Kathleen K. was recently looking at the Credit Education Week Canada website, where they have a number of quizzes for couples to take. At the end of each quiz there is a picture of a couple along with your results. She was pleasantly surprised that this image accompanied the results of one quiz:

It’s a rare example of the normalization of gay/lesbian couples in media not specifically targeted at the GLBT community. The couple is presented as a legitimate image of love for both straight and gay couples, and there is no ambiguity about whether or not they’re a couple. Given the general invisibility of gay and lesbian couples in media outlets, and the use of only heterosexual couples as “neutral,” unmarked examples, it’s quite striking to see this.

Also see our post on a commercial by an Argentinian bank that depicted transgendered individuals positively.

Yvonne Liu, at the Applied Research Center, told us about their report, Race and Recession, which includes a lot of useful information about the disparate effects of the economic crisis for different groups of Americans.

While an overall unemployment rate of just under 10% is bad regardless, that statistics hides the fact that Latinos and African Americans are experiencing even higher levels (note: the government agencies that the information comes from didn’t provide breakdowns for Asians or Native Americans, so the report was unable to show comparisons for those groups):

In a comment, thoughtcounts Z points out,

My immediate reaction…: the worst points (highest unemployment) on the “White” curve are generally around or below the best points (lowest unemployment) on the “Black” curve.

Unemployment rates for those aged 20-24:

This figure indicates what % of each racial group falls into each occupational category (the median indicates that half fall above and half fall below that level):

Median earnings for each occupational category (again, the figures represent the % of each race that have jobs in that category):

So as we see, Whites are disproportionately employed in management and professional occupations, while relatively few are employed in the service industry, whereas both African Americans and Latinos are significantly more likely to be employed in services.  And while there’s a big gap between the % of Whites and Blacks in management/professional occupations, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn’t larger than it is.

Earnings broken down by both race and gender:

Assets by race:

See also: images of the downturn, job loss by region, unemployment by education level, another map of job loss by region, the dilemma of the duplex, not everyone knows there’s a recession, Detroit’s decline, job losses, gender and recession, and tips to the rich on how to be discreet during a recession.

Triathlon is the new Golf: As a young lawyer making a name for himself in the mid-seventies, my father’s superiors told him to “pick up golf” as a way to rise quickly within the firm, and to land lucrative clients. It’s still all about who you know, but if you want to get ahead in business today, don’t hit the putting green, sign up for an Ironman. Why?

Like Golf, Triathlon is cost prohibitive: The average annual income of an Ironman participant is nearly $160,000, while the average golfer makes a measly $100,980 a year, according to Golf.com’s 2009 Survey.

With Ironman entry fees upwards of $500 each (plus the flight and lodging expenses associated with destination racing), a decent bike starting around $3,000 (plus $400 for the shoes, helmet, peddles and accessories), $200 for swim, bike and run gear, and $300/month in coaching and facilities fees; you start to understand the need for that extra $60,000/year.

Triathletes make better business connections: Like Golf, Triathlon entrances “Type A” personalities, obsessed with winning, even if victory requires continuous practice and focus. Unlike golf, Triathlon also demands incredible pain tolerance and phenomenal endurance. Consequently, “the sport attracts high-income, driven, focused individuals who are able and willing to pay the price in time and money,” says David Samson, Florida Marlins president, and Hawaii Ironman 2006 finisher.

Not only are triathletes more driven, they’re also younger. On average, Ironman triathletes are 35-44, while avid golfers are generally in their early 50’s. Consequently, triathletes are at the peak of their professional careers, while many golfers are contemplating retirement, and thereby less effective in helping you infiltrate the network or company of your choosing.

Triathlon is a better way to schmooze (on a Micro Level): Now that you’ve drawn all of the rich, hard working, high powered individuals into one sport, it is time to make connections. Typically, only four players participate in a round of golf, which takes around 4.5 hours. You likely know at least one or two of the other competitors if you’ve been invited to play in the first place, so you’re left with at best two networking opportunities, which isn’t an efficient way to find the right contact for you.

Most of the Multi-Sport fitness groups in my home town (Marin County, CA), host weekly group rides, averaging thirty to fifty participants. The group usually covers seventy miles in a given ride, thereby providing five hours (plus a group brunch) to make friends, and connections. The group usually breaks into smaller packs of evenly matched athletes after a ten mile warm-up. As competitive, Type A folks, multiple members in a given group will eventually ask you how old you are, what team you belong to, and what you do (probably to ascertain how much time you have to train, how long you’ve been serious about the sport, who coaches you, and what if any advantage your bike may provide you).

It is during this hierarchical ranking process that you establish dominance over the somewhat older, not-as-fast man on the really expensive bike. He may be the CEO of a major tech company in Silicon Valley, but that is the professional “Pond” (Frank, 1987) or “Sphere” (Putnam, 1995). Right now, you’re both in the triathlon sphere, where you’re fitter, faster and had a better time at Ironman Canada last year. As Frank noted, it is relative status that creates happiness and satisfaction, and in this pond, your status is higher than his.

So, for the remainder of the ride (and during brunch afterward), he picks your brain about triathlon, and you arrange to have lunch with him at his office next week, a networking win you’d never enjoy if you’d attempted to engage said CEO in the professional Sphere.

Triathlon as a character reference: Not only have you now procured a meeting, you’ve already passed the first round of the interview process. The ability to withstand (and even enjoy) suffering is a form of ‘bonding social capital’ (Putnam, 2001) that forges a strong sense of collective identity. It implies a preference for achieving work-like goals in the leisure sphere, which translates seamlessly into a strong, professional recommendation from your new friend, the high powered CEO.

Triathlon is a better way to schmooze (on a Macro Level): There is no other sport in which every race includes Professional, Amateur and “Age Group” triathletes from under ten to over eighty, separated only by “wave” times, which are determined by age and gender. As Bob Babbitt, publisher of Competitor Magazine put it: “I can’t pitch to Barry Bonds or tee off with Tiger Woods, but I can be on the starting line with the top people in triathlon.” Consequently, you can train, compete and network with individuals of all ages and abilities, from around the world.

While the world of triathlon is growing rapidly (223,594 US adults participated in a triathlon in 2007, up from just 83,612 just ten years ago), Triathlon is still a small community, even at the Macro level. With a limited number of Ironman (2.4mi Swim, 112mi Bike, 26.2mi Run), Half Ironman (1.2mi Swim, 56mi Bike, 13.1mi Run), Olympic (.9mi Swim, 26mi Bike, 6.1mi Run) and Sprint (.5mi Swim, 16mi Bike, 2mi Run) distance races, you are assured to become familiar (and even friendly) with similarly matched athletes from across the country, and the world.

Triathlon is a reciprocal Panopticon: Your athletic club affiliations are declared on your uniform, and your age is written on your calf prior to each race (so you can check the legs of everyone you pass and everyone who passes you, to estimate ranking in on your age group during the actual race).

Your relative time and ranking is posted within minutes of completing the race, so all can see where you fall amongst the 2,000 or so athletes who participated that day. Award ceremonies are performed immediately, and results are posted online within 24 hours. You can even look up their participant’s photos!

Basically, Triathlon is a Panopticon (Bentham 1995 [1785]; Foucault 1995 [1977]), in which everyone is given the role of prison guard and prisoner. You can’t hide anything about yourself, but in turn, you know everything about everyone else.

Athlink.com results display an athlete’s age, gender, city, and results for every event completed:

Bentham’s Panopticon: A theoretical prison that allows guards to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners, who can’t reciprocally tell whether they are being watched:

Conclusion: Triathletes are a self selecting group of affluent, highly motivated individuals, who spend countless hours forging bonds through the competitive, grueling, and socially cohesive ritual of endurance athletics. The greater community convenes several times a year to establish relative rank by sex, age, casual, amateur and pro standards. With access to the region, age, gender and past performances of every athlete in this group, Triathletes are “tee’d up” to make local, national and international connections that turn into husbands, wives (38% of Triathletes are now women), employees, employers and friends. In a world where it’s all about whom you know, it doesn’t hurt to know the rich, successful, driven group that is Triathlon.

References:

Bentham, Jeremy. 1995 [1785]. Panopticon Letters. Miran Bozovic (Ed.). London: Verso.

Foucault, Michel. 1995 [1977]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.

Frank, Robert. 1987. Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status. New York: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, Robert. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Galyn Burke–Brown, formerly a competitive equestrienne, is now an enthusiastic triathlete.   She blogs at Economic Sociology.

This month’s Playboy cover features Marge Simpson:

In order to attract as many hits as possible, the Huffington Post featured a slide show asking “Who’s Hotter” and presenting no fewer than 25 Playboy covers to compare.

Ironically, the slide show did not contain the Playboy cover that inspired the Simpson drawing. Behold Darine Stern, the first black woman on the cover of Playboy (1971):

I wonder how she managed to get left out of the slide show.   Hmmm.  No other black women made it in either.

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

Last week the New York Times released this table illustrating who benefited the most from the Bush tax cuts.  As you will see, people in the top 1% of income, making more than $545,845 a year benefited, by leaps and bounds, more than anyone else. And their share of the tax cut?  Almost a quarter went to the top 1%.

Also see our post on social class and the tax burden.

Via MontClair SocioBlog.

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

NEWS:

Lisa was invited to co-host a Racialicious Podcast this week with Tami Winfrey Harris and Minh-ha Pham.  If you’re interested, you can listen here.

Also, in case you’re new to SocImages, you’re welcome to friend us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Sociologists use the term “racialization” to describe the process by which something that isn’t associated with any racial group, becomes newly associated.  In October of 2007, we offered the pit bull as an example of racialization.  Also features Weird Al Yankovic.

People often use the Gay Republicans as an example of a social organization that brings together two ideas that seem to be at odds.  Another example, detailed in a post in October of 2008,  is the pro-environment/anti-immigrant movement (protecting the environment means restricting immigration).  The post features a couple really interesting ads.

Also, haven’t had enough Halloween yet?  Here are our Halloween posts from previous years:

Two extra-special costumes (the Anna Rexia costume and the Sexy Scholar), Max Weber jack o’lantern (by yours truly), Obama mask sold as terrorist mask, a Sarah Palin effigy, handling sex offenders on trick-o’-treat day, and costume catalog analyses (here and here).    See also, if you like, my Huffington Post about the race, class, and gender politics of Halloween.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Oct ’09):

Downright Offensive

It’s been a long time since we linked to our post featuring pictures from racial- and ethnic-themed college parties, but we found another example (this time Auburn University in 2001).  In this one, college students dress up in Blackface and like Klan members.  Delightful.

We added another example of a urinal shaped like a woman’s mouth, sent in my Liz B., to our collection of urinals and sinks meant to look like women’s body parts.

L. sent us a Facebook teaser for the movie DeadGirl (a movie about the rape and torture of a zombie woman) that describes the movie as “hot.”  We added it to our DeadGirl post (NSFW, Triggering).

Like fashion shoots that present female models as dead bodies? We added more to our post of Lanvin ads that show women looking dead.

We added another example of ads featuring bound Asian women, sent in by Penny R.

Katie let us know about El Emigrante, a video game where the player is a bike-riding immigrant trying to avoid the police. We added it to our post about Border Patrol, a game where you try to shoot immigrants crossing into the U.S., including a pregnant woman.

War and Nation

A World War I British recruitment poster that portrayed the British Empire as a team working together reminded us of our post about re-imagining the U.S. military, so we added it.

Class

Steve, my private plane friend, send me some more pictures of the luxury of private aviation.  A free, personal cinema, in this case.

Gender

Amanda C. sent us another example of an instance in which “sex” is conflated with women.

We updated our post comparing beauty pageant standards to standards for judging livestock with a photo taken by Steve P. outside a skincare store, in which a woman’s face is sliced up into parts to apparently help you pick the correct product for each section.

Our post on gendering and sexualizing foods has new additions: sexy fish sticks! And a Vegas restaurant appropriating feminist imagery from the 1960s.

We also updated our post about the controversy surrounding Jennifer Love Hewitt’s weight last summer with images of her in Self magazine showing her new, much slimmer body.

We also updated a post about a website that helps men find their “Ukrainian Beauty” with an image from a protest in Ukraine about sex tourism…that features scantily-clad young women.

Tawny T. sent us a video from Sweden about how heteronormativity affects gays, lesbians, and straight people. We added to our post on an Argentinian bank’s commercial that portrays transgender individuals positively and a Progressive insurance ad that may be portraying a gay couple, since the reason those two ads are so surprising is that we rarely see ones like them.

Rachael H. told us about Maxim’s guides to how men and women argue (Women are crazy! Men put up with their crap so they can have sex!) and we added it to our post of a video showing a range of “men are like this, women are like that!” stereotypes.

Will there ever be a month where we don’t add more examples to our post on pointlessly gendered products?  Maybe not. This month we added gendered tips for choosing a mattress, gendered versions of Windows XP customization software, gendered epsom salts,gendered snuggies, and gendered Target gift cards.  Submitted by Shannon C., Em, Ondi, and Dmitiry T.M.

Race/Ethnicity

We added images from a photo shoot in a Romanian magazine to our post showing people in poor parts of the world posed as props next to expensive fashions or White models.

Speaking of using the “Other” as a prop.  Shakira has been using a set of undifferentiated Asian drummers in her recent performances.  We added it to a previous post on this theme.

To my first post in a series about how people of color are used in advertising aimed (mainly) at white people, I added an example of a black woman being used to represent “rhythm.”

Jackie and Jasmine alerted us to another example of doctored diversity, this one from the University of Texas, Arlington.

Race and Religion

We added an image from Mother Jones depicting Newt Gingrich as a “guru” figure to our guest post on the National Review “wise Latina” cover of Sotomayor and other uses of Asian/Buddhist caricatures.

Cute Bruiser brought our attention to some Halloween costumes for girls that illustrate parallel trends. Her pictures are from a Shoppers store in Canada.

1. Girls as bratty. In this case, the Drama Queen (“It’s all about me!”):

(I know, that costume doesn’t even make sense.)

2. The sexualization of young girls. In this case, The Ravager from The Covenant:

Since that’s a little blurry, here’s an image from a website:

Miley Cyrus’ 9-year-old sister, Noah, chose to go this direction, as reader Kristyn G., Spagnoli F., and Jen C. pointed out:

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

Earlier, in our comments thread to this post, junequest observed:

I also find it disturbing that many of the “sexy” costumes are highly sexualized versions of characters who are supposed to be little girls–Alice (in Wonderland), Dorothy, Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, and other popular or fairy tale characters.

The fact that many women dress up as sexy little girls points to both the sexualization of female children and the infantilization of adult women.

Jillian York linked to an example from her flickr page, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz:

Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears:

Alice from Alice in Wonderland:

Little Red Riding Hood:

The phenomenon isn’t restircted to the fairy tale.  There is always the classic sexy school girl:

And its zeitgeist version (also from Jillian’s flickr):

And the related Girl Scout, eh em, Cookie Girl:

Just to see, I did a search and I found these sexy “baby” and “girl” costumes:

Actually, I’m not sure if the baby doll is a “sexy” costume, or if I’m so overwhelmed by women + Halloween = sexy that I can’t see anything else.

For more material showing the conflation of women and little girls, see these creepy posts: the cover girl mouth, innocence is sexier than you think, and compete with your daughter’s little girl look.

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