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Jessica B. sent in a link to a really great post over at Pigtail Pals. The author, Melissa, analyzed the contents of a number of holiday-season catalogs advertising toys. She tabulated how many girls and boys appear in each, how many are shown doing gender-stereotypical vs. non-stereotypical activities, and the main themes of the toys.

Here are the results for Toys ‘R’ Us:

Images from the catalog:

Wal-Mart:

Target:

It’s particularly striking to me how few images there are of girls and boys playing together, a predictable outcome, I suppose, of our insistence that boys and girls need different toys — since, if must play with different toys, they won’t be playing together.

Melissa discusses the specific images on several pages of the catalogs — check her full post out for more commentary.

Elizabeth McM. sent in this Life magazine ad from 1936 in which Camel cigarettes are argued to facilitate digestion.  Accordingly, you should smoke at least one between every course!  The ad (text below):

I am hard pressed to imagine that such an ad would fly today.  That these ads would not only be un-palatable, but impermissible, is evidence that the power of corporations is not absolute.

Text:

Thanksgiving Dinner… and then the peaceful feeling that comes from good digestion and smoking Camels!

OFF TO A GOOD START — with hot spiced tomato soup.  And then–for digestion’s sake–smoke a Camel right after the soup.

THE MAIN EVENT — The time-honoured turkey of our forefathers–done to a crisp and golden brown–and flanked by a mountain of ruby cranberry jelly.  By all means enjoy a second helping.  But before you do–smoke another Camel.  Camels ease tension.  Speed up the flow of digestive fluids.  Increase alkalinity.  Help your digestion to run smoothly.

DOUBLE PAUSE — First–for the crisp refreshment of a Waldorf Salad–then–once again, for the sheer pleasure of Camel’s costlier tobaccos.  This double pause clears the palate–and sets the stage for desert.

WHAT WILL YOU HAVE FOR DESSERT? Reading in a circle, there’s luscious Pumpkin Pie… Mince Pie a la mode… layer cake with inch-deep icing… a piping-hot Plum Pudding… and Camels to add the final touch of comfort and good cheer.  For when digestion proceeds smoothly,  you experience a sense of ease and well-being.

SO TO A HAPPY ENDING — over coffee and your after-dinner Camels.  Enjoy Camels–every mealtime–between courses and after eating–and you can lean back in your chair feeling on top of the world.

FOOD EDITOR — Miss Dorothy Malone says: “It’s smart to have Camels on the table.  My own personal experience is that smoking Camels with my meals and afterwards builds up a sense of digestive well-being.”

“THE BEST MEAL I ever ate would be a disappointment if I coldn’t enjoy Camels,” says William H. Ferguson, salesman. “I smoke Camels as an aid to digestion.  There’s nothing like Camel’s to set you right.”

Good food and good tobacco go together naturally!

Right down the line–from explorers living on “iron rations” to the millions of men and women who’ll heartily enjoy a big Thanksgiving dinner–it is agreed that Camels set you right!  You enjoy more food more and have a feeling of greater ease after eating when you smoke Camels between courses and after meals.

Enjoy Camels all you wish–all through the day.  Camel’s costlier tobaccos as supremely mild.  Steady smokers say that Camel’s never tire the taste or get on the nerves.  And when you’re tired, try this: get a “lift” with a Camel!

COSTLIER TOBACCOS

Camels are made from finer, MORE EXPENSIVE TOBACCOS . . . Turkish and Domestic . . . than any other popular brand.

FOR DIGESTION’S SAKE — SMOKE CAMELS

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.

Anita Sarkeesian, at Feminist Frequency, starts from the beginning.  How is contemporary advertising to children gendered today?  And why does it matter?  With a special discussion of girls and technology.  Enjoy:

(Transcript after the jump.)

more...

Cross-posted at FemmePolitical.

As many as 4 million people — most of them women and children — are sold into slavery globally each year, according to the United Nations, and 70 percent of those women are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation [PDF]. An estimated 200,000 American children are at risk for sex trafficking each year, and the International Human Rights Law Institute estimates that 30,000 sexual slaves die annually from abuse, torture, neglect and disease.

So why is Disneyland still asking us to laugh at an overt depiction of sexual slavery in its popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride?

Many of us have floated past the scene of a pirate captain selling captured women as “brides,” with the banner “Auction: Take a Wench as a Bride.” Viewer focus is drawn to a rotund woman on the auction block, an object of open derision due to her weight, as well as to a red-haired woman with her breasts on display, an object of hoots and hollers from surrounding drunken pirates.

These two women are linked to four other women-for-sale by ropes cinched around their waists. One of the captives–a teenager–cries profusely into a handkerchief while an older woman tries to comfort her. This disturbing scene of women being sold into sexual slavery is supposed to be amusing.

What makes this all the more alarming is that the Disney folks altered the ride to be less sexist during a major renovation in 2007. It originally included a scene with male pirates chasing unwilling (but giggling) townswomen and another in which an overweight male pirate, exhausted from his pursuit of a teenage girl, holds a piece of her dress and says, “It’s sore I be to hoist me colors upon the likes of that shy little wench” and, “Keep a weather eye open, Mateys. I be willing to share, I be” (an implied gang-rape invitation?).

The pirates-ravaging-wenches aspect of the Pirates attraction was planned from its inception in the late 1960s. Several sketches from illustrator Marc Davis conveyed the rapacious spirit of the scenes:

And they included the notion that women might even enjoy being sold into sexual slavery:

So why didn’t Disney get rid of the sexual slave auction when it had the chance? What arguments were put forth by corporate executives to justify showing these images to as many as 40,000 visitors a day, many of them children, with jovial music playing in the background? (Note: Pirates was the last exhibit Walt Disney oversaw before his death. The auction scene is the only one he saw fully animated, and the only scene that has never been altered.)

Disney has unparalleled power to shape young hearts and minds. If the Pirates of the Caribbean ride normalizes sexual slavery with humor, it can desensitize viewers to this heinous and very real gendered crime.

When will Disney learn that sexual slavery is no laughing matter? Contact the company to let them know what you think.

Special thanks to C. Martin Croker for his insightful research on the ride and to Theme Park Adventure magazine for images and history on the ride.

Cross posted at BlogHer.

Michaela M. alerted us to the news that Essence, the iconic fashion and lifestyle magazine for Black women, has hired an Australian-born, White woman, Elliana Placas, as its new Fashion Director.  Disappointed, former Essence fashion editor, Michaela Angela Davis, wrote:

If there were balance in the industry; if we didn’t have a history of being ignored and disrespected; if more mainstream fashion media included people of color before the ONE magazine dedicated to black women ‘diversified’, it would feel different.

In this 3-minute clip, Davis explains her position to Anderson Cooper:

The controversy over her hire is an example of a more widespread question about representation. Most agree that the presence of Black politicians, actors, models, teachers, professors, authors, and athletes (to name a few) is a good thing for Black people. It’s good, presumably, for two reasons. First, their presence in these roles normalizes Black achievement, beauty, intelligence, etc. The election of Barack Obama, for example, shows us that being Black and being the President of the United States are not mutually exclusive. The success of Tyra Banks and Alek Wek, similarly, upsets the notion that Black women aren’t beautiful.  It is good for all of us to be exposed to evidence that upsets negative stereotypes about Black people, stereotypes that all of us, no matter our color, unconsciously internalize to some degree (test your unconscious preferences here).

But there is a second reason why we often believe that representation is good. It is often presumed that people advocate for their own. Having a Black woman as Fashion Director, it is hoped, will mean that the content of the magazine will be empowering to Black women. That is, that the Director will be sensitive to the historic and ongoing racist idealization of white femininity that makes Black women’s bodies, hair, facial features, and skin color seem to need fixing.  Even if her racial politics are sound (and this is always a serious worry), she certainly does not have the experiences that Black woman in the U.S. often share nor, necessarily, the deep connection to the Black population that will make this a driving concern.

Essence‘s current Fashion and Beauty page with it’s August 2010 cover, featuring Janet Jackson, in the upper left corner:

The hiring of Placas is disappointing in the sense that it is a lost opportunity to put a Black woman in a position of power.  If, however, Placas is going to have this job, people concerned about the empowerment of Black women need to turn to evaluating her product.  The worry caused by her appointment is an opportunity to insist that Essence do right by Black women.  That is, Essence should be a refuge from racism.  One that, hopefully, does not subject Black women to the same sexism as White women in the name of equality.  Light skin does not preclude Placas from being able to do this, just as dark skin does not protect a person from internalizing and perpetuating colorism.

Ultimately, while having a darker-skinned, Black-identified person in the role of Fashion Director would be good, the production of a magazine that empowers Black women is also very important and this is something that Placas may be able to do.  It is up to us to insist that she does.

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.

NEWS:

This month Gwen and I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have submitted ideas for posts.  Our inbox is alive with ideas and it makes our job exceedingly fun!  We absolutely could not do it without all of your eyes.  So thank you for your submissions!  Also, if you’ve submitted an idea and it was never posted, please don’t be discouraged.  We get far more ideas than we could possibly use.  And, even if yours was a submission that we decided against using, be assured that we read it, thought about it, and sometimes talked about it together before setting it aside.  We appreciate all of your help, even if it doesn’t make the front page.

In other news, we’ve entered a new partial syndication agreement with BlogHer and we’re super excited to add that partnership to our one with Jezebel.  Our first syndicated post was our recent discussion of the Vaseline skin-lightening Facebook application.

Finally, please do remember that you can follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook.  Soon we’ll be launching a MySpace page as well.

NEW PUBLICATIONS:

(If you don’t have the subscriptions required to access either paper, we’re happy to send you a copy,  Just send us a note at socimages@thesocietypages.org.)

Gwen and my most recent essay in the print-magazine Contexts, Flesh-Toned, is now online.  It draws on the long conversation we’ve been having here about the way that the use of the terms “flesh,” “nude,” and “skin” to refer to light beige colors makes darker-skinned people invisible.

Also, a paper I wrote with Caroline Heldman is now available at Sexuality Research and Social Policy.  How and why hook-up culture came to characterize U.S. colleges remains a mystery.  In our paper, Hook-Up Culture: Setting a New Research Agenda, we argue that the emergence of hook-up culture on college campuses is an excellent opportunity to learn more about how sexual cultures change.  We review the literature, offer some hypotheses to explore, and discuss methodological requirements.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! July ’10):

This month we added new material to some older gender- and race-related posts.  Thanks almost exclusively to Gwen for doing the hard work of updating!  And thanks to those of who sent the images along!

Race

When a racially diverse group of people is included in ads or other materials, darker-skinned people are typically behind or below the lighter-skinned.  We updated our post on how people of color are subordinated in advertising with a new example of a church welcome banner.

Another ’70s book on useful Spanish phrases for talking to your maid.

Givenchy has some rather light “nude”-colored dresses, but Esquire responded to complaints about ignoring Black men by following up a story with a segment that acknowledged that African Americans might require or prefer different hair maintenance techniques and styles than other groups.

Black dolls sell for less than White dolls at Target.

A second example of vintage soap advertising suggesting that African Americans are dirty.

Gender/Sex

Haven’t found quite the right string bikini for your infant girl? We added another example to our post about bikinis for babies to help you out.

Two more examples in which men are people and women are women.

Another example of large clothes on small models.

More parking spaces just for women.

Using the PETA demonstration model in Jordan.

More gendering of language.

Rosie the Riveter was “maid to clean.”

More gendering of boys’ and girls’ (coloring) books.

eBay continues to gender gift suggestions…while simultaneously degendering them.

Only dudes use technology. Didn’t you know?

Don’t smoke. It makes you ugly.

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.

Ryan was browsing the Walmart website for a toy for his soon-to-be one-year-old child and happened upon this play cop car:

Both boys and girls can aspire to be cops, of course, but the specifications on the product insist that it is for boys:

See also our post in which the exact same toy is marketed to boys as a doctor’s kit and to girls as a nurse’s kit.

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

NEWS:

A new intern! We are proud to introduce a new Sociological Images intern, Lauren McGuire.  Lauren is a liberal arts graduate working as an assistant to a disability activist who blogs at The Deal with Disabilty.  She lives with four boys, one bathroom, and a dog in Pasadena, CA.  She is also an enthusiastic amateur in writing, blogging, sewing, photography, and general creative buffoonery.  Look for her first Guest Post soon.

An award!  I am so pleased to have been awarded the Early Career Award for Innovation in Teaching Sociology from the Pacific Sociological Association!  If any of you would like to celebrate with me, I will be at the PSA conference in Oakland, CA, on the evening of Friday, April 9th.  Email me at socimages@thesocietypages.org for details.

A new partnership!  We are so excited to have entered into a partial syndication agreement with Jezebel!  You may see some of our posts re-posted there, and vice versa.

SocImages in the news!  This month Gwen was quoted in Adweek (on children’s toys); Gwen and Lisa were both quoted in ABC News (on the pricing of black and white barbies); and Lisa was quoted in Women’s ENews (on the sex of traffic signals), interviewed on WEOL am 930 with Les Sekely, and her top ten favorite blogs were featured at blogs.com.

Social networking!  Don’t forget: you can follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook, where we update with a featured post everyday .

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Mar. ’10):

To our post about laws and taxes forbidding yellow margarine, we added another fascinating vintage ad.

Caity sent us a video than an Australian bank created to try to explain why they were increasing interest rates. We added it to our post of a cartoon that explains the credit crisis.

Race

A nice example of the way that people of color are frequently chaperoned by a plurality of white people was sent in by Caitlan V.d.W.  I added it to my post on the topic, one of a series on how people of color are included in advertising aimed primarily at white people.

Previously we posted a popsicle sold in Spain with an Asian caricature on the package. Now we’ve added ice cream that came in a container shaped like a stereotypical Asian character, also sold in Spain.

Anina H. sent us a New York State Department of Health flier encouraging breast feeding that featured women of different races, but had the white woman modeling ideal motherhood.  We added it to our post on materials that include a diverse group of people, but somehow always manage to put the white person up front or on top.

Sarah G. found another example of black dolls being sold for less than white dolls, we added it to our post on the recent Walmart scandal.

We recently posted about the objectification and fetishization of Asian women on the dating website Classy Asian Ladies. Rachel K. sent us a t-shirt that illustrates this obsession with Japanese women, in particular, so we added it.

Martha sent us a commercial for MetroPCS that featured two Indian men with strong accents. We added it to our post on two ads that ran during Super Bowl 42 that featured characters with thick accents (Indian and Chinese).

We updated our post on contemporary blackface in the fashion world with a mini-movie by Karl Lagerfeld that includes White actors made up to appear Asian.

Sex

Christina W. sent us another great contribution to our post: selling the most unlikely things with sex!  It started with organ donation, but this addition involves cheese.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in a flyer for a techno party that is a great addition to our ejaculation imagery post. And Kristyn G. found an Australian commercial in which white liquid squirts all over Pamela Anderson and another woman. Thanks, D. and Kristyn!

We updated our post on reframing the abortion debate to associate abortion with genocide by adding a Polish billboard that claims Hitler introduced abortion to Poland. Might be mildly unsafe for work — there are images of bloody aborted fetuses.

Joe told us about the video game Mass Effect, which allows heterosexual or lesbian couplings but not gay male ones. We added a link of a scene where a female character does a sexy dance for a male character to our post about the video game Sexy Beach, which is about what you’d think it is. Probably NSFW.

To our post in which we asked whether a store display seemed to imply violence or consensual bondage we added a photo SOM took of a shoe store window display showing a woman’s bound feet.

Gender

Renée Y. and Corina sent us two more examples of breast cancer research fund raising that privileges saving boobs over saving women.

We added images of chocolate Easter bunnies and pink computer cables to our ever-growing post on pointlessly gendered products.

We added a commercial, sent in by Emma H., in which a man is humiliated because he loves ice dancing to our post of ads telling men that they better eschew femininity or else.

More mocking of the Disney princesses!  Courtesy of Kristyn G.

We added three more examples of beer advertising that compares beer to a “good woman.”  See both here and here.  Thanks to John for one of the examples!

We added another image, this one a photo of Reille Hunter from GQ, to our post featuring infantilized women.  Thanks to Jeff H. for the suggestion!

Katie P. sent us a pair of gendered onesies: one said “I’m Super” and the other, “Super Cute.”  Guess which one was pink.

Halley M. and Ryan both sent in additions to our recent post showing how anatomy is gendered.  One is another educational image and one is the image of humanity attached to the Pioneer spacecraft in case any extraterrestrials ran into it and wanted to know what we’re like. We added them to the original.

We  added a product called Shrinkx Hips, a product to “guide” your hips back to their “pre-pregnancy position,” to our post on the BeBand.

Mindy sent us a video she was shown at a couples retreat that demonstrates how men and women are so different! We added it to our post on medicalizing gendered marriage.

French Elle‘s April 2010 issue has a long feature dedicated to women with larger bodies. We added it to our post on some recent images from Glamour of women’s bodies that don’t fit the size-zero model ideal.

Katrin sent us a video about a marketing campaign for Lynx (the British version of Axe). The campaign, called LynxJet, presents sexy women as sexually-available airline stewardesses, eager to please. We added it to another post on Axe/Lynx products.

We updated our post on the sexualization of female employees in an Avis ad with an ad for Ansett Airlines that shows a female flight attendant in just a towel.

Martha sent us some images from the book Who Killed Amanda Palmer? in which Palmer is posed as though she’s been murdered. We added them to our post on images that show dead-looking women.

Ryan let us know about a video of Filipina activist Sass Rogando Sasot speaking to the United Nations about the need for more recognition of transgender rights. We added the video of her speech, “Reclaiming the Lucidity of Our Hearts,” to our post of a spoken-word performance about being transgendered.

We updated a post on the sexualization/adultification of children with some images from the clothing company Zara that have similar themes.

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.