We’ve documented dozens of instances in which products are coded with gender (e.g., with colors and patterns) but sometimes, as in the example of a toy cop car, it is specified that items are for girls or for boys.  More than simply following gendered themes and allowing us to infer their meaning, these items offer a gendered prescription for use.

Kelly, for example, sent in a JC Penney page for a Hello Kitty sewing machine that specifies that it is for girls (it was also specified as for girls at Target):

Likewise, Coley L. bought a shorts-and-shirt swimsuit for a daughter.  The green swimsuit, however, was labeled explicitly for boys:

And MP sent in a link to a downloadable foldable gift card holder that specified whether it was for him or her in the url:

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.

Dolores R. sent us a photo from Olvera St. in downtown Los Angeles. Olvera Street is a historic site/tourist attraction that commemorates a pueblo founded in 1781.  Some call it the birthplace of Los Angeles.

The photo is of a sign pleading with visitors to behave.  It is written in both Spanish and English but, as Dolores observes, the message in each language is slightly different (translation below).

Dolores explains:

Translation is mostly the same, with the exception of the part regarding the plants. The English says, “Do not touch plants.”

The Spanish version says (literal translation), “Abstain from touching anything, cutting or etching names in the cactus.”

Thoughts?

See also our post documenting differences in the English and Spanish versions of a Kaiser pamphlet for new moms (hint: only one of them emphasizes sterilization).

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.

Before Halloween, I posted a video where Erin Gibson satirizes the way women’s costumes are overwhelmingly a “sexy” version of something…anything. Commenter HP took issue with it, wondering whether it satirized or challenged the topic in a useful way, rather than, in HP’s term, “pinkwashing” it — that is, presumably critiquing sexism but doing so in a way that looks nearly indistinguishable from the cultural trend supposedly being critiqued.

I thought about that when I saw a video my friend Captain Crab posted. The video features actor Graham Greene, a member of the Oneida tribe, and spoofs ads for Lakota, a brand of arthritis pain-relief medications that appropriates Native American imagery:

While it clearly parodies the Lakota brand and ads, I can’t quite decide how showing Greene then trying to sell his own product fits in — does that undermine the message about appropriation of native cultures? I sort of felt like it did, turning it more into laughing at this idea that everyone’s trying to sell you something. After all, Greene’s product refers to him as “Dr.,” so who is he to criticize sketchy marketing methods?

What do you think? An effective commentary on use of elements of Native American cultures in marketing?

Sharon Gefen sent along a five-minute SPARK Summit video on the sexualization of women and girls in the media and its effects on young women:

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.

A reader associated with WOW/WGSGO, two feminist groups at Louisiana State University, sent in an image a friend took of a banner that is currently on display at an apartment complex near the campus in Baton Rouge, presenting two supposed LSU fans and one University of Alabama fan (in anticipation of tomorrow’s football game between the two teams):

As the sender-inner points out, the banner “is obviously sexist, fat-phobic, and caters to a male gaze and sports rivalry through objectification of women.” Individuals from WOW and WGSGO have repeatedly called the apartment complex to ask that the banner be taken down, so far to no avail.

It’s a perfect example of how fat bodies are both themselves stigmatized and used to stigmatize others. In this case, not only is this individual woman being mocked, but marking her as an Alabama fan serves to mock and denigrate all other fans by association. Because, as we all know, the campus with the hottest (according to conventional standards of attractiveness) chicks wins!

In this ten-minute Black Tree Media video, sent in by Janet F., black intellectuals and artists debate sexism in hip hop. The video features over a dozen perspectives — Stanley Crouch, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Ben Chavis, Nelly, T.I., Chuck D, MC Lyte, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Mike Jones, Master P, and Kim Osorio — and covers a lot of ground.

My apologies if the video is preceded by a commercial:

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.

Made in America‘s Claude S. Fischer posted this figure depicting the percent of the voting-age U.S. population who voted in presidential elections, 1824-2008:

The figure shows radical shifts in the percent of the voting-age population that turned up at the polls, putting the recent Obama bump in perspective.  Fischer narrates two of the trends:

Americans streamed to the polls at rapidly growing rates during the antebellum years (the upwardly slanted oval) probably because: competitive two-party politics emerged; barriers to voting such as property requirements were lowered; states added more polling places so rural voters did not have to travel as far; a growing spoils system provided more government goodies for the victors; and the parties made elections entertaining – parades, fiery speech-making, and well-lubricated election days… By the 1880s and ‘90s, voting rates hit about 80 percent.

The downward oval is accounted for, in part, by women.  Women were granted suffrage in  1920 but, as Fischer says it, “…it took a while for women to get into the habit of voting.”  The drop started before this, however, so there’s more to it.  Fischer continues:

One factor was declining party competition; the Republican and Democratic parties retreated to different regions of the country.  In addition, two general sorts of innovations helped discourage voting: changes in rules and changes in incentives…

Native-born, upper-middle-class, largely Protestant Progressives were able, after much struggle, to reform election rules in many places… The new rules narrowed suffrage by, for example, requiring voters to be citizens, to register long before elections, and to pass literacy tests to vote. Other rules eliminated straight party-line voting… and even party identification on ballots, making it more difficult for less-educated voters to know whom to vote for. These moves raised the barriers to voting and helped drive down participation in the North. (In the South, of course, new Jim Crow laws essentially prevented any blacks from voting.)

Progressive reforms also eliminated some of the incentives people had to vote… The arrival of the secret ballot in the late 19th century eliminated the easy opportunity to sell one’s vote…

The institution of civil service employment reduced other financial incentives to vote …many Americans voted in order to get jobs for themselves, their relatives, or their friends. The fewer the positions filled by political appointment, the less the incentive to vote…

…government reforms also made it harder for the parties to raise money… [and t]hat, in turn, reduced the hoopla – the parades, bands, and such – and the free goodies that parties could dispense on election day. By the time women got the vote, a lot of the fun had gone out of voting. Turnout rates fell to about 50 percent.

Read Fischer’s full postfor his thoughts on why Americans do and don’t turnout to vote today.

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.

Last week I posted about some potential problems of “awareness branding,” when products are marketed by promising to make a donation to breast cancer research, or wilderness restoration, or something of the sort. Greg P. then sent me a link to a video on RSA Comment where economist/philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues against a reliance on private charity, and particularly ethical consumption, as a solution to global problems. He suggests that, say, buying fair-trade coffee at Starbucks is unlikely to relieve inequities that are directly related to global capitalism (of which Starbucks is a part and beneficiary), and may in fact reinforce them by making individuals in more privileged nations feel like they’ve done something to address the problem, thus relieving them of any obligation to look more deeply into the problem: