Search results for rape culture

SocImages Meet Up in Minnesota!

Today I’m enjoying a visit to Carleton College and looking forward to spending the next two days at Macalester.  If you’re in the Twin Cities area, I’ll be at the W XYZ bar at the Aloft hotel in Minneapolis (900 Washington Ave S) on Thursday Oct. 3 at 8:30pm.  I would love to meet you and, more importantly, I would love to introduce you to each other!

Posts that Killed It:

We had an extraordinary month in September thanks to Sezin Koehler’s post on the lyrics of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.”  Many had called the song “rape-y” and the video misogynistic, but Koehler took it a step further, aligning the song’s lyrics with the words of actual rapists.  This struck a chord, making stark the discomfort many felt with the song.  The post has 163,000 “likes” and 1,600 comments and counting.  It was also cross-posted or discussed at Al Jazeera, Ms., Feministing, xoJane, Pacific Standard, and Jezebel.

We had some other super popular posts this month too!  Here are the highlights, starting with Koehler’s amazing work:

• From the Mouths of Rapists: The Lyrics of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines (163,000 likes)
• Gender and the Body Language of Power (20,000 likes)
• Surprise! Your Flight Attendants are All Strangers! (15,000 likes)
• Men Feel Bad Around Smart, Successful Women (7,400 likes)
• Wrinkle-Washed: Female Faces in Film Marketing (2,500 likes)

And y’all seemed to like our list of professors’ pet peeves too (5,000 likes)

New Course Guides:

• Sociology of Work and Occupations, by yours truly (highlighting my minor obsession with flight attendants)
• Family and Society, by Marcie Hambrick, MSW of Georgia State University.

You can see all of our course guides here.  We hope they’re useful!

Elsewhere on the Net:

This month I had the fun opportunity of writing two original essays for Salon and one for Alternet.

• On testosterone: I responded to the study saying good dads have small testes by reviewing the way that men’s testosterone levels respond to social cues (like driving a Porsche, winning a video game, or becoming a father).
• On sexual dimorphism: I had fun with the idea of sexual dimorphism, imagining how different men and women would be if we were like highly dimorphic species.  Elephant seals, blanket octopi, spoon worms, the resplendent quetzal, primates, and the platypus all make an appearance.
• On sexual anatomy: And I dusted off my master’s degree in human sexuality and wrote up seven little-known facts about sexual anatomy for Alternet.

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, and @jaylivingston.

In Other News…

Contributor Philip Cohen can cross another thing off his bucket list.  And the rest of us will live vicariously.  His pup was featured at the joy-spreading Cute Overload.  I’m so jealous!

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.

Happy end of August!

SocImages News:

I had the opportunity to publish essays in Politico and Salon this month.  The first was a response to an accusation that progressives refuse to talk about race, genetics, and intelligence, so I did in “Yes, Let’s Talk about Race and IQ.”

The second sounds like it belongs better in Cosmopolitan, but I promise there’s good sociology in there: “5 Reasons Your ‘Sexual Peak’ Might be Fake.”

Backstage at SocImages, we put together a new Pinterest board aimed at collecting examples of women being presented as catty and jealous of one another (e.g., “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”).  We call it the Mean Girls Meme.  We’re excited to add additional examples!

Finally, Gwen and I offered some advice to new college students.

Top Posts:

• 2,800 likes/tweets: “Men Need Clothes; Women Need to Look Sexy.”
• 2,000 likes/tweets: “Double Standards & the VMA Awards: What about Robin Thicke?“
• 1,500 likes/tweets: “Power, Mickey Mouse, and the Infantilization of Women.”

Elsewhere on the Net:

This month SocImages or its authors were quoted in articles at:

• Wired, “Google Glass Reborn as Something You’d Actually Want to Wear.”
• The Verge, “How Feminism and Commercialism Combined to Make ‘Camp Gyno’ a Viral Hit.”
• Los Angeles Times, “Study Dispels Notions of ‘No-Holds Barred’ Sex on Campus.”
• Jezebel, “Great News for Ladies Who Like Sexing: ‘Sexual Peaks’ are Nonsense.”
• Terceiro Tempo, “Mudanças Para as Mulheres das Lutas” [Changes in the World of Fighting Women].
• Minding the Campus, Reforming Our Universities, “Hookup Culture – Great Publicity, but Not That Popular.”

Cross-Post Highlights…

• Jezebel, “Behind the Imperative that Women Be Sexy and Cute.”
• Pacific Standard, “Why Don’t We Tip Flight Attendants?“
• Global Policy TV, “The Role of Employer Selection in Gendered Job Segregation.”

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

My fall schedule is falling into place.  If any readers are in the Twin Cities or Salt Lake City, I’d love to schedule a meet up!

• Citrus College (Sept. 10, 2013): “A Feminist Defense of Friendship”
• Carleton College (Sept. 30, 2013): TBD
• Macalester College (Oct. 2-3, 2013): TBD
• Westminster College (Mar.  11, 2014): “‘The Night Overall Wasn’t Bad’: What College Students Really Think About Hooking Up”

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, and @jaylivingston.

In Other News…

I enjoyed a drive to Key West thanks to my mom, Kay West.  It was pretty:

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.

Pink, as we all know, is all about gender – it’s for girls.  And sissies.

The University of Iowa… for decades has painted the locker room used by opponents pink to put them “in a passive mood” with a “sissy color,” in the words of a former head football coach, Hayden Fry.

That’s from Frank Bruni’s NY Times op-ed today.  But not all cultures link pink to femininity.  The Palermo soccer team wears pink uniforms as do other European teams.  In the U.S., it was only in the 1950s that pink took on its “boys keep out” message, and even then, a charcoal gray suit was often matched with a pink shirt or necktie.  In The Great Gatsby, set in 1922, Nick writes of Gatsby:

His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps, and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home, three months before.

.

In the previous chapter, Tom Buchanan says that he has been “making a small investigation” of Gatsby’s past.

“And you found he was an Oxford man,” said Jordan helpfully.

“An Oxford man!” He was incredulous. “Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.”

Gatsby’s choice of suit colors reveals not his sexuality but his class origins.  An educated, upper-class gentleman – an Oxford man – would not wear a pink suit.  Anna Broadway cites this passage in her Atlantic article and adds,

According to an interview with the costume designer for Baz Luhrmann’s recent film, the color had working-class connotations.

Today, that class connotation is reversed.  It’s the preppie type men at the country club who are wearing pink shirts or even, on the golf course, pants.   That trend may be reinforced by something entirely fortuitous – a name.  The upscale fashion designer Thomas Pink, perhaps because of his name, does not shy away from pink as a color for men’s clothes.

Do you agree that pink still has class connotations?  And how do they intersect with the color’s gendered meaning today?

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog.

Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog or on Twitter.

SocImages News:

I didn’t catch the moment, but suffice to say we reached 25,000 Facebook friends and counting.  Hello to all our friends out there and thanks so much!

New Logo!

Congratulations to Avery Wagner, Grace Wong, James Dunphy, Letta Page, and Laura Bertocci!  These were the five finalists in our logo contest!  Keep your eyes open for a new logo, currently being polished by Letta and Laura.

Elsewhere on the Net:

Gwen Sharp’s post featuring photographs of Victorian women stoicly breastfeeding their babies struck a nerve! It received over 6,500 likes here, was featured at Jezebel and the Daily Mail, and was cross-posted at the Huffington Post.

I did an unprecedented number of TV/webcast programs this month, appearing on National Geographic’s Taboo, in a Huffington Post Live debate about food stamps, and in a Bloomberg News short on sexual assault on college campuses.

Cross-post highlights!

• Pacific Standard: Should Moms Hate Childless Women?
• Huffington Post: The Hook Up Culture Bogeyman
• BlogHer: The Difference Between How Doctors and their Patients Want to Face Death

Nathan Vanderford kindly featured me in his project tracing the career trajectories of people with PhDs. A neat idea offering great perspective!

Finally, I had the pleasure of contributing to stories at CNN, the LA Weekly, The Raw Story, and Opposing Views.  Some of this was ongoing interest in our advice that college students shouldn’t try to follow their dreams.

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

I am on sabbatical writing in earnest, but I’d love to use my flexible schedule to do lots of public speaking as well.  Visit my website if you’d be interested in having me.  I’ve already scheduled my first talks for next year: Westminster College in Utah and Macalester College in Minnesota.  Looking forward to it already!

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, and @jaylivingston.

In Other News…

Here’s a picture I took of lava entering the ocean on the big island of Hawaii. I am lucky to have family there and the opportunity to hike out to the flow. It was extraordinary and felt as dangerous as it looks!

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 the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, and BlogHer.

In an Op-Ed article on hookup culture in college, Bob Laird links binge drinking and casual sex to sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, confusion, low self-esteem, unhappiness, vomiting, ethical retardation, low grades and emotional inadequacy. “How nice of The Times to include this leftover piece from 1957 today,” snarked a reader in the online comments.

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.

TODAY WE HAVE THE BEST NEWS EVER!

Sociological Images founder and author and, more importantly, my Best Friend is now tenured!  Congratulations Gwen Sharp!  You are a genius, a damn good person, and you make people laugh.  Nevada State College is incredibly to have you.  Everyone else should follow you on Twitter!

SocImages News:

Tomorrow we’re launching a competition for a new logo.  The top five sketches will receive $50 each and the winner will be invited to work with us to design a polished logo for $500. We hope you can help us spread the invitation far and wide!

Someone liked our post on high heels as a marker of distinction among women enough to cross-post it at Alternet.  Us?  We’re just happy to spread the word of good ol’ Pierre Bourdieu.  In any case, we hope it’s the first of many!

I’m quoted, starting with the phrase “Let’s be frank,” in an article at Bitch about an administrative reluctance to take steps to improve the sexual assault policy at Occidental College and the ongoing efforts to make us a leader in this regard.

Speaking of sex at Oxy, a video recording of my talk on hook up culture at Occidental College is available here.  The sheer enthusiasm of our wonderful students makes up for the bad lighting.  You’re the greatest y’all!

Thanks to PolicyMic, the Huffington Post, and Jezebel for featuring our posts on everything from data on porn stars to vintage baby cages and our fight at Oxy.

Updates on Image Guides:

Sociology doctoral student Calvin Ho put together a set of his favorite SocImages posts about Asian and Asian America.  It’s a great collection and we’re hoping he’ll revise it into an Image Guide.

I organized our a selection of our vintage stuff for Women’s History month and have published it here.

If you are a graduate student or professor who would like to make an Image Guide, we would love to hear from you!  It requires picking a topic, browsing our archives, pulling out the most compelling posts, and arranging them in ways other instructors would find familiar and convenient.  The guides can cover entire courses or be designed to help illustrate a theory, article, or book.  Only the most fabulous sociologists do it.

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

The semester is starting to wind down and I enjoyed giving campus-wide talks at Harvard, Queen’s University, Pomona College, and my own lovely Occidental.  Just two more before the semester is up:

• Apr. 2 — Citrus College — “The Promise and Peril of Hook Up ‘Culture’” (11:30am Handy Campus Center East Wing)
• Apr. 19 — University of Akron — “Anatomy of an Outrage: Female Genital Cutting and the Politics of Acculturation”; AKD Induction Ceremony Speech

I go on sabbatical next year to write in earnest, but I’d love to use my flexible schedule to do lots of public speaking as well.  Visit my website if you’d be interested in having me.  I have great talks on the value of friendship, the biology of sex differences, the politics of genital cutting and, of course, hook up culture.  For Akron this year I’m doing an AKD Induction Ceremony Speech.  Who can think of something nice to say about sociology? I can!!!

Tweets that Make Us Blush: Thanks Cassie!

Also, may we take a minute to have a giant nerd crush on Shankar Vedantam? He tweeted us twice this month!  TWICE!

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

This is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.  Lisa is on Facebook and, sigh, Google+.  Most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, @carolineheldman, and @jaylivingston.

In Other News…

Gwen Sharp has decided to use the new protection of tenure to start the Cockroach Liberation Front (CLF), dedicating to refurbishing the invertebrate’s image and fighting for their equal rights (recognition and redistribution).

The CLF’s first mission is to oppose the use of the cockroach in scientific experimentation. To that end, they staged a protest at the laboratory of a biologist at a local college, publicly exposing the senseless torture of these sensitive and complicated creatures.

Sociological Images stands with the CLF. Anyone who likes TV shows and cake is a friend of ours… and they should be a friend of yours too.

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.

A couple of weeks ago I had a fever and sore throat that left me with laryngitis.  I lost my voice completely for two days and spent three additional days making no sounds at all in order to get it back.  In the meantime, I learned just a tiny bit about how people respond to the deaf.

Disclaimer: I’m sure that deaf people handle these situations with much more grace than I.  And I’m not claiming in the slightest that I know what it’s like to be deaf.  But other people thought I was deaf, and that’s where things got interesting.  (If I make any insensitive steps, please let me know.)

When I would approach someone and either hand them a note or point to my throat and shake my head, I would get a range of responses.

• First, humorously, many people would go correspondingly mute.  I would write a note and their lips would squeeze tightly together, almost like they were trying to forcibly hold back sound.  They would assume that I couldn’t hear and I guess it didn’t occur to them that I could read lips. So I would write “Giant diet coke, please” and they would clam up and get me the soda, but then they wouldn’t say “Here you go” or “Have a nice day” or any of the other niceties that pepper daily life.

• Second, I was shocked to discover that people would, in no uncertain terms, express pity.  They would say “Oh I’m so sorry for you!” or “That’s so sad!”  Deaf people are not necessarily sad about not being able to hear and many are deeply proud of their unique culture.  But many hearing people pity the deaf and apparently they are not afraid to say so to your face!

• Finally, I encountered the classic reaction where people would just say what they wanted to say to me, but louder and with extra enunciation.  As if that would work if I were deaf!  I think, too, that in some of these cases they assumed I was mentally challenged.

In all, I was surprised to discover just how uncomfortable people were with the supposedly deaf me.  They were truly unprepared for interacting with a person who they thought couldn’t hear.  In their lack of preparedness and experience, they made all kinds of mis-steps.

These experiences inspired me to look up some humor and I found a comic called That Deaf Guy, written by Matt and Kay Daigle.  Matt is deaf and Kay is a sign language interpreter who can hear.  They have a little boy. Matt and Kay’s comic is a nice window onto life as/with a deaf person and it was interesting for me to get a peek into what some deaf people might experience sometimes.

Hat tip to my friend Robb, whose therapeutic silence and similar observations preceded mine.

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.

Re-posted to add to the discussion about sexual assault in the aftermath of the Steubenville rape trial, the Senate hearing on rape and harassment in the military, and the controversy at Occidental College.

Toban B. sent us two pairs of photographs showing feminist activism and backlash (images found here) at the University of Western Ontario.  These posters, and their defacement, nicely demonstrate how resistance to oppression is met with counter-resistance.  Until inequality is challenged, things often seem to be just fine; when groups stand up and demand equality, we suddenly see how fiercely people will defend their privilege.

Images after the jump (includes language about sexual violence):

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