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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaPcBwmCtiM[/youtube]

Sexism in commercials is sadly just so, well, typical. But every once in a while a commercial comes along that goes above and beyond, like this one from Hungry Man. Take note of the ending where the Hungry Man meal crushes the feminized fruit drinks.

This commercial has multiple layers of sexism. One is obviously gendering food choices. Why are healthy foods (fruit and yogurt) feminized and unhealthy meat and potatoes in large quantities (sans green vegetables) associated with masculinity and being tough? And what kind of prescriptions about class and work are made as well? Why are these blue collar “working men” when drinking fruit shakes and health drinks are typically associated with white collar, upper class women (and men)?

As the commercial says… you are what you eat.

I wonder why a recent study found that “the gender divide starts over dinner.”

This ad “liberates” women from the kitchen through technology and capitalism… but not, alas, through true partnerships with men. Women should spend less time cooking, but it’s still HER job.

Oh, also, the reason women haven’t achieved greatness in the United States is because she’s too busy to be bothered. It has absolutely nothing to do with sexism and institutional constraints.

Thanks to Julie C!

This ad, from the 1970s (I think), has the exact same message:  “For women with more exciting things to do than scrub floors: ‘One-step floor care.'”  Congratulations women, now you can scrub floors faster… but don’t think you can get out of scrubbing floors.

Found at Vintage Ads.

And this one, from the 1950s (I think) is extra creepy (found here).  Like the other ads, it replaces “women’s work” with a technological solution.  And that solution a gift from her husband.  The text:

The one gift that quietly ends garbage ‘trudgery’ — frees the little woman from disagreeable trips to the garbage can… She’ll thank you every time she uses it…

The centaur scene in Disney’s highly acclaimed cartoon Fantasia (1940) clearly communicates gendered expectations for men and women, but there are also racial politics. First, note that, in the film as released, all of the centaurs end up in color-matched heterosexual pairs.  Second, most people do not know that the original centaur scene included a pickaninny slave to the centaur females and exotic, brown-skinned zebra-girl servants.

Here’s a link to the whole thing (embedding disabled, but it works as of Feb. ’11).

A clear still in black and white:

Fuzzy color stills from the youtube clip:

Don’t miss our post showing bugs bunny in blackface, too.

Warning! These images may not be safe for your workplace.

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This is Julia Roberts winning the Oscar for best actress. It was 2001. Notice that, despite the fact that she won for her portrayal of a very highly sexualized woman, she isn’t a stick figure. In fact, relative to the twigs of today, she is actually kind of thick and has pretty big arms. Could a woman could go to the Oscars looking like this today and not get called fat in the tabloids?

This post is dedicated to my pregnant friends. You should buy this t-shirt.

In class this week my students and I are talking about the triple threat of production, consumption, and reproduction that characterizes modern capitalism. I use the cultural imperative that women have and raise babies (reproduction) and be beautiful and sexy while doing it (consumption), all of which is paid for by someone who is busy earning money at a job (production). Below are some of the images I use.

Be beautiful while pregnant (images from A Pea in the Pod and covergirls Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera):

Running in high heels while in the third trimester? Why, of course!

Get your body back as soon as possible (as demonstrated by Gwen Stefani and Tori Spelling):

If you’re not sure how, buy some books (all the better)!

Resort to suspicious drugs if you need to:

Or get a Mommy Makeover. Extensive cosmetic surgery, that is:

Recommended by Parenting Magazine!

The image below is the cover of a comic book designed to teach adults about birth control (it seems to have been published in 1956 and again in 1962). Find it all online here.

Found here via copyranter.

Today Gwen and I went to the by now well-known Bodies exhibit that displays preserved human cadavers, purportedly so we can learn more about the human body (and give up smoking).

As we went in we joked about how there probably wouldn’t be any female bodies until the part on reproduction. We were royally pissed off to discover that we were right. This is a great illustration of the way in which men are neutral and women deviants from the standard (that is, men are people and women are women). The first 8 or so bodies were all male and all in action doing masculine things.

The first female body we encountered (there were only two out of more than a dozen) stood immediately outside the fetal development hall and alongside the dissections of the genitals and reproductive organs.* Not only was this the first female, she was arranged not in action, but in a pose for the male gaze. She was standing with her hands on her hips, with her breasts and hips thrust forward, and on her tip toes as if she were wearing high heels. We couldn’t find any pictures of her on the web (and we weren’t allowed to take any), but we did find an image of a female cadaver from another exhibit. She was both pregnant (fulfilling her biological destiny) and positioned like a pin up (fulfilling her role as sexual object for men). So, in addition to marginalizing the female body, they gendered both male and female bodies. Male bodies are on the move, but female bodies are good for only two things: babies and sexual provocation.

The last body (male) had a sign over it that said “Your Body” because, of course, the male body is just the neutral human body that represents us all.

* As we entered the fetal development hall there was a sign that warned people that they should take a second and think about whether they wanted to see the fetuses, while assuring us that all of them died of natural causes (that is, not abortion). I think it’s bizarre that we’re supposed to find these fetal bodies disturbing, but not the bodies of people who lived lives and loved others and were loved and all that good stuff. There is something weird about the priorities here, as if the fetuses were somehow more human than the adults. Also, while we were looking at the deformed fetuses, a woman standing next to us said that all teenagers should have to see the deformed fetuses because “that’s what gonna happen” if they start having sex.

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.