I love this picture!*

It’s a wonderful illustration of the way in which we tend to project a gendered nuclear family model onto animals in ways that make that model seem more “natural” and “universal” than it is. (For the argument, try Donna Haraway’s Teddy Bear Patriarchy.)

Chickens, at least in captivity, do not live in lovely nuclear families like the nice chicken family above. They live in harems with just one rooster and lots of hens. Notice, too, how the hen is looking down (lovingly? maternally?) at her chicks, while the rooster is looking out into the distance (for danger? the protector?). Or maybe he’s checking out all those other “chicks” he gets with.** You know, a man has got to sow his seed. Oh wait, he’s not a man, he’s a CHICKEN!)

Even their bodies match our culturally and historically specific norms. Their height difference nicely matches the ideal in our society for male/female pairs (but not the reality, see here). To take the anthropomorphization further, you can almost see the hen’s fertile hips and the rooster’s strapping shoulders (am I going to far?).

* Unfortunately, I’ve had this picture for a long time and I’m afraid I don’t remember where it came from.

** Did you see that? I managed to get in the infantilization of adult women, um, hens, and the sexualization of young girls, um, chicks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbcmPe0z3Sc[/youtube] While this video is more activist-y than scholarly, I think it might be useful as a way to demonstrate that our taken-for-granted categories (whether they be based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender or otherwise) are falsely homogeneous.

Here is a link to a website called Hunting for Bambi that says it is “a highly unique, niched, and controversial comical video series that spoofs hunting.” It spoofs hunting by filming men shooting naked women with paintball guns.

You can buy this DVD. Note that the men are in a Hummer.

Here is a link to the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, a publicly-sponsored marriage-promotion program. The idea behind it is that increasing marriage, particularly among poor women, would decrease poverty and, therefore, welfare rolls.

Here is a link to the parenting section. Among other things, couples will learn “the benefits of marriage” and “strengthening the father-child bond.” Nothing is said about the mother-child bond–presumably it’s just fine. Note also that in the artwork for the page is very gendered–the woman is holding the baby, the male figure is standing over or protecting her. If you go to the photos section (pictures of actual participants), there are pictures of men holding their babies.

It might be useful to read the article “The Marriage Cure,” by Katherine Boo, in the August 18 & 25, 2003, issue of The New Yorker as well–Boo follows several poor black women as they go through the program and try to figure out how to find marriagable men (and it is made clear to them that they need to look for a man, any man).

I’m going to use this in my Intro to Sociology course as a way to discuss the idea that poor women wouldn’t be poor if only they would get married–to anyone.

Jessica Simpson wore a pink Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys quarterback) jersey at a recent game. In case you didn’t know, they are dating. This was the first time she went to one of his games and actively acknowledged their relationship.

The Cowboys lost. And here’s the fascinating thing: She was immediately blamed for the loss. This photo, where she looks sort of pouty and upset, has popped up everywhere, though there are photos available where she looks happy and is cheering. Here is a Dallas Morning News column addressing the blame put on Jessica Simpson.

These two Jessica masks are available here; the idea is that fans of the teams the Cowboys are playing should take them to games to throw Romo off so the Cowboys will lose (another mask is available at RuinRomo).

This whole story of Jessica causing the Cowboys to lose was a big enough deal that yesterday, while sitting in a restaurant, I saw ESPN announce that she will not attend the upcoming Cowboys game against the New York Giants. FOX News added the story to their website. This is news! In this article, Romo insists he is focused on the game, not Jessica.

This fits in with a long line of women being seen as a threat to men’s performance in male-dominated arenas (sports, the military, and police forces in particular). When I taught Sociology of Sport we discussed how in the early 1900s single women who attended baseball games would be harassed, spit at, and sometimes removed from the game by other fans who felt they were going to distract the players and make them lose. There’s also the long-standing belief that men shouldn’t have sex before a game. Women sap men’s strength (think Sampson and Delilah in the Old Testament), and men who become romantically/sexually involved with women risk becoming weak (i.e., feminine) and failing in the masculine world.

This story might be a good addition to the pictures of pink athletic team jerseys.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Here is a link to a website sponsored by Tampax and Always about their work with the UN to give pads to girls in Africa, supposedly because these girls miss school each month because they don’t have pads to wear.

Here is a t-shirt you can buy to support the program. It says “Use your period for good”:

The t-shirt costs $21.99. Of this, $1 goes toward the program.

This brings up all kinds of issues–for instance, where does the other $20.99 go? To Tampax and Always? What do these companies stand to gain from this? Positive publicity or lifelong customer loyalty in Africa?

It could also be used as part of a discussion about consumption and activism–the idea we have now that you can just buy something if you want to fix a social problem. If you pick up any fashion magazine, there will be a page or an article in it telling readers they can change the world by buying some product–nevermind that only a tiny part of the purchase price goes to the charity.

For other examples of shopping as activism, look here, here, and here.

Text:

“Please keep stealing our stewardesses. Within two years most of our stewardesses will leave us for other men. This isn’t surprising. A girl who can smile for 5 1/2 hours is hard to find. Not to mention a wife who can remember what 124 people want for dinner. (And tell you all about meteorology and jets, if that’s what you’re looking for in a woman.) But these are not the things that brought on our problem. It’s the kind of girl we hire. Being beautiful just isn’t enough. (We don’t mean it isn’t important. We just mean it isn’t enough.) So if there’s one thing we look for, it’s girls who like people. And you can’t do that and then tell them not to like people too much. All you can do is put a new wing on your stewardess college to keep up with the demand.”

Dorotha found this here.

Hecklers shout at Clinton to “iron my shirt!” at a campaign speech in New Hampshire:See the video:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjS8_WWhjao[/youtube] Via the Huffington Post.