Search results for gendering

That’s the refrain anyway.

But whose sex is sold?  And to who?   If it was simply that sex sold, we’d see men and women equally sexually objectified in popular culture.  Instead, we see, primarily, women sold to (presumably heterosexual) men.  So what are we selling, exactly, if not “sex”   We’re selling men’s sexual subjectivity and women as a sex object.  That is, the idea that men’s desires are centrally important and meaningful, and women’s are not (because women are the object to men’s subjectivity).

That women’s object status and men’s subjectivity is sold to women in women’s magazines (for example, Cosmo and Glamour always feature scantily clad women on the cover) in no way undermines the idea that men’s sexual subjectivity is being sold.  It’s just that it’s being sold to all of us.

For example, if this ad was selling Tango with sex, they’d both end up naked in the fourth frame, no?

The new ad spots for M&Ms also illustrate this nicely. m&ms have been anthropomorphized in advertising for some time. There is only one female m&m and she is, by no accident, the green M&M. If you remember from elementary school, green is for horny. That, also, is no accident.

So male M&Ms come in multiple colors, flavors, shapes, and personalities, but female M&Ms are just sex objects.

In the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue this year, M&Ms went with the theme (found here):

The ad campaign extended beyond Sports Illustrated:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDoJNymbU1Q[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubChW7SLhKE[/youtube]

To sum, if it was simply “sex sells,” we’d see an even pattern of sexualization. But we don’t. More often than not, it is women who are sexualized. What is being sold, really, isn’t sex, but the legitimation and indulgence of (supposedly heterosexual) men’s sexual desires.

Kirsti M. alerted us to an M&M advertising campaign in Australia, where you could vote for your favorite color. All but one of the M&Ms are depicted as males (again, the female is Miss Green).

Here is a screenshot of the page for Red, a satirical take on a Marxist revolutionary:

Some highlights from the text:

Favorite quotes: “The revolution is now!”

Favorite books: “100 Steps to World Domination”

Weight: “Perfect for my shell”

A poster:

Here is a screenshot of the page for Miss Green (notice the others aren’t Mr. Blue or Mr. Red; only the female M&M has a title):

Highlights from the text:

Miss Green, working the polls.

About me: I may have a pretty hard shell, but I assure you I’m sweet on the inside.

Favorite quotes: “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.”

Favorite books: “How to Work the Polls”

Interests: Right now I’m focusing all my attention on the top position.

Campaign policy: All beaches to be nude beaches.

Age: Let’s just say I’m experienced.

A poster:

So again we see the sexualization of the female M&M (she’s “experienced,” focusing on the “top position,” she’s “working the polls” while wrapping her go-go-boot-clad legs around a tree in the manner of a stripper on a stripper pole, her arms and legs are much longer and thinner than the other M&Ms’ are).

In this vintage ad (1970s?), it is clear that it is his “plans” for her that are being appealed to:

NEW! These ads for hearing aids are apparently aimed at men only:

Other great examples include these posts with ads promoting organ donation, an air conditioning technical school, selling pasta, vegetarianism, aviation, cars, war, travel, dentistry, food, more food, houses, and mortgages.  (To see the reverse dynamic, click here and here.)

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

Please welcome Julianne Monday, our first Sociological Images intern! 

Be our friend!  We have a facebook page.

Gwen was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the New York Post editorial cartoon scandal.  Check it out here.

Gwen would also like to say that she missed the chance to be interviewed by a reporter at the New York Times because she was at lunch when they emailed her and by the time she got back to her office they’d found someone else to be their expert commenter.   She missed a chance to be quoted in the NYT for a stupid portabello mushroom-and-poblano pepper taco plate.  She wasn’t even all that hungry. 

That said, no one called Lisa this month at all.  I’m just saying.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS

Our post about racist Disney characters was updated with a comparison of an image of Goofy to a traditional “Sambo” caricature and a discussion of whether Goofy is necessarily meant to be a racial archetype.

We added some of the coverage of the policing of Jessica Simpson’s weight to our post chronicling fat scandals.

We found another example of “chaperoning,” or never letting non-white people outnumber white people in ads, and added it to this post (scroll down).

To our post on “subliminal” sex in advertising, we added a vintage lipstick ad suggestive of oral sex (scroll down).

We found another ad suggesting that men use alcohol to get sex and added it to our post on the theme here (scroll down).

We added a video by Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine [who we are totally crushing on] to this post about the use of the phrase “no homo.”

We added the hoax site Porn for Women by Women to this post about how images of men doing housework or being thoughtful is often jokingly portrayed as women’s equivalent of porn.

In the video game My World, My Way, players take on the role of a spoiled female character who uses pout points and selfishness to win.  We added a video about it to this post about several other video games (note: the post isn’t safe for work).

We added more t-shirts to this post about portrayals of American Indians.

We added another image to our extremely popular post on the objectification of men (scroll to the “bottom”).  We just can’t figure out why it attracts so much traffic.  Hmmmm.

We have an extensive post demonstrating the sexualization of food, but they keep on comin’.  Scroll all the way down for our burger boobs and Doritos undies.

Someone thought it’d be neat to fashion a female mannequin torso into an ipod stereo.  We added a picture of the product to our post featuring furniture in the shape of female bodies.

Finally, we updated a post about “ethnic” fashion with an image of “tribal” sandals.

Burk and Paul I.-M. both sent me this video that sums up the current credit crisis:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4gcdQA33aI[/youtube]

It’s helpful for understanding the situation, but I can’t help pointing out a few issues, like the gendering–almost all the bankers, investors, brokers, and other members of the financial systems are male (I believe one of the investors was female). Also, I found the image of families interesting: “responsible” families are thin and have one kid while irresponsible ones smoke, drink, get fat, and have tons of kids.

Also, it didn’t explain too much about the types of loans made available to the subprime market, particularly the fact that monthly payments often went up significantly after a couple of years, so you might want to throw that in if you show the video–it wasn’t always that people got loans they couldn’t afford at the initial rate, it’s that when the interest rate changed and their payments increased, they couldn’t afford the higher rates. And of course many perfectly “responsible” families took subprime loans, planning on flipping the property for a nice profit, driving real estate prices up for everyone…and now often going into foreclosure along with everybody else.

Those caveats aside, it’s a pretty useful video for boiling down some basic causes behind the credit crisis.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): Caity sent in this video by Westpac, an Australian bank, in which they attempt to explain the credit crisis in a way that some have felt was self-serving and condescending. Caity explains,

Nearly all Australian home loans are on variable interest rates. Our reserve bank recently put up the national rate by 0.25%. Usually, the banks raise (or lower) their rates about in line with the reserve bank’s changes, but this time Westpac (one of our biggest banks) put theirs up by 0.45% – and then emailed this video to all of their home loan customers to explain why.

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

Select text: “These well-stacked Sno-Balls have more than sex appeal… they have sales appeal!”

The 1960s via Found in Mom’s Basement.

More sexualization of food here, here, here, here, here, here, and especially here.

Hello Readers! 

Please enjoy this collection of posts that we’ve enhanced while you’ve been busy reading our new stuff and, um, all the election coverage you can stomach.  There will be more new material in our Special Election Round-Up!  Look for it on the morning of Nov. 4th.  But for now, click on these links and look for the bright red NEW!

Tini Puppini is a hyper-sexualized fake pet dog that combines sexualization with anthropomorphization in a super creepy way.  Just scroll past the sexualized equines in this post to the sexualized canines. It’s weird, I promise.

Single? Are the odds in your favor? We can tell you. We’d put up a map showing where single men outnumber single women and vice versa. And now we’ve added a link to an interactive map where you can choose particular age ranges and a screen shot of the map for the 30-45 and the 50-65 range.

Promoting smoking with doctors and Santa Claus? Oh yes! See some more vintage cigarette ads here.

miz_geek, in the comments to this post, pointed us to a commercial for Korean Air with truly blatant ejaculation imagery. Watch it here in our post where we collect, um, ejaculation imagery (scroll to the bottom).

Commenters Eoin and T.B. pointed us to another World War II carpool propaganda poster. 

In a hospital waiting room, we saw another sign instructing employees to do emotion work.  We added the images and further discussion on the topic to this post.

We added another instance of the use of the government-invented term “Hispanic.” This time it involves peanuts!

By “traditional marriage” do you mean polygamy?  We added two more examples of the satirical treatment of the traditional marriage.  The satiricist makes a pro-gay marriage argument by pointing to the trouble with the idea of “tradition.”

Scott W. sent us a great example of the use of the implicit promise of sex with a hot chick to sell, um, condominiums.  We added it to our post along that theme.

Our post featuring the sexualization of food is getting ridiculously extensive.  But when Denia sent us in a picture of hotdogs that said “Undress me,” we couldn’t resist adding them.  Click here and scroll all the way down.

NEW SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT

Karryn Lintelman generously allowed us to reproduce her assignment, The Rhetoric of Pop Culture, using Sociological Images and other resources.  Check it out here.

Beth T. sent us this picture of some books for sale at the NASA John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.  I found some more at the website. They nicely illustrate the gendering of jobs.  Only because we implicitly think that zoologists, oceanographers, paleontologists, and architects are men, is it necessary to modify the term with “woman.”

During WWII, many companies stopped producing the civilian goods that they were best known for. Instead, these companies contributed to the war effort by making products necessary for American soldiers. Scranton Craftspun Curtains, for example, switched from making lace curtains to camouflage covers, mosquito nets and parachutes. By touting their wartime conversions, companies kept their brands in the public’s mind, while achieving patriotic cachet.

Here’s a WWII-era ad for Scranton Craftspun Curtains. Click on the thumbnail to see it larger and read the narrative.

The copy is written from the point of view of a trench soldier somewhere in Japan:

“Have you ever sat, inches from death, not daring to move a muscle, while Zeros zoomed overhead — looking for you — personally?

“Well — that’s my act out here. And it might be a whole lot worse, ’cause, you see, in between Tojo and me there’s a magic veil that even those dirty little squint-eyes can’t penetrate — a couple of yards of lace net that remind me of —

“Say, isn’t it the darndest thing what a fellow thinks of out here? Lace Curtains! Female stuff!

“Maybe. But, to me, Mom’s lace net curtains always spell home. Whenever it was curtain-washing time, round our house, it was like being caught with your camouflage down!

“And Mom loved her net curtains, too. Never forget her working on Pop for new ones for the living room. She, allowing that hers were five years old and completely out of style … and Pop telling her they were as good as new! That made her boil! She’d claim she’d never buy Scranton Craftspun ones again — they lasted too long, with their tied-in-place weave.

“I don’t guess Mom’s think much of my new net ‘curtains’ — and I’m sure she’d never go for swapping her window screens for my Scranton mosquito netting. But I have a hunch that this year she’ll be humming as she washes those old Scranton jobs — happy she’s helping keep that little extra something between Tojo and me.”
* * *

Right now, the great looms that gave you exquisite Scranton Craftspun* Curtains and Lace Dinner Cloths are weaving weapons of war for the boys out there … camouflage nets and mosquito netting. Skilled workers, who sewed in hems and headings, are building parachutes. For, Scranton’s new line is the front line. So why not hang up a couple of Bonds instead — just between Tojo and you.

You could spend a few hours talking about all the subjects and rhetorical devices brought up by this ad. The phenomenon of advertising without a product to sell is interesting, but you could go beyond that. You could talk about the gendering of war vs. housework, the racist characterization of the Japanese, the appeals to patriotism, the construction of a personalized, in-your-face theater of battle where homefront=front line, etc.

As always, we are busy behind the scenes.  Here are some of the posts we have enhanced over the course of this bizarre election month:

We added several images to this post about the media’s sexualization of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, as well as another image to this post about the “Drill Baby, Drill” t-shirt featuring McCain doing Palin doggy-style (which we thought, for some reason, merited its own post).

We added an interview with the creators of Obama Waffles to the post about “On the Campaign Trail.”

We have a fantastic collection of ads that demonstrate how white standards of beauty are applied to black women.  In them, the black and white women look almost identical.  We added another couple ads for Maybelline where “diversity” looks surprisingly like twins.  Scroll to the bottom here.

We added two more examples to our lists of ways in which people of color are used in advertising aimed at white people: to associate the product with a racial stereotype and to signify human variation. 

Ben O. had another image of a scale conflating health and weight.  We added it to our other example here.

We added two new images to this post about the frequently contradictory messages we get about eating healthier. The first image shows a sticker on a vending machine encouraging people to make healthy choices about what to eat. The second shows a picture of the products actually for sale in the vending machine, which don’t exactly provide consumers with a panoply of healthy options.

We added three new images to our post on The Frightened Sperm.  One is a cartoon depicting Michael Phelps as the winning sperm, one is a clip from The Family Guy showing Stewie in a spermship, and the last depicts an egg actively guiding some sperm while providing barriers to others.  Thanks to commenters Noumenon, MW, and Ranah respectively for these images!

We added another vintage douche ad (this one for a douche made from Lysol).  Thanks to Holly Mac. for this one!

We added another image of sexualized food to this post, this time the cow used to advertise Skinny Cow ice cream (scroll all the way to the bottom). Thanks to Blanca for pointing it out!

We added to this post about how Dove, a brand with the much-touted “Real Woman” ad campaign, and Axe, a brand marketed to men using highly sexualized images of women, are both manufactured by Unilever. The new content is a link to a post from Moment of Choice about a woman’s experience auditioning before a panel of men for one of the Dove commercials.

We added another image in our post about the Declare Yourself ad campaign, which we initially discussed in the context of Jessica Alba’s appearance in one of the ads.

To our post showing re-touching of celebrities, we added a link to a photo gallery comparing photos of celebrities to their Photoshopped images on magazine covers.  See it here.

Regarding how girls are socialized to think of themselves as high-maintenance divas, we added another image here.

CONSOLIDATIONS:

We combined two posts about Heelarious, a company making high heels for infants, into one post.

We consolidated two posts about policing masculinity that included Snickers ads featuring Mr. T into one post, found here.

ALSO:

We added another class assignment, this one by Alicia Revely.  Read it along with our other class assignments.