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A student of mine, Tim C., wrote a nice analysis of two Dolce and Gabbana ads, one which has been widely castigated as a glamorization of gang rape, and one that I’d not yet seen.  The familiar ad, below, features four mostly dressed men standing/crouching over a restrained woman:

The second ad is very similar thematically, but instead of a group of mostly-dressed men standing/crouching over a mostly-naked woman, it’s a group of mostly-dressed men standing/crouching over a naked man (though with no restraint).

What does Tim make of this?

One can make the argument that Dolce & Gabanna, through these two ads, are not promoting male dominance over females.  Instead, they are promoting the dominance of the men who wear these brand name clothes, but through means of controversial ideas that society takes for granted.  They want people to see the superficial idea that if you wear these clothes, you will feel powerful and in control (just like these men in the ads).  This works because the social construct of our society has accepted this idea of male dominance [over women and inferior men].

What do you think?

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.

On the heels of our post on food deserts, Family Inequality‘s Philip Cohen posted about “care vacuums.”  In this case the research is referring to the shrinking number of nursing homes in the U.S., leaving people farther and farther away from the nearest nursing home.

Zhanlian Feng and colleagues found that between 1999 and 2008 we lost about 5% of all nursing home beds and these losses were disproportionately in neighborhoods populated by Blacks and Latinos. The maps below overlays the racial composition of neighborhoods (darker = higher percent minority) with open nursing homes (in black) and nursing home closures (in red). Both seem to be disproportionately in minority neighborhoods, but Feng et al. showed that the closures are even more so.

Here’s Chicago as an example:

Just as food deserts make it more difficult for people without access to personal, reliable transportation to get fresh, affordable food, care vacuums make it more difficult for those same people — disproportionately Black and Latino, and disproportionately poor — to visit loved ones in nursing homes.  Ironically, this is despite the fact that use of nursing homes by minorities is rising and, among whites, falling.

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.

Nicole sent in this Australian commercial for P&O Cruises. Nicole was struck by the obvious racial divide, in which the privileged customers are all White, while non-Whites serve them, either literally (and with a smile!) or as a form of cultural entertainment:

It’s another example of a common tourism marketing theme, in which supposedly “traditional” and/or “native” cultures are provided as cultural experiences to “modern” tourists. This commercial just stands out because of the particularly stark division of the world into those who are entertained and attended to, and those who do the attending.

scatx sent in a link to the National  Alliance to End Homelessness website, which includes a number of maps illustrating the increase in the homeless population over the past few years. The data come from community counts conducted each January of individuals in shelters as well as counts by outreach workers and volunteers of those sleeping in public places, in cars, abandoned buildings, and so on. Of course, counting the homeless will always be a challenging task, but these community counts provide at least some baseline data for those areas that take part.

This map shows the percent change in the homeless population by state:

If you go to the website, you can hover over an individual state to see the relevant data. The page also has a map of the total number of homeless individuals by state.

A more detailed interactive map lets you get information for individual communities. When you click on one of the circles on the map, a bar graph pops up underneath showing any data available for that city from 2005-2008. Here I selected Philadelphia:

A breakdown of the data shows that though most of those who are currently homeless are sheltered in some way, a significant number are living on the street, in a car, or in some other situation that wasn’t designed for human habitation:

The full report shows a striking increase in the number of people “doubled-up” — that is, staying with other families because of economic hardship (based on U.S. Census Bureau data):

While moving in with others is a common strategy, it is also often temporary; significant proportions of individuals in shelters end up there when they can no longer stay with friends or family.

The website has tons of data on homelessness — risk factors, demographics, changes, and so on — so it’s worth a look.

In two of my favorite earlier posts, I featured photographs by artist Edward Burtynsky.  These photos depicted the outcomes of our consumerist societies: giant repositories of recycle-able materials and the consequences of resource extraction.  In the same vein, J. Henry Fair has been taking photographs of industrial sites and environmental disasters from an even more distant place: small planes.

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.

The term “food desert” was coined to draw attention to the fact that some people live far from a source of healthy, affordable food.  For these people, compared to those with easier access, consistently eating fresh fruit and vegetables and avoiding convenience store and restaurant food is more difficult.  Food deserts are more often found in poor neighborhoods, which is part of why the poor are more likely than people of other socioeconomic classes to be overweight and obese.

Over 2 percent of U.S. households, 2.3 million, live at least one mile from a grocery store and do not have a car (USDA).  The map below depicts the percent of such households by county.  In the darkest counties, over 10 percent of the households are isolated in a food desert:

See also Satter’s Hierarchy of Food Needs and the Last Sideshow Fat Man.

Via Slate.

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 new Pew Research Center report reveals the rising use of the Internet as a news source in the U.S.:

The Internet is the most frequently reported source of news for adults under 30, but it’s relevance is rising in all categories:

In addition to younger people, people who are more educated, have higher incomes, and live in the West are also more likely to use Internet as a source of news. See the full press release here.

Via Flowing Data.

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.

Lee D.T. sent in an Australian ad for Fernwood Fitness. It’s a great example of the sexualization of women of color, specifically (compared to white women). Notice that the white women in the ad simply exercise, but the ambiguously-raced woman with darker hair and skin gyrates, pumps, and poses.

See also a history of the hypersexualization and exploitation of black women by white people, the hot Latina, the fetishization of black women’s butts as symbolic of their (supposed) hypersexuality, the only thing important about black people is their butts, and the frequent exposure of black women’s bodies.

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.