Search results for The

Hoshi sent us concept artwork for some new characters, all set to be musicians, in development for the online game, RuneScape.  Here they are:

Hoshi notes:

1. The caucasians are well dressed and most likely designed for the cities. The people of color are wearing tribal gear. In other words, they fill the “exotic” and “primative” section in the game, while the white people are the “refined” upper class.

2. The women look like they just finished dancing. They both have one hand on their hips (slightly seductive) and the other hand is in a “flowing” movement. Conversely, the men have balled up fists with their arms held slightly apart. They may be smiling, but their body language shows aggression.

Hoshi started a discussion thread with this observation at RuneScape and her comments have been met with significant opposition.  Summarizing the comments, she explains:

One of the most common arguments that it *isn’t* racist is that this game is set in a medieval setting and there wouldn’t be people of color in the cities. Frankly, I think that’s an absurd excuse. This game freely utilizes magic, monsters, gods, and all sorts of unrealistic things. If you follow the players’ logic, that means it’s more believable to have talking cats than to have a person of color dressed nicely in a city. That’s just messed up.

For more examples of race and gender stereotypes in video and online games, see here, here, here, here, and here.

The always-awesome Miguel, of El Forastero, sent in an interesting image and post from Puente Aéreo about an article in El Correo ridiculing a Peruvian congressional representative , Hilaria Supa, for her language skills. Supa represents the district of Cusco, an area where the majority of residents speak Quechua as a native language, not Spanish. The magazine ran an image on the cover that shows notes she was taking during a legislative session.

Just a disclaimer, the translations below are mine, not Miguel’s, so if they’re incorrect it’s my fault, not his; I read Spanish decently well and I gave it my best shot, but if you think I misinterpreted the meaning of something, by all means let me know. Nicely.

The caption under the photo on the El Correo website says, “Según la hoja de vida de Hilaria Supa, en 1991 impulsó la alfabetización de mujeres campesinas a través de la Federación de Mujeres de Anta (FEMCA),” which translates as, more or less, “According to the bio of Hilaria Supa, in 1991 she began a literacy campaign for rural women as part of the Women’s Federation of Anta”). Clearly the idea is to ridicule her–this woman claims to have worked on literacy issues for rural woman?

Some quotes from the online article:

… lo que descubrió una reveladora foto de Correo, sus limitaciones en cuanto a ortografía y sintaxis dejan mucho que desear. [“As shown in a revelatory photo by Correo, her orthography and syntax leave much to be desired.”]

Muchos años antes de ser elegida congresista, Hilaria Supa se desempeñó como empleada del hogar en el Cusco, Arequipa y Lima. [“Many years before her election to congress, Hilaria Supa  was a house servant in Cusco, Arequipa, and Lima.”]

…su colega Martha Hildebrandt se quejó de sus destempladas protestas sobre un proyecto para declarar oficiales las lenguas aborígenes. “Miren los modales de estas niñas quechuahablantes”, comentó. [“Her colleague Martha Hildebrandta complained about her acrimonious (inharmonious?) protests about a project to declare indigenous languages official*. ‘Look at the manners of these childish Quechua-speakers,’ she said.”] *Apparently this refers to the fact that Supa and another indigenous representative spoke their swearing-in oath in Quechua instead of Spanish, the first officials in Peru ever to do so. Apparently this pissed people off even though Quechua is one of Peru’s two official languagues, along with Spanish.

The article also clearly implies that she doesn’t deserve to be in Congress, interviewing people about how political parties are supposed to serve as a filter to be sure that not just “anyone” can be elected.

Miguel says,

This picture is a clear statement of the white, Spanish-speaking (and male) [establishment] that opposes the participation of indigenous people (and women) in the government.

Indeed. Although Quechua is an official language of Peru, and even though large segments of the population do not speak Spanish as their native language and there is no requirement that they do so, the message here is clear: attempts to redefine the political establishment in Peru so that indigenous communities can participate more fully on their own terms (as opposed to being forced to completely assimilate to non-indigenous, Spanish-speaking Peruvian culture as a requirement for respect) do not deserve a place in public life.

NOTE: Sigh. After reading everything in Spanish and translating the above sections into English, both of which made my brain hurt, it finally occurred to me to see if any English-language blogs or media outlets have discussed the article and provided translations. Yes, they have. Google “Hilaria Supa Peru” and several items will come up. Then I just felt dumb, but since I have papers to grade and no time to redo it, I’m just leaving my translations and hoping for the best. You might want to check out some other English-language sites for more discussion.

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

Jay Smooth speaks to the Asher Roth tweet about “nappy headed hos” and offers some great insights as to how to maintain proper boundaries when blacks and whites form mixed-race communities.

NEW! More with Don Charnas (found here):

Several readers sent in this charming Nikon ad (found, among other places, at What a Crazy Happenstance), where we learn that women with bigger boobs are the equivalent of a higher-quality camera:

Sigh. It’s apparently quite highly rated on diggit–it’s the Best Camera Ad Ever!

Thanks to Taylor, Connie J., Jeff G., and Emma B.!

From the folks at Good Magazine, a “look at the 20 countries from which the most people came to America in 2008,” including how many were immediate relatives of US citizens, and how many received asylum, based on data from the Department of Homeland Security.

Does anyone know why data from North Korea and South Korea is combined? How can country be “unknown” for so many?

An interesting representation of  flu pandemics (full size found here) throughout history.

The US National Archives has a wonderful set of images (like the one below) related to The Influenza Epidemic of 1918.

Eric S. drew our attention to an ad campaign for Jawbone, a noise cancelling headset.  Eric was disturbed by the way the women were used in the advertising.  Take a look:

It is interesting that a product that must be actively used (it’s for talking) is advertised with such passive women.

Some scholars, Jean Kilbourne among them, have noted that ads often include women who appear to be dead (see here, here, here, and here).  If these women do not appear to be dead, they at least appear doll-like.  Their eyes are blank, staring at nothing.   It seems to me that one or both of these are going on here… in either case, the strategy dehumanizes the women, making them into objects.

Also in women as racks on which to place product: men’s shoes and accessories.

We recently critiqued Facebook’s “neutral” avatar for appearing both white and male.  Both Abby J. and Noah Brier pointed us to the fact that Rob Walker at Murketing has been collecting default avatars.  His collection is really interesting.  First, it demonstrates that the avatars don’t need to be gendered at all.

Flikr:

Hotmail:

Google:

Vimeo:

My space:

Friendfeed:

Yahoo:

Youtube:

Second, it demonstrates that the avatars don’t have to human at all:

Twitter:

Posterous:

Third, his collection also suggests that, when the avatar is human and discernibly gendered, it usually appears to be male.  There’s the Facebook avatar, as well as…

EBay:

Car Domain:

Topix:

Yammer:

The avatar tends to be male, unless the company produces a default male and a default female.

Blip FM:

Goodreads:

This collection reveals that the appearance of a company’s default avatar is by no means inevitable or accidental.  Companies must make choices and they are, indeed, making choices about what kind of person is the default person.

Check out his whole collection.  It is growing.

Jamie R. sent in a link to a video that presents a lot of attention-grabbing statistics (which may or may not be accurate). At first it appears that the avatar could be unisex, but then at about 1:18, we see the “female” avatar:

Did You Know? from Amybeth on Vimeo.

At no other place in the video do we see the female avatar except when the “neutral” one is presented as married…indicating, from the context of the video, that it is not unisex or neutral, but male.

MORE! You may have noticed that our revamping of the site involved putting our names up.  Lo and behold, these male avatars popped up next to our names.

So we went into the admin page to see if we had some other option, like maybe something non-human or a female avatar if necessary.  These were our options:

First, blank is really the avatar you see in the first screenshot, it’s neutral which, in reality, is male.  So there is no way to opt out of having an avatar (our tech guy, Jon, is still working on it).

Second, there is no female avatar option.

Third, though there is no female avatar, there is a Monster and a Wavatar option, whatever the hell that is.   So WordPress is allowing you to represent yourself as a Wavatar, but you’re not allowed to be a chick.

Amazing.

NEW (Apr. ’10)! Keri sent a screenshot of her WordPress menu which, she noted, represents the users with two different skin colors.  It’s a nice counterpoint to much of what we see above:

For more on how certain kinds of people get imagined as just people, while others get imagined as certain kinds of people, visit our posts on the Body Worlds exhibit, “flesh” colored products, Pixar films, gender and clothes, and Plan and Playmobile toys.