Cross-posted at Speech Events.

Earlier this year President Obama described California attorney general Kamala Harris “the best-looking attorney general in the country.” Even though the crowd reportedly laughed at the comment, Obama was criticized for making sexist remarks and quickly apologized to Harris.

But some people claimed to be confused: why was Obama wrong to compliment a woman on her looks? From the Washington Times:

Please, give us a chance to learn the rules. Give us a minute to catch our breath…

We were taught (most of us were) that girls and women were to be given flowers for their beauty of character and good looks.

Exactly what is wrong with this?

But one morning we were told that it is okay, even required, to tell a woman that she looks marvelous. Next morning, hey, we can go to jail for this!

This is not the first time a president has run into this sort of trouble. This picture of reporter Helen Thomas ran in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on August 7, 1973.*

The accompanying story was titled “Nixon Turns Fashion Critic, ‘Turn Around…’”  It included the following:

President Nixon, a gentleman of the old school, teased a newspaper woman yesterday about wearing slacks to the White House and made it clear that he prefers dresses on women.

After a bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office, the President stood up from his desk and in a teasing voice said to UPI’s Helen Thomas: “Helen, are you still wearing slacks? Do you prefer them actually? Every time I see girls in slacks it reminds me of China.”

Nixon went on, asking Thomas to present her rear:

“This is not said in an uncomplimentary way, but slacks can do something for some people and some it can’t.” He hastened to add, “but I think you do very well. Turn around.”

As Nixon, Attorney General Elliott L. Richardson, FBI Director Clarence Kelley and other high-ranking law enforcement officials smiling [sic], Miss Thomas did a pirouette for the President. She was wearing white pants, a navy blue jersey shirt, long white beads and navy blue patent leather shoes with red trim.

There are several parallels between this incident and the Obama one: they took place at the tail end of an official event, when the president apparently thought he could take some time for harmless jokes. The women involved were highly acclaimed professional women. In both events, we see a powerful man verbally change a woman from a respected professional to an attractive female.

We know how the public responded to Obama’s comment. What about reception in 1973?

First of all, Helen Thomas herself wrote the article about this incident; according to anthropologist Michael Silverstein, “this is what we call ‘payback’ time.” At first glance, it seems like a neutral report of a conversation, but take a closer look. From the very beginning, Nixon is set up as the bad guy – a “gentleman of the old school” who “teased a newspaper woman.”

The mocking, faux fashion report tone continues from the headline into the description of Thomas’s outfit. What seems like a harmless personal interest story tacked onto a news article was actually a protest against this treatment – and it required damage control by the president. Within the next week, Thomas’s fellow reporters went on the record as saying that they were on her side, and wished she had not played along with the president. Even the First Lady weighed in, saying that there was no rule against women wearing pants in the White House.

The rules haven’t changed: there’s nothing new about presidents talking about professional women’s appearance, and even in 1973 it was recognized as inappropriate.

* The image is from here; the article on google is text only.

Miranda Weinberg is a graduate student in Educational Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania studying multilingualism in schooling.

Cross-posted at Girl w/ Pen.

Having written about sexually transmitted HPV (human papillomavirus) for 13 years, I’ve been waiting for the day when a celebrity would lend his or her fame to spotlight the realities of HPV infection, especially of HPV-related oral cancers.  That day has come: this week Michael Douglas has announced that his cancer was caused by an HPV infection that was likely transmitted through oral sex.  The mucus membrane tissue of mouth and throat are similar to those of genital skin, so researchers have known for some time that, like herpes, HPV could be transmitted oral to genital, as well as genital to oral.

My hopes are that big news can be a long-needed catalyst for change.  Back in 2009, the research findings were already clear: oral transmission of cancer-causing HPV means that almost all of us are more likely at risk than we are safe from risk.  For my 2010 feature article in Ms. Magazine, I focused on the importance of not only educating the public about HPV-related cancers in men but also about the HPV-oral cancer link. In addition, I advocated for the need to destigmatize all STDs: my research and book have shown that STD stigma makes it more likely for at-risk/infected  individuals to put off getting tested and treated. STD stigma also makes it less likely for individuals to disclose their sexual health status to partners, placing those partners at greater risk for infection.  In addition, negative stereotypes about the “types” of women and men likely to be infected distort our ideas of who is at risk.

I’ll wrap up this post with a call: for us to come together, to learn the facts and not be swayed by incomplete media coverage and confusing pharmaceutical claims.  We must support significant funding increases to investigate exactly how we can prevent HPV-related oral/throat cancers, which research shows to be steadily on the rise and more fatal than cervical cancers in the U.S.

Adina Nack is the author of Damaged Goods? and a professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University.  She specializes in medical sociology, gender inequality, and sexual health and writes for Girl w/ Pen.

This week Michael Douglas’ announced that his oral cancer was caused by a virus (human papillomavirus) likely transmitted through oral sex.  Media coverage, however, has been conflating the virus and the sexual activity with headlines like this:

ABC News:

FOX News:

San Francisco Chronicle:

The day after the story broke, Douglas’ representatives clarified that his cancer wasn’t caused by cunnilingus, but by the virus itself.

This is an interesting example of the way that a practice can be falsely conflated with a disease.  It brings back the fantastical stories of the 1800s that masturbation was the cause of  liver, kidney, and lung disease; arthritis; headache, memory loss, epilepsy, and neurological problems; back pain; impotence; cancer; and death.

Like masturbation was (and maybe still is), cunnilingus is taboo enough that it can be made into the villain in a story about cancer.  Imagine, as a counterfactual, a headline that said that syphilis was caused by sexual intercourse.  This is clearly wrong.  We all know that syphilis is transmitted by unprotected sexual intercourse.  As Douglas’ confession reveals, and the data demands, it’s about time we were as comfortable talking about the risks and rewards of cunnilingus.

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 Inequality by (Interior) Design.

The problem:

A Brazilian modeling agency, Star Models, recently released a new series of anti-anorexia PSA advertisements. They illustrate one of the ways ultra-thin body ideals characterizing women’s bodies in the fashion industry today are institutionalized, or made part of the way we “do” fashion. Fashion sketches — the way that people communicate designs to one another — idealize these bodies, with their exaggerated proportions, long slender limbs, and expressionless faces. The PSAs place real women alongside the sketches, graphically altered to similar proportions, in order to problematize the ideal.

Sociology professors are constantly asking students to analyze what they might be taking for granted. One issue we take for granted is that the images on the left are what “fashion” looks like and ought to look like. That they are culturally recognizable as fashion sketches speaks to the ways in which hyper-thin feminine bodies are institutionalized at a fundamental level in the fashion industry today.

The Dove Evolution video — as a part of their “Campaign for Real Beauty” — vividly illustrates the work that goes into the production of advertisements. Using a time-lapse video depicting the diverse labor that goes into the production of an ad was a simple illustration of the impossibility of contemporary beauty ideals. Viewers are left thinking, “Of course we can’t look like that. She doesn’t even look like that.”

Star Models’ anti-anorexia ads promote a similar message, but also call our attention to the more dangerous aspects of adherence to industry ideals. Similar to depictions of what Barbie might look like as a real woman, altered images of dangerously thin models aside these sketches have a very different feel from the sketches they imitate.

What is being done about it?

In 2007, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) passed a Health Initiative in recognition of an increasingly global concern with the unhealthily thin bodies of models and whether/how to promote change in the industry. The CFDA is working to better educate those inside the industry to identify individuals at risk, to require models with eating disorders to seek help and acquire professional approval to continue working, to develop workshops promoting dialog on these issues, and more.

The CFDA’s Health Initiative, however, treats eating disorders as an individual rather than social problem. This allows the CFDA to obscure the role it might play in perpetuating cultural desires for the very bodies it purports to “help” with the Health Initiative.

Susan Bordo famously wrote about anorexia as what she termed “the crystallization of culture.” We like to draw firm boundaries between normality and pathology. But Bordo suggests that anorexia is more profitably analyzed as culturally normative than as abnormal. Similarly, Star Models’ PSAs play a role in framing the fashion industry as (at least partially) responsible for ultra-thin feminine body ideals. Yet, they arguably fall short of providing institutional-level solutions as the tagline — ”You are not a sketch. Say no to anorexia.” — concentrates on individuals.

The CFDA’s focus on health initiatives and support for individuals suffering from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders are critical aspects of recognizing issues that seem to plague the fashion industry. While this surely helps some individual women, the initiatives simultaneously avoid the cultural pressures (in which the fashion industry arguably plays a critical role) that work to systematically conflate feminine beauty with ultra-thin ideals. Similar to problems associated with focusing attention only on the survivors of sexual assaults (failing to recognize the ways that sexual violence is both institutionalized and embedded in our culture), these images simply illustrate that individual-level solutions are unlikely to produce change precisely because they fail to locate “the problem” and ignore the diverse social institutions and ideals that assist in its reproduction.

Thanks to a student in my Sociology of Gender course, Sandra Little, for bringing this campaign to my attention.

Tristan Bridges is a sociologist of gender and sexuality at the College at Brockport (SUNY).  Dr. Bridges blogs about some of this research and more at Inequality by (Interior) Design.  You can follow him on twitter @tristanbphd.

In the 3-minute video below, sociologist Jennifer Lee explains her research on “stereotype promise,” the idea that being viewed through the lens of a positive stereotype can act as a performance booster and enhance outcome. You can imagine how it might be applied to African Americans and certain sports like track or basketball, or how it might facilitate men’s acquisition of math ability.

Lee’s research is on Asian Americans and academic performance. Asians, she explains, are stereotyped as “smart, high achieving, and disciplined” and this might help explain why they are so academically successful.

It can also, however, have harmful effects.  She discusses the way that some young Asian Americans will say that an A- counts as an “Asian fail,” an example of how much pressure stereotype promise can bring.  She also notes that Asian Americans are often disadvantaged in college admissions because of an assumption that a school can have “too many” Asians and, accordingly, accept only students with the most extraordinary academic credentials.

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.

Summer means writing!

We’re all breathing a sigh of relief now that the semester is over!  Gwen and I are both looking forward to making lots of progress on writing projects over the summer!  Myra Marx Ferree and I should be finishing our sociology of gender textbook within months and I can hardly wait!

Twitter love:

We reached a milestone on Twitter.  12,000 followers and counting!

12,000 followers means lots of love!

We freaking love you too, Eli!

Upcoming lectures and appearances:

I am officially on sabbatical and writing full time, but I’d love to use my flexible schedule to do lots of public speaking as well.   I have great talks on the value of friendship, the biology of sex differences, the politics of genital cutting and, of course, hook up culture.  And I do a pretty decent AKD induction ceremony/commencement speech.

I’ve already scheduled my first talk for next year. I’ll be part of the Bastian Diversity Lecture Series at Westminster College in Salt Lake City.  Looking forward to it already!

Virtual friends:

We continue to be thrilled to see SocImages’ posts cross-promoted on other sites.  Here are some graduation season-themed highlights of the month:

• Los Angeles Times, The Hook Up Culture Bogeyman
• PolicyMic, 9 Things Professors Wish You Understood about the Real World (with gifs!)
• BlogHer, 2/3rds of College Students Think They’re Going to Change the World
• Huffington Post, Social Class and the College Choices of High School Valedictorians

New Pinterest board on rape culture:

In response to the sudden public interest in sexual violence, we decided to begin a rape culture Pinterest board.  I recommend visiting with a stiff drink in hand.  If you’re sensitive to images of sexual violence, I wouldn’t go at all.

SocImages has 25 Pinterest boards and some of them aren’t horribly depressing!  You can visit our new guide or check out some of our more popular themes: sexy toy make-overs, what color is flesh?, gendered housework and parenting, “subliminal” sexual symbolism, and violence in fashion.

The national movement against sexual assault:

SocImages continues to follow the national movement to use Title IX to reform sexual assault adjudication on college — and now, rumor has it, middle school and high school — campuses.  Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, and USC, among others, are the most recent schools to file complaints with the federal government.

This month we posted about the role of social networking in the movement and covered the faculty votes of “no confidence” in higher level administrators at Occidental College.  I also had the opportunity to give a 12 minute interview to KPFK about the developments at my campus (you can listen here, starting at 28:30).

Social media:

SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, and @jaylivingston.

In other news…

I thought I’d share this nice shot from just after commencement at Occidental College.  To my left and right are two of the professors who have joined with students to lead the national movement against sexual assault: Dr. Caroline Heldman and Dr. Danielle Dirks.  In other words, some badass chicks right there.  Follow them on twitter @carolineheldman and @danielledirks!

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.

In April The Sierra Club announced that it was endorsing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  They argued that a preponderance of disempowered workers in some of the most polluted industries in the country was bad for the environment:

To protect clean air and water and prevent the disruption of our climate, we must ensure that those who are most disenfranchised and most threatened by pollution within our borders have the voice to fight polluters and advocate for climate solutions without fear.

This position nicely brings together one lefty political concern (the environment) with another (concern for undocumented immigrants).  This is probably entirely genuine, but it is also very convenient from a discursive perspective.

I tortured my Sociology 101 students this semester with the phrase “discursive opportunity structure,” which I introduce as “the arrangement of ideas in a society that constrain and enable communication and thought.”  For example, the connection between pink and femininity is automatic in our minds whether we want it to be or not, just as the letters C-A-T conjure up a cat and we couldn’t stop it if we tried.  So ideas aren’t just free floating in our collective minds, they’re built into a relationship with each other, and those relationships are part of our cognition.

Sociologist Leslie King has shown how this constrains how environmentalists can talk about immigration and how anti-immigration activists can talk about the environment.  She considers “population stabilization” activists, a group that believes that immigration is harmful to the environment (paper here, two examples here).

King argues that the population stabilization movement has struggled largely because the two positions they bring together — pro-environment and anti-immigration — disrupt the discursive opportunity structure.  First, it’s harder for us to get our minds around the argument because it means bringing together a lefty political message and a right one.  Second, insofar as our identity categories depend on the discursive opportunity structure, it requires us to fragment them. Can one be both anti-immigration (on the right) and pro-environment (on the left)?  It takes cognitive work to think that through.

The position announced by The Sierra Club last month, however, neatly fits into our thought patterns.  Most fans of the environmental organization are on the left, so when the press release calls for a path for citizenship, it slips neatly into the political identities and cognitive structures of their audience.  That likely facilitates the likelihood that their position will be both heard and influential.

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.

Here’s an interesting new wrinkle in the data on support for same sex marriage.  According to Gallup, 53% of Americans now favor such marriages, but we don’t necessarily think other people do.  Overall, Americans, on average, think that 63% of their fellow citizens oppose same sex marriage; in fact, 45% do.  That’s an over-estimate of 18 percentage points!

Interestingly, Americans of all stripes — Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, old and young — underestimate support for same sex marriage.  Liberals come the closest, thinking that 48% approve; conservatives are the farthest off, thinking that only 16% do.

This data resonates with the recent finding that both Democratic and Republican politicians underestimate their constituents’ progressiveness.  I suspect that these misconceptions may make politicians wary about pressing for progressive policies; I wonder how similar misconceptions among the voting public might shape the pace and trajectory of social change.

h/t @tylerkingkade. Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

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.