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From Our Archives: Women’s History Month

Lisa Wade, PhD on March 31, 2013

To mark the end of Women’s History Month, we offer this compilation of our posts on women and history.

Sports:3

Health:1

Fashion and Norms of Attractiveness:4

Work:5

Education:

Marriage and Motherhood:6

Suffrage:

Marketing:
2

Children and Toys:1

War and Military:

Activism:

Color, Sound,and Language:

Just for Fun:

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.

Course Guide for History of Women

Lisa Wade, PhD on March 21, 2013

Course Guide for
HISTORY OF WOMEN
(last updated 03/2013)

Developed by Lisa Wade, PhD
Occidental College

 

Sports:

Health:

Fashion and Norms of Attractiveness:

Work:

Education:

Marriage and Motherhood:

Suffrage:

Marketing:

Children and Toys:

War and Military:

Activism:

Color, Sound,and Language:

Just for Fun:

Managing Stigma: Doing Race, Class, And Gender

Lisa Wade, PhD on March 12, 2013

Cross-posted at Racialicious.

I featured the two-page ad below in one of the first posts I ever wrote for SocImages (it was October of 2007 and we’d written less than 100 posts; today we’re approaching 5,000, but I digress…).  It’s still one of my very favorite images.

I use it in Sociology 101 when I argue that race, class, and gender are, among other things, performances. Activities, items, and behaviors carry class, race, and gender meanings. In order to tell stories about ourselves, we strategically combine these things with the meanings we carry on our bodies (a gendered shape, skin color and hair texture etc., and signs of economic wealth or deprivation).

The ad for PhatFarm deftly balances Blackness (the body), upper-class Whiteness (the sailboat), and femininity (the pink sweater).  In strategically using culturally-resonant signifiers, he challenges popular representations of the Black body.

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This happens in real life too.  Journalist Brent Staples powerfully discusses how he adds a signifier of upper-class Whiteness to his large Black body in order to avoid the discomfort of frightening people on the streets of New York.

…I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension-reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

“It is my equivalent to the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country,” Staples adds, referring to the fact that being perceived as dangerous can itself be dangerous, as we know from the example of Trayvon Martin and Rodrigo Diaz, who was shot in the head in January when he accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway thinking it belonged to a friend.

Thinking of class, race, and gender as performances gives us credit for being agents.  We don’t have control over what the signifiers are, nor how people read our bodies, but we can actively try to manage those meanings.  Of course, some people have to do more “damage control” than others.

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.

Men Throwing “Like a Girl”: Separating Nature from Nurture

Lisa Wade, PhD on February 20, 2013

Screenshot_5One of the few genuinely large observed differences between men and women involves throwing ability.  Men, on average, are much stronger throwers than women.  Hence the phrase “throws like a girl.”

That we observe a difference, however, tells us nothing about where that difference comes from.  Figuring that out is much more difficult than simply measuring difference and sameness.  We know that the difference emerges at puberty, suggesting that sheer size might have something to do with it.  But the fact that boys and men, on average, get much more practice throwing than women might also play a role.  How to test this?

Well, here’s one way: compare men and women throwing with their non-dominant hand.  Muscle memory doesn’t transfer from one side of the body to the other.  Accordingly, since most people have a lot of practice throwing only with one hand, comparing the throws of men and women using their non-dominant hand might tell us something interesting.

I don’t know that that study has been done, but an enterprising videographer has captured video of a set of men throwing with the “wrong” hand. What I like most about the video is the men’s facial expressions.  You can see them laughing at themselves, suddenly reduced to a beginner thrower.  Though we still don’t know how much of it is biological and how much social — though, this is the wrong question anyway — it reveals that, no matter what the answer, men’s throwing ability is strongly related to practice:

A big thanks to Reynaldo C. for sending in the video!

Cross-posted at BlogHer.

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.

Yes, We’re Still Gendering Everything

Gwen Sharp, PhD on February 20, 2013

Readers have submitted some great examples of gendered items in the last few months, so I’ve collected just a few here. This includes “the first gender-based wholefood,” certainly a milestone worth commemorating, so let’s get to it!

An anonymous reader pointed out that Barnes & Noble has book collections for boys and girls:

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The summaries of the books reinforce ideas about gender and especially the association of boys with action and girls with relationships. The description of the boys’ collection mentions “excitement” and “tales of action, adventure, and exploration”:

Screen Shot 2013-02-16 at 7.19.14 AM

The girls’ collection, on the other hand, includes “heartwarming tales” that teach us that “friendship is the most priceless and enduring gift of all”:

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Nora Goerne sent in girls’ and boys’ pasta she saw in Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn:

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And Emily discovered you can get gender-specific yogurt for kids:

yoghurts

Nick O. noticed these bottle-opener rings, one of which is marketed to women by putting it on a pink background with the word “woman” on it but otherwise seemed the same to Nick:

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Carrie J. sent in this ad for gendered kids computers from 1999:

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Shara found boys’ and girls’ cake sprinkles in New Zealand:

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CBH was looking for birthday supplies on the Party City website and noticed that according to the decorations, by their first birthday girls are already “angels” and boys are “rebels”:

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Helen S. sent us this image posted at Boing Boing of crayon sets that are implicitly gendered through the use of the colors and terms (especially “princess”) that have become codes for boys and girls:

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Green gloves are apparently for boys now (thanks, Michelle):

gloves

And finally, as promised: You will be relieved to know that “the first gender-based wholefood” is here, and not a moment too soon. According to the website for Sexcereal — no, stop laughing, this is serious — the female version supports “hormonal balance” while the male version has ingredients that “support testosterone and then some,” which actually makes me afraid this product might cause ‘roid rage if eaten too often:

image

Their website (sent in by Vanessa K.) is an absolute delight, and provides many a hearty laugh. It’s just too bad Sexcereal is only available in Canada. All of us non-Canadians are stuck eating our stupid unisex cereals, leaving our hormones unbalanced and our testosterone feeling sadly unsupported, and then some.

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

Transnational Data on Gender and Science Aptitude

Lisa Wade, PhD on February 17, 2013

In 2009, 470,000 15-year-olds in 65 developed nations took a science test.  Boys in the U.S. outperformed girls by 14 points: 509 to 495.  How does the U.S. compare to other countries?

The figure below — from the New York Times — features Western and Northern Europe and the Americas (in turquoise), Asia and the Pacific Islands (in pink), and the Middle East and Eastern and Southern Europe (in yellow).  The line down the middle separates societies in which boys scored higher than girls (left) and vice versa (right).

Notice that the countries in which boys outscore girls are overwhelmingly Western and Northern Europe and the Americas.

This data tells a similar story to the data on gender and math aptitude.  Boys used to outperform girls in math in the U.S., but no longer.  And if you look transnationally, cultural variation swamps gender differences.  Analyses have shown that boys outperforming girls in math is strongly correlated with the degree of inequality in any given society.

One lesson to take is this: any given society is just one data point and can’t be counted on to tell the whole story.

Via The Global Sociology Blog.

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.

Male as the Neutral Default

Gwen Sharp, PhD on February 16, 2013

A new example prompts us to re-post this fun one from 2010.

We’ve posted in the past about the way in which “male” is often taken to be the default or neutral category, with “female” a notable, marked, non-default one. For instance, the Body Worlds exhibit, “regular” t-shirts are men’s, Best Buy assumes customers are male, stick figures on signs are generally male, and default avatars tend to be male.

We’ve collected several more examples of the tendency to present men as the norm, while women are a marked, non-default category. @LydNicholas tweeted us this example of a LEGO product advertised on their website.  Notice that the blue version is a LEGO Time-Teach Minifigure Watch and Clock, while the pink version specifies that it’s for girls:

 

Jessica J. noticed that Wal-Mart Target helpfully lets you know where to find both neutral, plain old deodorant and women’s deodorant:

Jane G. sent us this photo of t-ball sets, one for girls and the other with no sex specified:

Aline, in Brazil, found these two wall painting kits.  One is just a painting kit and the other is specifically “for women” (“para mulheres”).  The latter, she said, claims to be a special offer, but is actually about $2 U.S. dollars more.

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Eric Stoller pointed out that ESPN differentiates between college basketball and “women’s” basketball:

Lindsay H. pointed out that when you go to the U.S. Post Office’s website to forward your mail, it offers you the chance to subscribe to magazines. Those aimed at women (Cosmopolitan, First for Women, etc.) are in the category “Women,” while equivalent magazines for men (Esquire, Maxim) are not in a category titled “Men” but, rather, “Lifestyle”:

And Jane V.S. noticed that REI has various types of marked, “non-standard” sleeping bags, including those for tall people and women:

Renée Y. sent along another example, bike helmets:

 Jessica B. spotted this pair of sibling outfits, coming in “Awesome Girl” and “Awesome Kid”:

E.W. searched Google for men’s specific road bikes and Google asked, “Don’t you mean women’s specific road bikes”?  Because there are road bikes for people and road bikes for women.

Ann C. sent a screenshot of bubblebox, a site for children’s games.  Notice that along the top there are seven options.  The last is “girls,” suggesting that all the rest are for boys.

So, there you have it.  In this world, all too often, there are people and there are women and girls.

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

This Month in Sociological Images (December 2012)

Lisa Wade, PhD on December 31, 2012

SocImages News:

In betwixt the holidays, we’ve been keeping busy.  I booked an additional talk for the Spring; I’ll be visiting Queen’s University of Kingston to talk about the relationship between hook up culture and sexual assault (see upcoming lectures for details).  I always try to squeeze in a Meet Up when I travel so, if you’re in the area, keep your eyes peeled for an announcement!

Speaking of college kids gone wild, I was tickled to get the last word in this Bloomberg article by Chris Staiti on bad behavior in the Ivy League.  I concurred that there were some pretty gnarly things going on at the Ivies, but closed out the piece with this comment:

Colleges are a microcosm of American society. It’s a story of hormone-driven kids packed into dorms like sardines. And what we see when we look there — the glamorization of casual sex; the binge-drinking; the crude, insensitive humor; the homophobia; the racism — is a story about us.

So, that was a treat!

Since many people have had kids and toys on the brain this past month, you might be interested in listening to my appearance as a guest expert on At Issue with Ben Merens for Wisconsin Public Radio.  I talked with the host and guests about the history, politics, and economics of gender-segregated toys, plus gave a little advice to parents (download).

SocImages was also cross-posted at Jezebel (How Infant and Toddler Girls Learn to Beautify) and Ms. (The Truth About Pink and Blue Brains) and enjoyed links from French Slate, Marginal Revolution, The Independent, The Frisky, Bitch, AfroSpear, and GigaOm.

All in all, a great month!  Oh, and we reached 21,000 Facebook followers and are SO CLOSE to 10,000 on Twitter! Hopefully that’ll be part of our news for January.

Upcoming Lectures:

  • Western Political Science Association (Hollywood, CA, Mar. 28-30): panels on “Public Intellectualism” and the “Twenty-First Century Sex Wars”
  • Harvard University (Women’s Week, Mar. 8-14): “A Feminist Defense of Friendship”
  • University of Akron (Apr. 19): “Anatomy of an Outrage: Female Genital Cutting and the Politics of Acculturation”
  • Queen’s University of Kingston (Feb. 26): “‘The Night Overall Wasn’t Bad’: What College Students Really Think About Hooking Up”

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisadwade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, @jaylivingston, and @wendyphd.

In Other News…

Both Gwen and I will be in South America for the beginning of January, so hopefully we’ll have some fabulous photos to share next month!

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.

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    Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry. Read more…

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