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My friend Jason is giving a talk on the constitutional limits of video surveillance (thank goodness someone is) at the 2008 California Police Chiefs Association Conference. In case you’re still trying to convince your students that jobs are gendered, that there is an imperative to marry, that heteronormativity is in place, and that women are expected to conform to emphasized femininity… check this out:

The conference website has a page for “Spouse Events”. The spouse is implicitly a woman, and a rather girly one at that. The “gift set” (for which they “spare no expense”) is from “…Victoria’s Secret… [and includes an] engraved picture frame, lipstick case, spirits and sweets all in a tote.” A tote! Spouses also get “special outings,” “hospitality,” and a “whirlwind of memories.” She gets to choose from number of feminine pasttimes, including the spa, shopping, antiquing, and dance, or she can get a taste of what the big boys do (for “action adventure types” only).

This is Julia Roberts winning the Oscar for best actress. It was 2001. Notice that, despite the fact that she won for her portrayal of a very highly sexualized woman, she isn’t a stick figure. In fact, relative to the twigs of today, she is actually kind of thick and has pretty big arms. Could a woman could go to the Oscars looking like this today and not get called fat in the tabloids?

Warning: It’s a Hustler cover. May not be safe for your workplace (you see a woman’s legs sticking out of a meat grinder).

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“The new women’s movement. Freedom from seams and stitches.”

This is another ad Lisa sent me years ago. I use it when discussing the de-politicization of social issues, and the commodification of freedom–it’s just something you buy. I also use this one from Lisa:

The Jeep Liberty–notice on the right it says “Glass Ceiling” and has an arrow pointing down below; so structural inequality at work is trivialized, and again, “liberty” is something we can purchase.

These ads go nicely along with the old Virginia Slims campaign, these other “liberated women” themed ads Lisa posted previously, and the “right hand ring” ad I posted.

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

A picture of Bush laughing with attractive, shirtless, colorfully dressed men in Ghana:

Does anyone know anything about whether the Bush administration has been good for Ghana?

Found at TMZ under the headline “African Men Like Bush.”

When I was in grade school, I remember having one of my first sociological “aha moments” during geography. We were starting a unit on Latin and South American countries and each of us had to draw a map showing the countries and capitals to show how much we already knew. We all had those school issued atlases of the world, but we had to draw the map of Latin and South America without using the atlas.

What I ended up with was similar to most kids at my table– a huge United States with a skinny little piece of land under it, just barely larger than Florida and then a larger piece of land under that about the size of Alaska. As elementary school kids in Maine we obviously knew very little about anything south of say, Washington D.C. and this was reflected in the little pieces of land we drew. I opened up my atlas and looked at how large Latin and South America really were and was shocked. It was nearly as large as Africa, and certainly larger than the the U.S.

How things are measured makes all the difference and cartography (map making) has a fascinating history in colonial empires and imperialism (charting “unknown” far off lands filled with “savages” etc.). So when SWS member Jeanne Flavin sent me a link to the ODT Maps website I had to share some of them here.

Let’s start with a pretty “typical” North America-centered map of the world–

Now how about this equal area ODT map?

© www.ODTmaps.com

And how about an actual equal area Pacific-centered map from ODT?

© www.ODTmaps.com

And how about this South-up map, challenging North-South perceptions (how do we know which end of the world is “up” anyway– who decides that?).

© www.ODTmaps.com

And my favorite– the population map.

© www.ODTmaps.com

There are more maps and resources for the classroom on the ODT website. Thanks Jeanne!

A commercial, this one French, to go with our most recent condom ads.This was a tip from an Anonymous commenter.

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.

Chris M. noticed something bizarre on the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) website.

If you scroll about 1/4th of the way down this page, there is a list of pdfs and videos about security on airplanes. There are separate videos for the female and the male “business traveler.” They both show liquids in a plastic bag, but apparently only men carry laptops and women are relieved from having to take off their shoes.

Chris thought it was especially interesting to see this on a .gov site. Nice find Chris!