Search results for sexualization girls

NEWS:

Lisa will be in New Orleans in February!  If anyone is interested in coming to a SocImages cocktail hour, email her at socimages@thesocietypages.org.

Also, this is your monthly reminder, you can always follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook, where we update with a featured post everyday!

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

In January of 2008 we featured a set of posters made by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy that labeled teens who found themselves parents as “pricks,” “cheap,” “nobodies,” “dirty,” and “rejects.” Nice.

And one year ago, in January 2009, I put up a series of photographs exposing the amazing convenience and luxuriousness of private plane travel.  It’s a classic “how the top 1% lives” kind of post.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Jan ’10):

Food

Dudes.  I added an ad with a recipe for jello with tuna to our post on vintage recipes for savory gelatin.  I am not kidding.

We added a new commercial to our previous post on Orangina; this one includes interspecies S&M.

Edward S. alerted us to a commercial where a pig does the Flashdance.  We added it to our post on gendered and sexualized food (scroll all the way down).

We’ve previously posted on the historical association of men (and masculinity) with meat. Jon S. sent us an example, a Weight Watchers ad that promises men they don’t have to eat “like a rabbit,” accompanied by an image of a hunk of beef. ‘Cause men need steak and potatoes, even when they’re dieting!

Media and Marketing

Gwen and I were like: “We’re so NOT adding any more content to the evolution of Evony ads post unless someone sends in something that truly takes it a step further… and that’s impossible.” Right? Wrong. Chris M., Tinpantithesis, Chris M., and Ryan sent in the next step in the Evony ads. Believe it.

CNN asked us if Jon and Kate Gosselin were getting too much coverage while advertising CNN’s coverage of them. We added another example of media hypocrisy–Dr. Drew of “Celebrity Rehab” telling us we shouldn’t be so interested in celebrities.

What can we appropriate the feminist movement to sell in addition to bras? How about shoes?

We posted about the September 2009 issue of Glamour including a picture of a naked “plus-size” model (that is, a size 12). We updated the post with a similar photo of a group of women with less-than-model-thin bodies that is in the Glamour calendar.

Marc C. sent us a link to a slide show featuring 185 pictures of cheerleaders.  We added it to our post titled “What Warrants a Slide Show?”

Race

We added a photo from the liner notes of a Lady Gaga CD in which she and Kanye West are in a pose reminiscent of King Kong to an older post on the King Kong motif.  Thanks to Ruth D’R. and an anonymous tipster!

Sara L. sent us another example to add to our post about housecleaning services that present house cleaners as non-white and those having their houses cleaned as white.

Sex

Another month, another addition to our ejaculation imagery post.  Can you say “splooge halo”?  I did.  Thanks to Helene V. for the submission.

Someone-who-prefers-to-remain-anonymous sent us another example of a t-shirt that equates sexual penetration with domination in the sports arena, which we added to our original post on the topic.

Julia U. sent in some Calvin Klein ads that centrally feature the naked body of a black man.  We added them to our post on the sexual objectification of men.

We updated one of our posts about the sexualization of little girls with photos of baby bibs that say “flirt” and “single.”

Gender

We found a vintage ad for Plymouth Barracuda marketed specifically to women and we added it to our post on the awesome Dodge La Femme.

Liscadifretta sent in a photo of a clothes hanger meant to look like a woman’s legs and crotch.  We added it to our post featuring furniture shaped like (naked) women.

Joel P. sent us a link to the updated Diamonds or the Doghouse campaign by JC Penney.  Like last year, the message is that you can be a total dick to your wife, so long as you are willing to buy her diamonds, because diamonds make her incredibly stupid.

As always, we had more to add to our post about pointlessly gendered products, this time boys’ and girls’ organic body wash and Nivea chapstick.

And we updated our post on marketing beauty products to men to include On the Job, a line of lotions–or, if you prefer, polymer gloves–for men.

Anna K.-B. sent us another example of health-related activism aimed specifically, and unnecessarily, at women.

Jessica H. sent us another example of a business marketing its services with gender: The Occasional Wife, and The Handy Husband and, Jessica’s find, Boyfriend for Hire.

Remember when we posted about the gendering (and Whitening) of online degree programs? Ryan  sent us another example so we added it.

And we added another added to post on socializing kids with gendered toys.

More Stuff!

Ashleigh V. sent along another Twingo commercial. This one equates modernity with sexual permissiveness.

We added another batch of dolls with disabilities to our post on reactions to dolls with Down’s Syndrome.

We added another DDT product to our vintage post with ads advocating the household use of DDT, a pesticide that later turned out to be wholly toxic.

Caspian P. and his roommates sent us a link to the newest Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Playbook cover.  It seems it makes quite a departure from previous editions.  (D&D fans: I’m reconstructing this history from here, so let me know if I make any significant mistakes in my summary.)

Various versions of the D&D Playbook–e.g., regular or basic, advanced, and expert– have been published.  For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to treat them all equivalently.

The first D&D Playbook (1971):

1981:

Playbooks from the late 1980s:

You might have noticed that the covers include fantastical creatures and male warriors and wizards… but no women.

In 2000, ownership of the game changed hands and the new cover simply looked like this:

And then this (2003):

And then the Playbook went the way of the Evony ads:

Caspian wrote that he’s played D&D for years and always felt that it included great female characters.  So he was disappointed with the inclusion of a highly sexualized, part-naked woman on the recent cover, prompting him to send it to us.

Consider the new cover alongside our posts on Gossip Girl promotions, the New Beverly Hills 90210, the Burger King shower girl, this crazy post on hot horses and puppies, and the makeovers of Dora the Explorer, Holly Hobbie, Strawberry Shortcake, and the Sun Maid.

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.

In the book Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sports, Pat Griffin discusses the pressure on female athletes to constantly prove they, and their sport, are acceptably feminine, for fear of being labeled lesbians. Women who engaged in, and openly enjoyed, sports have often been viewed with suspicion or concern, ranging from beliefs that physical exertion might make them infertile to a fear that women’s sports teams serve as recruiting sites for lesbians. Some college coaches even try to get young women to play on their teams by hinting to their parents that other schools their daughter is considering are known for having a lot of lesbians and it might not be the “type of environment” where they want their sweet little girl to go.

Female athletes, and women’s sports teams, thus often feel a lot of pressure to prove their heterosexuality to quell homophobic fears and to make women’s sports appealing to a broad audience. One way to do so is to dissociate themselves from lesbians. Another is to emphasize the femininity of female athletes, signaling that they are, despite their athletic abilities, still physically attractive to, and interested in, men.

Texas A&M put out this promotional media guide, which features an image of the male coach surrounded by the team in sexy clothing:

While these types of materials have traditionally been for the media, they’re increasingly used as recruiting tools for players as well. Those who produce them argue that they’re just trying to put out something distinctive that will set them apart. And as Jayda Evans at the Seattle Times says, it’s not like men’s sports teams are never photographed off the court.

But as many researchers have pointed out, and as Evans herself discusses, female athletes are often photographed and discussed in ways that largely erase their athletic abilities. When men’s teams are dressed up for publicity materials, it’s usually for one or two images that are outnumbered by ones that highlight their sports participation. For female athletes, images that exclude any connection to sports often become nearly the entire story. And despite the fact that the creators often stress their interest in doing something unique and distinctive to set themselves apart, there is a very common set of elements in promotional materials for women’s sports: clothing, make-up, hair, and poses that sexualize the players and implicitly include a reassurance to parents, potential players, and fans that the women are pretty, charming, and feminine, regardless of what they do on the court or the field.That is, they are blending masculinity and femininity by being athletic and pretty, not giving up their femininity altogether.

Of course, part of an acceptable performance of femininity is showing that you want male attention, and that you actively try to make yourself appealing to men. So while these materials might do many other things, they also carry a particular message: these girls like to pretty themselves up, and that should reassure you that it’s not a team full of lesbians.

The effect of all this is that female athletes may feel pressured to keep their hair long, wear make-up even on the court, and emphasize any relationships they have with men or children to “prove” they are straight, and a lesbian who likes makeup and sexy clothing may face less suspicion and stigma than a straight woman who doesn’t.

Also see our posts on Serena Williams’s ESPN cover, Candace Parker “is pretty, which helps,” groundbreaking female sailor is also pretty, sexualizing female Olympic athletes, diets of champions, media portrayals of female athletes, and valuing dads in the WNBA.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

About a year ago, Gwen posted about the evolution of the Sun-Maid, the young spokeswoman for Sun-Maid raisins:

In her post, she asked: “I wonder if Sun-Maid has stayed with the de-sexualized icon because raisins are associated with children?”

Well, Gwen, I’m afraid you spoke too soon.  Here, via Jezebel, is the new Sun Maid:

Noticably slimmer and with more form-fitting clothes, this new Sun Maid is clearly not hyper-sexualized, but it’s a move in that direction.

Here’s a commercial in which, building on her increasing sexualization and objectification, she turns into a Hollywood celebrity for a sec:

I think–considering also the recent makeovers of Dora the Explorer, Holly Hobbie, and Strawberry Shortcake–we can officially call this a trend.

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.

Once again Larry at The Daily Mirror dug up something interesting from the L.A. Times archives. It’s a 1969 article about–gasp!–a female ranch hand. What’s fascinating is the way that, while discussing how she does things that aren’t traditionally considered female, the reporter describes her in ways that emphasize her femininity so we know she’s not completely un-womanly.

She’s as cute as all get-out and as strong as a heifer. She’s the only female ranch-hand (“don’t call me a cowgirl, it’s a dude term”)…

…”I was never quite like all the other little girls.” Beverly always wanted to be a cowboy–always wore bluejeans to school…

But she also succeeded in remaining ultrafeminine in an impish sort of way…She bemoans the fact that she has to keep her hair trimmed to a maximum of two inchles all over her head…

And:

Text:

“I enjoy working,” she said. “I don’t whine or cry when there is a lot to do. I love my job.” For this she is known as “comadrie,” meaning little mother…”

She’s also described as “coy”:

But to the likely relief of many readers, she goes on to say that probably she eventually will get married. Reading the entire article, I can’t help but suspect that’s more out of a sense that you have to than a real desire on her part. She kind of reminds me of my grandma, who I think got married and had kids mostly because what else could a woman do? I suspect if she’d been able to get a job as a ranch hand, she would have happily done that instead.

And while they don’t call her a “cowgirl,” this title from the second page of the article might not be what she was hoping for instead:

Now, if this was just an historical curiosity, I wouldn’t have posted it. But the thing is, we still see this type of emphasis on the femininity of women who succeed at things we consider “men’s work.” For instance, see this post on WNBA player Candace Parker, or Lisa’s post about Caster Semenya. Or even just compare the uniforms of male and female athletes.  We’re more comfortable with women who break some gender rules as long as they maintain their femininity by following other rules.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

NEWS

Find us on facebook and twitter, if you like.

Germany! I’ll be in Munich for the month of September!  If there are any Sociological Images fans in the area, I’d love to have a cocktail hour!  Email me at socimages@thesocietypages.org and we’ll set it up.

Our New Look:  We’d like to thank Jon Smajda, our IT and all-around tech fix-it guy, for the great redesign of the site. As you may have noticed, it’s now easier to search for posts, comments are threaded, and the page looks less cluttered overall. Jon, your work is greatly appreciated!

Better Searchage! We updated some of our tags to make it easier to search for posts. There were two major changes:

(1) While we still have a generic “race/ethnicity” tag, we also created tags for the major racial/ethnic groups recognized in the U.S.  You can now search for “race/ethnicity: Asians/Pacific Islanders” and so on. In some cases we struggled with how to define groups or which labels to use. We settled on terms that are generally recognizable and that were short enough to fit in our tags box.  Most posts that are labeled with the “race/ethnicity” tag are now also assigned to at least one specific racial/ethnic tag.

(2) Previously we had individual countries listed alphabetically in the tags list. We decided it would be better to have them all listed as “nation: [specific country]” so they show up together as a group rather than scattered throughout the tags list. So, for instance, Egypt is now listed as “nation: Egypt.”

Changes to Comment Moderation Policy: We have always taken a hands-off approach to reader comments so as to not stifle discussion.  First, while we try to read every comment, we prefer to focus on putting up new content and we found that readers did a pretty good job of responding to each other.  Second, we often found even hateful and mean-spirited comments useful for illustrating some of the points we were trying to make, particularly how groups who fear loss of privilege will lash out and attempt to invalidate any critiques of their social position.  Finally, we have pretty thick skins and don’t really get too worked up about people insulting us.

However, as we posted about earlier in the month, we had an incident in which readers of an anti-feminist website left extremely hateful and threatening comments targeting a specific reader, including posting personal information (such as location) and encouraging physical violence against her and her dog. As a result we rethought our attitude toward comments. We’re not adopting a formal policy, but we decided some moderation is necessary. In general, comments that are hateful or threatening toward other commenters, or that are mean-spirited toward particular social groups (i.e., “I hate Black people”) and do not in any way contribute to a discussion of the issue will be deleted. We will undoubtedly miss some comments or not notice them immediately. We certainly won’t delete comments just because they disagree with us or are rather snarky, and we of course can’t protect readers from any comment they might find unpleasant or offensive–the comments section would have to be shut down completely. Basically, our policy toward comments is: Don’t be an ass, and if you are, we’ll delete your comments when we have time.

We also decided not to provide direct links to racist or misogynistic sites. We’ll provide the web address in posts about such sites so readers know where images came from but won’t have a link; this prevents their administrators from tracking back to our site and posting a barrage of threatening or overtly offensive comments.

We know these changes in how we handle comments won’t please everyone, or maybe anyone–some will want us to moderate more and others would prefer that we don’t moderate at all. But it seemed like the best compromise for preserving the ability for readers to discuss–and criticize–posts while not allowing some commenters to intimidate other readers to the point that they fear commenting.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: AUGUSTS

In light of the recent scandal over Caster Semenya’s sex, we thought we’d resurrect a post from August 2008 about the sexualization of female Olympic athletes.

And, to mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we’d love for you to visit our post from August 2007 about racist interpretations of survival strategies in the aftermath of the storm.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW!)

You might have noticed that when we revamped the website (thanks Jon!), our names appeared in the right-hand column alongside neutral avatars which, as we’ve discussed many times, are actually male avatars (there is some delicious irony here).  It turns out that WordPress not only has the male as default, but there is no female option at all.  You can, however, choose to be a monster.  We eventually went with no avatar at all.  We documented the saga, including all of the options offered by WordPress, in our post on default avatars. Scroll down. [Gwen notes: I kinda want to be the monster.]

Sex

Sea Monkeys!  We added new ads for sea monkeys to our post on heteronormativity and a new collection we’re starting on ads that use sex to sell the most unlikely things.

Speaking of, remember our post full of ads that place the product or tagline in front of a woman’s crotch?  We thought so.  We added an ad for London Fog, sent in by Dmitriy T. M.

Oh geez. We added more examples to our ejaculation imagery ad. We’re sorry, but there was no getting around it. The new material includes images from a campaign for The IceCreamists and an ad for a water gun called the Oozinator (you’ve got to see it).

We also added another image to our recent post on using women’s bodies to symbolize HIV infection.

Race

We found a rodent control ad comparing the Chinese to rats and added it to our long list of anti-Chinese propaganda circa 1900.  We also added an image of lemon ice cream marketed with a caricatured Asian image to a prior post about Italian candies in a blackface-reminiscent wrapper.

Jason K. sent us another example of Obama depicted as a pre-modern and/or savage African, this time a poster showing Obama as a “witch doctor,” so we added it to our post of him presented as a Barbarian and a cannibal.

To our post discussing how people of color are often included in ads as symbols of flavor, color, or spice, we added a comparison of two McDonald’s french fry containers sent in by Joshua B.

Kids

Emily M. sent us another laxative ad in which a small child finally gets the loving mother she deserves because of the wonderful powers of laxatives, which we added to our earlier post on the topic.

You can also check out the vintage ad for Lane Bryant girls’ clothing that we added to our post on fashion for “chubby” girls.

Gender

We added more gendered products–masculinized ear plugs, ahem, “ear screws,” feminized tape “Just for girls!” and boys’ and girls’ sandwich bags–to our post on pointlessly gendered products.

Relatedly, both Danielle F. and Sara S.-P. sent us a link to the new Playstation Portable for omg! girlz!  We added it to our post on girlified games (like the Ouija Board).

Moving on to creepily gendered products, we added a photo of the storefront of Sweet Taters Cafe, sent in by Dmitiry T.M., featuring a “hot” potato, if you get my drift, to our post on sexualized food.

Evony has released more cleavage-fixated ads so we updated our post on the evolution, and increasing boob-centricness, of their recent ad campaign.

Kyle M. alerted us to the advertising campaign for the sci-fi show Surrogates. We added it to our post looking at how gender intersects with (real and fictional) robotics.

Ronni S. found a “Thank God you’re a man commercial” in which a woman becomes hysterical and men drink beer.  We added it to our post featuring ads that suggest that being a woman sucks.

And also in overtly sexist, we found another commercial that portrays women as batshit insane, this time for shoes.  It’s delightful.

Thanks for reading everyone!

I know I’ve been negligent in my posting for a few days. I was grading and busy watching old Michael Jackson videos and performances on YouTube and feeling unexpectedly sad about everything his life represented, and also the realization that people I idolized as a kid are now in their 50s.

Anyway, Sarah N. sent in a link to a story at the Mail Online about how women’s perceived attractiveness plays a part in deciding which matches will be played on the main court at Wimbledon. The organizers of Wimbledon don’t try to hide the fact that the appearance of the competitors is taken into account when scheduling matches:

…the All England Club admitted that physical attractiveness is taken into consideration. Spokesman Johnny Perkins said: ‘Good looks are a factor.’

Some women who were scheduled to play on Center Court, the main area, and their world rankings:

World No. 45 (unseeded) Gisela Dulko

World No. 59 (unseeded) Maria Kirilenko

No. 28 seed Sorana Cirstea

Women who played on the other courts, with their rankings:

No. 5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova

No. 2 seed Serena Williams:

Attractiveness doesn’t seem to play such a factor in scheduling the men’s matches:

In the men’s tournament, five-times winner Roger Federer and British hope Andy Murray invariably play on Centre.

The scheduling of women by perceived attractiveness may have something to do with attracting television viewers. A comment from a BBC television employee:

But obviously it’s advantageous to us if there are good-looking women players on Centre Court…Our preference would always be a Brit or a babe as this always delivers high viewing figures.

Of course, it’s nothing new that female athletes are judged on their appearances as well as their athletic abilities. Female athletes have often felt pressure to meet conventional standards of beauty. This isn’t just about looks; it’s also about doing heterosexual femininity. Female athletes have long been suspected of being lesbians, particularly if they did not seem to actively seek male sexual approval. In fact, WNBA players have been encouraged to wear make-up and jewelry, have their hair long, and bring up their boyfriends, husbands, and/or children to prove their heterosexuality. Thus, in the end women’s appearances, and willingness to play up their gender in an approved way, often trumps their athletic accomplishments in a way that male athletes don’t usually face.

Other posts about female athletes and attractiveness are here, here, here, here (watch the second video), here, and here.

Andrea G. alerted us to a Fisher-Price toy, called My Pretty Learning Purse, for children aged 6 to 36 months. Behold:

The purse comes with a dollar bill, a bracelet, a mirror, and a set of keys.  It also sings songs about purple and pink.

Andrea writes:

With these props, a one year old can properly play “woman.”  I felt this is an example of how we do gender and teach it to children, as young as a year old.

At least they’re admitting that femininity must be “learn[ed]?”

UPDATE: Jane, in the comments, linked to a Fisher Price product for boys that is very similar:

Get it!  It’s a tool box and it includes keys, a screwdriver, a hammer, and a saw.

The play involved in each product is essentially identical (e.g., music, putting things in and taking them out), but the theme of the play is gendered.  Do you think this is to please the parents or the kids?

NEW (Dec. ’09)! Monica C. sent along this page from a Target catalog featuring a girl playing with a kitchen and a boy playing with a tool set:

Also in teaching young children femininity and masculinity, see our posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

—————————

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