Search results for inequality

I am curious as to what you, Readers, think of the recent rash of advertising capitalizing on Obama’s “brand.” Here are some examples (found here, here, here, and here).

Budweiser American Ale:

A language school in Israel:

Ikea:

In other posts we’ve suggested that ads that appropriate feminism trivialize gender inequality and ultimatly undermine feminist efforts to attain social justice for women (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Like many of the “feminist” ads, these ads seem to be genuinely celebrating Obama’s election.  Do they?  Or do they trivialize everything he claim to stand for and the difficult road ahead for both him and the country? Something in between? Something else entirely?

What do you think?

NEW: Breck C. pointed out the Obama Chia Pet:

Amid a controversy that the Obama Chia pet was racist, Walgreens pulled the product.

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.

Muriel M.M. brought my attention to the catalog for Galls, a company that makes equipment and uniforms for public safety officers (military, police, firefighting, etc.). Muriel, an EMT, says,

The thing about their products is they don’t change much. Over the ten years I’ve received the catalog I can pretty much tell you what’s going to be in it: guns, batons, handcuffs, clothing such as boots, coats, uniforms, etc. Medical equipment and fire equipment are sold such as sirens, lights, latex gloves, breathing equipment. The list goes on and on.

But the newest version of the catalog Muriel received has something new: handcuffs now come in colors, not just silver. The options are blue, brown, gray, orange, yellow, and pink (light and bright!):

There are a couple of interesting things here. For one, it’s an attempt to provide a little (very limited) individualization to people who have to wear standard uniforms. Of course, it’s a superficial type of customization, similar to getting a cell phone of a particular color, but it provides at least some sense that the product reflects the personality or tastes of the user…something companies figured out long ago could boost sales (how many colors do cell phones come in these days?). Given that, I wonder how many police departments would allow officers to use brightly-colored handcuffs. Officers are allowed to buy customized items, but they can’t just go buy a different color of uniform; it may be that little personalized “touches” like this are allowed, though.

It’s also interesting to think about what the reaction might be to an officer who showed up at work with pink handcuffs. I wonder how many female officers would want to bring attention to their gender by using a product marked by the stereotypical feminine color. It also made me think of this post about cops in Thailand being punished by being forced to wear pink Hello Kitty armbands. I’m assuming a person would buy pink handcuffs to express their taste, but after looking at the old post, it made me wonder if anyone would ever put pink cuffs on male suspects just to try to annoy them. I bet one of my relatives who is a police officer would totally do that, except that it would require him to carry pink cuffs around all the time, which he would never, under any circumstances, do. He flipped out because his son liked a pink ball once.

NEW! Ben O. sent us a link to a similar product, Petals Workwear for Women.  The company makes pink products for female construction workers.

Hard hat:

Tool belt:

Protective ear wear:

Protective eye wear:

NEW (Aug. ’10)! Garland Walton sent along these pink boxing accessories: gloves, tape, and a mouth guard.  All in pink!

See also our post with a cartoon riffing on how people seem to think that pinkification is the answer to gender inequality.

In honor of the election, we offer you a summary of all our election 2008 posts.

This election has certainly brought racial tensions front and center. We highlighted two racist caricatures of Obama: on a waffles box and as a cannibal. We also discussed the cover of The New Yorker on which Barack and Michelle Obama were caricatured as terrorists. Whether or not this was racist was widely discussed and offered an interesting opportunity to ask “Who decides what we talk about?” In response to the argument that we were being too sensitive about the caricatures, we offered some evidence that caricatures of black people do not need to be racist.

Anti-Obama propaganda also included comparison with OJ Simpson, a monkey, celebrities, Osama Bin Laden, fascists and communists, a terrorist, a terrorist again, and a “half-breed Muslin.” See here for other racist anti-Obama propaganda.  Gwen asked “So what if Obama is an Arab?” (Note, too, this satirical T-shirt.)

We saw racialization–or the active production of racial meaning–in the fist bump controversy, in calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama,” and in asserting the whiteness of the White House. We discussed the resemblance between Obama and his Grandfather and the meaning of “Main Street” to illustrate the social construction of race.  And we offered examples of white privilege: in one we discuss the option of white ethnics to emphasize their ethnicity; in two we discuss a cartoonist who calls Colin Powell a race traitor for endorsing Obama and a Howard Stern clip that suggests that Blacks only endorse Obama because he’s Black.  We also remark on how easy it is to deride social theories of inequality.

The McCain/Palin ticket was no stranger to derision.  See also our post in which the McCain/Palin ticket is said to be favored by Nazis, another in which Palin effigy is lynched, and a third that discusses ageism in the election.

We’ve also seen plenty of sexism in this campaign. Hillary Clinton has been represented as a nut buster, asked to “iron my shirt,” critiqued for crying, and called a “bitch.” There are more examples here and here.  Also see this montage of sexism among political pundits. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were sexualized. See here, here, and here for Clinton and here, here, here, here, and here for Palin. (By the way, Barack Obama was sexualized as well, see here, here, and here.)

We commented, more sociologically, on the gender politics of this election. We discussed the mothering of baby Trig, conservative feminism, the politics of pink, and took a humorous look at the women’s vote with Sarah Haskins.

We also pointed to the way in which Obama and Clinton attempted to appeal to small town people and the ease with which we make fun of them.

For the intersection of race and gender, see our post in which Michelle Obama is called an angry black woman, is said to need to “soften” to be a First Lady, and our post that features the Bros Before Hos T-shirt (scroll to the bottom). For the intersection of race and class, see our post on Obama’s negotiation of the “elitist” label.  And, in making intersectionality invisible, see the SNL skit, “bitch is the new black.”

Looking more broadly at politics and media coverage, we discussed the portrayal of evil in the Reverend Wright scandal, McCain’s trivialization of war, the linking of a Democratic adminstration with a terrorist attack, pundit hypocrisy, political networks, a voter registration campaign that uses bondage imagery, suspiciously delicious polling techniques, how cell phones shape polling findings, and trends in media coverage of Obama versus Clinton and Obama versus McCain.

In addition, we offered some examples of punditry from alternative media: on young voters, a call for alliance from the labor movement, a call to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama, a political revival of the Budweiser Wassap video, and two examples of art inspired by the election (here and here).

We also put up posts of figures representing public opinion on blacks, a woman president, and politician parents.  And we offered images illustrating how the world would vote.

Finally, our favorite: “We’re not sociologists, we’re Americans!”

Here are some graphs on the income and wealth gap between Whites and Blacks in the U.S.

This next one shows homeownership rates. I know some people are going to point out that Blacks are more concentrated in urban areas than Whites are, and so it might make more sense to break down homeownership by area (rural, urban, suburban). While that might be a legitimately useful comparison, it also brings up the question of why African Americans would be more concentrated in urban areas, which could lead to a discussion of government programs that encourage Whites to buy homes in the suburbs after WWII while denying those opportunities to Blacks.

One way of explaining higher unemployment rates among Blacks is that there is some individual or cultural deficiency–African Americans are lazy, or want a hand-out, or don’t look for work, etc. etc. I like to show trend comparisons like these because they undermine those types of explanations. If African American unemployment was due to laziness, a “culture of poverty,” or other deficiencies, it would be unlikely for Black and White unemployment rates to show the same pattern (or, for that matter, any pattern–unless you believe African Americans just got a lot lazier in, say, 1982). What we see here is that Black and White unemployment rates follow a very similar pattern, but that during hard economic times, sugh as the early 1980s and around 1992, African Americans suffer disproportionately.

This one shows the slow but steady trend toward resegregation of our schools:

All of these were found at the Working Group on Extreme Inequality website.

In The Trouble With Friendship, Benjamin DeMott argues that it is suggested, all too often, that the solution to our troubled race relations is just, well, getting to know and like each other.  Television and the movies, for example, are replete with examples of racial harmony.  I mean, who doesn’t have a black friend or neighbor!?

DeMott’s friendship ideology obscures the institutional causes of racial inequality that undergird racial tension in our society.  Learning to like each other is not going to solve racial inequality in our society because individual one-on-one racism does not exhuast the disadvantage faced by people of color in our society.

In this light, I present to you three pictures, submitted by Muriel M. M., of posters found in an elementary school.

The posters reflect the friendship ideology.  Of course, it is nice to encourage friendship and support across racial lines, the danger is in letting our race education stop there.

Last week, in my Race and Ethnicity class, I was talking about how race was used by white elites in early American history to divide and conquer the poor who, black or white, had a joint interest in undermining the class structure from which those elites benefited.  I then show them this video by Tim Wise making this same argument and suggesting that using race to divide and conquer is still ongoing.  One student said: “No offense, but Tim Wise said it better than you.”  It’s true.

Anyway, I bring up this argument–that race is used to divide and conquer the poor and working class for the benefit of economic elites–because of a recent speech made by AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer Richard Trumka.  In this speech, below, Trumka argues in favor of bridging racial (and gender) divides in the labor movement specifically because of the phenomena that Wise describes.  In other words, Trumka calls for a join and resist strategy.  I think the two speeches nicely illustrate two sides of one conflict coin.

Don’t miss Tim Wise.

And here’s Richard Trumka:

You might also see this post on the way in which lefty movements and companies tend to focus only on one axis of inequality at a time, such that they are all undermining each other and, thus, the entire left agenda.

Hat tip to Peter D.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about American Indian sports mascots. An interesting comparison to spark discussion, and an example students often bring up, is the University of Notre Dame’s mascot. The name of the Notre Dame athletic teams is the Fighting Irish, and the official mascot is the leprechaun (image found at Wikipedia):

Each year a student is chosen to be the leprechaun. Here is an image (found here) of the Notre Dame leprechaun performing at a game:

According to the Notre Dame website, the leprechaun did not become the official mascot until 1965; before that, the university was represented by Irish terrier dogs.

You might compare this to the Chief Illini logo, as well as the University of Illinois student performing as Chief Illini, both in the original mascots post. It brings up some interesting issues for discussion. Is there any difference between the the Fighting Irish and the Fighting Illini (or the Fighting Sioux, the Redskins, etc.)? Does the existence of the Fighting Irish invalidate opposition to American Indian mascots? Opponents to Indian mascots often argue that they objectify American Indians in a way that would not be allowed if used against African Americans or Asians–that this modern form of blackface is acceptable only when used to mimic Native American groups or cultural traditions. Those who support American Indian mascots often use the Fighting Irish to try to invalidate that criticism–to argue that Whites are also used as mascots and don’t seem to mind (to my knowledge, there is no movement against the Notre Dame mascot based on the idea that it is offensive to the Irish), and thus that critics of American Indian mascots are over-sensitive whiners.

Opponents of American Indian mascots respond that, first, this is one example, compared to the many, many American Indian mascots found throughout the U.S., and second, whereas Americans of Irish descent face no systematic ethnicity-based discrimination in the U.S. today (and haven’t for several decades), Native Americans still do. In addition, they argue that many American Indian groups openly oppose Indian mascots, and that their voices deserve to be heard; presumably, if Irish-Americans began to protest the Fighting Irish mascot, the same logic would hold and, indeed, those opposing American Indian mascots would oppose the Fighting Irish as well.

This might be useful not just for a discussion of sports mascots, but more generally for a discussion of the idea of equivalency in discrimination. I see this a lot with students–if, for instance, we’re discussing sexual harassment and they can point to an example when a man was sexually harassed by a woman, then they argue that men are affected just like women, and thus it has nothing to do with gender inequality or power. I suspect those who bring up Notre Dame in an effort to invalidate arguments against Indian mascots are doing the same thing–if a White ethnic mascot exists, then charges that Indian mascots are racist can be dismissed. It’s a false form of equalizing because it ignores the lop-sidedness of the “equality” (the tiny number of non-Indian racialized mascots compared to the number of Indian ones) and the role of systemic inequality (that American Indians are underrepresented at colleges and universities and face racial discrimination in a way that Irish-Americans do not). And it also serves to discount opponents’ voices by saying that if any social group wouldn’t be opposed to a particular type of portrayal or treatment, then no one else has any right to be offended by it, either, regardless of their different histories, treatment, or social positions.

One topic we cover in my sociology classes is the way the nature vs. nurture debate treats those two categories as though they are completely separate entities: “nature” is this fixed biological reality and “nurture” is all the social stuff we use to tinker around with nature as best we can. I point out to students that biology isn’t as fixed as we often think it is, and that seemingly “natural” processes are in fact often highly influenced by social factors.

One good example of this is the age at which girls have their first periods (menarche). In the U.S. today, the average age at menarche is a little over 12 years (see source here), and that seems normal to us. But historically, this is odd; until quite recently, girls did not begin menstruating until well into their teens. Because girls have to develop a certain amount of body fat in order to menstruate, access to food affects age at menarche. And access to food is generally an indicator of all types of social factors, including societal wealth and the distribution of wealth within groups. In general, economic development increases access to sufficient levels of food, and thus reduces average age at menarche.

This graph of average age at menarche in France from 1840-2000 (found on the French National Institute for Demographic Studies website here) shows a clear decline, starting at over 15 years and now standing at under 13:

Below is a bar graph showing average age at menarche for a number of countries (found here; age at menarche is the grey bar); we see the oldest average age is 13 and a half years, in Germany. Note that the data are not all from the same year, and while most report mean age at menarche, some report median age, so though they show a general trend, they are not stricly comparable:

However, these average ages obscure the fact that access to resources is not equal within nations, and as we would expect, though average age at menarche has fallen for most nations over the past century, we continue to see differences in average age among groups within nations that seem to mirror differences in wealth. For instance, this graph (found at the Museum of Menstruation website here) shows differences in average age at menarche between urban and rural areas in several countries:

The example of the quite dramatic fall in average age at menarche, as well as continued differences within societies, is a very helpful example for getting across the idea that biology is not fixed. I explain to my students that though we have many biological processes (i.e., the ability to menstruate), social factors such as economic development and social inequality affect how many of those processes are expressed (i.e., how early girls being to menstruate, on average). For other examples of how social factors affect biology, see this post on average lifespan and this post on increases in height over time.

I’m currently pairing these images with the chapters “The Body’s New Timetable: How the Life Course of American Girls Has Changed” and “Sanitizing Puberty: The American Way to Menstruate” from The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg (1997, NY: Vintage Books) in my women’s studies course. Brumberg argues that the decreasing age of menstruation has created new social pressures as there is an increasing gap between girls’ biological maturity (that is, being able to get pregnant at age 12 or so) and their mental and emotional maturity (they’re still 12 year old girls), a point activists were trying to make in these misguided PSAs about statutory rape. Brumberg argues that just as this was happening, American cultural understandings of menstruation turned it into a hygiene problem, not a maturational milestone, meaning we give girls information about tampons and sanitary pads but not much about what these changes really mean.

Just for fun, here is “The Story of Menstruation,” an animated cartoon put out by the Disney company in 1946. Millions of girls learned about menstruation from it in the ensuing decades, including that they could throwing their schedules off by getting too emotional or cold and that it’s ok to bathe as long as the water isn’t too hot or cold. It illustrates Brumberg’s point about how discusses of menstruation turned to scientific explanations of what was happening and advice about what was and wasn’t ok to do while menstruating, while mostly ignoring it’s emotional or social significance.

I also like the explanation at the beginning of why we refer to “Mother” nature–because she does all her work without anyone even noticing, just like moms. How nice.