I have argued elsewhere on this blog that the fact that companies don’t sell make-up to men is a triumph of gender ideology over capitalism.
That said, a few companies are trying to sell make-up to men (and their strategies are really something else, see link above). It turns out, however, that they’re not breaking new ground, as this vintage ad shows:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
A 1926 eugenics poster (from autistics.org):
From left to right the boxes say (and the left two are what we need less of, the right two what it says we need mroe of):
This light flashes every 48 seconds. Every 48 seconds a person is born in the United States who will never grow up mentally beyond that stage of a normal 8 year old boy or girl.
This light flashes every 50 seconds. Every 50 seconds a person is committed to jail in the United States. Very few normal persons ever go to jail.
This light flashes every 16 seconds. Every 16 seconds a person is born in the United States.
This light flashes every 7 1/2 minutes. Every 7 1/2 minutes a high grade person is born in the United States who will have ability to do creative work and be fit for leadership. About 4% of all Americans come within this class.
Here’s another example of the use of pseudoscience to make racial arguments (via):
Notice that the “woman mulatto” is draw to appear extremely unattractive, and that while the white man and mulatto woman have a “pass-for-white” daughter, the son on the far left isn’t “pass-for-black”–he really is black. The idea of “passing for black” made no sense at the time, while “passing for white” was a major concern. I am surprised to see here, though, that the baby of the pass-for-white woman and the white man is defined as entirely white.
Of course, none of this makes any logical sense at all, but lots of supposedly scientific studies at the time applied many statistical and other methods to prove various racial arguments.
Adeste S. sent in this performance by two women about the difficulties and frustrations of being transgendered:
Performed at Brave New Voices.
NEW! (Mar. ’10): Ryan sent in this video of Sass Rogando Sasot speaking to the United Nations about transgender rights. From an article at Coilhouse:
Her speech, titled “Reclaiming the Lucidity of Our Hearts”, addresses the need for vastly improved acceptance, support and protection of transgender citizens worldwide.
Her entire presentation is very moving, but about 8 minutes into this clip, something shifts in Sasot’s voice and delivery. What began as an engaging speech swiftly transforms into something far more urgent, immediate, and beautiful.
In the U.S. today, men enroll in college at a lower rate and drop out at a higher rate. In 2005, there were 57 women on campus for every 43 men.
This is such a significant problem, that college admissions officers are letting in a larger percentage of male applicants, even sometimes admitting less qualified men over more qualified women.
But this isn’t just a gender story.
A USA Today story offered this data from the ACE Center for Policy and Analysis:
Looking at the very bottom line of the table (and just at 2003/2004), you can see that the gender gap is largest among lower income students. Men make up 40% of undergraduates 18-24 when you consider low-income students only, and 49% when you look at upper income students.
The gender gap also correlates with race. Asian students show the smallest gender gap, whites the next smallest, with Hispanics and blacks trailing.
You might notice that the correlation of the gender gap with race mirrors the class correlation. That is, income and wealth data for racial categories follows the same pattern with Asians out earning whites (categorically speaking) and whites out earning Hispanics and blacks. So there may be an interesting exacerbation effect here.
The gender gaps for each racial/ethnic group, however, decreases as the students’ families get richer. And, among the upper income groups, the racial difference shrinks to only three percentage points (from 11 among low- and middle-income kids).
So, it’s not just about race, it’s not just about class, and it’s not just about gender. Then, what is it about being poor, black or Hispanic, andmale that results in low male enrollment in college and a higher drop out rate?
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Emma B. sent in an image of this wonderful toy:
As Emma pointed out, commenters on digg seemed to mostly interpret it as a hotel housekeeper’s trolley, though the website referred to cleaning the house.
There is nothing inherently wrong with toys that allow kids to mimic doing household tasks. Kids like to play at doing what they see adults doing–in fact, it’s an essential part of development. I had a toy grocery cart as a kid and thought it was awesome, particularly when I forced my cat to ride in it (he was very patient).
What annoys me is the way these products are so clearly gendered–in this case, blatantly so (“girls only“). Girls learn that playing at household chores is fun fun fun:
To my surprise, though, I found one site that showed a boy playing with the cleaning trolley:
I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a cleaning toy with a boy pictured playing with it. And that’s awesome. Though for reasons that are not clear to me, this site listed the trolley at $158, while it was $35-45 at all the other websites.
So I was able to find one example of a boy playing with a housework toy, but the overall marketing message was still clearly that housework is fun for girls…only.
NEW (Dec. ’09)! Lynne S. sent in these photos of housework toys at Toys ‘R Us that include both girls and boys playing:
ALSO NEW (Dec. ’09)! Fia K. found some examples too:
See also this post featuring screen shots from a site that advertises masculine toys primarily with girls.
But see these posts on the Rose Petal Cottage, rigidly gendered Sears and Amazon catalogs, and Mom/Daughter domesticity by Nintendo.
A gallery at Time Magazine offered a set of photographs that counter the frequent representations of Saudi women as (veiled) and downtrodden. The slide show features professional women at work.
Daneh Abuahmed, Rotana’s head of information technology:
Dr. Maha Al Muneef, Executive Director of the National Family Safety Program:
Sultana al Rowaili, the head of human resources at Rotana:
Members of the National Family Safety Program:
Norah Al Malhooq, administrator King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
As a fan of both sci fi and pre-WWII pop culture, I naturally have a lot of affection for Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. There’s much to be enjoyed about the original comic strip (which basically invented the style that led to the creation of super-hero comics), the 1936 serial starring Buster Crabbe, and even the 1980 movie, which I’ve mentioned before. The 1970’s softcore porn version, Flesh Gordon, is also a lot of fun. Although the various incarnations get pretty complicated, the basic story is of a regular guy from Earth who ends up on a bizarre alien planet, where he inadvertently becomes a hero in the struggle against Emperor Ming, the tyrant who has been keeping the whole planet under his thumb. With the recent rebirth of big budget sci fi and comic book adaptations, the time almost seems perfect for a new Flash Gordon movie. It’s never quite been done cinematic justice, and the basic story would hold up well to a modern interpretation.
Unfortunately, there’s one rather big problem: Emperor Ming. As the name implies, Flash’s nemesis is an unreconstructed “yellow peril” Asian stereotype. Despite being an alien, he’s undeniably portrayed as the worst sort of racist view of a Chinese ruler. He’s a vindictive, inscrutable tyrant with an affection for ornate finery and a lecherous eye for (white) Earth women. In the original comic he has bright yellow skin, long fingernails, a high-collared robe, and a Fu Manchu goatee.
Unsurprisingly, the serial was faithful to this version, casting a white actor named Charles Middleton and putting him in the same kind of “yellowface” make-up that was common in those days for portrayals of Asian characters. Of course, the actual skin tone was irrelevant in a monochromatic film.
Concerns about racism never even entered anyone’s mind until the 1980 film. By that time, it was necessary to be at least a little racially sensitive (but not too much). The answer was to leave Ming basically unchanged, while pretending there was never anything Asian about him. Swedish actor Max von Sydow was given a look that was immediately recognizable as the classic Ming, but with just enough of the Asian elements replaced with a more futuristic, “alien” look for plausible deniability.
The animated versions of Ming, in both the Filmation’s Flash Gordon series and the later Defenders of the Earth, took this idea a step further. Ming was given green skin, as if to say, “See, this guy’s clearly an alien! How could you accuse him of representing an Earthly race?”
Even with these attempts at a more extraterrestrial appearance, however, anyone who’s at all familiar with longstanding racist depictions of Asian men can recognize Ming as an embodiment of that unfortunate tradition. Meanwhile, more sympathetic characters who are clearly of the same race as Ming, such as his traitorous daughter Aurra and her lover Prince Barin, were unambiguously white. They did have yellow skin in the original comics, but even then they were less recognizable Asian than Ming. Later portrayals, even the cartoons in which Ming is green, show them as totally caucasian. The message seems to be that the more evil you are, the more alien you are, and alien in this case looks a lot like Chinese.
Naturally, when the Sci Fi Channel decided to adapt Flash Gordon for TV in 2007, they were eager to avoid anything that could be perceived as racism. Their answer to the Ming problem was to completely remake the character, removing every bit of his previous look to create a very white sort of fascist dictator.
There was a lot wrong with this adaptation (it was unwatchably boring, for one), but one of the complaints against it was that Ming was lackluster and missing everything that had made him a memorable villain. Regardless of his origins, we expect certain things from Ming: a bald head, facial hair, an ornate robe. Exoticism. So what is to be done? There can be no Flash Gordon without Ming the Merciless, but it’s possible that Ming is a character too wrapped up in racism to ever escape.
In my idle moments I’ve given some thought to how Hollywood could pull off a successful Flash Gordon revamp, and the only idea I have for Ming is this: don’t run away from his faux-Chinese heritage; push it in the other direction. Cast a Chinese actor as Ming, and make Aurra, Barin, and the rest of their people equally Chinese. Eliminate Earth entirely, setting the story in the future and making Flash’s planet one that was colonized by the United States, while Ming’s planet was colonized by China. You don’t need exposition for this- just imply it with production design. For Ming’s costumes, create a futuristic variation on what Chinese emperors actually wore, rather than just an American’s simplistic idea of the look. Do away with Ming’s predatory behavior toward Flash’s girlfriend. It’s a creepy and dated element regardless of his race. Finally, sweep away the blond=good/dark=bad undertone of the original by making Flash Gordon black. After all, it would make a great role for Will Smith, a charismatic action hero who’s been hurting for a sci fi property that’s actually worth watching.
As for the role of Ming himself, there are plenty of aging action stars who could pull it off. Given the inevitable campiness of the project, Jackie Chan might work. I’d suggest Chow Yun Fat, except that it could be hard to distinguish his version of Ming from the character he played in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
But would this be enough to redeem the character and the franchise? Maybe privileged white fans like me need to accept that some characters and stories have too much bigotry in their history to ever be redeemed. After all, nobody is trying to create an acceptable new version of Uncle Remus (although I say this with hesitation, because it seems possible that someone in a locked room at Disney might right now be doing that very thing). If there is to be no more Flash Gordon, I’ll accept that, but I do wish someone could find a way to solve the problem of Emperor Ming.
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Dustin Collins is pursuing an MA at the Ohio University School of Film. When he has time between classes and screenings, he blogs about film, pop culture, and Betty Boop at okaywithme.
If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.
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.
Tom Schaller at FiveThirtyEight.com posted a summary of the book Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics:
…authoritarianism is really about order–achieving it, maintaining it, and affirming it–and especially when citizens are uncertain or fearful. This, they say, is why authoritarians seek out and elevate, well, authorities–because authorities impose order on an otherwise disordered world. They provide a useful review the existing literature on authoritarian traits, which have been connected to negative racist stereotyping, a belief in biblical inerrancy, a preference for simple rather than complex problem-solving, and low levels of political information.
The authors, Marc Hetherinton and Jonathan Weiler, provide a breakdown of average levels of authoritarianism in the U.S. based on various characteristics:
Over at the Huffington Post, Weiler discusses the connection between authoritarianism and racial attitudes:
Authoritarian-minded individuals are, after all, likely to judge more negatively minority groups and those negative judgments, in turn, inform a host of political positions…
We find that in a politics organized by authoritarianism, even non-racial issues are becoming a matter of race and, more broadly, are taking on more visceral symbolic significance…
In sum, there is reason to think that beneath the arguments about government intrusion into the health care market, death panels, and such, a much more visceral dynamic is at work. To be perfectly clear, it is far from the case that every opponent or skeptic of significant health-care reform is a racist or racially motivated in her or his thinking. But there is, at the least, very strong circumstantial evidence that views of race and beliefs about health care reform are linked significantly among many Americans, which probably explains why the debate on health care reform has caused a much stronger uproar in 2009 than it did in 1994.
For an example of this type of racial resentment, see our recent post on Rush Limbaugh’s description of “Obama’s America.”
