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This Month in Sociological Images (April 2012)

SocImages on April 30, 2012

Tenure!

Lisa Wade is celebrating the news that, come Fall, she will be a tenured professor at Occidental College!  Now that she’s in the “golden handcuffs,” she can say all the stuff she’s been holding back on Twitter and Facebook. :)

New Course Guide:

New Pinterest Page: 

Best of April:

Two of our posts received over 1,000 “likes” on Facebook this month:

Other popular posts in April include:

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.

You can also follow Gwen’s great Twitter feed or find Lisa on both Twitter and Facebook (she just joined this month!).

Most of the rest of the team is on Twitter too: @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, @jaylivingston, and @wendyphd.

Links this Month: 

Course Guide for Sociology of Sports

Lisa Wade, PhD on April 27, 2012

Course Guide for
SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS
(last updated 4/2012)

Developed by J.A. Carter
University of Cincinnati

 History

Culture

Fans

Stadiums/Economics

Race/Ethnicity

Gender

Sex Differences in Sports

Equipment differences in sports

Masculinity

Sexuality/Homophobia

Bodies

Media

Violence

College Athletics

Barbie 2012

Tom Megginson on April 20, 2012

Cross-posted at Work That Matters.

Barbie is running for President of The United States of America… again.  She even has a campaign Tumblr. But what is her platform?

Okay, so she’s not taking any strong stands on the GOP’s War on Women’s reproductive rights. But she did come up with a totally awesome nickname for her campaign (“Glam-paign”).

Apparently, however, candidate Barbie will do something no other candidate can: she will bridge the racial divide in America by morphing herself into four different ethnicities!
Yes, I get that this is a toy. And the Miss-America-style platitudes are to be expected from a company that wants to sell to both sides of the political divide. But it’s a shame that girls don’t get a chance to see that women really can change the world.

This week, Malawi swore in Southern Africa’s first female head of state. She wasn’t elected as such, but as Vice President took the position after President Bingu wa Mutharika died in office. (A scenario that could have happened with Sarah Palin, had John McCain won the Presidency.)

Other women currently heading countries are:

  • Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: President of Liberia
  • Doris Leuthard, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Simonetta Sommaruga: Members of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland
  • Pratibha Patil: President of India
  • Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: President of Argentina
  • Dalia Grybauskaitė: President of Lithuania
  • Laura Chinchilla: President of Costa Rica
  • Dilma Rousseff: President of Brazil
  • Atifete Jahjaga: President of Kosovo
  • Monique Ohsan Bellepeau: Acting President of Mauritius
  • Slavica Đukić Dejanović: Acting President of Serbia
  • Angela Merkel – Chancellor of Germany
  • Julia Gillard – PM of Australia
  • Yingluck Shinawatra – PM of Thailand
  • Helle Thorning-Schmidt – PM of Denmark
  • Portia Simpson-Miller – PM of Jamaica
  • Kamla Persad-Bissessar – PM of Trinidad and Tobago
  • Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir – PM of Iceland (Appointed)
  • Hasina Wazed – PM of Bangladesh

The United States has yet to elect a woman to the position. And while Canada has had two appointed female Vice-Regents, we have yet to elect a woman to the Prime Minister’s Office. (Kim Campbell was nominated for the position directly by her party.)

So perhaps it’s time for Barbie, who has been in every federal election since 1992, to campaign a little harder. Or for North American countries to catch up with the rest of the world and nominate and elect a woman of substance who isn’t seen as just “another Barbie.”

———————————

Tom Megginson is a Creative Director at Acart Communications, a Social Issues Marketing agency based in Ottawa, Canada.  Tom writes regularly about creative advertising and marketing ethics for the international social advertising blog, Osocio, as well as on his own, Work That Matters.

The Quaker Oats Man Gets a Makeover

Lisa Wade, PhD on April 9, 2012

Given our collection of toy make-overs, I was curious when I heard that Quaker Oats had re-vamped their mascot, Larry.  In the toys we’ve covered, the trend is towards greater feminization and sexualization.  Larry, though, is a dude.  And do we really need to sexualize our oatmeal?  (Well, you never know.)

It turns out what prompted the mascot make-over wasn’t an effort to make Larry sexier, but to make him look healthier.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the director of Quaker’s brand-design firm wanted to reinforce people’s association of oatmeal with “energy and healthy choices.”  And by “healthy,” they mean “thin.”   They reduced the roundness of his chin and cheeks.  They also gave him a hair cut in order to expose the sides of his neck.  Another representative of the brand redesign explains: “It’s the same neck,” but the haircut “makes him look thinner… We took about five pounds off him.”

If it’s tough for you to tell the difference between the two, it’s by design.  Quaker wants the changes to work on a subconscious level.  A fascinating peak into the motives and tactics of brand management.

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.

Do Animals Say Different Things in Different Languages?

Guest Blogger Deeb Kitchen on March 5, 2012

Symbolic interactionism, one of the most common theoretical perspectives adopted by sociologists, explains human behavior through the meanings we place on objects or symbols in our environment. These symbols can be material objects, but they can also be words, gestures, actions, events, as well as people and groups. The symbols’ meanings are not innate. They are created and applied through human relations and interactions. In other words, they are socially constructed. Consequently, our behaviors and relationships change as meanings are altered. Some social conflict is the result of different groups defining objects differently.

This extends to human cognition, as a previous post on cultural differences in susceptibility to optical illusions demonstrated.  Another example involves how we hear animal sounds, illustrated in this clip from the television show “Family Guy.” In this segment, we see Stewie playing with a European see and say, a toy designed to teach animal noises. He is frustrated because the animals are said to make sounds that do not ring true to his ear.

For a list of the various sounds animals make in different parts of the world, see this compilation by Derek Abbott at The University of Adelaide.

————————

Deeb Kitchen is an assistant visiting professor at Drake University specializing social movements, the sociology of knowledge and poplar culture. He has done research on higher education, graduate labor unions, and the culture industry.

History and How to Pose for a Picture

Lisa Wade, PhD on February 17, 2012

Retronaut recently posted a fun collection of vintage photographs of children posing with toys. What makes them interesting is how unhappy they look from a contemporary point of view: confused, bored, even morose.  Thinking through the vintage photographs you have in your mind’s eye, though, you’ll recall that almost all vintage photographs include blank faces.  No smiling, no bunny ears… just people.

The contrast between then and now reveals that how-to-act-when-someone’s-taking-your-picture is a social construction. Smiling didn’t come naturally, it had to evolve socially.  Today parents teach their children how to smile for photographs and, perhaps, even to act gleeful with toys.

More at Retronaut.

UPDATE: There’s a great conversation going on in the comments.  Some have pointed out that early photograph technology required a long exposure time, making smiling impractical.  Others are sharing their experiences in other countries, where it is still the norm to stop smiling when the camera comes out, even if everyone is having a jolly time.  Lots of stuff to think about…

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.

This Month in Sociological Images (January 2012)

Lisa Wade, PhD on January 31, 2012

Los Angeles Meet Up:

Plan ahead! We’ve scheduled a SocImages Meet Up for March.  Please join us The Escondite (downtown L.A.) on Sunday, March 4th.  All ages.  Food and drink.  Great company guaranteed.

(P.S.: If you’re in Boston, I’ll be visiting Harvard and Boston University at the end of March. Will try to schedule a meet up then as well.)

SocImages News:

Amanda Jungels has put together a fantastic SocImages Course Guide for Sexuality and Society.  Check out all of our Course Guides here.

We’re having great fun with our Pinterest account; our collection of sexy toy makeovers showed up as a slideshow at the Huffington Post.  We’ve also added two new boards:

A super big “thank you” to Ron Anderson!  Dr. Anderson notified us that he nominated us for the ASA Section on Communication and Information Technologies Public Sociology Award.

We’re in Portuguese!  Thanks to Dr. Claudio Cordovil, some of our posts are appearing at the University of Brazil’s Conhecimento Prudente.

I think this is our first appearance as a source on Wikipedia… on the page about the online game, Evony… of all things.

Are you on Google Plus? So are we!

Authors and Contributors in the News:

Contributor Philip Cohen was discussed in an NPR story about using Google searches as data.

I was quoted in an NPR story about photographer Shelby Lee Adams’ portrayal of Appalachia and I enjoyed a few fun minutes on air with CKNW’s Bill Good talking about the recent trend of sexualizing toys for young girls.

Best of January

Our hard-working intern, Norma Morella, collected the stuff ya’ll liked best from this month.  Here’s what she found:

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Gwen and I and most of the team are also on twitter:

The Marilyn Meme

Heather Cromarty on January 25, 2012

Originally posted at Shameless.

Marilyn Monroe is often held up as the antidote to the idea that only thin can be beautiful. “Marilyn was a size 10/12/14,” goes a common refrain (though sizing basically means nothing these days, so what does that even prove?). There have been a couple Marilyn Monroe memes floating around Facebook in the past couple months, and both are troubling. The focus is on Marilyn’s curves, and how her swimsuit clad body is different from what movie stars look like today (oh, the tyranny of the “Best Beach Bodies!” issue). What’s supposed to be an empowering message to women – you don’t have to be a Victoria’s Secret model to be beautiful – is completely undermined by two much older memes: divide and conquer and the male gaze.

In the first photo, Marilyn is compared to another woman in a bikini, who is much thinner. The text reads: “This [pointing to Monroe] is more attractive than this [pointing to the other woman].” While I can totally get behind the title “fuck society,” and add “and its stupid expectations” for good measure, there’s nothing anti-establishment about what’s being done here. This is a common tactic, in which women are pitted against each other, so that we lose sight of the real problem: namely, society. If women are fighting amongst ourselves about who is more “beautiful,” if we compare ourselves to other women endlessly, we don’t have time to notice that we’re trapped in a hamster-wheel of low self-esteem. Society hopes that you’ll buy things, to try and make yourself feel better. In the meantime, it’s hoped that we as women won’t critically examine what beauty is, what’s being sold to us, and most importantly, who profits from all this. Fuck Society, sure, because society tells you that if you’re not extremely thin, you’re worthless. However, extremely thin women? They’re still people. Further, bodies are just bodies. They have no intrinsic worth, no moral value, other than what we assign them. The thought behind this comparison photo is to turn the dominant paradigm on its head, but what it really does is reinforce that for one woman to be good, another must be bad. And that kind of thinking isn’t going to get us anywhere.

The second is the same photo of Marilyn, this time alone in the Motivational Poster style. The text reads: “PROOF: That you can be adored by thousands of men, even when your thighs touch.” From the start this would seem like a better message. No comparison photo, no pitting women against each other. For some reason, though, this photo troubles and angers me more than the first one does. Because here’s the thing: you are worth more than what men think of you. Marilyn Monroe was, to put it mildly, very sad, very often. She was a sex symbol, and thus, stopped existing as human being, a regular girl. Almost everything that fucked up Marilyn’s later life had to do with being “adored” by men. Men used her, or deified her (and that’s a hard come-down for those dudes when they found a human being in their bed the morning after). Political brothers purportedly passed her around like a toy. Conventional wisdom, political conspiracy aside, has it that Monroe killed herself. Being “adored by thousands of men” didn’t stop her demons from consuming her. It angers me to no end that, again, in the name of self-esteem we’re going to make a poster girl (literally) out of a woman who was notoriously down on herself.

I want very much for us to stop thinking that there is only one body type that is acceptable. I would prefer the focus be on health, rather than appearance. The Monroe Meme seems about the furthest thing from healthy. This is a woman who abused alcohol and sleeping pills later in her life, this is a woman who (probably) died due to depression. But, hey, as long as someone thinks she looks good, I guess that’s what matters.

Heather Cromarty has written for The Walrus Blog, and writes about books and bookish miscellany at In The Midst of Life, We Are in Debt, Etc. Follow her on Twitter: @la_panique.

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