Search results for Gender wage gap

Today is Labor Day in the U.S. Though many think of it mostly as a last long weekend for recreation and shopping before the symbolic end of summer, the federal holiday, officially established in 1894, celebrates the contributions of labor.

Here are some SocImages posts on a range of issues related to workers, from the history of the labor movement, to current workplace conditions, to the impacts of the changing economy on workers’ pay:

The Social Construction of Work

• The surprisingly racist reason we don’t tip flight attendants
• Luxury and the consumption of labor
• The unsung heroes of the crash landing in San Francisco (pictured)
• Why do firefighters take such risky jobs?
• McDonald’s delusional blame-the-victim budget
• Devaluing hospitality workers
• Domestic  behavior as both gendered and raced: Who does what for airlines?
• Child labor and the social construction of childhood
• Child labor, 1908-1912
• Women are 49% of the workforce, but we still think work is for men

Work in Popular Culture

• Children’s books and segregation in the workplace
• Alienation and orange juice: The invisibility of labor
• Hurricane Sandy and high fashion: Portraying a class hierarchy
• Whimsical branding obscures Apple’s troubled supply chain
• The “working family” discourse and the invisibility of individuals
• The DJ in American culture: Resonant but misunderstood
• Whiteness and tokenism on the runway
• The solution to patriarchy? Pantene says shine!
• Forbes’ photostock faux paus (what do women workers look like?)

Unemployment, Underemployment, and the “Class War”

• The “Precariat”: The new working class
• When classes collide: Workers and guests at high end hotels
• Who benefits from government programs?
• $22.62/hr: The minimum wage if it had risen like the incomes of the 1%
• Why can’t conservatives see the benefits of affordable child care?
• Food stamps, public policy, and the working poor
• The striking rise in “missing workers”
• Can the minimum wage cover average housing costs?
• Discrimination against the long-term unemployed
• Jon Stewart on class warfare
• Mike Rowe defends blue-collar manual labor

Unions and Unionization

• What have unions ever done for us?
• Footage of strikes and protests
• “Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks?”
• A way for feminism to overcome its “class problem”
• Target’s anti-union video for new employees
• Unemployment and support for unions
• César Chávez and the fight for farmworkers’ rights
• Hiring non-union workers to staff picket lines
• “A woman’s place is in her union!”

Economic Change, Globalization, and the Great Recession

• U.S jobs are back, but they’re no match for population growth
• The U.S. is replacing good jobs with bad ones
• Whose economic recovery is it?
• Prison labor and taxpayer dollars
• The austerity agenda and public employment
• Comparing black and white job loss in the recession
• The exploitation of worker productivity
• What kinds of jobs are we gaining in the slow recovery?
• Historical look at changes in types of work
• Two American families trapped in a changing economy
• Race and the economic downturn

Work and race, ethnicity, religion, and immigration

• Distrust for Black entrepreneurs
• Race in the NFL draft
• Are Mexicans the most successful immigrant group?
• Race, criminal background, and employment
• The curious evolution of the sign spinnner
• Linguistic occupational segregation
• International politics and the first African American flight attendants
• Anti-Muslim bias on the French job market
• Race/ethnicity and the pay gap
• Race, ethnicity, and McDonald’s marketing strategy

Gender and Work

• Majority of “stay-at-home dads” aren’t there to care for family
• Most women would rather divorce than be a housewife
• Before the stewardess, the “steward”: When flight attendants were men
• Star Trek is scaring the ladies: Why women don’t major in computer science
• What do little girls really learn from “Career Barbies”?
• “Dude, you need to get into nursing”: How organizations recruit men into nursing
• Stay-at-home mothers on the rise among low-income families
• Gender at The New York Times
• Mother, sex object, worker: The transformation of the female flight attendant
• Female movie stars peak at 34, but men see success till the end
• What kind of work does Women’s History month value?
• Men’s and women’s work: It’s the 1950s at Brinks Home Security
• Women’s refusal to be deferent and the words that describe them
• Why “breadwinner moms” don’t portend a coming matriarchy
• Single mother, meet jobless man
• Gender, work, and family time
• First-time mothers and access to paid work leave
• The role of employer selection in gendered job segregation

The U.S. in International Perspective

• Overwork and its costs
• The U.S. is las in paid vacation and holidays
• International comparison of workplace leave policies
• Vacation in international perspective

Academia

• What do professors do all day?
• Gender and the dual career academic couple
• How many PhDs are professors?
• Professors join the “precariat”

Just for Fun

• How professors spend their time
• Precious academic moments

Who is the highest paid employee of your state?

• Secrets of the Internet Adult Film Database
• Two-thirds of college students think they’re going to change the world

Bonus!

• Advice for new college grads from two sociologists

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.

The Nation sparked a robust discussion last week with its incisive online conversation, Does Feminism Have a Class Problem? The panelists addressed the “Lean In” phenomenon, articulating how and why Sheryl Sandberg’s focus on self-improvement – rather than structural barriers and collective action to overcome them – angered quite a few feminists on the left.

While women of different economic backgrounds face many different realities, they also share similar work-life balance struggles. In that vein, the discussants argue that expanding family-friendly workplace policies – which would improve the lives of working women up and down the economic ladder – could help bridge the feminist class divide.

A growing body of research indicates that there are few other interventions that improve the economic prospects and work-life balance of women workers as much as unions do. A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which I co-authored with my colleagues Janelle Jones and John Schmitt, shows just how much of a boost unions give to working women’s pay, benefits and workplace flexibility.

For example, all else being equal, women in unions earn an average of 13 percent – that’s about $2.50 per hour – more than their non-union counterparts. In other words, unionization can raise a woman’s pay as much as a full year of college does. Unions also help move us closer to equal pay: a study by the National Women’s Law Center determined that the gender pay gap for union workers is only half of what it is for those not in unions.

Unionized careers tend to come with better health and retirement benefits, too. CEPR finds that women in unions are 36 percent more likely to have health insurance through their jobs – and a whopping 53 percent more likely to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Unions also support working women at those crucial times when they need time off to care for themselves or their families. Union workplaces are 16 percent more likely to allow medical leave and 21 percent more likely to offer paid sick leave. Companies with unionized employees are also 22 percent more likely to allow parental leave, 12 percent more likely to offer pregnancy leave, and 19 percent more likely to let their workers take time off to care for sick family members.

Women make up almost half of the union workforce and are on track to be in the majority by 2025. As women are overrepresented in the low-wage jobs that are being created in this precarious economy – they are 56.4% of low-wage workers and over half of fast food workers – unions are leading and supporting many of the campaigns to improve their situations. In an important sense, the union movement already is a women’s movement.

Education and skills can get women only so far. It’s a conundrum that women have surpassed men when it comes to formal schooling, yet women have made little progress catching up on pay. Many women who do everything right — getting more education and skills — still find themselves with low wages and no benefits.

With unions already playing a central role in helping to meet the needs working women and their families in the 21^st century economy, anyone concerned about the well-being of women should also care about unions.

Nicole Woo is the director of domestic policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.  This post is based on her new study,  “Women, Working Families, and Unions,” and originally appeared at Girl w/ Pen!

Course Guide for
SOCIOLOGY OF WORK
(last updated 9/2014)

Developed by Lisa Wade
Occidental College

Disclaimer: I am not a sociologist of work.  If you are, I would love to see someone take a more expert crack at this.  Please feel free to volunteer!

The Social Construction of Work

• Luxury and the consumption of labor
• Why do firefighters take such risky jobs?
• McDonald’s delusional blame-the-victim budget
• Devaluing hospitality workers
• Child labor and the social construction of childhood
• Child labor, 1908-1912
• Women are 49% of the workforce, but we still think work is for men

Work in Popular Culture

• Children’s books and segregation in the workplace
• Alienation and orange juice: The invisibility of labor
• Hurricane Sandy and high fashion: Portraying a class hierarchy
• Whimsical branding obscures Apple’s troubled supply chain
• The “working family” discourse and the invisibility of individuals
• The DJ in American culture: Resonant but misunderstood
• Whiteness and tokenism on the runway
• The solution to patriarchy? Pantene says shine!
• Forbes’ photostock faux paus (what do women workers look like?)

Unemployment, Underemployment, and the “Class War”

• The “Precariat”: The new working class
• When classes collide: Workers and guests at high end hotels
• Who benefits from government programs?
• $22.62/hr: The minimum wage if it had risen like the incomes of the 1%
• Why can’t conservatives see the benefits of affordable child care?
• Food stamps, public policy, and the working poor
• The striking rise in “missing workers”
• Can the minimum wage cover average housing costs?
• Discrimination against the long-term unemployed
• Jon Stewart on class warfare
• Mike Rowe defends blue-collar manual labor

Unions and Unionization

• What have unions ever done for us?
• Footage of strikes and protests
• “Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks?”
• A way for feminism to overcome its “class problem”
• Target’s anti-union video for new employees
• Unemployment and support for unions
• César Chávez and the fight for farmworkers’ rights
• Hiring non-union workers to staff picket lines
• “A woman’s place is in her union!”

Economic Change, Globalization, and the Great Recession

• U.S jobs are back, but they’re no match for population growth
• The U.S. is replacing good jobs with bad ones
• Whose economic recovery is it?
• Prison labor and taxpayer dollars
• The austerity agenda and public employment
• Comparing black and white job loss in the recession
• The exploitation of worker productivity
• What kinds of jobs are we gaining in the slow recovery?
• Historical look at changes in types of work
• Two American families trapped in a changing economy
• Race and the economic downturn

Gender and Work

• Majority of “stay-at-home dads” aren’t there to care for family
• Most women would rather divorce than be a housewife
• Before the stewardess, the “steward”: When flight attendants were men
• Star Trek is scaring the ladies: Why women don’t major in computer science
• What do little girls really learn from “Career Barbies”?
• “Dude, you need to get into nursing”: How organizations recruit men into nursing
• Stay-at-home mothers on the rise among low-income families
• Gender at The New York Times
• Mother, sex object, worker: The transformation of the female flight attendant
• Female movie stars peak at 34, but men see success till the end (pictured)
• What kind of work does Women’s History month value?
• Men’s and women’s work: It’s the 1950s at Brinks Home Security
• Women’s refusal to be deferent and the words that describe them
• Why “breadwinner moms” don’t portend a coming matriarchy
• Single mother, meet jobless man
• Gender, work, and family time
• First-time mothers and access to paid work leave
• The role of employer selection in gendered job segregation

Work and Racial, Ethnic, and National Identity

• Luxury and the consumption of labor
• Children’s books and segregation in the workplace
• Whiteness and tokenism on the runway
• Whimsical branding obscures Apple’s troubled supply chain
• When classes collide: Workers and guests at high end hotels
• The surprisingly racist reason we don’t tip flight attendants
• Questioning the benefits of “rescue” from prostitution
• Porn producers with a heart of gold?
• Distrust for Black entrepreneurs
• Race in the NFL draft
• Are Mexicans the most successful immigrant group?
• Race, criminal background, and employment
• The curious evolution of the sign spinnner
• Linguistic occupational segregation
• Anti-Muslim bias on the French job market
• Race/ethnicity and the pay gap
• Race, ethnicity, and McDonald’s marketing strategy

The U.S. in International Perspective

• The U.S. is las in paid vacation and holidays
• International comparison of workplace leave policies
• Vacation in international perspective

Specific Occupations

Flight Attendants

• The surprisingly racist reason we don’t tip flight attendants
• The unsung heroes of the crash landing in San Francisco
• Before the stewardess, the “steward”: When flight attendants were men
• Surprise! Your flight attendants are all strangers
• International politics and the first African American flight attendants
• Are flights full? Airline advertising vs. real life
• Domestic behavior as both gendered and raced: Who does what for airlines?
• Mother, sex object, worker: The transformation of the female flight attendant
• Hanging onto the stewardess at Delta Airlines
• Fly the unfriendly skies: Sexism and homophobia among pilots
• Sexism in aviation: Then and now

Sex Workers

• Female sex tourists in the Caribbean
• Humanizing sex workers
• Sex work in Las Vegas
• Phone sex: Real and imaginary
• What does the sex industry look like?
• “Work,” “sex work,” and everything in between
• Halloween hall of shame: Fat lap dancer costume
• Development initiatives and the invisibility of power
• Opposing the criminalization of prostitution
• The virgin/whore binary in World War II propoganda
• Personifying danger: Women as vectors of STIs

Academia

• What do professors do all day?
• Gender and the dual career academic couple
• How many PhDs are professors?
• Professors join the “precariat”
• How professors spend their time
• Precious academic moments

Just for Fun

• Who is the highest paid employee of your state?
• Secrets of the Internet Adult Film Database
• Two-thirds of college students think they’re going to change the world

To mark the end of Women’s History Month, we offer this compilation of our posts on women and history.

Sports:

• The Manly Origins of Cheerleading (1800s-2000s)
• The Origins of Boys and Girls Bikes (1890s)
• Women and Exclusion from Long Distance Running (1896-1984; pictured)
• Vintage Women’s Basketball Teams (1900s)
• Opportunity and Athletic Performance (1900s-2000s)

Health:

• Changing Biology: Age at First Menstruation (1840-2000)
• Prohibition and Medicinal Alcohol (1919-1933; pictured)
• Social Hygiene and the Gender of Health (1922)
• Hysteria, the Wandering Uterus, and the “Vaginal Massage” (1930s)
• VD and the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy in WWII Propaganda (1940s)
• Personifying Danger: Women as Vectors of STDS (1940s)
• The Pill and the Invention of the Monthly Cycle (1960s-2000s)
• Male and Female Victims of “Intimate” Homicide (1976-2004)

Fashion and Norms of Attractiveness:

• From Manly to Sexy: The History of the High Heel (1600s, 2000s)
• Ankle Porn and Knee-Gasms: Making Sewing Sexy (1900s-1920s)
• A Historical Look at Bodies as Fashion (1900s-2000s)
• Women Wears Men’s Clothes to a Prize Fight; World Gasps (1910)
• Two Facts about Figure Skating Fashion (1920s-1930s, 1980s)
• The Feminine Ideal (1928; pictured)
• Plastic Surgery Ad (1936)
• Vintage Posters of African American Hair Products (1939)
• Putting Glamour in its Proper Wartime Place (1940s)
• “Are You Popular?”: An Educational Film (1947)
• 1950s Beauty Pageant Judging Guidelines (1959)
• Dressing Ourselves: Gendered vs. Unisex Pants (1960s-’70s)
• Regulating Black Women’s Hair (1969)
• Changing Fashion Standards: Sexy Shoes (1969)
• Gender Neutral Ruffles (1970s)
• Nipples and the Presentation of Femininity (1970s-2000s)
• Model on Cover of Elle has a Real Face (1986)

Work:

• A Historical Look at Changes in Work Type (1850-2000)
• Men Need Women’s Jobs to Avoid Being Bums (1934)
• Modern Appliance Girls (1936)
• World War II Era Chest Protector (1939)
• High-Tech Rosies in World War II (1940s; pictured)
• Myth Making and the “We Can Do It” Poster (1940s)
• The Changing Workplace: Caring for Female Workers (1940s)
• Women Soldiers During World War II (1940s)
• Guide to Hiring Women (1943)
• Vintage PSA for the Equal Pay Act… featuring BatGirl (1963)
• A List of Reasons Not to Hire Women (1963)
• Gender, the U.S. Workforce, and the Recession (1965-2005)
• Futurists Imagine the 21st Century (1967)
• “Don’t Call Me a Cowgirl!” (1969)
• Sexism in Aviation: Then and Now (1970s, 2000s)
• Job Segregation by Sex (1972-2008)
• Gender and Changes in the U.S. Occupational Profile (1972-2012)
• Kitchen and Maid Spanish (1976, 1978)
• Was “Cathy” a Feminist Heroine? (1976-2010)
• More Men and Fewer Women Earning Poverty Wages (1979, 2007)
• Women Cook, Men are Chefs (1980s)

Education:

• Women Now Graduating at Higher Rates than Men (1880s-1970s)

Marriage and Motherhood:

• Replacing Women: Slaves, Servants, and Technologies (1800s, 1940s)
• Miscegenation Ball Anti-Lincoln Cartoon (1864)
• The Two Paths: Good Mothers and Outcast Sluts (early 1900s; pictured)
• Why Did Married Mothers Go to Work? (1900-2002)
• Medicalizing Gendered Marriage (1939)
• Visions of the Future of Housework (1950s)
• Are More Women Marrying Younger Men? (1960-2007)
• Marriage Trends and Why I’m Not Married (1960-2010)
• Class Privilege and Parental Leave (1961-2008)
• “When You Marry”: A Textbook (1962)
• Of Housework and Husbands (1965-1995)
• Ritalin for Moms (1967)
• The Invention of the Playboy (1969)
• Women, Education, and Trends in Childlessness (1976-2008)

Suffrage:

• Vintage Anti-Suffragist Postcards (1900s)
• Facets of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement (1900s)
• How Suffragist Postcards Got Out the Vote (1910s)
• Delay Thanksgiving Dinners to See Suffragettes (1909)
• Against Giving Women the Right to Vote in Massachussetts (1915)
• Celebrating Women’s Suffrage (1919)

Marketing:

• Early Appropriation of the Women’s Movement in Advertising (1910)
• Anxiety about “Objectionable Hair”: Introducing Armpit Shaving (1915, 1934)
• Framing Tampon Use (1940s)
• Marketing Pre-Made, Non-Perishable Food (1940s; pictured)
• “For Men Only”: Vintage Campbell’s Soup Ad (1940s)
• Ad Shows Husband as Primary Caretaker (1947)
• Jell-O to the Rescue (1950s)
• More Leisure through Technology (1950s, 1970s, 2000s)
• Honda Fits She’s and the Dodge LaFemme: History Repeating Itself (1950s, 2000s)
• “The Orchid of Beer”: Beer for Women (1953)
• Changing Midol Ads (1960s, 1990s, 2000s)
• “Treat Your Rifle Like a Lady” (1968)
• “You’ve Got Your Own Cigarette Now, Baby” (1969)
• Mocking Feminism in a Smirnoff Ad (1970s)
• Appropriation of the Women’s Movement (1971)
• Contrasting Stereotypes of Mexican Men and Women (1975)
• Virginia Slims Ads (1978)
• Awesome Vintage LEGO Ad (1981)
• More Gender-Neutral LEGO Ads (1982)
• Marketing the Tampon: “Will I Still Be a Virgin?” (1990s)

Children and Toys:

• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part I (1932-1988; pictured)
• Encouraging Girls to Identify with Barbie (1959)
• Bob Barker Harasses Little Girls on The Price is Right (1970s)
• “Particularly with the Boy”: Worries about Feminization of Boys (1974)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part II (1989-2003)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part III (2004-2011)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part IV (2012)

War and Military:

• War as Sexual Domination (1957)
• Recruiting Women Marines (1970s-2000s)

Activism:

• Wimbledon Cartoon Imagines Progress for Women (1927)
• Appropriating Social Movements in Playboy (1960s-1970s)
• Gender Politics in Life and Time (1971, 1977)

Color, Sound,and Language:

• Men in Pink: Two Velasquez Paintings (1650s)
• Gender and the Social Construction of Sound (1906-2006)
• Changes in Gendered Language Over Time (1930-2005)
• The History of Pink and Blue (1960s)

Just for Fun:

• The Story of the Shopping Cart (1937-2000s)
• Urinals for Women: An Alternative Reality (1953)
• Constructing a Shocking (Falsely) Sexist Past (1955, but not really)
• Disney Futurists Imagine 2010 (1958)

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.

Course Guide for
HISTORY OF WOMEN
(last updated 03/2013)

Developed by Lisa Wade, PhD
Occidental College

Sports:

• The Manly Origins of Cheerleading (1800s-2000s)
• The Origins of Boys and Girls Bikes (1890s)
• Women and Exclusion from Long Distance Running (1896-1984; pictured)
• Vintage Women’s Basketball Teams (1900s)
• Opportunity and Athletic Performance (1900s-2000s)

Health:

• Changing Biology: Age at First Menstruation (1840-2000)
• Prohibition and Medicinal Alcohol (1919-1933; pictured)
• Social Hygiene and the Gender of Health (1922)
• Hysteria, the Wandering Uterus, and the “Vaginal Massage” (1930s)
• VD and the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy in WWII Propaganda (1940s)
• Personifying Danger: Women as Vectors of STDS (1940s)
• The Pill and the Invention of the Monthly Cycle (1960s-2000s)
• Male and Female Victims of “Intimate” Homicide (1976-2004)

Fashion and Norms of Attractiveness:

• From Manly to Sexy: The History of the High Heel (1600s, 2000s)
• Ankle Porn and Knee-Gasms: Making Sewing Sexy (1900s-1920s)
• A Historical Look at Bodies as Fashion (1900s-2000s)
• Women Wears Men’s Clothes to a Prize Fight; World Gasps (1910)
• Two Facts about Figure Skating Fashion (1920s-1930s, 1980s)
• The Feminine Ideal (1928; pictured)
• Plastic Surgery Ad (1936)
• Vintage Posters of African American Hair Products (1939)
• Putting Glamour in its Proper Wartime Place (1940s)
• “Are You Popular?”: An Educational Film (1947)
• 1950s Beauty Pageant Judging Guidelines (1959)
• Dressing Ourselves: Gendered vs. Unisex Pants (1960s-’70s)
• Regulating Black Women’s Hair (1969)
• Changing Fashion Standards: Sexy Shoes (1969)
• Gender Neutral Ruffles (1970s)
• Nipples and the Presentation of Femininity (1970s-2000s)
• Model on Cover of Elle has a Real Face (1986)

Work:

• A Historical Look at Changes in Work Type (1850-2000)
• Men Need Women’s Jobs to Avoid Being Bums (1934)
• Modern Appliance Girls (1936)
• World War II Era Chest Protector (1939)
• High-Tech Rosies in World War II (1940s; pictured)
• Myth Making and the “We Can Do It” Poster (1940s)
• The Changing Workplace: Caring for Female Workers (1940s)
• Women Soldiers During World War II (1940s)
• Guide to Hiring Women (1943)
• Vintage PSA for the Equal Pay Act… featuring BatGirl (1963)
• A List of Reasons Not to Hire Women (1963)
• Gender, the U.S. Workforce, and the Recession (1965-2005)
• Futurists Imagine the 21st Century (1967)
• “Don’t Call Me a Cowgirl!” (1969)
• Sexism in Aviation: Then and Now (1970s, 2000s)
• Job Segregation by Sex (1972-2008)
• Gender and Changes in the U.S. Occupational Profile (1972-2012)
• Kitchen and Maid Spanish (1976, 1978)
• Was “Cathy” a Feminist Heroine? (1976-2010)
• More Men and Fewer Women Earning Poverty Wages (1979, 2007)
• Women Cook, Men are Chefs (1980s)

Education:

• Women Now Graduating at Higher Rates than Men (1880s-1970s)

Marriage and Motherhood:

• Replacing Women: Slaves, Servants, and Technologies (1800s, 1940s)
• Miscegenation Ball Anti-Lincoln Cartoon (1864)
• The Two Paths: Good Mothers and Outcast Sluts (early 1900s; pictured)
• Why Did Married Mothers Go to Work? (1900-2002)
• Medicalizing Gendered Marriage (1939)
• Visions of the Future of Housework (1950s)
• Are More Women Marrying Younger Men? (1960-2007)
• Marriage Trends and Why I’m Not Married (1960-2010)
• Class Privilege and Parental Leave (1961-2008)
• “When You Marry”: A Textbook (1962)
• Of Housework and Husbands (1965-1995)
• Ritalin for Moms (1967)
• The Invention of the Playboy (1969)
• Women, Education, and Trends in Childlessness (1976-2008)

Suffrage:

• Vintage Anti-Suffragist Postcards (1900s)
• Facets of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement (1900s)
• How Suffragist Postcards Got Out the Vote (1910s)
• Delay Thanksgiving Dinners to See Suffragettes (1909)
• Against Giving Women the Right to Vote in Massachussetts (1915)
• Celebrating Women’s Suffrage (1919)

Marketing:

• Early Appropriation of the Women’s Movement in Advertising (1910)
• Anxiety about “Objectionable Hair”: Introducing Armpit Shaving (1915, 1934)
• Framing Tampon Use (1940s)
• Marketing Pre-Made, Non-Perishable Food (1940s; pictured)
• “For Men Only”: Vintage Campbell’s Soup Ad (1940s)
• Ad Shows Husband as Primary Caretaker (1947)
• Jell-O to the Rescue (1950s)
• More Leisure through Technology (1950s, 1970s, 2000s)
• Honda Fits She’s and the Dodge LaFemme: History Repeating Itself (1950s, 2000s)
• “The Orchid of Beer”: Beer for Women (1953)
• Changing Midol Ads (1960s, 1990s, 2000s)
• “Treat Your Rifle Like a Lady” (1968)
• “You’ve Got Your Own Cigarette Now, Baby” (1969)
• Mocking Feminism in a Smirnoff Ad (1970s)
• Appropriation of the Women’s Movement (1971)
• Contrasting Stereotypes of Mexican Men and Women (1975)
• Virginia Slims Ads (1978)
• Awesome Vintage LEGO Ad (1981)
• More Gender-Neutral LEGO Ads (1982)
• Marketing the Tampon: “Will I Still Be a Virgin?” (1990s)

Children and Toys:

• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part I (1932-1988; pictured)
• Encouraging Girls to Identify with Barbie (1959)
• Bob Barker Harasses Little Girls on The Price is Right (1970s)
• “Particularly with the Boy”: Worries about Feminization of Boys (1974)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part II (1989-2003)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part III (2004-2011)
• Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap: Part IV (2012)

War and Military:

• War as Sexual Domination (1957)
• Recruiting Women Marines (1970s-2000s)

Activism:

• Wimbledon Cartoon Imagines Progress for Women (1927)
• Appropriating Social Movements in Playboy (1960s-1970s)
• Gender Politics in Life and Time (1971, 1977)

Color, Sound,and Language:

• Men in Pink: Two Velasquez Paintings (1650s)
• Gender and the Social Construction of Sound (1906-2006)
• Changes in Gendered Language Over Time (1930-2005)
• The History of Pink and Blue (1960s)

Just for Fun:

• The Story of the Shopping Cart (1937-2000s)
• Urinals for Women: An Alternative Reality (1953)
• Constructing a Shocking (Falsely) Sexist Past (1955, but not really)
• Disney Futurists Imagine 2010 (1958)

Time‘s cover story this week is adapted from The Richer Sex, a forthcoming book by Liza Mundy. I provided a few numbers for the story (see below). The content is behind a pay wall here, but the cover gives a taste:

My only beef with the story is that it misidentifies the richer sex, which I’ll return to below. Otherwise, it’s an interesting piece on the (very partial) convergence in roles among married couples. Despite the current stall in progress toward equality, I’m glad to see an article with a positive take on the idea of equality (for middle class straight couples, at least) without focusing on the demise of men.

They only used two of the numbers I sent, so consider the other 9 numbers here a Family Inequality blog exclusive!

First, I showed them the trend in the gender composition of managers from 1980 to 2010. I used the 1990 occupational categories for this (from IPUMS), in the vain hope of maintaining consistency over time*:

My emphasis was on the stall in progress since 1990, so I ended up in the “on the other hand” paragraph of the story.

The other piece of “other hand” I pitched to them was the segregation among managers — with women concentrated in some corners of the managerial world — which I mentioned here, and which Matt Huffman and I studied here. For 2010, that segregation, in broad strokes, looks like this:

This didn’t make it into the story. There was to be only one “on the other hand” paragraph. It’s all about how women are pulling ahead of men and becoming the primary breadwinners, and what that means for gender and relationships.

Of course, women are not yet the richer sex, so the evidence in the article is about trends in that direction. The text says, for example:

Assuming present trends continue, by the next generation, more families will be supported by women than by men.

By the time the graphics department got to it, the “assuming…” part was gone, and this was the header:

The numbers that support this are the trend from 24% of wives out-earning their husbands in 1987 to 38% in 2009 (helped considerably by the mancession’s crimp on men’s jobs in 2008 and 2009). Here’s their graph:

Going from 24% to 38% in 22 years doesn’t mean we’ll pass 50% in another generation. It might be OK for rhetorical purposes to say something like, “at this rate it’ll take 300 years for the U.S. to catch Sweden’s welfare state” — but not OK to say it will happen in that time. If that were true, I could show you this graph and say, “the Earth will be a ball of human flesh expanding at the speed of light in less than 1,000 years!”

Besides projecting from the trend, the other reasonable way to make guesses about the future is to look at young people. For that Liza Mundy reuses a statistic that Time first used in 2010, showing that among those who are single, child free, under 30 and living in metro areas, women have higher earnings than men.

Great, you’re thinking, stay young and single, and don’t have children, and equality is yours!

I do believe our children are the future, but predicting the future from this subset is not a safe bet. The original Time piece is critiqued here and here, although the New York Times hit on this formula for gender equality in 2007 (critiqued here). The basic manipulation here is limiting the comparison to men versus women within a group where women are more likely to have completed college but not yet experienced the wage-diminishing events that now largely begin in the late 20s (marriage, children, and slower earnings growth). It’s an interesting comparison, but shouldn’t be used for projecting the future — or even characterizing the whole present.

Anyway, interesting story.

*There can be no perfectly matching set of occupational categories over long periods of time, because the type of work being done has changed. For example, there were no computer programmers or “customer service representatives” to speak of in 1980, and there are millions now.

2013

• Putting Your Baby in a Cage Used to be Perfectly Acceptable
• High Heels Signify Status, Separate the Classy from the Trashy
• The Lion in the Geico Commercial Ought to be a Lioness

• How Infant and Toddler Girls Learn to Beautify
• The Gender Politics of the Dollhouse
• Vintage Towel Ads Reveal our Changing Perceptions of Homoeroticism
• The Weight Watchers Life Trajectory
• Gender, Power, and Chris Brown’s Battered Woman Tattoo
• An Invisible Option in the Aftermath of “Having It All”: Don’t Have Kids
• Cheerleading’s Manly Beginnings
• How Come Urinals for Women Haven’t Caught On?
• Black Model Little More than Prop in Scottish Catalog
• Once Upon a Time, the Color Blue Was Permissible for Baby Girls
• Baby Girls Make Dads More Interested in Equality

2011

• How Long Does it Take to get a Visa for your Family?
• Japanese Cosmetic Dentistry Helps You Get That Sexy, Infantilized Smile
• Women With The Most Education Also Get The Most Maternity Leave
• Promo Posters And The Sideways Woman
• A Fashion-Advice Counterfactual
• How To Avoid Harassing Asian American Women
• Zappos: ‘Fits For Every Body Type’ (Or Something)
• Looking For More Attention? Drop Some Pounds
• Young American Men Prefer To Have Male Children
• The Racialization Of Mental Illness
• Gross Dress Makes Women Into Urinals
• Minute Maid Will Get You An Engagement Ring
• How Calorie Counts Vary Around The World
• The Gender Gap in Wages
• Prince Charles And The Myth Of Taller Men
• Cats Are For Girls, Dogs Are For Boys
• Are Educational Materials Challenging Or Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes?
• Mis-Illustrating Abortion
• Non-Injectionable Beauty Serums Mimic Botox
• The Race And Gender Gap In Lifetime Earnings
• If We’re Born Gay, How Would We Know?
• What Do Rodeo Queen Competitions Value?
• The Nudity Effect On Men Versus Women
• Carbohydrates Will Help Heal Your Broken Heart
• Making It Manly, Or How To Sell A Car
• How To Turn A Doll Into An Action Figure
• Toy Lets 3-Year-Olds Shave Their Crotch Like Big Girls

2010

• On Women and Street Harassment
• In Fashion: Romanticizin’ Cotton Pickin’
• Boys Get The Short End Of Sex Ed
• How To Treat Female Investors Like Weirdos
• The Gendered World Of Vermont Teddy Bears
• The World Of “Sheikh Romance” Novels
• Brut’s Slapping Game Calls Old Spice Guy’s Masculinity Into Question
• The Female Praying Mantis Was Framed!
• Aspirational Hair, Re-Envisioned
• Tila Tequila’s Sexy Pictures Apparently Invalidate Her Privacy Rights
• At Brides.com, It’s A Very White Wedding
• “Bitches Ain’t Shit” Gets The Glee Treatment
• Fat Girls As Useful Life Accessories
• What Exactly Does a Pre-Homosexual Look Like?
• How To Treat Female Investors Like Weirdos
• Insecurity Knows No Cup Size
• More Women Aren’t Having Children—But Which Women?
• What We Are Eating and Where
• Life as We Know It and Tired Gender Stereotypes
• The Hierarchy Of Food Needs
• Where Are Fashion’s Gender Neutral Clothes?
• Christian Guys on Immodesty, Lust, and the Violence of Women’s Bodies
• A Plus-Size Marketing Mystery
• How Advertising Reinforces Mommy and Daddy Roles
• Why You Should Lie in Your Online Dating Profile
• Feathers And Fashion: Native American Is In Style
• College Majors Involving “Women”
• Barbies, Models, And The Uncanny Valley
• Your Used Pregnancy Test Can Be A Valuable Keepsake
• Creepy: 1960s Pall Mall “Girl Watcher’s” Ads
• Chicks Dig Big Tanks
• What To Do If You Spot A Homosexual
• Sex, College Degrees & Campus Equity
• More Fetishization Of Black Bodies As Fashion Props (Mildly NSFW)
• Woman Wears Men’s Clothes To A Prizefight; World Gasps
• More Sexualized Violence in Fashion
• “A Coed With A Problem,” And By “Problem” I Mean “Breasts”

This Course Guide is in progress and will be updated as I have time.

Disclaimer: If you’re thinking about writing a course guide.  I totally overdid it on this one!  It doesn’t have to be nearly this extensive.

Course Guide for
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
(last updated 5/2012)

Developed by Gwen Sharp
Nevada State College

C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination

Intersection of biography and history as illustrated by:

• Year of birth and life success
• Kids’ exposure to technology
• Baby naming practices and media trends
• Other historical trends in baby names

“the capacity for astonishment is made lively again”

• The background of “Scotch” tape
• Applying the anthropological lens to “dark, mysterious Austria”

Karl Marx/Marxist analysis

• Marxist analysis of current economic crisis
• Invisibility of workers

Emile Durkheim

• The dangers of the ecological fallacy: measuring “sin” statistically

[Because the course guide has gotten to be so long, I’m putting the rest of it after the jump.]

more...