Search results for gender toys

SocImages News:

• This month we had the fun of being quoted in news articles on getting girls to embrace science (Voice of America), Sweden’s gender-neutral toy catalog (Wall Street Journal), hook up culture (yes, again) (Brown Daily Herald), and dollhouses (Daily Mail).  The latter involved us getting the word “heteronomativity” into the second sentence of a Daily Mail article!
• The Daily Mail coverage was prompted by our counterintuitive post suggesting that the toy in question can be a feminist gift, which also appeared at Jezebel.
• BoingBoing featured Gwen’s post about different and unequal boy and girl toy laptops.
• Finally, we got a few nice link-tos. One from The Atlantic in a piece about why people don’t vote, another from AdWeek about gendered toys, and a third from The Guardian in an article about Gwen Stefani wearing stereotypical “Indian” garb.

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances: 

I’ll be visiting Akron in April and I’d love to schedule a meet up!

• University of Akron (Apr. 19): “Anatomy of an Outrage: Female Genital Cutting and the Politics of Acculturation”

I’ll also be giving my hook up culture talk at the college where I collected my data.  So, if you’re in the L.A. area, feel free to drop in for the lecture:

• Occidental College (Jan. 31): “‘The Night Overall Wasn’t Bad’: Occidental Students on Hooking Up”

Newest Pinterest Page:

Gwen put together a new Pinterest page with products that have been feminized to make them acceptable for women, Feminizing the Masculine in Marketing.  Here’s a screenshot:

In other Pinterest news, @sayitaintsho tweeted this in response to us pinning the images from our post about make-up toys for infants.  We aim to please, Shohini!

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  I’m on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisadwade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, @jaylivingston, and @wendyphd.

In Other News…

On Nov. 11th of this month our Facebook page hit 20,000 fans.  Then it went back down to 19,999, then it went back to 20,000, and we’ve continued growing ever since.  Hello to all of our friends on Facebook!

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.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

I’d love to draw your attention to The Alpha Parent, a blogger who has collected a stunningly large number of toys for infants that socialize girls into preening.

Some of the toys are purses/handbags that include pretend lipsticks, compacts, and related-items.  My Pretty Learning Purse includes a toy lipstick and a mirror; the Gund Sesame Street Abbey Purse Playset includes a compact and powder brush; the Lilliputiens Liz Handbag includes an eye shadow compact complete with three shades and an eye shadow applicator.

In case you were wondering if this is a trend, the Alpha Parent post features TWENTY examples of purses filled with such toys.

It also includes examples of toy make-up bags. Going beyond the inclusion of beauty items in infant toys, these make beauty the sole point of the play.  Here are just two of the NINE pretend make-up bags she collected, the Oskar & Ellen Beauty Box and the Learn and Go Make-Up and Go:

Since we wouldn’t want a baby to miss the point, companies also produce and sell vanities for infants. The Alpha Parent’s post included FOUR; here’s two, the Perfectly Pink Tummy Time Vanity Mirror and the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Magical Musical Mirror:

The Alpha Parent goes on to cover real nail polish made for infants, beauty-themed clothes for little girls, and a common category of dress up: beautician outfits.  I counted a surprising ELEVEN of these:

The latter reverses into a nurse’s uniform.

The Alpha Parent concludes:

Makeup toys prime girls for a lifetime of chasing rigid norms of physical attractiveness through the consumption of cosmetics and fashionable accessories.

They are also generally non-sex-transferable, meaning that parents are often loath to allow their boys to play with girl toys.  Gendered toys, then, increase the rate of toy purchasing, since parents of a boy and a girl have to buy special toys for each.

It’s a win-win for corporate capitalism.  Socialize the girls into beauty commodities by buying these toys now, plan on reaping the benefits with the real thing later.  Brainwash the boys in an entirely different way (the Alpha Parent notes tools and electronics), do the same with them simultaneously.

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
SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS
(last updated 4/2012)

Developed by J.A. Carter
University of Cincinnati

 History

• Social Hygiene and the Gender of Health in 1922
• Vintage Women’s Basketball Teams: So Funny!
• Chance, Innovation, and the Evolution of Skateboarding
• Woman Wears Men’s Clothes to a Prizefight World Gasps 1910
• 1927 Wimbledon Ad Using Women’s Progress to Sell

Culture

• Sociologist Doug Hartman on Why We Love Football
• Context: How do you Play Football?
• Brit Hume: Only Christianity Can Save Tiger Woods
• Arizona’s Prayer at the Super Bowl
• What Does it Mean to Believe that a Human Characteristic is Natural?

Fans

• Jay Smooth on the Irrationality of Sports Fandom

Stadiums/Economics

• New Sports Stadiums and Economic Development
• The Economic Sociology of Triathlons

Race/Ethnicity

• Distracted by “Linsanity”: Hidden Racism and the Model Minority Stereotype
• Jeremy Lin, ESPN says, has a “Chink in the Armor”
• Racial Stereotyping and Perceptions of Competence
• Tragedy at Red River: Race, Privilege and Learning to Swim
• Racism and Jingoism Among US Soccer Fans
• When Whiteness Matters in Sport
• Media, Race, & Web 2.0
• An Indigenous Olympics
• Russian Ice Skaters Impersonate Aboriginals, Win Gold
• Orientals v. Gauchos: Who are you Rooting for?
• Dutch Soccer Club Nicknamed the Jews
• Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish Mascot
• Some Native American Sports Mascots
• Don’t Olympic Athletes have Other Things They Need to be Doing
• Olympians Making “Chinese Eyes”
• Arab Women and 2008 Olympic Athletes
• “The Angry Black Athlete”
• Race and the King Kong Motif
• Southern Hospitality?
• Corporate Plantation

Gender

• The Manly Origins of Cheerleading
• Women and Exclusion from Long Distance Running
• Policing Gender in Figure Skating
• I Wonder How Much Laundry the Average Team USA Dad will Do
• Happy Super Bowl Day!
• Barbie and GI Joe: Inscribing Gender Norms on Toys
• Which Women Play on the Center Court at Wimbledon?
• Skate Canada gets “Tough”
• Participation in High School Sports by Gender and Sport
• The Sexualization of Female Olympiads
• Breakfast and Lunch and Dinner of Olympic Champions
• “Come to the Ball”: Swiss Soccer Ad
• Valuing Dads in the WNBA
• Blaming Jessica Simpson: Women Sap Men’s Strength
• Pink Sports Team Clothing: Making a Masculine Arenas Safe for Women

Sex Differences in Sports

• Opportunity and Athletic Performance
• Male as the Neutral Default
• The Question of Caster Semenya’s Sex

Equipment differences in sports

• Female Boxers may be Required to Wear Skirts
• Ideology, Safety, and the Lingerie Football League
• The Amazing Disappearing Cheerleading Outfit
• Femininity and the Proposed Badminton Dress Code
• Two Fun Facts About Figure Skating Fashion

Masculinity

• Hegemonic Masculinity in Super Bowl Commercials
• No Man’s Land and the Alice Band
• Mocking Men with Femininity
• The Daintification of Masculinity
• Men without Sports Knowledge/Skills are Inadequate Human Beings
• Energy Drinks and Violent Masculinity
• Crossing Gender Lines: Boys Doing Double Dutch
• A Set of Ads Suggesting that Men must Eschew Femininity or Else
• Social Construction and Hegemonic Masculinity

Sexuality/Homophobia

• Pushing Back Against Homophobia in Sports
• “Powder Blue Faggots”: More Sporting Homophobic Taunts
• Yankee Fans Verbally Assault Teenage Red Sox Fans with Homophobic Taunts
• What Does a “Prehomosexual” Look Like?
• Johnny Weir: That’s Gay
• Pulled Homophobic Nike Ads
• “Homosexual” vs. “Gay”: Discourse in the Culture Wars
• You’re a Quarterback for SC?  That’s So Gay!

Bodies

• Tim Tebow and the Religious Body (Politic)
• Disabled Bodies and Ableist Acceptance
• World Champion Olympic Medalist Reduced to Woman on a Diet
• Objectification of Women = Go Team!
• Idealizing Shawn Johnson
• Re-Framing Menstruation
• Ski Jumping’s Weight Problem
• An Entitlement to the Right to Define and Consume Female Beauty
• Nude Calendar Images of German Paralympic Athletes
• Release the Thin Athletic Body Trapped Inside your Big Fat One
• The Male Gaze Does Not Allow for Boy Nipples
• Men’s Bodies are Allowed to Grow Up

Media

• What’s Important About Female Athletes?
• “Come for the Ladies, Stay for the Legends”
• Serena Williams’ Patriarchal Bargain
• Female Athletes Support the Guys
• His and Hers Sports Illustrated Covers
• SportsCenter, the Predictable Gender Trend
• Cheerleader Dreams at Mattress World
• ESPN Introduces Website for Women
• Women Talk, Eat at Baseball Game; Earth Stands Still
• Welcome, Women to your Special Section
• It’s the Ironman, Not the Ironwoman, so Shut your Cereal Hole
• A Breakdown of Televised Football Broadcasts
• Feminizing Women’s Sports Teams
• It’s so Boring to Wait While your Wife shops for you
• Serena Williams on the Cover of ESPN
• Another Collection of Gender-and-Tech-Related Images
• Female Athletes: Be Pretty, but Not Sexy or Pregnant
• Bringing People Together with Coke
• Marketing Sports Supplement to Men and Women
• Media Portrayals of Female Athletes
• Connecting Golf and Sex
• Score Big at Sports Bar

Violence

• Reception of Rape Victims: Silsbee, TX Edition
• Glorifying Violence in American Football

College Athletics

• In Defiance of Title IX Colleges Report Male Athletes as Women
• College Athletics and Graduate Rates
• College Athletes and their Majors
• Where Sports Scholarships Go

Los Angeles Meet Up:

Plan ahead! We’ve scheduled a SocImages Meet Up for March.  Please join us The Escondite (downtown L.A.) on Sunday, March 4th.  All ages.  Food and drink.  Great company guaranteed.

(P.S.: If you’re in Boston, I’ll be visiting Harvard and Boston University at the end of March. Will try to schedule a meet up then as well.)

SocImages News:

Amanda Jungels has put together a fantastic SocImages Course Guide for Sexuality and Society.  Check out all of our Course Guides here.

We’re having great fun with our Pinterest account; our collection of sexy toy makeovers showed up as a slideshow at the Huffington Post.  We’ve also added two new boards:

• what color is flesh?
• sexualized/gendered food

A super big “thank you” to Ron Anderson!  Dr. Anderson notified us that he nominated us for the ASA Section on Communication and Information Technologies Public Sociology Award.

We’re in Portuguese!  Thanks to Dr. Claudio Cordovil, some of our posts are appearing at the University of Brazil’s Conhecimento Prudente.

I think this is our first appearance as a source on Wikipedia… on the page about the online game, Evony… of all things.

Are you on Google Plus? So are we!

Authors and Contributors in the News:

Contributor Philip Cohen was discussed in an NPR story about using Google searches as data.

I was quoted in an NPR story about photographer Shelby Lee Adams’ portrayal of Appalachia and I enjoyed a few fun minutes on air with CKNW’s Bill Good talking about the recent trend of sexualizing toys for young girls.

Best of January

Our hard-working intern, Norma Morella, collected the stuff ya’ll liked best from this month.  Here’s what she found:

• Heather Cromarty, The Marilyn Meme
• Lisa Wade, Beauty and the New Lego Line
• Caroline Heldman, Voter Suppression: The New Disenfranchisement
• Jason Eastman, Newt Racism: The Racially-Coded Language of Presidential Candidates
• Lisa Wade, Income Ineqaulity is Bad for Society
• Gwen Sharp, National Geographic Genders Animal Sexuality
• Sarah Wanenchak, Disabled Bodies and Ablest Acceptance
• Gwen Sharp, Fotoshop by Adobé
• Lisa Wade, 125 Years of Holding Women Responsible for Laundry
• Lisa Wade, Mariah Careys All I Want for Christmas Is You: 1994 vs 2011

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Gwen and I and most of the team are also on twitter:

• @lisadwade
• @gwensharpnv
• @familyunequal
• @carolineheldman
• @jaylivingston
• @wendyphd

Course Guide for
SEXUALITY AND SOCIETY
(last updated 01/2012)

Developed by Amanda M. Jungels
Georgia State University

Integrating/Interrogating Biological and Social Views of Sexuality

Challenging Evolutionary Perspectives on Sex/Sexuality

• Challenging Evolutionary-Biology Perspectives on Mating Strategies

Social Construction of (Biological) Sex

• The Question of Caster Semenya’s Sex
• “Creating” Normative Genitals
• Conflating Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation

Social Construction: Changing Views on Sexuality

• Buy Virginity for Just $14.99
• Marketing the Tampon: “Will I Still Be A Virgin?”
• Changing Biology: Age at First Menstruation
• Masturbation and “Social Hygiene” in 1922

Sexuality and Social Categories

Social Construction of Gender

• Teens and Transgendered Women: Threats to Society
• On the J. Crew Pink Toenails “Controversy”
• Semenya’s Makeover: Gender as Performance
• “Some Men Just Need to Be Slapped”: Policing Masculinity
• A Beauty Regime for the “New Man”
• Karate Studio Ad: Gender Policing and Unofficial Marketing Materials
• One Family’s Experience with “Curing” Gender Non-Conformity

Transgender/Third Gender/Gender Queer

• On Being Gender Queer
• A Third Gender in Oaxaca, Mexico
• Argentinian Bank Depicts Transgendered Positively

Social Construction of Sexual Orientation

• How Useful is the Concept of Sexual Orientation?
• Are We Born Gay? And If We Were, How Would We Know?
• What Seems “Gay”?
• Was Franklin D. Roosevelt Gay?
• What Does a “Prehomosexual” Look Like?
• Homosexuality and Our Collective Consciousness
• Destabilizing Heteronormativity
• Normalizing Lesbian Couples
• Gay Couple in Budweiser’s “Coming Home” Ad?
• Survey Finds Different Levels of Acceptance for “Gays” Versus “Homosexuals”
• “Homosexual” vs. “Gay”: Discourse in the Culture Wars
• Public Opinion on the Cause of Homosexuality

Learning about Sex/Sex Education           

Sex Education

• How Government Policies Impact Sex Education and Reproduction
• Sources of Sex Education Information for Teens
• Teens as Objects of Control
• British TV Commercial Promotes Abortion Services
• Anti-Teen Pregnancy PSA
• Teen Motherhood Sucks…Unless You’re Bristol Palin

Abstinence vs. Comprehensive Sex Ed

• Boys Receive Less Sexuality Education Than Girls
• Explaining Variation in Teen Pregnancy Rates by State: Race and Sex Education
• Consequences of U.S. and Dutch Approaches to Teen Sex
• Sexing Up Abstinence
• Abstinence Billboards

Sexual Practices

• Sexual Orientation and Sexual Behavior: OkCupid Data
• Bisexuality and Dating on OkCupid
• Promise and Perils of Hook-Up “Culture”
• MTV on Hook-Up Culture

The Sexual Body

The Female Body

• Orgasmic Birth and the Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm
• How Vulvas Vary
• Gender Differences in Body Regimens

Menstruation

• Weird Tampon Ad from Australia
• Kotex Sells Tampons by Making Fun of Selling Tampons
• Re-Framing Menstruation
• Race, Gender and Aggression in Ads for Menstrual Pains Meds

Presenting the Female Body as Unclean: Removing Body Hair

• Summer’s Eve’s “Hail to the V” Campaign
• Shave or Men Will Never Find It                            
• Mow the Lawn
• Civilize Your Bush
• Encouraging Hair Removal for Children?
• The Miss of Sisyphus
• PETA Attacks Pubic Hair
• Advertising Against Bush
• Anxiety about “Objectionable Hair” = Money in Someone’s Pocket
• Nair Hair Removal Products for Teens

Presenting the Female Body as Unclean: Douching

• Douching Your Way to the Top
• Vintage Zonite Douche Ads

Bodily Modification and Female Genital Cutting

• Spanish Ads Compare Women with Genital Cutting to Fuck Toys
• Female Circumcision Endorsed in a Vintage Playgirl
• When Vaginoplasty Meets Contemporary Television
• Pelvic Fitness Spa: More Things for Women to Worry About (NSFW)
• Vajazzling Revealed

Social Construction of the Male Body/Male Sexuality

• Social Construction of Sperm
• Medicalization of Impotence
• Conflating College Achievement with Sexual Prowess
• A Historical Look at the Popularity of Male Circumcision
• Fetishizing Black Men

Presenting the Penis as a Dangerous Weapon

• Safer Sex PSAs Conflate the Penis with a Firearm (NSFW)
• Safer Sex PSAs
• Presenting the Penis as a Dangerous Weapon (NSFW)

Representing Sex

Sexualization of Children’s Products

• Sexualized vs. Sexual: The Case of Thylane Blondeau
• Dora the Explorer’s Makeover
• Strawberry Shortcake: Extreme Makeover Edition
• Sexy Toy Makeovers: Lisa Frank, Trollz and Cabbage Patch Kids
• More Sexy Toy Makeovers: My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite and Candy Land

Sex in the Media

• Onslaught: Dove vs. Axe
• Non-Subtle Sex in Advertising
• “Subliminal” Sex in the Media

Ejaculation and Phallic Imagery

• Ejaculation Imagery
• Sexual Overtones in Cologne Ad
• Ejaculation Imagery in a Dutch Creamer Ad
• Phallic Imagery in a Skyy Vodka Ad
• Pornification of Advertising

Sex and Violence

• Violence Against Women on Prime-Time Up Since 2004
• Re-thinking the Famous Dolce and Gabbana Gang Rape Ad
• More Sexualized Violence in Fashion (NSFW)
• Calvin Klein Ad Implies Sexual Violence
• Even More Violence in Fashion Images

Objectification

• Objectification of Women: Everybody Wins!
• Gender, Sexualization and Rolling Stone
• Sexualized Images of Female Dominance

Infantilization of Women

• Vintage Infantilization

Forced/Coerced Sex

Sexual Script

• Sex and Dating as a Hunt
• Women are Wild Animals; Men are Hunters
• Men are Animals

Rape Culture

• Making Light of Rape in the Purdue University Newspaper
• Yale Frat Pledges Chant “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal”
• Do Full-Body Scans or Pat Downs = Sexual Groping?
• Ad Aimed at Discouraging Teen Drinking Threatens Prison Rape, Homosexuality

Use of Alcohol as a Tool for Coercive Sex

• Alcohol as a Tool in the Dating Game
• Booze=Sex
• Beer, Sex, and “The Hunt”
• Drunk Women are Easy Targets

Sexual Assault Prevention Campaigns

• Framing Recovery from Child Sexual Abuse (Trigger Warning)
• Resistance, Language and the Toronto Slutwalk

Commercial Sex

Pornography

• Online Porn Subscription in Liberal vs. Conservative States
• Finally an Ad that Acknowledges What High-Speed Internet is For
• Are Kids Watching Internet Porn?
• Mainstreaming of Pornography
• Gail Dines on Pornography
• Cindy Gallop on How Porn is Shaping Our Sex Lives

Contemporary Views on Prostitution

• Sex Work in Las Vegas
• Humanizing Sex Workers?
• Facebook, Technology and Prostitution
• Disparate Trends in Permissiveness: Homosexuality and Prostitution
• What Does the Sex Industry Look Like?
• Disparate Trends in Permissiveness: Homosexuality and Prostitution

Historical Perspectives on Prostitution

• 1890s Guide to New York City Brothels
• Personifying Danger: Women as Vectors of STIs
• The Virgin-Whore Binary in WWII VD Propaganda
• STI Transmission: Wives, Whores and the Invisible Man
• Loose Women and the War Effort

Sex Trafficking

• Misleading Measurement of Anti-Trafficking Enforcement
• Thinking Critically about Sex Trafficking
• Disney Still Makes Light of Sex Slavery

Other Forms of Sex Work

• Phone Sex: Real and Imaginary (NSFW)
• “Work,” “Sex Work,” and Everything in Between

Social Control of Sex Work

• Halloween Hall of Shame: Fat Lap Dancer Costume
• Sex Work, Disrespect and Women’s Empowerment
• How Can You Tell If You’re a Prostitute?
• Questioning the Benefits of “Rescue” from Prostitution
• Posters Opposed to the Criminalization of Prostitution

Reproduction/Abortion

Reproduction

• To Whom Do Children “Just Happen”?
• Protecting Boys with Condoms for Kids
• Pre-Conception Care: Good for Babies, Bad for Women?
• The Pill and the Invention of the Monthly Cycle
• Visualizing the Fetus
• Thomas Beatie, the Pregnant Man, in the Public Sphere
• Threat of (Brown) Women’s Fertility

Abortion

• Why are Insured Women Paying for Abortions?
• Mis-Illustrating Abortion
• Framing the Abortion Debate
• Racializing the Abortion Debate
• Racialized Abortion Campaigns and Rethinking Choice
• More on the Racialization of the Abortion Debate
• Trends in the Rate of Abortion: New Data Shows a Plateau
• Measuring Abortion Beliefs
• Public Opinion on Abortions in Select Countries
• Public Opinion on Abortion by Party and Gender
• Abortion Laws Around the World
• Reproductive Politics, Race and Obama

Sterilization

• No Family for You: Examples of State Disruption
• Coercive Sterilization? Think of the Children!
• Breaking Down the Force/Choice Binary in the Sterilization of Women of Color

Contemporary GLBT Issues

Gay Rights Movement

• Images from the Early Gay Rights Movement
• Historic Photos of the Stonewall Riot and Its Aftermath
• Police Raids and the Stonewall Riots
• Increasing Cultural Acceptance of Gay and Lesbian Rights
• Should We Vote on People’s Rights?
• Opinions of Gay Rights Issues by State
• Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians

GLBT Parenting

• Portraying Lesbian Parents

Same-Sex Marriage

• Anti-Gay Marriage Ads
• Global Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages
• The Tipping Point for Support of Same Sex Marriage?
• Acceleration for Support of Same-Sex Marriage
• Who is Driving Increasing Acceptance of Gays and Lesbians?
• Turbo Tax Wants to Know if You are Gay Married
• Support for Same-Sex Marriage by Age and State
• On Gay Marriage and the Contact Hypothesis
• Gay Marriage and the Social Construction of Social “Problems”
• Views about Same Sex Marriage by Generation
• Rhetorical Strategy in the Gay Marriage Debate

GLBT-Related Legislation

• Southern Poverty Law Center Map of Hate Groups
• Sodomy Laws
• Increasing U.S. Public Support for Gays in the Military
• Educating Soldiers about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
• “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is Done

Twenty-three of you (a record I think) have sent in this clip of a little girl in a toy store critiquing the way the store is divided into pink princesses for girls and superheros for boys.  It’s heartwarming and inspiring to see a child offer a critical analysis of the world she lives in, something that most commentators have observed.

What I, and some of you, noticed was that her own analysis and that of the adult taking the video (presumably her Dad) differ.  And, believe it or not, her analysis is more correct than his.

Rightfully identifying what sociologists call “androcentrism,” she notes that girls like both girl and boy toys, but boys only like boy toys.  She says:

…because girls want superheros and the boys want superheros and the girls want pink stuff and the girls… and the boys want… and the boys don’t want pink stuff… (gently shaking her head back and forth)

Her Dad corrects her, saying “Boys, well, boys want both…”

But her Dad is wrong.  Boys in the U.S. are taught from a very early age to avoid everything associated with girls.  Being called a “girl” is, in itself, an insult to boys.  And the slurs “sissy” and “fag” are reserved for men who act feminine.  So, no, boys (who have learned the rules of how to be a boy) generally reject anything girly.  (Indeed, this was one of the themes of Jimmy Kimmel “bad present” prank played by parents on their kids.)

The girl’s Dad, however, articulates a symmetrical analysis. The idea is that there are gender stereotypes — ones that apply to boys and ones that apply to girls — and that both are inaccurate, unfair, and constraining.  His mistake is in missing the asymmetrical value placed on masculinity and femininity.  Boys and girls are simply not positioned equally in relationship to stereotypes of femininity and masculinity.

I have to admit, it’s pretty neat that she has picked up on this nuance so early. I wish most adults had her insight… and her passion:

Thanks to James, Julie G., Carly M., Brooklin N., BogganStoryTeller, Denise, Allie H., Yvonne R., Mark L., Karim S., Ann K., Lenny M., Isabeau P.-S., Daniel K., Marsha, Jay L., Shayna A.-S., Josh W., Kimberly L., Melissa, Colleen W., Simon G., and Brad for sending in the link!

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.

Christmas Across Cultures

• Christmas Cultures
• Santa’s Evil Side Kick
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Protestantizing Christmas Gift Giving: The ChristKind
• Politics and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
• The Pagan Roots of Christianity
• Snegurochka: Santa’s Granddaughter

On Discourse:

• Have a “Gay” Holiday!
• Is Peace Free?
• “Christmas” vs. “Holiday”: The Rematch
• 12 “Mums” Makes the Workload Light

The Institution of Christmas

• Christmas has an Economy

Racializing Christmas

• New York Times Gift Guide for People of Color
• Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
• Holiday in the Hood
• The Hazards of Historical Amnesia

Gift Guides and the Social Construction of Gender

• Gender, Technology, and Toys ‘R Us
• Gender in Toy Catalogs
• Body Messages in Christmas-Themed Ads
• Gift Giving with Gender Stereotypes
• More Gender Gift Giving and Advertising
• Another Gendered Gift Guide
• And more Gendered Gift Guides
• Or, you could just buy her a clothesline

Sexifiying Christmas

• Sexy Women as Toys
• O-O-Oh Santa! (pictured)

Christmas Marketing

• Support the Troops. Shop Walmart?
• Fun with the 2009 Target Catalog
• Guns for Christmas
• 1930s Ad Touting Razor Technology
• Gap Thinks Girls are Vapid

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.

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...