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Duplo blocks are made by the Lego company. They are like legos, but bigger and chunkier (less swallowable). Like this:
Amanda R. captured this screenshot on the Duplo website:
Apparently, if you’re going to buy Duplos for some little kid, the very most important first piece of most vital information you will ever need before you ever ask anything else is whether or not the kid has a penis or a vagina.
Meanwhile, Elisabeth R. found exactly the same thing at the Toys R Us website:
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.
Alongside a New York Times article about the distribution of food stamps was a set of county-by-county maps showing the percentage of different kinds of citizens on food stamps. What struck me was the difference between the “all recipients” map and the “children” map.
Darker blue = a higher percentage on food stamps:
All recipients:
Children only:
As you can see, the number of children on food stamps greatly outweighs the number of people on food stamps almost everywhere in the country. So, next time you think about the poor, remember how many of them are kids.
Via Gin and Tacos.
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.
Elizabeth T., my awesome former student, asked us to write about Taylor Lautner’s Rolling Stone cover.
Of course, everyone’s been talking about It’s either “oh he’s so hot!” or “he’s just seventeen! child pornography!” But what I think is hilarious is the fact that they had to have him posing with a football.
You see, in this photograph, Lautner is a sex object. And, as I’ve written before, a “sexual object is to be presented as passive, consumable, inert (remember, only one person gets “fucked”).” And who does the fucking? Men. Real men. And who gets fucked? Women and womanly men (you might know them as “fags”).
So Lautner, by virtue of being objectified, threatens to also be seen as gay:
Apparently they’d rather break one of the golden rules of photography (don’t have anything coming out of the subject’s head), than allow Lautner’s sexual objectification call his sexuality into question.
Yes, yes we get it. Lautner is a guy’s guy. I mean, wait a second, he’s a girl’s guy. Wait! I mean he likes dudes! No, not that way! In a bros before hos way. He likes dudes best, unless it’s for sex, then he likes girls! He likes girls! Even though he’s all sexy and wet and objectified, he’s not a fag okay! We swear! Look! THERE’S A FOOTBAAAAAALLLLLLL!
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.
Joshua B. (of Jack-Booted Liberal) let us know about a post at Make about alternative toy warning labels they’d like to see. Dale Dougherty says,
…American kids are raised in an overly cautious manner, out of fear that they might get hurt, and we are limiting their ability to explore a wider range of experience.
The proposed warning labels:
The labels highlight the fact that we worry about some threats to children but not others, and also the way that the potential dangers of toys are often exaggerated (“Studies have shown that these toys…produce uniformly underperforming children who later become credit card abusers.”).
Not that I advocate letting your kid play with a plastic bag. But a giant appliance box with some catalogs to cut pictures out of and glue on as decoration? Best. Toy. Ever.
Also check out our post on the commercialization of childhood.
In my Power and Sexuality class, I sometimes assign articles from a book called Whores and Other Feminists. All of the essays are written by current and former sex workers who identify as feminist. It’s pretty fascinating.
Some of the phone sex operators talk about what they do while having “phone sex,” like chores and booking airline tickets and whathaveyou. It really demystifies the industry.
As do the photographs by Phillip Toledano, sent in by Phillip B.
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.
Just in case you’ve ever wanted evidence that people do more online searches for porn on weekends (especially Friday nights!):
Thanks to Larry.
UPDATE: Reader Dangger sent us a comparison of searches for porn and news:
(Via.)
In a sweet anecdote, Sociologist Michael Kimmel talks about how he was playing the game of opposites with his son. “What is the opposite of up?” “Down.” “What is the opposite of awake?” “Asleep.” “What is the opposite of man?” He asked.
And his son replied, “Boy.”
Kimmel tells this story as a glimpse into an alternative world in which men do not define themselves in opposition to women, but see manhood in terms of maturity.
We don’t live in that world. And Dockers thinks it can sell khakis by encouraging men to define themselves as not-women in its new man-ifesto ad campaign (text after the jump):
Of course, what is really interesting about this ad is the way that it defines manhood as in opposition to all kinds of things: womanhood, of course, but also boyhood, and feminine manhood, androgyny, and whatever disco, plastic forks, latte drinking, and salad represent. What do men get? Being in charge of women and children… and dirty hands (maybe the dirt is metaphorical).
I’d much rather live in Kimmel Jr.’s world.
(Thanks to Christina W. for encouraging us to write about this ad.)
For a similar ad, see this Ketel One commercial expressing nostalgia for a pre-feminist time. And, for lots of material documenting the new pop culture version of masculinity, browse our gender: masculinity tag.
Jump for a transcript of the text:
Duplo blocks are made by the Lego company. They are like legos, but bigger and chunkier (less swallowable). Like this:
Amanda R. captured this screenshot on the Duplo website:
Apparently, if you’re going to buy Duplos for some little kid, the very most important first piece of most vital information you will ever need before you ever ask anything else is whether or not the kid has a penis or a vagina.
Meanwhile, Elisabeth R. found exactly the same thing at the Toys R Us website:
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.
Alongside a New York Times article about the distribution of food stamps was a set of county-by-county maps showing the percentage of different kinds of citizens on food stamps. What struck me was the difference between the “all recipients” map and the “children” map.
Darker blue = a higher percentage on food stamps:
All recipients:
Children only:
As you can see, the number of children on food stamps greatly outweighs the number of people on food stamps almost everywhere in the country. So, next time you think about the poor, remember how many of them are kids.
Via Gin and Tacos.
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.
Elizabeth T., my awesome former student, asked us to write about Taylor Lautner’s Rolling Stone cover.
Of course, everyone’s been talking about It’s either “oh he’s so hot!” or “he’s just seventeen! child pornography!” But what I think is hilarious is the fact that they had to have him posing with a football.
You see, in this photograph, Lautner is a sex object. And, as I’ve written before, a “sexual object is to be presented as passive, consumable, inert (remember, only one person gets “fucked”).” And who does the fucking? Men. Real men. And who gets fucked? Women and womanly men (you might know them as “fags”).
So Lautner, by virtue of being objectified, threatens to also be seen as gay:
Apparently they’d rather break one of the golden rules of photography (don’t have anything coming out of the subject’s head), than allow Lautner’s sexual objectification call his sexuality into question.
Yes, yes we get it. Lautner is a guy’s guy. I mean, wait a second, he’s a girl’s guy. Wait! I mean he likes dudes! No, not that way! In a bros before hos way. He likes dudes best, unless it’s for sex, then he likes girls! He likes girls! Even though he’s all sexy and wet and objectified, he’s not a fag okay! We swear! Look! THERE’S A FOOTBAAAAAALLLLLLL!
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.
Joshua B. (of Jack-Booted Liberal) let us know about a post at Make about alternative toy warning labels they’d like to see. Dale Dougherty says,
…American kids are raised in an overly cautious manner, out of fear that they might get hurt, and we are limiting their ability to explore a wider range of experience.
The proposed warning labels:
The labels highlight the fact that we worry about some threats to children but not others, and also the way that the potential dangers of toys are often exaggerated (“Studies have shown that these toys…produce uniformly underperforming children who later become credit card abusers.”).
Not that I advocate letting your kid play with a plastic bag. But a giant appliance box with some catalogs to cut pictures out of and glue on as decoration? Best. Toy. Ever.
Also check out our post on the commercialization of childhood.
In my Power and Sexuality class, I sometimes assign articles from a book called Whores and Other Feminists. All of the essays are written by current and former sex workers who identify as feminist. It’s pretty fascinating.
Some of the phone sex operators talk about what they do while having “phone sex,” like chores and booking airline tickets and whathaveyou. It really demystifies the industry.
As do the photographs by Phillip Toledano, sent in by Phillip B.
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.
Just in case you’ve ever wanted evidence that people do more online searches for porn on weekends (especially Friday nights!):
Thanks to Larry.
UPDATE: Reader Dangger sent us a comparison of searches for porn and news:
(Via.)
In a sweet anecdote, Sociologist Michael Kimmel talks about how he was playing the game of opposites with his son. “What is the opposite of up?” “Down.” “What is the opposite of awake?” “Asleep.” “What is the opposite of man?” He asked.
And his son replied, “Boy.”
Kimmel tells this story as a glimpse into an alternative world in which men do not define themselves in opposition to women, but see manhood in terms of maturity.
We don’t live in that world. And Dockers thinks it can sell khakis by encouraging men to define themselves as not-women in its new man-ifesto ad campaign (text after the jump):
Of course, what is really interesting about this ad is the way that it defines manhood as in opposition to all kinds of things: womanhood, of course, but also boyhood, and feminine manhood, androgyny, and whatever disco, plastic forks, latte drinking, and salad represent. What do men get? Being in charge of women and children… and dirty hands (maybe the dirt is metaphorical).
I’d much rather live in Kimmel Jr.’s world.
(Thanks to Christina W. for encouraging us to write about this ad.)
For a similar ad, see this Ketel One commercial expressing nostalgia for a pre-feminist time. And, for lots of material documenting the new pop culture version of masculinity, browse our gender: masculinity tag.
Jump for a transcript of the text: