Search results for sexual orientation

The contact hypothesis postulates that being near people of a different social group (e.g., race, class, sexual orientation, etc) translates into greater tolerance for that type of person. In other words, it’s harder to hate all Latinos (for example) when your neighbor is Latino and, damn it, you kind of like him.  Andrew Sullivan posted this figure:

Jose at Thick Culture suggests that this could be evidence for the contact hypothesis.  But he also asks whether it might also be true that less homophobic people are more likely to come into contact with gays and lesbians because of a third variable that correlates with both (like choosing to live in a big city), making the relationship spurious.

(What’s a spurious relationship?  Here’s one:  People who eat ice cream are more likely to drown.  Both incidence of ice cream eating and rates of drowning are related to summertime.  The relationship between ice cream and drowning is spurious.  That is, there is no relationship.  Yet they appear related because they are both related to a third variable.)

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

genderkid sent in a link to a story in the Chicago Tribune about a karaoke bar in Peoria, Illinois, called Elbo Room whose felt the need to post the following sign:

Apparently the location used to be a gay bar, and the karaoke bar doesn’t want to be mistaken for it.

This led to protests by members of the gay community and others opposed to homophobia:

The group held three protests last weekend, one of which drew the attention of paintballers, who fired on the crowd. Police had no suspects in that attack.

Since sexual orientation is a characteristic protected by state law, the bar owner was notified the sign is illegal, since it implies that gays and lesbians are unwelcome in the establishment.

Michael Kimmel argues that, for contemporary Americans, science is a superstition.  Scientific explanations are comforting and often accepted without critical thought.  The word “natural” rolls off our tongue and frequently gets conflated with “good.”  We are obsessed with finding the biological origins of sexual orientation, gender difference, political proclivities, happiness… everything.  Once a biological basis is found, it is considered the whole explanation.  It is as if biology is more fundamental and more true than things like culture or society. 

Our “faith” in science, then, is useful to marketers insofar as they can claim that their product is objectively tested, engineered, or otherwise scientifically sound.  This brings me to this Marquardt Beauty Analysis website, sent in by Kiran D.  The website explains the science behind beauty.  The main page includes a woman’s face overlaid with complex geometric shapes:

Here is part of the mission statement (emphasis mine):

MBA is dedicated to proactively researching human visual aesthetics, including its biological and mathematical bases, and to utilizing the results of that research to develop and provide information and technology with which to analyze and positively modify (i.e. improve) human visual attractiveness.

MBA further is dedicated to tailoring and formatting this technology to specific uses for direct applications in the fields where human attractivenss is a factor or parameter (i.e. those fields interested in human visual attractiveness) including medicine, dentistry, psychology, anthropology, biology, anthropometry, the arts, cosmetic makeup, and fashion, as well as for direct use by the individual consumer.

Notice how they use scientific buzzwords like “bases,” “formatting,” “applications,” and “parameter.”

Here is a screenshot showing how they have tried to “scientize” beauty and make their endeavor look like legitimate science:

On the page below they claim that their formula works across history (elsewhere they also claim it works across race), so they argue that their science is objective and not culturally or historically contingent:

The website, of course, is not really about research on beauty; it’s a mechanism with which to sell make-up, cosmetic surgery, and other products.  Here is a screenshot of the first part of the links page:

The page includes links to L’Oreal, Clinique, Cover Girl, Neutrogena, and Revlon; five “aesthetic surgery” links; three “aesthetic dentistry” links; and a handful of academic-y sounding links.

Thanks Kiran!

From AdGoodness come these three print ads for a new digital camera, the Nikon S60, which apparently has a feature that allows it to auto-detect and focus on faces. The three examples include a bunch of people rubber-necking at two young “porn lesbians” [the top one of which has a horribly Photoshopped head!], a bunch of people of color sneaking up on a white safari dude, and a bunch of ghosts looking at a woman in a hotel room.  Of all the possible examples that could be used to highlight this face-finding feature, who thought it was a good idea to use some hackneyed stereotypes about sexual orientation and race?

I have a feeling this ad is not meant for lesbians (the other half of the page showed a half-naked woman; both were for mainstream, non-lesbian-oriented clubs). This might be useful for discussing different attitudes toward gays and lesbians–it is difficult to imagine an ad of two men kissing aimed at straight women. In this case, women kissing is not about THEIR sexual pleasure, but about that of the audience–presumably straight men. The assumption accompanying images such as these, of course, is that the women are not actually lesbians–they’ll still be sexually available to men. This is another difference in cultural views of gays and lesbians–lesbians’ sexual orientation is often doubted (they just need to find the right man) in a way gay men’s usually isn’t.

From Las Vegas Weekly.

1. SUPER EASY ASSIGNMENT FOR ANY COURSE
(written by Lisa Wade)

Spend a few minutes the blog Sociological Images (www.thesocietypages.org/socimages) to get a sense of how authors are choosing and analyzing visuals.  Then, in the course of your daily life, look for an ad, photograph, short video, or graph that would be useful to analyze sociologically.  Bring an image to class with a suggestion for analysis.

2. ASSIGNMENT FOR A LOWER-DIVISION COURSE: ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE AD
(written by Gwen Sharp and Lisa Wade)

Throughout this course we have investigated the ways in which sex, gender, race, class, and other social characteristics are used in “lifestyle-based” advertising. Marketers use these categories, and many others, in an effort to link their products with desirable lifestyles, social groups, or social characteristics, such as ideal masculinity or upper-class luxury.

Go to the blog Sociological Images (www.thesocietypages.org/socimages) and select an advertisement that you believe uses sex, race, gender, family roles, nationality, or class (alone or in combination) and discuss how those characteristics are used in the ad.

Questions:

1. At what social group is the ad aimed? What social groups are represented in the ad? (Hint: They are not always the same.)

2. Does the advertisement reinforce or violate cultural norms? If it violates them, what purpose do you think the violation serves? (Hint: Consider humor, appealing to an often-ignored group, appealing to the idea of rebellion?

3. In addition to the product, what else is the ad selling? (Hint: Consider things like love, marriage, sex, individuality, freedom, sophistication, leisure and other desirables.)

Note to instructors:

This assignment encourages students to do the act of analysis themselves. Doing so will help bypass students’ initial resistance to the idea of “reading too much into” ads by asking them to take seriously the fact that an image must be interpreted.

3. ASSIGNMENT FOR A LOWER-DIVISION COURSE: SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGES AS A JUMPING OFF POINT
(written by Lisa Wade)

First, go to the blog Sociological Images (www.thesocietypages.org/socimages) and select an advertisement that you believe uses sex, race, gender, family roles, nationality, or class (alone or in combination).  Consider how those characteristics are used in the ad (the commentary by Sociological Images bloggers may help here).

Second, look for four additional ads in your own environment (in magazines, on tv, on websites, etc) that complement the one you chose at Sociological Images.  Hints: Look for (1) ads that use the same characteristics the same way (e.g., are Black men presented as violent frequently, or was the first ad just a fluke?); (2) ads that use the same characteristics different ways (e.g., when are women presented as sex objects and when are they not?); and (3) ads for the exact same product targeted to a different audience.

Considering all five ads together, what kind of messages about social groups are being sold to us alongside products?

Note to instructors:

This assignment is useful because it allows students to explore their own social world, instead of simply being told about it.  Students who are suspicious about sociological observations on advertising may find this especially useful.  First, they are required to grapple directly with the advertising to which they are exposed.  They may learn more than thought they would.  Second, even if they actively try to prove that sociological observations are false (which is just fine), they still must analyze ads.  In the end, the assignment is to tell some sociological story about the ads.  Often, I imagine, the stories told by students who really look to counter our more simple observations may be the most interesting stories of all.

4. ASSIGNMENT FOR AN UPPER-DIVISION COURSE
(written by Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp)

The images that we consume as members of U.S. culture send complicated and nuanced messages. Using the blog Sociological Images (www.thesocietypages.org/socimages), prepare a presentation that addresses one of the following:

Option One: While race, class, gender, and other axes of inequality are often discussed in isolation from one another, such inequalities interact. Prepare a presentation that illustrates how stereotypes related to race, ethnicity, national citizenship, immigrant status, sexual orientation, class, religion, or some other social category are not static, but interact with each other

Option Two: While many of us primarily consume media aimed at people like us, companies often target various groups very differently. Prepare a presentation that illustrates how a single product (i.e., Absolut vodka, Altoids, Coors, Trojan condoms, or Nike sportswear) is marketed differently to populations according to their gender, race, ethnicity, national citizenship, immigrant status, sexual orientation, class, religion, or some other characteristic.

Option Three: Oppression functions in part by creating a double bind for those in oppressed groups. To be in a double bind is to be disadvantaged no matter which choice you make, to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Prepare a presentation that illustrates the way in which images in our society serve to create double binds for members of disadvantaged groups.

Note to instructors:

A student who chose Option One might show how stereotypes of masculinity vary across race and class. The student might note that white men are idealized, while black men are often hypersexualized or even dehumanized, and Asian men are portrayed as passive and feminine. Alternatively, a student might choose to look at how portrayals of African Americans changed according to their ascribed class status, such that upper-class blacks appear more “white” (and therefore fit in), whereas poor blacks are made to appear more “black” (and therefore more troublesome or deviant).

A student who chose Option Two might show how Nike sportswear, when advertising in women’s magazines, draws on feminist ideas to suggest that women are just as athletic as men, but when advertising in men’s magazines, reproduces the same notion that men are the true athletes. Or a student might look at how Coors beer produces a hypermasculine and homophobic ad for a men’s magazine, while simultaneously sexualizing the homosocial environment of a gay bar in a magazine aimed at gay men.

A student who chose Option Three might show how images aimed at women suggest that they should be sexy, but women are objectified when they attempt to meet that sexy ideal; that women should be feminine, but are denigrated when they are; should be strong and independent with a good career, but become bitches when they do so; or should be a completely devoted mother, when motherhood becomes the equivalent of “doing nothing.” Another option would be to show the ways in which images appropriate and glamorize stereotypes of urban African Americans, while penalizing black men and women who are believed to embody those stereotypes.

5. THE RHETORIC OF POP CULTURE
(An assignment for a lower-division course by Karryn Lintelman.
Reproduced by permission from here).

Purpose:

*What kinds of images are used and why?

*What kinds of text (written or spoken) is used and why?

*Who is the intended audience?

*What is the intended purpose (to educate, alienate, entertain, etc.)?

*How does it use rhetorical appeals?

*How effective is this text in achieving its intended purpose, for its intended audience? *How do you interpret this text as a reader? Does this match with its intended effect?

*How does the layout, mixture of multimodal elements, narrative, use of metaphor, or other stylistic effects work in the text?

*Does the argument of the text include any logical fallacies?

*Is the title important? Why?

Components:

1. Brief description of selected text, short rationale explaining why you chose the text to analyze, and thesis sentence.

2. Two annotated sources (You must include the MLA citation for each source, and a few sentences explaining what each source is and how/why you plan to incorporate each source into your paper).

3. Initial Draft.

4. Revised Draft with Initial Draft and Writer’s Memo attached.

Good places to look for cultural texts:

www.americanrhetoric.com: Database of speech transcripts, often also has the audio or video of the speech being given as well.

www.projects.washingtonpost.com/politicalads/: Fabulous database of political ads that can be searched by year, by politician, by issues, etc.

www.thesocietypages.org/socimages/: Postings of various ads and other images that people think have sociological relevance. Many times a link to the larger ad campaign, or the company whom the ad is for, will be provided, and is probably a good thing to look at. If you chose an image from this site, try to find where it originally showed up, and do not simply copy what others have already said about it.

www.wordpress.com and www.blogsofnote.blogspot.com : Here, as well as at other blogging sites, you can search blogs according to topics or keywords, and find blogs that other people think are interesting.

www.artcyclopedia.com: searchable database of art and artists. To find more specifically argumentative art, you might try to search for political art.

Of course, you can also find cultural texts all around you, in magazines, newspapers, fliers, billboards, posters, music, etc, as well as the websites you use everyday!

*Overall, you will have at least three sources to cite—your cultural text, and at least two additional sources that provide more information about or other perspectives on your chosen text—these need to be cited on a ‘Works Cited’ page at the end of your paper, according to MLA style. Refer to The Everyday Writer for formatting.

6. ADVERTISING AND SOCIETY
(An assignment for a lower-division course by Alicia Revely.
Reproduced by permission from here.)

We know advertisements are geared toward specific demographics (age/race/gender/income/nationality/culture) but what happens when “outside” groups see these ads? I’ll give you examples of ads that have been considered problematic by people outside their intended audiences.

Choose one ad and analyze why you think people might find it offensive, disrespectful, or inappropriate. Could it be changed to be more sensitive? Does the outrage or worry about the ad’s message make sense to you? What less controversial approach could the company have taken to promote its product? Should the company have been able to foresee the impact the ad would have?

Also think of one commercial or ad campaign in your lifetime that you know caused backlash or that you thought was problematic. Describe what you remember of the ad and the criticisms of it. Was it appropriate for your social context or do you agree with its critics?

This Italian detergent commercial raised concerns about racial stereotyping.

So did this set of promotional photos by Spain’s Olympic basketball team.

When we look at advertisements from the past, we can often see problems that may or may not have been evident at that time. If you’d like to address this issue, you can look at either Marlboro ads targeting mothers in the ’50s or this Folgers ad from about the same time.

7. ESSAY QUESTION ON THE PROBLEM OF INFERENCE
(Written by Mark Stoddart.  Reproduced by permission.)

One of the challenges of textual analysis of media representations is the ‘problem of inference.’ This means that the researcher analyzes the text without engaging with the media producers or audience members. The blog, Sociological Images, provides a sociologically-informed critique of mass media images. After reviewing several posts and their related comments, discuss whether or how the problem of inference is present in this blog. In other words, provide a critical review of the media analysis and comments on Sociological Images, based on your understanding of theory and research on media and society.

 8. ANALYZING GENDER AND DISCOURSES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
(Written by Abby Kinchy)

For this question, you will consult an outside source, a blog called Sociological Images, which offers sociological analysis of advertisements and other aspects of visual culture. The authors of Sociological Images have commented frequently on the ways that ideas about masculinity and femininity are a part of historical and contemporary understandings of the environment. Select three of the blog posts listed below (a digital version of this exam is posted in Dropbox, for easy access to the links). Then write an essay that uses the examples in the blog posts (and your own examples, if you wish), in combination with course readings, to answer the following question: In what ways have patriarchal ideas influenced cultural representations of nature, past and present?

• Little Helpers Links Women to Nature
• Nature as Friend and Enemy
• Why Do Firefighters Take Such Risky Jobs?
• Gender Ideology by Geico
• Gendered Marketing of Fuel Efficient Cars
• Vintage Men’s Magazines and a Pre-Consumerist Time
• The Romanticization of the Old West

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.

Mattel, creator of the Barbie doll, has launched “a doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in—giving kids the freedom to create their own customizable characters again and again.”  This doll has minimal makeup, a short hairstyle with an attachable long-hair wig, a flat chest, flat feet (for wearing sneakers, hiking boots, or platform sandals), and clothing that includes femme and butch options.  The clothes and accessories can, of course, be interchanged into dozens of different combinations. 

For those old enough to remember the 1960s dolls, I have one word for you:  Skipper.  For those too young to know, Skipper was Barbie’s little sister and had a pre-pubescent body: flat chest and flat feet, since she was too young to wear heels. Imagine Skipper only with hair that could go off and on, and a more expansive wardrobe (which, in the 60s, we would have called “tomboy”).

In fact, Mattel sidestepped controversy by diplomatically calling the new doll “customizable” rather than gender-inclusive.  This doll does not include adult body types at all.  It is more of a genderless kid than a gender inclusive adult.  For gender inclusion recognizes that policies, programs, and language need to be broader to encompass the fluidity of gender expression and orientation.  According to Gender Spectrum, the organization whose mission is to create a gender-inclusive world for all children and youth, gender inclusivity means being open to everyone regardless of their gender identity and/or expression.  Gender inclusion would thus include people with large breasts who identify as men and people with penises who identify as women.    

Of course, Mattel’s 12-inch plastic dolls were never particularly realistic, and never had genitalia.  In addition, anyone with even an ounce of creativity could, and did, dress their Barbie doll in the clothing that came with a Ken or G.I. Joe doll, cut off Barbie’s hair, pierce Ken’s ears, draw on tattoos, create their own accessories, and so on.   

Interestingly, Mattel has already made Barbie dolls dressed as men.  Between 2011 and 2019, Mattel released an Elvis Barbie, a David Bowie Barbie, a Frank Sinatra Barbie, and an Andy Warhol Barbie.  These are standard buxom Barbie dolls dressed as the iconic male figures.  Some might consider these dolls at least as gender-bending as the Creatable World^TM dolls.  But they are also less threatening because they are marketed to adult collectors, not to kids who will play with them.  And Mattel has yet to create Marilyn Monroe Ken or Barbra Streisand Ken. (If you’re listening, Mattel, I’ll accept royalties.)

Changing your Barbie’s skin color was a little more challenging, but by 2009, Barbie’s 50^th anniversary, Mattel had released far more ethnically diverse Barbies, although they were still primarily princesses, graceful goddesses, and buxom movie stars.  Over its nearly 60-year history, Barbie’s body shape remained a lingering complaint of feminist critics, well after Barbie got more racially diverse and Teen Talk Barbie no longer said “Math class is tough.”  For even the pilot and presidential candidate Barbies had big chests and really tiny waists, making one wonder if she would hit that glass ceiling pointy boobs first.  Sure, it could be seen as a sign of strength that Barbie does everything Ken does, only in downward pointing feet that only fit in heels.  But as millennials began to become moms who buy (or refuse to buy) Barbies (see, e.g., this feminist mom’s explanation), and Mattel’s sales started to plummet, Mattel began to rebrand itself in 2016 with the launch of new Barbie body types—petite, tall, and curvy. 

Perhaps Lena Dunham, whose nudity in Girls was considered transgressive, deserves thanks.  We should also thank the artists and activists who had a dream for Barbie and used social media to share it, going much farther than Mattel to re-imagine Barbie, gender, and pop culture.  Indeed, they make Creative World^TM dolls look pretty conventional.  The changes Mattel has been making can be seen as a direct result of the willingness of artists, activists, and fans to playfully engage with—rather than simply criticize—their dolls.  Creatable World^TM dolls may be another step Mattel is taking to embrace diversity and include more consumers.  How far it will go might once again depend on what fans of the dolls demand and how creative people get in making their own visions known.

Martha McCaughey is Professor of Sociology at Appalachian State. She blogs on sexual assault prevention at See Jane Fight Back (www.seejanefightback.com)

A recent installment in the Sexist Body Wash Ad category [see any Axe ad for others], Old Spice’s Double Impact body wash uses a centaur [man/horse hybrid] to suggest that the hybrid product will boost users’ sexual potency. The centaur calls himself “two things at once.” The first time, he says he’s “a man AND a smart shopper.” The second time, he says that he’s “a man AND a provider.” The viewer thus easily links the “man” with the human part of the centaur and the “smart shopper,” along with the “provider,” with the equine part by process of elimination. Drawing in the idea of a particularly potent man being “hung like a horse,” the ad implies that users of Old Spice body wash are not only “smart shoppers” and good “providers,” but also that they are heterosexual [notice the woman as prop, signifying the centaur’s heteronormative orientation] dynamos in the sack [stall?] with really big penises! The message, however, is complicated by the fact that the centaur is apparently composited from a male model and a female horse, who is obviously not hung. Hooray for polysemy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtN9CW01QDM[/youtube]

For further interesting hybrids, you can see video at the product’s Web site shows the same male model combined with different animals, including a slug, an octopus and a snake, as well as non-animal things, such as a tree, a cannon and a fish stick [?]. I’m not sure what to think about them….