Search results for toy

I’ve posted in the past about differences I’ve noticed in the language used in signs in the girls’ and boys’ clothing sections at Target, which seemed to reinforce the idea that boys are rough and rowdy while girls are sweet. Eric B. sent in another example that he recently saw in Target’s infants’ department. The store he went to had five aisles; each aisle had a set of large signs along the top. Three of the five were focused on boys, and they all emphasize activities:

So boys actively do things (they play, they learn to feed themselves, they discover) that merit adult attention and admiration. What about girls?

Oh, they sleep:

For other examples of how we reinforce the boys are active/girls are passive binary, see our posts on the binary in Lego City, in kids’ meal toys, and in magazines.

Course Guide for
SEXUALITY AND SOCIETY
(last updated 01/2012)

Developed by Amanda M. Jungels
Georgia State University

Integrating/Interrogating Biological and Social Views of Sexuality

Challenging Evolutionary Perspectives on Sex/Sexuality

• Challenging Evolutionary-Biology Perspectives on Mating Strategies

Social Construction of (Biological) Sex

• The Question of Caster Semenya’s Sex
• “Creating” Normative Genitals
• Conflating Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation

Social Construction: Changing Views on Sexuality

• Buy Virginity for Just $14.99
• Marketing the Tampon: “Will I Still Be A Virgin?”
• Changing Biology: Age at First Menstruation
• Masturbation and “Social Hygiene” in 1922

Sexuality and Social Categories

Social Construction of Gender

• Teens and Transgendered Women: Threats to Society
• On the J. Crew Pink Toenails “Controversy”
• Semenya’s Makeover: Gender as Performance
• “Some Men Just Need to Be Slapped”: Policing Masculinity
• A Beauty Regime for the “New Man”
• Karate Studio Ad: Gender Policing and Unofficial Marketing Materials
• One Family’s Experience with “Curing” Gender Non-Conformity

Transgender/Third Gender/Gender Queer

• On Being Gender Queer
• A Third Gender in Oaxaca, Mexico
• Argentinian Bank Depicts Transgendered Positively

Social Construction of Sexual Orientation

• How Useful is the Concept of Sexual Orientation?
• Are We Born Gay? And If We Were, How Would We Know?
• What Seems “Gay”?
• Was Franklin D. Roosevelt Gay?
• What Does a “Prehomosexual” Look Like?
• Homosexuality and Our Collective Consciousness
• Destabilizing Heteronormativity
• Normalizing Lesbian Couples
• Gay Couple in Budweiser’s “Coming Home” Ad?
• Survey Finds Different Levels of Acceptance for “Gays” Versus “Homosexuals”
• “Homosexual” vs. “Gay”: Discourse in the Culture Wars
• Public Opinion on the Cause of Homosexuality

Learning about Sex/Sex Education           

Sex Education

• How Government Policies Impact Sex Education and Reproduction
• Sources of Sex Education Information for Teens
• Teens as Objects of Control
• British TV Commercial Promotes Abortion Services
• Anti-Teen Pregnancy PSA
• Teen Motherhood Sucks…Unless You’re Bristol Palin

Abstinence vs. Comprehensive Sex Ed

• Boys Receive Less Sexuality Education Than Girls
• Explaining Variation in Teen Pregnancy Rates by State: Race and Sex Education
• Consequences of U.S. and Dutch Approaches to Teen Sex
• Sexing Up Abstinence
• Abstinence Billboards

Sexual Practices

• Sexual Orientation and Sexual Behavior: OkCupid Data
• Bisexuality and Dating on OkCupid
• Promise and Perils of Hook-Up “Culture”
• MTV on Hook-Up Culture

The Sexual Body

The Female Body

• Orgasmic Birth and the Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm
• How Vulvas Vary
• Gender Differences in Body Regimens

Menstruation

• Weird Tampon Ad from Australia
• Kotex Sells Tampons by Making Fun of Selling Tampons
• Re-Framing Menstruation
• Race, Gender and Aggression in Ads for Menstrual Pains Meds

Presenting the Female Body as Unclean: Removing Body Hair

• Summer’s Eve’s “Hail to the V” Campaign
• Shave or Men Will Never Find It                            
• Mow the Lawn
• Civilize Your Bush
• Encouraging Hair Removal for Children?
• The Miss of Sisyphus
• PETA Attacks Pubic Hair
• Advertising Against Bush
• Anxiety about “Objectionable Hair” = Money in Someone’s Pocket
• Nair Hair Removal Products for Teens

Presenting the Female Body as Unclean: Douching

• Douching Your Way to the Top
• Vintage Zonite Douche Ads

Bodily Modification and Female Genital Cutting

• Spanish Ads Compare Women with Genital Cutting to Fuck Toys
• Female Circumcision Endorsed in a Vintage Playgirl
• When Vaginoplasty Meets Contemporary Television
• Pelvic Fitness Spa: More Things for Women to Worry About (NSFW)
• Vajazzling Revealed

Social Construction of the Male Body/Male Sexuality

• Social Construction of Sperm
• Medicalization of Impotence
• Conflating College Achievement with Sexual Prowess
• A Historical Look at the Popularity of Male Circumcision
• Fetishizing Black Men

Presenting the Penis as a Dangerous Weapon

• Safer Sex PSAs Conflate the Penis with a Firearm (NSFW)
• Safer Sex PSAs
• Presenting the Penis as a Dangerous Weapon (NSFW)

Representing Sex

Sexualization of Children’s Products

• Sexualized vs. Sexual: The Case of Thylane Blondeau
• Dora the Explorer’s Makeover
• Strawberry Shortcake: Extreme Makeover Edition
• Sexy Toy Makeovers: Lisa Frank, Trollz and Cabbage Patch Kids
• More Sexy Toy Makeovers: My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite and Candy Land

Sex in the Media

• Onslaught: Dove vs. Axe
• Non-Subtle Sex in Advertising
• “Subliminal” Sex in the Media

Ejaculation and Phallic Imagery

• Ejaculation Imagery
• Sexual Overtones in Cologne Ad
• Ejaculation Imagery in a Dutch Creamer Ad
• Phallic Imagery in a Skyy Vodka Ad
• Pornification of Advertising

Sex and Violence

• Violence Against Women on Prime-Time Up Since 2004
• Re-thinking the Famous Dolce and Gabbana Gang Rape Ad
• More Sexualized Violence in Fashion (NSFW)
• Calvin Klein Ad Implies Sexual Violence
• Even More Violence in Fashion Images

Objectification

• Objectification of Women: Everybody Wins!
• Gender, Sexualization and Rolling Stone
• Sexualized Images of Female Dominance

Infantilization of Women

• Vintage Infantilization

Forced/Coerced Sex

Sexual Script

• Sex and Dating as a Hunt
• Women are Wild Animals; Men are Hunters
• Men are Animals

Rape Culture

• Making Light of Rape in the Purdue University Newspaper
• Yale Frat Pledges Chant “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal”
• Do Full-Body Scans or Pat Downs = Sexual Groping?
• Ad Aimed at Discouraging Teen Drinking Threatens Prison Rape, Homosexuality

Use of Alcohol as a Tool for Coercive Sex

• Alcohol as a Tool in the Dating Game
• Booze=Sex
• Beer, Sex, and “The Hunt”
• Drunk Women are Easy Targets

Sexual Assault Prevention Campaigns

• Framing Recovery from Child Sexual Abuse (Trigger Warning)
• Resistance, Language and the Toronto Slutwalk

Commercial Sex

Pornography

• Online Porn Subscription in Liberal vs. Conservative States
• Finally an Ad that Acknowledges What High-Speed Internet is For
• Are Kids Watching Internet Porn?
• Mainstreaming of Pornography
• Gail Dines on Pornography
• Cindy Gallop on How Porn is Shaping Our Sex Lives

Contemporary Views on Prostitution

• Sex Work in Las Vegas
• Humanizing Sex Workers?
• Facebook, Technology and Prostitution
• Disparate Trends in Permissiveness: Homosexuality and Prostitution
• What Does the Sex Industry Look Like?
• Disparate Trends in Permissiveness: Homosexuality and Prostitution

Historical Perspectives on Prostitution

• 1890s Guide to New York City Brothels
• Personifying Danger: Women as Vectors of STIs
• The Virgin-Whore Binary in WWII VD Propaganda
• STI Transmission: Wives, Whores and the Invisible Man
• Loose Women and the War Effort

Sex Trafficking

• Misleading Measurement of Anti-Trafficking Enforcement
• Thinking Critically about Sex Trafficking
• Disney Still Makes Light of Sex Slavery

Other Forms of Sex Work

• Phone Sex: Real and Imaginary (NSFW)
• “Work,” “Sex Work,” and Everything in Between

Social Control of Sex Work

• Halloween Hall of Shame: Fat Lap Dancer Costume
• Sex Work, Disrespect and Women’s Empowerment
• How Can You Tell If You’re a Prostitute?
• Questioning the Benefits of “Rescue” from Prostitution
• Posters Opposed to the Criminalization of Prostitution

Reproduction/Abortion

Reproduction

• To Whom Do Children “Just Happen”?
• Protecting Boys with Condoms for Kids
• Pre-Conception Care: Good for Babies, Bad for Women?
• The Pill and the Invention of the Monthly Cycle
• Visualizing the Fetus
• Thomas Beatie, the Pregnant Man, in the Public Sphere
• Threat of (Brown) Women’s Fertility

Abortion

• Why are Insured Women Paying for Abortions?
• Mis-Illustrating Abortion
• Framing the Abortion Debate
• Racializing the Abortion Debate
• Racialized Abortion Campaigns and Rethinking Choice
• More on the Racialization of the Abortion Debate
• Trends in the Rate of Abortion: New Data Shows a Plateau
• Measuring Abortion Beliefs
• Public Opinion on Abortions in Select Countries
• Public Opinion on Abortion by Party and Gender
• Abortion Laws Around the World
• Reproductive Politics, Race and Obama

Sterilization

• No Family for You: Examples of State Disruption
• Coercive Sterilization? Think of the Children!
• Breaking Down the Force/Choice Binary in the Sterilization of Women of Color

Contemporary GLBT Issues

Gay Rights Movement

• Images from the Early Gay Rights Movement
• Historic Photos of the Stonewall Riot and Its Aftermath
• Police Raids and the Stonewall Riots
• Increasing Cultural Acceptance of Gay and Lesbian Rights
• Should We Vote on People’s Rights?
• Opinions of Gay Rights Issues by State
• Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians

GLBT Parenting

• Portraying Lesbian Parents

Same-Sex Marriage

• Anti-Gay Marriage Ads
• Global Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages
• The Tipping Point for Support of Same Sex Marriage?
• Acceleration for Support of Same-Sex Marriage
• Who is Driving Increasing Acceptance of Gays and Lesbians?
• Turbo Tax Wants to Know if You are Gay Married
• Support for Same-Sex Marriage by Age and State
• On Gay Marriage and the Contact Hypothesis
• Gay Marriage and the Social Construction of Social “Problems”
• Views about Same Sex Marriage by Generation
• Rhetorical Strategy in the Gay Marriage Debate

GLBT-Related Legislation

• Southern Poverty Law Center Map of Hate Groups
• Sodomy Laws
• Increasing U.S. Public Support for Gays in the Military
• Educating Soldiers about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
• “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is Done

Twenty-three of you (a record I think) have sent in this clip of a little girl in a toy store critiquing the way the store is divided into pink princesses for girls and superheros for boys.  It’s heartwarming and inspiring to see a child offer a critical analysis of the world she lives in, something that most commentators have observed.

What I, and some of you, noticed was that her own analysis and that of the adult taking the video (presumably her Dad) differ.  And, believe it or not, her analysis is more correct than his.

Rightfully identifying what sociologists call “androcentrism,” she notes that girls like both girl and boy toys, but boys only like boy toys.  She says:

…because girls want superheros and the boys want superheros and the girls want pink stuff and the girls… and the boys want… and the boys don’t want pink stuff… (gently shaking her head back and forth)

Her Dad corrects her, saying “Boys, well, boys want both…”

But her Dad is wrong.  Boys in the U.S. are taught from a very early age to avoid everything associated with girls.  Being called a “girl” is, in itself, an insult to boys.  And the slurs “sissy” and “fag” are reserved for men who act feminine.  So, no, boys (who have learned the rules of how to be a boy) generally reject anything girly.  (Indeed, this was one of the themes of Jimmy Kimmel “bad present” prank played by parents on their kids.)

The girl’s Dad, however, articulates a symmetrical analysis. The idea is that there are gender stereotypes — ones that apply to boys and ones that apply to girls — and that both are inaccurate, unfair, and constraining.  His mistake is in missing the asymmetrical value placed on masculinity and femininity.  Boys and girls are simply not positioned equally in relationship to stereotypes of femininity and masculinity.

I have to admit, it’s pretty neat that she has picked up on this nuance so early. I wish most adults had her insight… and her passion:

Thanks to James, Julie G., Carly M., Brooklin N., BogganStoryTeller, Denise, Allie H., Yvonne R., Mark L., Karim S., Ann K., Lenny M., Isabeau P.-S., Daniel K., Marsha, Jay L., Shayna A.-S., Josh W., Kimberly L., Melissa, Colleen W., Simon G., and Brad for sending in the link!

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.

Cross-posted at Ms.

A few years back we published this fantastic ad for Legos as an example of gender-neutral advertising. It appeared in 1981; during my childhood, I’m happy to say.

The ad offers nice context for the new effort by Lego to capture The Girl Market.  Their new line of Legos, Lego Friends, has gotten a lot of attention already. In the circles I run in, it’s being roundly criticized for reproducing stereotypes of girls and women: domesticity, vanity, materialism, and an obsession with everything being pastel.  Kits include a house, cafe, animal hospital, tree house, beauty salon, and an inventor’s lab.  Choice examples:

The new line also includes a new Lego figurine that is taller, thinner, and more feminine, with boobs.  There is no innovation here; it is the exact same makeover that we’ve seen in recent years with Dora the Explorer, Strawberry Shortcake, Holly Hobbie, Lisa Frank, Trolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, and Candy Land (or visit our Pinterest collection of Sexy Toy Make-Overs).

Examples of the old “mini-fig” and the new “mini-doll” available at The Mary Sue.

The company is framing their new line for girls with “science.” Executives are going to great lengths to explain that the line is based on research, using anthropologists who spent time with girls in their homes. The frame gives the company an excuse for reproducing the same old gender stereotypes that we see throughout our culture.  They can shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, what are we to do? This is what girls want.”  In this way they are trying to make it clear that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the messages their products send.

But it’s no accident that girls feel alienated from Lego.

According to Business Week, Lego has spent most of the last decade focusing their products on boys.  They have deliberately designed products that they expect will appeal to boys and included boys almost exclusively in their marketing material. Today Legos are shelved in the boy aisle is most toy stores.

So, basically, what Lego has done over the last few decades is take a truly wonderful gender-neutral toy, infuse it with boyness, and tell every kid who’ll listen that the toy is not-for-girls.  Now, stuck with only 50% of the kid market, they’re going after girls by overcompensating.  And, to top it all off, they’re shaking their heads and doing “science” to try to figure out girls, as if they’re some strange variant of human that regular humans just can’t get their head around.

In fact, girls don’t feel like the toy is for them because Lego has done everything in its power to ensure that they will not.

The market research manager sums up Legos’ impression of what girls want this way: “The greatest concern for girls really was beauty.”  How ironic, because the true beauty of Lego is its ability to inspire creativity, not enable conformity.  They somehow knew that back in 1981.

(An ad that deserves being looked at over and over.)

Thanks to Anjan G., Sangyoub P., Rachel W., Dolores R., Erin B., Christie W., and Paul K. for suggesting that we write about this!

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.

Appearances and Publications:

After I posted about the Jimmy Kimmel prank in which he encouraged parents to film their kids getting “bad” presents, I had the opportunity to inform a New York Times article about the subject.  I discussed the social rules of the Christmas gift-giving (and the importance of teaching kids how to be the butt of a joke).  My first time in the NYT. w00t!

Also, I’m proud to report that a paper I co-wrote with Caroline Heldman has been published in a new book titled Sex For Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout Our Lives (edited by Laura Carpenter and John DeLamater, and published by NYU Press).  Our chapter is about first-year college students experiences with hook up culture.  You can get a sneak peak here.

Pinterest!

Over the holiday I went sort of bonkers and decided to start up a Pinterest site for SocImages.  Pinterest is a virtual “pin board” where people can collect images from around the web.  I uploaded our entire archive to the site: 4,002 posts and 8,040 images.  It will let you peruse our images much more quickly. If anything inspires, you can click through to the blog to read the analysis.  These are the “boards” we have so far:

• All SocImages Content
• Re-Touching and Photoshop
• Vintage Ads and Products
• Racial/Ethnic Objectification
• Sexy Toy Make-Overs
• Gendered Parenting and Housework
• Heteronormativity
• Social Construction
• The Social Construction of Race

They look like this (then you scroll down):

 Best of December:

Meanwhile, our fabulous intern, Norma Morella, collected the stuff ya’ll liked best from this month.  Here’s what she found:

• Jay Livingston, Graphic Design the Fox News Way
• Lisa Wade, Why I’m Not Married
• Gwen Sharp, Example of Socialization: Baby Rapper
• Gwen Sharp, Marketing by Masculinizing the Feminine
• Sophy Bot, A Hipster By Any Other Name
• Lisa Wade, American vs. International News: Time and Newsweek
• Caroline Heldman, Pennsylvania Public Service Announcement Blames Rape Victims
• Lisa Wade, Behind the “Perfect” Body: Models and Bodybuilders
• Lisa Wade, Now You’ll Never Forget What a Venn Diagram Is

Best of 2011:

Gwen and I ran our favorite posts from 2011 over the last five days.  Just in case you missed them, here’s a list:

• The Mental Burden of a Lower Class Background
• Of What are We Capable? Human Echolocation
• A Thoughtful Response to the “Asians in the Library” Rant
• Formula for a Successful American Movie
• Gender, Obentos, and the State in Japan
• Babies Learn How to Have a Conversation
• In Defiance of Title IX: Colleges Report Male Athletes as Women
• Art and Attribution: What is an Artist?
• How to Make an Art: By Hennessey Youngman
• The Innovation Trap: How the iPhone Isn’t Saving America
• Change Blindness
• Cultural Differences in Cognitive Perception
• Luxury and the Consumption of Labor
• Are Game Show Audiences Trustworthy
• Gender, Sexualization, and Rolling Stone
• Best Comic Ever: The Scientific Process
• Cousin Marriage
• The Hidden Beneficiaries of Federal Programs
• A Critique of Capitalism by G.A. Cohen
• What Makes a Body Obscene?

Over at his blog, Family Inequality, SocImages Contributor Philip Cohen made a list of his best liked posts from 2011 too.  Check them out here.

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

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

• @lisadwade
• @gwensharpnv
• @familyunequal
• @carolineheldman
• @jaylivingston
• @wendyphd

Christmas Across Cultures

• Christmas Cultures
• Santa’s Evil Side Kick
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Protestantizing Christmas Gift Giving: The ChristKind
• Politics and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
• The Pagan Roots of Christianity
• Snegurochka: Santa’s Granddaughter

On Discourse:

• Have a “Gay” Holiday!
• Is Peace Free?
• “Christmas” vs. “Holiday”: The Rematch
• 12 “Mums” Makes the Workload Light

The Institution of Christmas

• Christmas has an Economy

Racializing Christmas

• New York Times Gift Guide for People of Color
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Holiday in the Hood
• The Hazards of Historical Amnesia

Gift Guides and the Social Construction of Gender

• Gender, Technology, and Toys ‘R Us
• Gender in Toy Catalogs
• Body Messages in Christmas-Themed Ads
• Gift Giving with Gender Stereotypes
• More Gender Gift Giving and Advertising
• Another Gendered Gift Guide
• And more Gendered Gift Guides
• Or, you could just buy her a clothesline

Sexifiying Christmas

• Sexy Women as Toys
• O-O-Oh Santa! (pictured)

Christmas Marketing

• Support the Troops. Shop Walmart?
• Fun with the 2009 Target Catalog
• Guns for Christmas
• 1930s Ad Touting Razor Technology
• Gap Thinks Girls are Vapid

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.

Fraulion sent in this screenshot from the Amazon.com homepage.  In case you needed help buying gifts, dads like history and politics, moms like to smell nice and look shiny, girlfriends and wives like chick flicks and cute stuff, boyfriends and husbands like classic rock and knowing what time it is, grandpas like to watch documentaries (probably about “the war”), and grandmas just want to look at pictures of their grandchildren.

Last but not least, Rob W. sent in another Amazon.com gift guide that suggests that women want a masculine-looking watch and men want a wine aerator (I don’t know what that is, but wine is woman-y right?).  So… counter-stereotypical push back against the gender machine?  Or a typo?  I’m going with typo.  Funny typo.

More after the jump:

more...

Time for another round-up of gendered kids’ items!

Will L. noticed something interesting recently at Old Navy. The boys’ section offered two styles of jeans, Skinny and Regular:

But when he looked at the corresponding section in the girls’ clothing, he found not Skinny and Regular, but Skinny and…Super Skinny:

Caro Reusch sent us an example of kids;’ t-shirts with messages about what we value for men and women. She saw the following at a mall in Berlin:

The blue one says “My daddy is stronger than yours,” while the pink announces, “My mommy is prettier than yours.”

Similarly, Lindsey B. saw two themed bibs for sale at Target. The blue bib is a doctor and the pink one is a ballerina:

Shantal Marshall, a postdoc student at UCLA with a Ph.D. in social psych and blogger at Smartie Pops, noticed that Crayola has a new product out, the Crayola Story Studio.  It lets you upload a photo of yourself, have it turned into a cartoon, and then it’s inserted into one of 3 themed templates: Disney Princess, Spiderman, or Cars. You can then print off various versions of coloring books based on those templates. The commercial for the Spiderman version shows a boy excitedly becoming a superhero:

For the Disney Princess version, we see a girl excited to become a princess, then dancing in the background with her very own Prince Charming:

As Shantal said, it’s a bit dispiriting that Crayola’s slogan for these items is “give everything imaginable,” but the pre-existing templates, and their marketing, don’t seem to include an imaginable alternative to the “boys = superheroes” and “girls = princesses” division we see so often in kids’ toys.

Madelyn C. saw a store in Warsaw, Poland, that just goes ahead and makes the gendered division of the toy industry explicit:

Finally, Jessica M. sent in a link to a GOOD post by Christopher Mims about the Toy Industry Association’s 2011 Toy of the Year Awards. There are general categories of toys, such as educational, innovative, and action, but of course also girl and boy categories (also, I personally can’t think of “boy toy of the year” without thinking of Madonna’s outfit in her “Like a Virgin” performance at the first MTV Video Music Awards, but maybe the ’80s are sufficiently behind us that the phrase resonates differently for most people). Anyway, Mims discusses the gendered messages in the commercials for the nominees in the two categories. Among other things, the categorization is rather confusing. Hexbugs are nominated in the boy category, even though commercials for them show girls as well:

Also, Mims points out that the boys’ category “includes a strong undercurrent of Beyond Thunderdome via WWE.” Exhibit A: The commercial for Beyblade Metal Masters, “performance tops” to be used in “strategic battles”:

Playing with tops has gotten super hardcore, I guess. Probably they should look into a sponsorship from an energy drink.