Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Tila Tequila has become famous through the strategic display of her culturally-idealized face and body.  A quick Google image search reveals as much:

Her success and celebrity suggests that Tequila has managed to negotiate with sexism such that she, by capitulating to the male gaze, wins. But the idea that it is ever possible to successfully maneuver around patriarchy is challenged by Tequila’s most recent court battle. Nearly seven years ago she and her then-boyfriend filmed themselves having sex. Her ex is now threatening to release this sex tape against Tequila’s will. Tequila went to court to get an injunction against the tape’s release, but the judge denied her request, arguing that “Tila exploits her sexuality” anyway.

Tequila’s exploitation of her own sexuality (or, more accurately, her sex appeal), apparently, gives everyone else the right to exploit her sexuality, too. This is what it means to live in a society in which women are second-class citizens, specifically, the “sex class.”  Women’s bodies are public property. Women are supposed to display them in public for men’s pleasure.  If they do not, they lose: they are dykes, bitches, and ugly, fat, feminazi cunts.  If they do, they lose.

Thanks to Stephanie Hallett at Ms. magazine for the tip.

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.

George H.W. Bush’s 1988 “Willie Horton” campaign ad is infamous for racializing fears of crime, encouraging stereotypes of African American men as violent and threatening. The ad is widely believed to have destroyed Michael Dukakis’s chances for winning the presidency, presenting him as soft on crime. It’s a classic example of race-baiting in political campaigns — ads that present racial/ethnic minorities as threatening. Jesse Helms took a different approach with his affirmative action ad, which draws on some Whites’ fears that they are losing out on jobs because of affirmative action.

This election cycle, a number of candidates have produced ads that clearly attempt to stoke and benefit from anti-Hispanic immigrant sentiment. Talking Points Memo posted a mailer sent out by the Yuma County, Arizona, Republican Party as part of its campaign against Democratic state Representative Rae Waters. One side shows a stop sign full of bullet holes and makes a link between immigrants and neighborhood crime:

SB 1070 is the controversial Arizona law that allows law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of people they have stopped for other violations if there is a “reasonable suspicion” they might be undocumented or not carrying the appropriate papers.

To drive the message home, the other side of the mailer contains an image of a blond child, looking a little disturbed, and again links opposition to SB 1070 to “drugs and violence”:

Here in Nevada, Senate candidate Sharon Angle is currently running this commercial that calls Harry Reid the best friend of “illegals,” who are “putting Americans’ safety and jobs at risk.”

The commercial ends with this image:

She has a second commercial that plays on the same themes:

In West Virginia, this ad against Nick Rahall, a Christian Lebanese-American, prominently displays the phrase “Arab Americans” (he chaired Arab Americans for Obama) while scary music plays in the background:

If you have other examples of racialized or anti-immigrant imagery in current campaign ads, let us know.

UPDATE: S. Elle let us know about this ad by Senator David Vitter, of Louisiana, which is very similar to the Angle commercials:

And kantmakm provided a link to this billboard outside Grand Junction, Colorado:

In the comments thread to a recent post presenting an image of Afghanistan that doesn’t focus on war, violence, and misery, a Reader by the name of “S” linked to a documentary called Afghan Star.  The film documents an American Idol-style competition, one that places contestants at risk of violence, but also engenders intense devotion from some Afghanis.  It reveals another side of Afghanistan that Americans typically do not see.

The trailer:

Thanks to Myaisha for catching the comment!

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.

Allison M., Liz B., and G.Z. sent in a link to a post at Jezebel that highlights stereotypical female characters in movies and on TV. The image takes the form of a flowchart, created by Mlawski at Overthinking It (which is currently experiencing technical difficulties). Mlawski says, “Hollywood has a significantly harder time writing non-stereotypical female characters than male ones, so I made this chart to help out.” Click to enlarge, then hit “full size” at the bottom of the larger image to see an easily-readable version:

Of course, many of these characters wouldn’t be inherently problematic — men are often portrayed in one-dimensional roles, etc., and I personally adore Lucille Bluth — if it weren’t for the fact that they’re so pervasive compared to female characters shown as complex, interesting protagonists who aren’t either bitchy shrews or unfulfilled until they can find the right man/have a baby.

Also check out our post on the Bechdel Test.

Robin M. let us know about an image at Mother Jones that apportions out seats in the Senate and House of Representatives not by state or party, but by financial backers. Dave Gilson asks, “What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to the industries which gave them the most money over their entire careers?” Here’s the methodology used to create the charts:

The Congressional seating chart is based on which industry has given the most to each member of Congress over his or her career. This means that members are seated according to the industry that has given a plurality of donations. For example, a member who received 20% of her donations from financial firms and 19% from unions would be seated in the finance, insurance, and real estate bloc.

Corporate donations include money given by companies’ employees and political action committees, unless noted otherwise. Counting employees as corporate donors isn’t perfect: You may not give to a candidate with your employer’s interests in mind. Yet excluding individual contributions would overlook “bundled” gifts from a company’s employees as well as gifts from executives and their families.

Clearly that doesn’t provide a perfect measure of where campaign money comes from, but it does give a sense of the major players. Here’s the result for the Senate, where finance/insurance/real estate wins the day:

And here we have the House, where labor unions play a much larger role:

Obviously the real impact of some of these industries will be greater than what shows up here, since many will be major, but not the single largest, source of funds to lots of candidates. And we don’t know the actual value of the donations for those seats; perhaps the transportation industry, say,contributes to fewer candidates but spent much more on them than labor did on average per campaign. Knowing who the biggest single donor to a politician is doesn’t necessarily tell us a lot about how beholden the official might feel to that industry. And it doesn’t include any of the indirect spending groups do on “issue ads” that don’t clearly endorse a particular candidate, or to the Democratic or Republican campaign committees overall rather than an individual.

Nonetheless, I think it’s a useful graphic for highlighting who some of the big players are.

UPDATE: Reader A.D. Pask-Hughes asks…well, “so what?” Fair question, especially given that I outline a number of methodological flaws. What struck me as interesting:

1) The differences in primary donors between the Senate and the House, particularly that labor is so much more visible in the House

2) The relatively low profile (from this measure) of defense

and

3) The difficulties in accurately measuring “influence” in Congress.

Lauren S. sent us a fun illustration of the social construction of chocolate. She writes:

Dove Promises, as it happens, contain a printed message beneath their individual foil wrappings—a message which, according to the cloying copy on the back of the package, “is filled with thoughts of joy and strength, along with positive reflections that will inspire you each day”. Fair enough. Mine was some tripe about rainbows. My boyfriend’s, on the other hand, was an amusing bit of gender assumption:

So in case the name “Dove Promises,” the cursive writing, and the heart shapes didn’t give it away, Dove brand chocolate is FOR GIRLS ONLY. Notice also that Dove is commandeering pseudo-feminist notions of girl power.

Lauren also observes the interesting marketing effort in the second phrase, “You deserve this!”

I immediately thought of Jean Kilbourne’s Can’t Buy My Love… and its emphasis upon the seductive marketing of indulgent food specifically to women… the “inspiring” message was a tired re-tread of that same old idea in which food advertisers so often seem to engage: these are “women’s” foods, and the “joy and strength” you’re missing in your life can be found right here in this bit of dark, rich chocolate, so go ahead, girl, indulge. You can always throw your money at the diet industry afterward.

Thanks Lauren!

For more on the social construction of chocolate: a gender-reversed vintage ad, a contemporary gender-“reversal” in Japan, cupcakes for men, and chocolates in the tampon aisle.

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.

History isn’t fact, but a narrative.  Nations narrate their own histories, telling the stories about themselves that they prefer.  Holidays are one way in which these stories are told and re-told.

At www.america.gov, the U.S. government describes Columbus Day as a”commemoration” of Columbus’ “landing in the New World” (they astutely avoid the term “discovery”) and initiating a “lasting encounter” between the mis-named “Indians” and Europeans (no mention of genocide or the stealing of land).

Contesting this particular version of history, an organization calling itself Reconsider Columbus Day is asking Americans to adopt an alternative national narrative, one that both acknowledges and emphasizes the oppressive and unjust outcomes of the ongoing “lasting encounter” between American “Indians” and Europeans-now-Americans.

The narrative and counter-narrative is an interesting example of how nation-founding memories are not set, but always potentially changing as the national ethos and distribution of power shifts underneath them.

For more on national memories, see our post comparing the German approach to the Holocaust and the America approach to slavery.

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 this video, suggested by Dmitriy T.M., photographer Aaron Huey powerfully illustrates the history of the relationship between the U.S. and the Lakota of the Sioux Nation.   It includes the making and breaking of treaties, the use of the idea of private property to strip the Lakota of their land, the Battle of Wounded Knee, the stealing of the Black Hills, and the socio-economic (and related) disadvantages faced by the Lakota 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.