extent) the negative cultural perceptions that apply to “masculine women” also apply to “tall females” and the positive cultural perceptions that apply to “feminine females” also apply to “short females”? I do not know. However, I have my doubts that it works this way for females.
This is because (in my humble opinion – with no evidence to back this up):
Being a masculine woman is probably NOT considered as negative in our society as being a feminine man. In other words, our society values masculinity more than femininity and so it is more important for a male to be masculine, but much less important for a female to be feminine.
Additional height (or “tallness”) is considered a masculine trait and so more important for a male to have than it would be detrimental for a female.
Tallness (for some reason) is not considered masculine on a female. Body mass (weight) is considered more of a “masculine” trait on a female than pure height.
Any comments? Discussion?
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Geoffrey Arnold is an associate with a mid-sized corporate law firm’s Business Litigation Practice Group. When Geoffrey isn’t chasing Billable Hours in the defense of white-collar criminals, he is most likely writing about social justice with a special emphasis on height discrimination at his blog: The Social Complex.
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