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As examples of childhood socialization into cultural patterns of interaction, we’ve previously brought you baby preacher, baby worshipper, and two babies mimicking a conversation. Thanks to Shruti S., we now have another awesome example: a 2-year-old, Khaliyl Iloyi of London, who has learned the cadences of rapping:

You’re welcome.

Sonita M. sent in a report from the Movement Advancement Project about the state of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families.

LGBT families are more likely to be poor than non-LGBT families.  Nine percent of married cis-gender different-sex couples live in poverty, compared to 21% of gay male couples and 20% of lesbian couples:

LGBT couples may be more likely to be in poverty in part because of wage differentials between gays, lesbians, and their heterosexual counterparts.  Research shows that gay and bisexual men earn significantly less money than heterosexual men, whereas lesbians make somewhat more money than straight women.  Gay men would be more likely than heterosexual men to be in poverty, then.  But what about women? Women in same-sex couples face the same wage disadvantage that all women face, but also are not married to the heterosexual men that are making so much money (making it so that heterosexual women can make less money than gay women, but still be less likely to live in poverty). Make sense?  I hope so.

The second reason that LGBT couples with children are more likely than cis-gendered different-sex couples with children to live in poverty is that Black and Latino LGBT people are more likely than White LGBT people to be parents, and Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately poor to begin with:

Among same-sex couples, being a parent is also correlated with immigration status, which also correlates with class.  Non-citizens are more likely to be parents than citizens:

The two million children in America being raised by LGBT parents, then, are more likely to suffer from class disadvantage.  The authors of the report go on to discuss the ways in which formal policy and informal discrimination contribute to this state of affairs.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

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.

To be effective, every social movement has to ensure that the language used to describe it sends the message it wants to send and resonates with a large audience.  The Occupy Movement’s popularization of the phrase “We are the 99%” is an excellent example of this.  It is a simple, inclusive phrase that brings to mind the wealth gap.  It has certainly resonated and it has changed the overall discourse.

Keeping atop of the language, though, is always an ongoing battle.  This flyer, put up by members of Occupy Phoenix, is a great example of a conscious effort to get control of the discourse.  It targets the word “camping,” suggesting that what they are doing is not accurately described by the term:

“Using a tent,” they claim, is not the same as camping.  Camping is fun, filled with leisure activities.  They, in contrast, are doing hard work, “petitioning the government for redress of grievances.”  I hadn’t thought of it before I saw the flyer, but they are absolutely right that the word “camping” threatens their cause.  What a wonderful example of the power of language and the need to carefully control it.

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 Ms.

I thought it would be fun to have a round-up of examples of masculinizing the feminine — that is, attempts to sell items to men through repackaging and renaming, drawing on ridiculous stereotypes of masculinity to assure men that they can use these products without becoming girly.

To start off, how might you sell nail polish to men? Call the brand Alphanail and associate the product with sex and warfare, of course, with, as submitter Gabriella says, “women as props and men as warriors”:

Clémentine C. noticed that Canova, a British company that sells candles, has a line of candles specifically for men, identifiable by the manly images and scents. While the other candles are given names like sweet pea or watermelon, the men’s versions have more detailed names, with allusions to “bringing out the dog in you,” “the sweet smell of success,” and “a splash of motor oil.” The Cassis & Fig with Added Danger candle  includes a silhouette of a woman behind a martini glass, reminiscent of a stripper pole:

Jennifer W., Kirstie McC., Savannah G., Kristina K., Dmitriy T.M., and Scott C. informed us that CIL Paints, a Canadian company, is trying to masculinize paint colors. The website provides men with a range of colors for their “ultimate man caves.” Scott saw this ad for the line in Toronto’s Metro back in September:

What makes these colors masculine? A simple name change. The website helpfully translates the “real” names of their paints into man-speak:

According to a video created as part of the ad campaign, a quick name change instantaneously changes men’s perceptions, making them compliant with women’s wishes (“The colour she wants with a name he’ll agree to”):

Indeed, the central message is that men are incredibly stupid and easily duped; women just have to manipulate them a bit:

Now we’ve got the house painted; it’s time for some chores! Anjan G. let us know that appliance company Philips designed an iron just for men:

The man-friendly features on this “robust” iron “power tool for ironing,” described on the Philips website as the “Anodilium soleplate man iron,” include “more power, more steam, more performance” to give you “an endless excellent gliding experience.”

Now, let’s say that you’ve just ironed all your clothes with your ironing power tool, and now you want a little rest. Hmmm, you might think, I’d like a nice warm beverage, but I don’t want to appear girly. Thanks to Elisabeth M., we discovered that Man Teas has an answer for you, with their goal of making tea safe for men:

…most of the specialty teas out there have stuff like rosehips and lemon zest in them (what the hell is “zest” anyway?) and they are packaged and merchandised to appeal to women. What guy is going to pick up a box of Cozy Sleepytime Tea with a pajama’d teddy bear on it? Not this guy.

At least three different varieties of their teas are bacon-flavored. And to make sure every element of your tea-consuming experience is sufficiently manly, you can steep your tea is this manly T-Baggin Tea Bag:

And finally, along with your tea, perhaps you’d like some healthy cereal, but you’re worried that health foods are associated with women. Well, don’t worry; Tesco sells Chunky Muesli, a “cereal for men.” It’s made safe for men with construction-zone packaging:

Thanks to Sophie K. for sending us the photo!

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

In a link sent in by Anjan G., Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima explains what she does in the months prior to walking the catwalk (source).   Here’s a summary:

• For months before the show, she works out every day with a personal trainer; for the three weeks before, she works out twice a day.
• A nutritionist gives her protein shakes, vitamins and supplements to help her body cope with the work out schedule.
• She drinks a gallon of water a day.
• For the final nine days before the show, she consumes only protein shakes.
• Two days before the show, she begins drinking water at a normal rate; for the final 12 hours, she drinks no water at all.  She loses up to eight pounds during this time.

The result.

Lima’s training and nutrition regimen reveal that the look that is believed by some to be the epitome of feminine accomplishment — the look required to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel — is accompanied by significant physical strain.  Lima looks as she is supposed to on the runway, but she is also dehydrated and hungry.

The story reminded me of this photograph, taken by Zed Nelson.  It shows Ronnie Coleman, immediately after walking off the stage at the Mr. Olympia competition, breathing through an oxygen mask.  He would take first place.  Explaining the photograph, Nelson writes:

Bodybuilders often have extreme and rigid exercise and diet plans in the months preceding a contest.  In those months, a male bodybuilder’s goal is to make himself appear as strong as possible. He must balance his body’s functional needs with his aesthetic goals, and sometimes the latter wins over the former.

Male bodybuilders and female models, then, represent aesthetic extremes of masculinity and femininity, but their bodies aren’t the natural extension of male and female physicalities. Instead, achieving the look require significant sacrifice of one’s body.  In other words, they look fit and strong, but looks can be deceiving.

See also:  criticism of female body builders and the right to consume women’s beauty.

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 Reports from the Economic Front.

The deficit commission, better known as the “Super Committee,” failed to produce a plan to cut deficit spending by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.  According to the ground rules of the agreement that created the commission, its failure is supposed to trigger approximately $1 trillion in “automatic” spending cuts that will go into effect beginning January 2013.

The agreement included the following stipulations for guiding the automatic cuts:

• Approximately 50% of the required reduction is to come from the so-called security budget (national security operations and military costs).
• Approximately 32% is to come from non-defense discretionary programs (health, education, drug enforcement, national parks and other agencies and programs).
• About 12% is come from Medicare (reduced payments to Medicare providers and plans).
• The rest is to come mostly from agricultural programs.

To be clear, these are reductions to be made in projected budget lines.  In other words, the cuts to the security budget will not produce an actual decline in security spending, only a slowdown in the projected increase previously agreed to by Congress.

As I previously argued, the failure of the commission is a good thing.  The commission was actively considering structural changes to a number of key social programs.  One was to change the formula for calculating social security payments so as to reduce them.  Another was to raise the age at which people could access Medicare. The automatic cuts, if enacted, will reduce spending on important programs, but at least they do not include steps towards their dismantling.  In fact, Social Security and Medicaid are exempt.

The next stage of the budget battle has now begun.  Political forces are maneuvering to change the formula for the automatic cuts mandated by the budget agreement.  In fact, this maneuvering began weeks before the commission formally announced its failure to agree on a deficit cutting plan.  According to a November 5, 2011 New York Times report:

Several members of Congress, especially Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, are readying legislation that would undo the automatic across-the-board cuts totaling nearly $500 billion for military programs, or exchange them for cuts in other areas of the federal budget.

I believe that we need to enter the fray with a different plan, one that includes blocking further cuts to non-defense discretionary programs and Medicare.  It is worth recalling that the agreement that established the deficit commission already included approximately $1 trillion in cuts to non-defense discretionary programs.

It is the security budget that we need to focus on.  And we need to be clear that our aim in demanding cuts to that budget, as well as tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, is to help generate funds to support an aggressive federal program of economic restructuring not deficit reduction.

The table below makes clear just how important it is to target the security budget. It shows the pattern of  federal spending on discretionary programs, defense and non-defense, over the years 2001 to 2010.  The big winner was the Department of Defense, which captured 64.6% of the total increase in discretionary spending over those years.  It was still the big winner, at 36.9%, even if one subtracts out war costs.

While the defense gains are staggering, they do not include spending increases enjoyed by other key budget areas dedicated to the military.  For example, many costs associated with our nuclear weapons program are contained in the Energy Department budget.  Many military activities are financed out of the NASA budget.  And then there is Homeland Security, Veteran Affairs, and International Assistance Programs.  It would not be a stretch to conclude that more than 75% of the increase in spending on discretionary programs over the period 2001 to 2010 went to support militarism and repression. No wonder our social programs and public infrastructure has been starved for funds.

There is no way we can hope to reshape our economy without taking on our government’s militaristic foreign and domestic policy aims and the budget priorities that underpin them.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released a report on employment and parental leave for first-time mothers. The mean age at first birth is now 25 years. And while a few decades ago the norm was for women to quit work upon getting pregnant, from 2006 to 2008, 56.1% of women worked full time during their pregnancy, leaving work only as the due date approaches. However, this varies widely by educational level, largely because women with the lowest levels of education are less likely to be working regardless:

The graph on the left below shows how many months before the birth working women left their work; the graph on the left shows how many months after the birth they returned. As we see, over time women have stayed at their paid jobs longer and returned more quickly:

During the 2006-2008 reporting period, for the first time a majority — but a bare one, at 50.8% — of first-time mothers in the labor force used paid leave (maternity leave, sick days, etc.). Not surprisingly, access to paid leave also varied greatly by educational level, and that gap has widened significantly over time:

So nearly half of first-time mothers in the U.S. still do not have paid leave from their jobs.

PBS created an interactive program based on the data that allows you to see the patterns more clearly. You select a race/ethnicity and educational level and get a detailed breakdown of the data. For instance, here’s the info for White non-Hispanic women with a 4-year college degree or higher:

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog.

I don’t know the sociological research on auctions — surely it must exist — but auctions seem like a wonderful illustration of how value is socially constructed. I didn’t really need to be convinced that people don’t always live up to economists’ ideals of rationality, but I was reminded of it on Saturday when I watched the auction of items from my mother’s “estate” (i.e., stuff in her apartment). I wasn’t in the actual auctiion room; nowadays you can watch — and bid — online.

As someone who is relatively ignorant about art, I of course was puzzled as to why one piece was worth several hundred dollars while another might fetch only a $50 or no bids at all. But I thought that potential buyers would have an idea of how much something is worth — the objects and information about them are all available beforehand — and they would bid and stop bidding according to these prior valuations. But look at this lithograph, which graced my parents’ wall for as long as I can remember.

The opening asking price was $20.* None of the people at the auction house or online would offer that much. For the potential bidders, the picture was not worth $20.

The auctioneer then lowered the opening bid to $10. Someone offered the ten bucks. A bargain. But then someone else bid $20. The picture which had not been worth $20 suddenly was. And then it was worth $30. You can see the bidding history to the right of the lithograph. The bidders were reluctant — twice someone came in just as the gavel was about to come down — but in the end, the picture that nobody thought was worth $20 eventually sold for twice that much. In the interval of a few minutes, this minimal interaction between bidders had quadrupled the value of the picture.

There’s also a cognitive-dissonance explanation. If I bid $10 for the item, I’m not just telling myself, “I think this picture is worth $10.” Instead, the message is more general: “I want this picture.” Once we decide to buy something, our subjective valuation of it goes up – we’re more comfortable thinking that we got a good deal than thinking that we wasted our money. Most transactions end there; we buy something at a price, and we are happy with it. But an auction encourages us to turn that subjective valuation into hiigher and higher cash bids.

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* It can be a bit daunting, depressing even, to think that a picture so familiar that it feels like a part of your life turns out to be worth so little to other people.