A quick Google image search suggests that Prince William and the to-be Princess Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton conform to Western culture’s expectation that a man be sufficiently taller than his woman.  Not so for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  In light of today’s royal nuptials, I thought I’d re-post this fav of mine. Originally cross-posted at Jezebel.

In the U.S. and the U.K., one of the most unbreakable rules of mating involves height. He must be taller than her, preferably significantly taller. Men and women often pick one another in such a way that any given couple follows this rule even if, given random assortment, some couples would involve women who the same height or taller than their male partners.

Rumor has it, though I can’t prove it, that Hollywood routinely puts leading men in platform boots or on stools so that they appear appropriately tall relative to their leading ladies.

Philip Cohen, however, alerted me to a case that can be nicely shown: Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  As these photographs show, Charles was about the same height as Diana, perhaps even shorter.

(Daily Mail)

When Charles and Diana were posed together formally, however, they were typically arranged so as to suggest that he was significantly taller than her, or at least to disguise the fact that he was not.

A photo from their engagement announcement with Charles on a step behind her:

(BBC)

And more:

(Family Inequality)

This effort to make Charles appear taller is a social commitment to the idea that men are taller and women shorter. When our own bodies, and our chosen mates, don’t follow this rule, sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to preserve the illusion.

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.

What is the fiscal relationship between the Royal Family of the United Kingdom and its taxpayers?  I have no idea.

Accordingly, I have no idea as to the accuracy of this 5-minute summary, made by CGP Grey (via), but it was entertaining and, I imagine, contains a least a kernel of truth:

U.K. readers, what say you?  (Transcript after the jump.)

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Back in December, Carly S. sent in an ESPN video about NFL player Bart Scott, nicknamed the “Mad Backer.” The video illustrates a number of noteworthy themes:

• The glorification of violence, with Scott reveling in the chance to dish it out.
• Equating being able to play through pain caused by this violence as proof of masculinity — particularly disturbing given concerns about the long-term effects the physical punishment players take has on their health.
• Through the “Mad Backer” persona and the presence of a straight jacket and stretcher, Scott associates mental illness with violence and danger as a way to prove his own superiority on the field. Not only is he “mad,” he depicts himself as a villain who enjoys brutality.

See for yourself:

Last year I posted about a new ad campaign for Pretzel Crisps. The ads’ use of the phrase “you can never be too thin” inspired one man to alter one ad posted in NYC, including taping up images of news stories about individuals who have died of eating disorders. After the story got some attention, Snack Factory, the company that makes Pretzel Crisps, eventually apologized and said they were taking the ads down.

A victory, right? Except it seems like Snack Factory didn’t quite get the message. They replaced that ad with one that said “tastes as good as skinny feels.”

Dmitriy T.M. let us know that they then also released this ad, which similarly seemed to miss (or not care about) what the concerns were about the original:

So…they reinforced the message about thinness, and throw in an extra insult on top of it. Classy.

Via Jezebel.

I invite you to spend seven minutes listening to Baratunde Thurston explaining what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that Barack Obama was hounded into releasing his long form birth certificate.  He does a wonderful job of historicizing the requirement that Obama prove that he is an American (to a man such as Donald Trump), at the same time that he explains why this questioning of Obama’s citizenship is deeply hurtful to all Black Americans and their allies.

Via BoingBoing.  Transcript after the jump (via Racialicious).

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In one store, you’re a Size 4, in another a Size 8, and in another a Size 10 — all without gaining an ounce.

So starts a New York Times article, forwarded along by Kristin, Valerie, and Dolores.  It features this handy graphic illustrating just how much both sizes and proportions vary from store to store:

It’s interesting that this article is specific to women, as if the sizes and proportions in men’s clothes don’t vary. Hint: they do.

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.

How does “culture” control us?  In her book Talk of Love, Ann Swidler argues that culture has the power to shape our behavior even when we do not internalize the cultural narratives to which we are exposed.  She uses Secretary’s Day, or Administrative Professional’s Day if you’re being politically correct, as an example.

Secretary’s Day is a rather recent faux-holiday that conveniently (for florists, card makers, and candy and cookie bakers) falls between Easter and Mother’s day and mostly serves to bolster capitalist cashflow.  Need a product to show your appreciation?  We’ve got ’em! From cakes to gift baskets to greeting cards.

Like Mother’s Day cards suggest that families would fall apart without mothers to do EVERYTHING, Secretary’s Day cards suggest that an office would be helpless without its administrative assistants:

The holiday is meaningful, of course, only because (like with mothers) we take-for-granted and devalue what adminstrative assistants do everyday every day.  In that sense, the holiday is disingenous and actually exposes that which it claims to resolve.  So there are good reasons for administrative assistants to think it’s bunk, too.

Let’s say that you had a secretary, but you thought that Secretary’s Day was stupid.  Would you still mark the day?

Swidler says you would.

You would if Secretary’s Day was being so ubiquitously advertised and promoted that everyone knew it was Secretary’s Day.  And, if everyone knew that it was, including your administrative assistant, then it makes a statement NOT to mark the day.  Marking the day is the path of least resistance.  Not “showing your appreciation” tells a story about you (you’re not a very nice person) or your adminstrative assistant (who must suck and be a crappy employee).  And there’s nothing you can do about that.

Here’s how Swidler tells it:

…the difficulty is that even the most skeptical, who recognize the trumped up, commercial origins of the occasion, may find themselves trapped by the wide publicity of the code.  If one’s boss won’t even spend a few dollars, does that signal that he or she doesn’t ‘care?  Both bosses and secretaries, however distasteful they may find the holiday, may nonetheless worry about the signal their actions will send.  Indeed, that is the key to semiotic constraints on action.  One is constrained not by internal motives but by knowledge of how one’s actions may be interpreted by others (p. 163).

We don’t just get to act according to what we think and feel.  We have to make decisions about how to act based on how others will interpret our behaviors.  And, often, it’s easier to go along and make the right moves than it is to buck the system that gives our choices meaning.

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.

When I teach Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, one thing I have to balance is disclosure of the horrendous history of racism in the U.S. and the risk of further traumatizing students in my classroom for whom these tragedies are not pure abstractions.  One of the these tragedies is lynching.

Lynching, or the killing of individuals targeted by non-police mobs, usually by hanging, became frighteningly common after slavery was ended.  It was a form of terrorism, designed to teach black people, and their white allies, that the end of slavery would not be the end of their subordination. Because a lynching need not be based on evidence that could stand up in court, all anti-racists were at risk of death. Thousands of people — most, but not all of them black — were violently hanged, their bodies often set afire.

Despite the importance of this chapter of American history, I do not show pictures of lynchings in my classroom.  These images are surprisingly easy to come by because the events were often gleefully public and photographs of the murders were sold as postcards. Sometimes, though, I think about showing Billie Holiday singing what is, perhaps, one of the most deeply troubling songs ever written, “Strange Fruit.”  Written by Abel Meeropol and Laura Duncan, it was first performed by Holiday in 1939, almost 30 years before lynching could be called “history.”

Strange Fruit:

Via BoingBoing.

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.