No longer just for the lovely, Unilever’s “Fair and Lovely” is being marketed to men (see here and here for ads for “Fair and Lovely”).  The marketing is interesting on at least three levels:

(1) The ads exploits men’s insecurity about their appearance, just as they do for women.

(2) However, they masculinize the product with the “Fair and Handsome” name and, in the second commercial, by emphasizing the sporty-fighty-ness of the men using the product (see also our posts on make-up for men,  masculinizing hair product, and selling hair dye to men).

(3) Though I don’t understand the language, the imagery of the arrows representing “Fair and Lovely” bouncing off of men’s skin seems to affirm the idea that men are inherently and biologically different from women… so much so that there would need to be a totally different product (kind of like the old “P.H. balanced for a woman” argument). Do correct me if I’m mistaken.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgBevCTBTJw&feature=related[/youtube]

Via MultiCultClassics.

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.

Andrew Sullivan suggests that this commercial for Pearl Cream that fetishizes (upper class) “Oriental” women is from the 1970s, but a commenter of his makes a good argument that it was on cable television in the ’80s and ’90s. Do you remember this commercial?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaD_fvehAaU[/youtube]

Mary K. took this picture of two magazines covers side-by-side in a magazine holder in an acupuncturist’s office.  The one on the right is for parents and the one on the left is for women going through menopause.

Mary writes:

The cover of both is donned with females at very different points in their life trajectories with the exact same pose. I couldn’t help but think the woman on the left was socialized just as the baby on the right is currently being. My first reaction was definitely not “Aww how cute. Look at the baby pretend to model.”

Neat find, Mary!

The Pink Patch is similar to nicotine patches, except it’s a diet product aimed at young women. Here’s a photo from the website of a woman wearing it:

The website for this product clearly targets young women; it warns young women that they are at the time in their lives when their metabolism is highest, and refers to college weight-gain.

The product promises women a solution to their negative body image. Of course, the solution isn’t to think differently about their bodies; the solution is to use the Pink Patch to get skinny:

This quote from a supposed customer makes it clear that losing weight brings boys and popularity:

It also encourages competition and envy among girls:

And apparently, it’s an upper. You might experience “possible mood elevation” and can “relieve your stress,” allowing you to get everything done:

So use the Pink Patch and you will lose weight, which will bring popularity and male attention. Girls will envy you. You’ll be happier, you’ll get a lot done, and that will help you graduate with that great job you always wanted.

It’s the overall message of the diet industry, condensed in one website: the answer to all your problems in a product that will help you melt the pounds away, thus transforming your life. And it’s pink! So feminine!

Via Big Fat Deal.

Penny R. sent in this image (found here via Pennamite) of a 1919 magazine cover.  The image is of two women embracing.  One represents “Justice” and the other “American Womanhood.”  It is captioned “At Last.”

In honor of the election, we offer you a summary of all our election 2008 posts.

This election has certainly brought racial tensions front and center. We highlighted two racist caricatures of Obama: on a waffles box and as a cannibal. We also discussed the cover of The New Yorker on which Barack and Michelle Obama were caricatured as terrorists. Whether or not this was racist was widely discussed and offered an interesting opportunity to ask “Who decides what we talk about?” In response to the argument that we were being too sensitive about the caricatures, we offered some evidence that caricatures of black people do not need to be racist.

Anti-Obama propaganda also included comparison with OJ Simpson, a monkey, celebrities, Osama Bin Laden, fascists and communists, a terrorist, a terrorist again, and a “half-breed Muslin.” See here for other racist anti-Obama propaganda.  Gwen asked “So what if Obama is an Arab?” (Note, too, this satirical T-shirt.)

We saw racialization–or the active production of racial meaning–in the fist bump controversy, in calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama,” and in asserting the whiteness of the White House. We discussed the resemblance between Obama and his Grandfather and the meaning of “Main Street” to illustrate the social construction of race.  And we offered examples of white privilege: in one we discuss the option of white ethnics to emphasize their ethnicity; in two we discuss a cartoonist who calls Colin Powell a race traitor for endorsing Obama and a Howard Stern clip that suggests that Blacks only endorse Obama because he’s Black.  We also remark on how easy it is to deride social theories of inequality.

The McCain/Palin ticket was no stranger to derision.  See also our post in which the McCain/Palin ticket is said to be favored by Nazis, another in which Palin effigy is lynched, and a third that discusses ageism in the election.

We’ve also seen plenty of sexism in this campaign. Hillary Clinton has been represented as a nut buster, asked to “iron my shirt,” critiqued for crying, and called a “bitch.” There are more examples here and here.  Also see this montage of sexism among political pundits. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were sexualized. See here, here, and here for Clinton and here, here, here, here, and here for Palin. (By the way, Barack Obama was sexualized as well, see here, here, and here.)

We commented, more sociologically, on the gender politics of this election. We discussed the mothering of baby Trig, conservative feminism, the politics of pink, and took a humorous look at the women’s vote with Sarah Haskins.

We also pointed to the way in which Obama and Clinton attempted to appeal to small town people and the ease with which we make fun of them.

For the intersection of race and gender, see our post in which Michelle Obama is called an angry black woman, is said to need to “soften” to be a First Lady, and our post that features the Bros Before Hos T-shirt (scroll to the bottom). For the intersection of race and class, see our post on Obama’s negotiation of the “elitist” label.  And, in making intersectionality invisible, see the SNL skit, “bitch is the new black.”

Looking more broadly at politics and media coverage, we discussed the portrayal of evil in the Reverend Wright scandal, McCain’s trivialization of war, the linking of a Democratic adminstration with a terrorist attack, pundit hypocrisy, political networks, a voter registration campaign that uses bondage imagery, suspiciously delicious polling techniques, how cell phones shape polling findings, and trends in media coverage of Obama versus Clinton and Obama versus McCain.

In addition, we offered some examples of punditry from alternative media: on young voters, a call for alliance from the labor movement, a call to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama, a political revival of the Budweiser Wassap video, and two examples of art inspired by the election (here and here).

We also put up posts of figures representing public opinion on blacks, a woman president, and politician parents.  And we offered images illustrating how the world would vote.

Finally, our favorite: “We’re not sociologists, we’re Americans!”

Many of the polls that we have been consuming voraciously have not included people without a land line (like me).  In the figure below, we can see what a difference that makes in the results.  Yellow bars are polls that included cell phones and grey bars are polls that did not.  Those that excluded cell phones are significantly skewed towards McCain, and falsely so insofar as people without a landline vote.

From 538 via Thick Culture.

Matt S. sent in a link to a global electoral map showing how the world would vote in the U.S. presidential election. The images below–the first from The Economist and the second from two guys in Iceland–might be useful for illustrating the relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Thanks Matt!