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Naama Nagar sent in these images from a “booklet that was intended to assist male bosses in supervising their new female employees at RCA plants,” according to the National Archives, Southeast Region (found via Michael Zilberman’s history blog; sorry it’s in Hebrew):

Text:

When you supervise a woman…Make clear her part in the process or product on which she works. * Allow for her lack of familiarity with machine processes. * See that her working set-up is comfortable, safe and convenient. * Start her right by kindly and careful supervision. * Avoid horseplay or “kidding”; she may resent it. * Suggest rather than reprimand. * When she does a good job, tell her so. * Listen to and aid her in her work problems.

Text:

Finally–call on a trained woman counselor in your personnel department…to find out what women workers think and want. * To discover personal causes of poor work, absenteeism, turnover.  * To assist women workers in solving personal difficulties. * To interpret women’s attitudes and actions. * To assist in adjusting women to their jobs.

Text:

When you put a woman to work…Have a job breakdown for her job. * Consider her education, work experience and temperament in assigning her to that job. * Have the necessary equipment, tools and supplies ready for her. * Try out her capacity for and familiarity with the work. * Assign her to a shift in accordance with health, home obligations and transportation arrangements. * Place her in a group of workers with similar backgrounds and interests. * Inform her fully on health and safety rules, company policies, company objectives. * Be sure she knows the location of rest-rooms, lunch facilities, dispensaries. * Don’t change her shift too often and never without notice.

These are interesting from a gender perspective, of course, but they’re also sort of fascinating for what they tell us about changing assumptions about what the workplace is (or should be) like. While there were many problems with the World War II (and post-war) workplace, there was also a certain assumption that companies would take care of their employees to some degree in return for employees’ loyalty and hard work. This comes through in instructions such as “Assign her to a shift in accordance with health, home obligations and transportation work” and “Don’t change her shift too often and never without notice.” The idea is that workplaces, including factories, should think about their employees’ lives and how their work schedules fit in with their other obligations, as well as provide things like dispensaries. Now, I’m sure many companies didn’t actually meet these ideals, but this booklet sent out to managers at least acknowledges that they exist. Today, most workplaces don’t even pretend to aspire to such ideals. While some privileged white-collar workers may have options like flexible hours or working from home, many workers find that their hours and schedules change from week to week, making it difficult to arrange child care or work around other obligations. McDonald’s is well known for making workers sign out during slow periods during their shift to keep payroll down (workers are expected to be available, however, should business pick back up) and Wal-Mart has been sued for failing to pay overtime or for asking workers to work off the clock, again to reduce payroll costs.

So these might be useful for a discussion of work and what we expect from the worker-employer relationship. Is it simply a contractual financial exchange? Do workers and employers owe each other anything besides an hour of work and an hour of pay at the agreed-upon price? How have employers pushed concerns about schedule disruptions and payroll reductions off on workers, forcing them to accommodate the company’s needs?

Thanks, Naama!

First, thanks to all of you for making 2008 a great year for Sociological Images!  Our list of 152 blogs that link to us is one tiny way that we try to show our appreciation.  Browse through our list, if you like, and if you link to us in your blogroll and aren’t on there, please send us a note at socimages@thesocietypages.org to let us know.

Second, as usual, we have been up to some stuff behind your back!  Here it is:

Remember how the swastika didn’t used to connote total evil?  Neither did we. We added several more examples of pre-Nazi uses of the swastika to this post.

The Canadian Centre for Diversity put out an interesting PSA along the lines of the U.S. “I am African” campaign (so brilliantly parodied).  Find the link here.  Thanks to Julie C. for sending it in!

Our post about rape as hyperconformity to masculine norms sparked a ton of comments, many of them negative.  Maybe these screenshots of a whole series of recipes for a drink called the “Liquid Panty Remover” will influence you one way or the other.   Enjoy!  (Thanks to an anonymous commenter and Vidya for pointed us to a hoax billboard that led us to discover these.)

We added another example of an image of sexualized dominance, this time women’s dominance over men, to our post on the theme.  Thanks to Stumblng Tumblr for the submission!

Still on the topic of sex:  Laura at The F Word posted a video of a commercial that just begged to be added to our post on ejaculation imagery.

You wine drinkers are all sissies!  We added another set of ads to this post on messages about masculinity in Jim Beam ads.  Also on the theme of masculinity, we added a Gillette shampoo ad that tells men to “take charge” of their hair to this post about masculinizing beauty products.  And a reader sent us a link to more antics from Dmitri the Lover (I feel gross just writing his name).

We added a series of furnishings shaped like female bodies–mostly tits and asses really–to a post on in-no-way-theoretical objectification. Click here for the post.  Here’s a teaser just for fun:

Relatedly, we added an image of a pole-dancer alarm clock from a catalog to this post featuring the “Bitchcruiser.”  Yeah, you gotta take a look at that one.

On the theme of using women’s bodies to “sell” stuff, here’s another image showing how PETA sexualizes women as a way to advocate vegetarianism.

On gender and socialization, we added a screen shot of an Amazon webpage showing what to buy “for her” and “for him” to our post about gendered holiday gift marketing (sent in by Sofia A.) and we added an image of the video game Imagine: Babies to this post about how Miss Bimbo socializes girls into traditional gender roles.

Speaking of banal stereotypes, Jasmine sent us some more examples of truly boring uses of stereotypes.  This time they are used to promote eye care.  Find them here.

We added an image comparing a Brazilian brand of rum to Brazilian waxes (you know, those kinds of waxes) to make the claim that the brand is authentic to this post.  Because there’s nothing more authentic than a woman waxed to look like a child.  What!?

Finally, what better way to end our list than with a post about animals, “love,” and babies!  A bonded pair of male penguins at a zoo were replacing the eggs of male-female couples with rocks and sneaking off with their eggs.  The zoo keepers helped them legitimately adopt and now everyone’s happy.  We added a picture of this couple to our post about actual “homosexual” pairings among animals.

In case you thought the craze for sanitary or anti-bacterial products was new, here’s a Cremo cigar ad from the 1920s (found at the Microfilm Gallery) that scares consumers with the specter of cigars covered in “mites of malice”:

Text:

Just think! On the hands of a cigar-maker may lurk many different kinds of disease germs…crippling ‘mites of malice’ that you may draw into your mouth through hand-made cigars. To awaken men to this invisible danger…I want to tell the truth about Cremo–the only cigar whose purity I can truly certify. Every tobacco leaf entering the Cremo factory is scientifically sterilized by U.S. Government approved methods. Cremo is fit for you mouth, because it is not made in stuffy, dingy lofts and stores…but in air-flooded, sun-bathed, scientifically-clean factories. Not by antiquated methods…but by marvelous inventions that fold, wrap, and tip the cigars with sanitary metal fingers. This scientific, Cremo-method of manufacture guarantees you cigars of the same high health protection that you get in certified milk! What’s more…Cremo purity is quickly sealed in individual sanitary foil. Thus Cremo reaches your lips with a pleasure that you can trust!

What I like here is the total faith in technology and mass production. It’s safer! It’s innovative! It’s sanitary! It’s a striking contrast to the concerns often expressed about scientific innovations and their possible negative effects. It would also be a good example for talking about the way that perceptions of manufacturing methods have changed. In the 1920s, the idea of mass-produced cigars was exciting and modern. The fact that they were made with “metal fingers” was a selling point. Today, on the other hand, the techniques referred to in this ad as “antiquated” might be called “artisanal,” a word that connotes craftsmanship and quality. According to About.com,

The novice smoker may be tempted to start by trying those machine made brands sold in Drug Stores, such as Dutch Masters or El Producto. However, the aspiring connoisseur should consider spending a few more pennies and moving up to hand rolled cigars, which are sold online or at a local tobacconist.

Maybe someday we’ll think of soap that isn’t anti-bacterial as a high-quality, artisanal product.

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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The belief that men and women are “opposite sexes” doesn’t come out of thin air.  It doesn’t, very often, come out of our life experience either, as most people most of us know are not living stereotypes.  No, in fact we are TOLD that men and women are “opposite sexes” constantly.  Consider this submission from Andrea G.:

You can now buy One-A-Day vitamins for teens, boy and girl teens that is (and in case you can’t tell which one is which, they’re color-coded).  According to Women’s Health News, the vitamins “for him” have more magnesium and the vitamins “for her” have more calcium and iron.

(1) Notice the obnoxious invisibility of dad (my emphasis):

Did you know there are gender specific teen multivitamins to address the top health concerns of moms and teens?

This is annoying, of course, because it reproduces the idea that dads don’t care about or aren’t paying attention to their kids.  But it’s also kind of ridiculous because, as long as we’re going by stereotypes, if there’s one social group less concerned with health than men, it’s teenagers.

(2)  I will leave aside whether teenaged female and male bodies are so dramatically different that they need different vitamins and minerals (I am not convinced), and instead just point out that One-A-Day has gendered what vitamins are for.  Check out the first bullet point in the close-up (in case you can’t tell which is which, the “For Him” is in block letters with stripes across his torso and the “For Her” is in cursive with spirally curves):

So boys need vitamins for muscles and girls need vitamins for clear skin?

I bet these vitamins will sell like hotcakes.

Thanks Andrea!

Marriage–as a social and legal institution–has not always been what it is today.

In early American history, when families largely lived on farms and worked for sustenance, people didn’t marry because they loved each other.  And they certainly didn’t split up because they did not.  Marriage choices were highly influenced by their families and, once married, husbands and wives formed a working partnership aimed at production.  They teamed up to support themselves and make children who would take care of them when they were old and help them in the meantime.

Today, we still (generally) think of marriage as comprised of a man, a woman, and kids, but mutual love and happiness are now central goals of marriage.  This idea only emerged in the 1900s.  It hasn’t actually been around all that long.

I bring this up in order to shed some light on the pro- and anti- gay marriage rhetoric.

On the one hand, those against gay marriage need to define “marriage” in a way that excludes same-sex couples.  One way to do this is to refer to a “traditional” marriage (image found here).

But there is no such thing as a “traditional” marriage, just a long history of evolving forms of marriage.  For example, few anti-gay marriage types would actually be in favor of returning marriage to one in which women were property that can’t contract, vote, testify in court, own anything, and have no rights to their own bodies or custody of their children (though the idea that women are property is still out there today).  Because there is no such thing as a “traditional” marriage (that is, no reason to privilege one historical form over another), when someone speaks of “traditional” marriage, they actually just mean “the kind of marriage that I like that I am pretending existed throughout all time before this current threat right now.”

On the other hand, to make an argument in favor of gay marriage rights, the movement must either (1) change the collective agreement as to what marriage is (the social construction of marriage) or (2) convince the collective that gay marriage already is what we believe marriage to be.

This ad in favor of gay marriage does the latter. Mobilizing the social construction of marriage as about love, the commercial then defines same-sex relationships as about love. If you accept both premises, then, presto, you are pro-gay marriage.  That is exactly what this commercial is trying to do:

NEW!  This Swedish commercial for Bjorn Borg’s dating website, sent in by Ed L., similarly mobilizes the idea that marriage is for love and that gay men’s marriages are, therefore, beautiful:

I found this vintage outfit in an antique store the other day and bought it, despite having no children. I thought it was a great example of how our “only girls wear pink and only boys wear blue” rule is arbitrary and wasn’t always as strictly enforced as it is today.

Of course, you could also use it in a discussion of how girls are allowed to appropriate “masculine” things (i.e., a girl can wear blue) in a way boys can’t usually do with things coded feminine (a boy wearing pink, for instance).

I suppose the pink bows on the ducks were supposed to make it appropriate for a girl?

UPDATE: Ok, according to several commenters, this is a boys’ outfit. The woman at the store was adamant that it was for a girl. I’m guessing it was the ruffles and the cute little duckies. That could be another topic for discussion–what clues were she and I looking at to decide what gender this outfit was manufactured for? Thanks for the correction, readers!

I am not convinced that most people are as carefree about the colors their kids are dressed in as some of the commenters are, though. Yes, both boys and girls might wear orange…but they’ll usually be different shades of orange, mixed with different other colors, with very different patterns. Go to a store selling kids clothes right now and stand in the middle between the girls’ and boys’ sections and look back and forth at the clothes (I did this recently). I don’t think there will be very many items that are not clearly gendered–where you think “I have no idea whether this was manufactured for a boy or a girl. The colors give me no clue.” And most parents would not take kindly to you giving their kids clothes for the “other” gender…Believe me, I’ve been dumb enough to think it wouldn’t matter, and it most certainly does, apparently. You might get away with giving a girl a t-shirt with a dinosaur or firetruck on it, but you give someone’s son a lavender t-shirt with a dragonfly on it? Well…go try it and let me know how it goes.

Today I saw an interesting talk about public reaction to the Humane Society (HSUS) video of cruel treatment of cattle at the Westland/Hallmark slaughterhouse in Chino, California. As you may recall, someone from the Humane Society took a job at the plant and secretly videotaped the practices there for about four months. In late January, 2008, HSUS released the video. Here is a video from the HSUS website that shows images from the original video footage (and yes, it’s a disturbing video, even by my Oklahoma-ranch-raised standards):

The talk I saw today, titled “Westland/Hallmark: When You Don’t Care Enough to Send the Very Best,” by David Holt and Michelle R. Worosz (presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society in Manchester, NH) provided an interesting analysis of how issues get framed in the public. The HSUS undertook this investigation, and released the video, primarily because of concerns about animal cruelty and the mistreatment of cattle, particularly those that could not stand or move on their own.

But as sociologists studying framing and social movements have often noted, once an issue gets out there, organizations can’t control what the public, lawmakers, or the media will make of it, and this case is a good example. Once the news broke, what came to the forefront were food safety issues, particularly the idea that so-called “downer cows” (that is, cows that can’t stand or walk on their own) might have made it into the food supply. Downer cows are a concern because of the (very small) risk that they might be suffering neurological damage from BSE, or Mad Cow disease. After an outcry several years ago downer cows were barred from human consumption, but back in 2007 the USDA quietly relaxed the standards so that downer cows can be slaughtered for human consumption if a Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinarian inspects and passes them.

Anyway, it turns out that this particular meat processor was a major supplier of beef to the nation’s school lunch program. This exacerbated concerns about the (remote) possibility of BSE-infected meat getting into the food supply. And that quickly overwhelmed the animal-cruelty concerns that had motivated the HSUS investigation in the first place. The Congressional hearings and (superficial) changes to processing practices that occurred as a result of the video focused primarily on improving food safety, with little discussion of how animals bound for slaughter are, or should be, treated.

It reminded me of how Upton Sinclair said that, when he wrote The Jungle, that he “aimed for the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,” meaning that he’d meant to bring attention to the horrific conditions immigrant workers faced at work but what the public outcry centered on was the idea of rats in their meat.

I thought this might be a good example of how activists try to frame issues but have incomplete control of the framing process once it enters the public domain and may find that media depictions and public discussions of the issue take a very different path than they would have liked.