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In The Gendered Society, Michael Kimmel argues that women often have to be very careful how they dress, lest they be seen as too frumpy, too old, too slutty, too smart, trying to hard, etc.  In comparison, men can often just go as a guy.

Two examples:

Nancy: The invitation says black tie, I guess you’ll wear your tux?

Frank: Yup.

Nancy: Mr. Easy.  Once choice, one look.  I have to ponder endless combinations of hair, makeup, gowns, shoes, jewelry.  I have to decide if I want to look sultry, subdued, glittery, basic, bright, dark, modern, traditional…

Frank: Hon, who do you want to please?

Nancy: You, of course.

Frank: I stopped listening after “sultry.”  There, Mr. Easy to the rescue.

Nancy: Gee, thanks.  Sultry’s the hardest one.

The fact that women can’t just be a “person” at the bar or the black tie event is related to the fact that women are a marked category, while men are culturally neutral.  That is, women are women and men are people.  For more posts on this idea related to gender and other categories, see this post on toys for kids and our post on that famous real bodies exhibit.

(I found the first image here; the LuAnn cartoon was given to me by Myra M. F.)

In a previous post, I shared some photographs by Edward Burtynsky of oil fields and mines.  Burtynsky takes pictures with an eye towards the modern global economy. This set documents massive piles of waste sorted for recycling:

Three pictures of the Oxford tire pile in Westley, California (1999):

Densified Oil Drums in Hamilton, Ontario (1997):

Metal for recycling in Hamilton, Ontario (1997):

Metal for recycling in Hamilton, Ontario (1997):

Plastic toy parts in Guiyu, Guangdong Province (2004):

Circuit boards in Guiyu, Guangdong Province (2004):

Recycling work station (I believe the worker is taking apart computers) in Zenguo, Zhejiang Province (2004):

Speaking as a 30-year-old who still cherishes a threadbare, 29-year-old specimen, I can personally testify that teddy bears are objects highly charged with affect in modern U.S. bourgeois white society. Along with blankets, stuffed animals are frequently given to young children to play with. Many times, children grow attached to their animals and blankets, naming them, talking to them, sleeping with them and taking them everywhere.

In 1951, Donald Winnicott called such stuffed animals and security blankets “transitional objects.” I’m probably grossly simplifying this, but he posited that transitional objects occupy an important position in children’s emotional lives as mechanisms by which they soothe themselves as they differentiate their identities from those of their parents. Parenting advice emphasizes that transitional objects are part of a “normal and healthy phase of development” and even a “good thing” that parents may want to voluntarily introduce to anxious children.

In short, modern middle-class bourgeois white society associates teddy bears with a deep emotional connection between people. Teddy bears symbolize comfort and a nurturing parent-child bond. To many, they are images of love.

Over on its Web site for investors, Vermont Teddy Bear literally capitalizes on the “bears=love” connotations by couching its business in terms that suggest relationships and closeness. In this screenshot from the investor relations home page, for example, you can see that the over-the-phone sales staff are called “Bear Counselors,” suggesting that they give advice and mentoring about relationships.

On the page entitled “Our Bear-Gram Story,” Vermont Teddy Bear positions its product as equivalent to the emotional work of creating and sustaining authentic relationships. The “story” says:

Once upon a time, people connected with people simply and directly. They took the time to nurture personal relationships. Then it all got crazy, fast-paced, and hectic and people didn’t have time anymore to pay enough attention to other people.

Of course, the thought that it was so good back in Ye Olde Non-Hectick Tymes is problematic, but so is the thought that teddy bears will suffice instead of “pay[ing] attention to other people.” Why expend all that effort relating to someone when you can just toss him or her a teddy bear instead?

On the company’s site for customers, the same association between the toys and love appears, as evidenced by this banner proclaiming the teddy bears as “heartfelt,” an adjective usually used to describe significant declarations of sentiment:

For occasions that require difficult, emotionally draining “relationship work,” there’s even a whole category of “I’m Sorry/Apology” bears available to send.

The I’m Sorry Bear comes with the following descriptive copy:

Whether you’ve broken their heart or their favorite coffee mug this Bear has got it covered. Holding a light blue pillow embroidered with the an “I’m Sorry” message and wearing a matching light blue bowtie, this Bear is a sure way to earn their forgiveness.

Ah, what price forgiveness?

Well, it’s $73.95. [Shipping and handling excluded. Insurance and rush orders extra. Please ask for international rates. Customs taxes may apply outside U.S. Order early to insure delivery by Christmas!]

I suppose that Vermont Teddy Bear’s deployment of a stuffed animal to do your emotional work for you is in the same category as ad campaigns for diamonds and credit cards that promise viewers intimacy through purchase of the products. However, Vermont Teddy Bear’s use of the “objects will fulfill you” trope is slipperier in part because a substantial number of potential consumers have experience with teddy bears as transitional objects that did [or still do] make them feel happy and calm.

In an amusing postscript, I grew up in Vermont, where we were kind of expected to support Vermont Teddy Bear Company. But when someone gave my younger brother a Vermont Teddy Bear as a gift, he never touched it. Finding the bear stiff and kind of lumpy, he preferred to drag around smaller and more squishable stuffed animals. No one else in the family was impressed with its cuddlability, not even me, and I was the one who collected stuffed animals to line the edges of my bed every night. The bear is now sitting on my mom’s desk as a display item, having not created an emotional connection at all.

Tessa G.S. sent in a link to the online game Miss Bimbo. Here are some images from the game:

Tessa says,

In this case, you build a “bimbo” by placing your character on diets, getting plastic surgery, shopping for clothes, attending a-list parties, dating handsome men— all with the aim of becoming the most popular bimbo in the game…[According to the website] MissBimbo is an educational tool, a social meeting place and a hot pot of bimboism. It is free to enjoy bimboland.

An educational tool? Really?

According to CNN, parents have expressed concern that pre-teen girls are playing a game that encourages them to have their characters get breast implants and facelifts, as well as go on diets.

The game also reinforces the idea that girls are always rivals, whether competing for popularity or men (or the perfect wedding, as the movie “Bride Wars” shows).

While we’re on the topic of video games (sort of), Burk M. told me about Sexy Beach 3. In the game, you get to pick a female character, what she’s wearing, which of several beach-related activities she’s involved in (playing tag, “playful floating,” limbo, etc.), the location (beach, reef, waterfall, and so on) and the time of day. And then you can take the role of a disembodied hand that rubs various parts of her body while her nipples get hard and she moans in delight and eventually appears to orgasm. Here’s an example (Not Safe for Work):

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Welcome to Christmas 2008!

Rose McM. sent us this great example of rigidly gender-coded toys from the Sears Wish Catalog (click to enlarge):

NEW! (Jan. ’10): Sarah O. snapped this photo of toys that teach girls they should cook and care for babies, while boys can build things and be doctors:

See also these posts on the Rose Petal Cottage and Tonka Trucks (“built for boyhood!”).

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 honor of the election, we offer you a summary of all our election 2008 posts.

This election has certainly brought racial tensions front and center. We highlighted two racist caricatures of Obama: on a waffles box and as a cannibal. We also discussed the cover of The New Yorker on which Barack and Michelle Obama were caricatured as terrorists. Whether or not this was racist was widely discussed and offered an interesting opportunity to ask “Who decides what we talk about?” In response to the argument that we were being too sensitive about the caricatures, we offered some evidence that caricatures of black people do not need to be racist.

Anti-Obama propaganda also included comparison with OJ Simpson, a monkey, celebrities, Osama Bin Laden, fascists and communists, a terrorist, a terrorist again, and a “half-breed Muslin.” See here for other racist anti-Obama propaganda.  Gwen asked “So what if Obama is an Arab?” (Note, too, this satirical T-shirt.)

We saw racialization–or the active production of racial meaning–in the fist bump controversy, in calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama,” and in asserting the whiteness of the White House. We discussed the resemblance between Obama and his Grandfather and the meaning of “Main Street” to illustrate the social construction of race.  And we offered examples of white privilege: in one we discuss the option of white ethnics to emphasize their ethnicity; in two we discuss a cartoonist who calls Colin Powell a race traitor for endorsing Obama and a Howard Stern clip that suggests that Blacks only endorse Obama because he’s Black.  We also remark on how easy it is to deride social theories of inequality.

The McCain/Palin ticket was no stranger to derision.  See also our post in which the McCain/Palin ticket is said to be favored by Nazis, another in which Palin effigy is lynched, and a third that discusses ageism in the election.

We’ve also seen plenty of sexism in this campaign. Hillary Clinton has been represented as a nut buster, asked to “iron my shirt,” critiqued for crying, and called a “bitch.” There are more examples here and here.  Also see this montage of sexism among political pundits. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were sexualized. See here, here, and here for Clinton and here, here, here, here, and here for Palin. (By the way, Barack Obama was sexualized as well, see here, here, and here.)

We commented, more sociologically, on the gender politics of this election. We discussed the mothering of baby Trig, conservative feminism, the politics of pink, and took a humorous look at the women’s vote with Sarah Haskins.

We also pointed to the way in which Obama and Clinton attempted to appeal to small town people and the ease with which we make fun of them.

For the intersection of race and gender, see our post in which Michelle Obama is called an angry black woman, is said to need to “soften” to be a First Lady, and our post that features the Bros Before Hos T-shirt (scroll to the bottom). For the intersection of race and class, see our post on Obama’s negotiation of the “elitist” label.  And, in making intersectionality invisible, see the SNL skit, “bitch is the new black.”

Looking more broadly at politics and media coverage, we discussed the portrayal of evil in the Reverend Wright scandal, McCain’s trivialization of war, the linking of a Democratic adminstration with a terrorist attack, pundit hypocrisy, political networks, a voter registration campaign that uses bondage imagery, suspiciously delicious polling techniques, how cell phones shape polling findings, and trends in media coverage of Obama versus Clinton and Obama versus McCain.

In addition, we offered some examples of punditry from alternative media: on young voters, a call for alliance from the labor movement, a call to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama, a political revival of the Budweiser Wassap video, and two examples of art inspired by the election (here and here).

We also put up posts of figures representing public opinion on blacks, a woman president, and politician parents.  And we offered images illustrating how the world would vote.

Finally, our favorite: “We’re not sociologists, we’re Americans!”

Cross-posted at Love Isn’t Enough.

Ann DuCille, in her book Skin Trade, takes two issues with “ethnic” Barbies. 

First, she takes issue with the fact that “ethnic” Barbies are made from the same mold as “real” Barbies (though sometimes with different paint on their faces).  This reifies a white standard of beauty as THE standard of beauty.  Black women are beautiful only insofar as they look like white women (see also this post).  DuCille writes:

…today Barbie dolls come in a rainbow coalition of colors, races, ethnicities, and nationalities, [but] all of those dolls look remarkably like the stereotypical white Barbie, modified only by a dash of color and a change of clothes.

Consider:

But, second, DuCille also takes takes issue with the idea that Mattell would try to make ethnic Barbies more “authentic.”  Trying to agree on one ideal form for a racial or ethnic group is no more freeing than trying to get everyone to accord to one ideal based in whiteness.  DuCille writes:

…it reifies race.  You can’t make an ‘authentic’ Black, Hispanic, Asian, or white doll.  You just can’t.  It will always be artificially constraining…

And also:

Just what are we saying when we claim that a doll does or does not look… black?  How does black look? …What would make a doll look authentically African American or realistically Nigerian or Jamaican?  What prescriptive ideals of blackness are inscribed in such claims of authenticity?  …The fact that skin color and other ‘ethnic features’ …are used by toymakers to denote blackness raises critical questions about how we manufacture difference.

Indeed, difference is, literally, manufactured through the production of “ethnic” Barbies and this is done, largely, for a white audience. 

To be profitable, racial and cultural diversity… must be reducible to such common, reproducible denominators as color and costume.

The majority of American Barbie buyers are only interested in “ethnicity” so long as it is made into cute and harmless variety.  This reminds us that, when toy makers (and others) manufacture difference, they are doing so for money.  DuCille writes:

…capitalism has appropriated what it sees as certain signifiers of blackness and made them marketable… Mattel… mass market[s] the discursively familiar–by reproducing stereotyped forms and visible signs of racial and ethnic difference.

Consider:

Black Barbie and Hispanic Barbie, 1980

Oriental Barbie, date unknown

A later “Asian” Barbie (Kira)

Diwali Barbie (India)

Hula Honey Barbie

Kwanzaa Barbie

Radiant Rose Ethnic Barbie, 1996

There are many reasons to find this problematic.  DuCille turns to the Jamaican Barbie as an example. 

The back of Jamaican Barbie’s box tells us:

How-you-du (Hello) from the land of Jamaica, a tropical paradise known for its exotic fruit, sugar cane, breath-taking beaches, and reggae beat!  …most Jamaicans have ancestors from Africa, so even though our official language is English, we speak patois, a kind of ‘Jamaica Talk,’ filled with English and African words.  For example, when I’m filled with boonoonoonoos, I’m filled with much happiness!

Notice how Jamaica is reduced to cutesy things like exotic fruit and sugar cane and Jamaican people are characterized as happy-go-lucky and barely literate while the history of colonialism is completely erased.

So DuCille doesn’t like it when Black Barbies, for example, look like White Barbies and she doesn’t like it when Black Barbies look like Black Barbies either.  What’s the solution?  The solution simply may not lie in representation, so much as in actually correcting the injustice in which representation occurs.

(Images found here, here, here, here, here, and here.) 

For a related post on race and friendship, see here.

Miguel sent in these photos from nANUFACTURE, a children’s clothing store based in Valencia, Spain. The advertising campaign is “save the babies.” This first one was found at the company website:

This one was found here:

The babies in the top photo are holding signs in Spanish that say “there’s life beyond pink” and “no more teddy bears!” The sign in the lower left photo says “no sky blue, thanks.”

Given that the website includes photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and of a scene from the “Sex and the City” movie that shows toys sold at the store, and the super-hipness of the clothing line (flared-leg kids’ jeans, anyone?), I assume the store sells expensive stuff. Their mission statement includes statements about supporting breastfeeding and natural childbirth, as well as selling children’s clothing. According to one of the owners (I think my translation is accurate enough),

Dads and moms…have their first son or daughter when they’re around age 30. That is, they’re young! But it appears that no other store owner in this sector [children’s clothes] has noticed this small detail.

They go on to talk about saving babies from ugly polka dots, teddy-bear stencils, and pastel pink and blue.

I think this is an interesting mixture of elements. It’s nice to see any store selling alternatives to the pink/blue dichotomy and providing forums for breastfeeding advocacy groups and such. But I also think the clear marketing to a certain type of parent is worthy of discussion. Obviously, kids don’t know whether they’re supposed to think polka dots are awesome or lame. This is about “saving” kids from things these young, hip parents think are lame or uncool. We’ve had a couple of posts recently about politically labeling kids (see here), but here we have an example of non-political labeling: as too hip and cool for the tastes of the masses. These images might be a useful addition to a discussion of how children’s clothing often reflects parents’ tastes and ideas about themselves (as cool, progressive, liberal/conservative, etc.), or about the rise in expensive children’s clothing marketed to the middle and upper-middle class.

Full disclosure: I do think many items of children’s clothing are hideous, but I’m probably in no position to judge, since my mom once made us shirts out of some rags she found in my grandpa’s shop that he planned to use to sop up oil. Yes, we actually wore rags.

Thanks, Miguel!