bodies

Kate M. sent us a link to a story in the Times Online about the recent suicide of model Daul Kim. Kim had worked for a number of high-fashion companies, including Chanel. Her blog contained many posts about the pressure and loneliness of being a model. Kate points out that the links surrounding the story undermine any message that we should actually care about this topic:

Notice on the side the “Lingerie for Christmas” feature on the side, with a scantily clothed, very thin woman; it lets you “make your missus a pin-up.” Below that you can “dress her in exquisite baubles.” Women are sexy, thin, mostly naked playthings for you to dress up and play with at will. How could that possibly have anything to do with the thinness ideals models and other women are pressured to meet?

The “Ralph Lauren model dropped for being too fat” story refers to the woman we wrote about in this post, where her body had been photoshopped beyond recognition.

I saw this ad for permanent makeup last week in a Las Vegas regional magazine:

What struck me is the way that permanent makeup–that is, tattooing your face so you appear to have makeup on all the time–is being marketed as “natural.”

The phrase “permanent makeup” serves a lot like “cosmetic surgery” does–to obscure what’s really going on. “Cosmetic” surgery sounds harmless, superficial, not like “real” surgery. “Permanent makeup” probably sounds less frightening and invasive to many people than “face tattooing” or “makeup tattoos.” Permanent makeup procedures are now widely available, and in a lot of states there’s not much training required to start doing them (I knew one cosmetologist who had no tattooing experience but took a weekend-long seminar and then was certified to do permanent makeup; I presume in some areas it requires more than that to be certified.). Anyway, I’m just generally fascinated by the way we use language to try to make the often extreme things we do to our bodies seem non-invasive, simple, and harmless.

For another interesting example of how language is used to marketing cosmetic procedures, see our post on Botox as “freedom of expression.”

The nature/nurture debate that posits a competition between biological and social/cultural influences on human behavior  is alive and well in the mass media.  But scholars largely agree that culture and biology interact; biological realities shape our social world, but our social world also shapes our biologies.

One strain of research demonstrating this has shown that men’s testosterone levels (associated with feelings of well-being) rise and drop in response to social (and socially constructed) cues.  For example, the testosterone levels of the winner of a tennis match will rise after his win, while his opponent will see his levels go down.  Similarly, measuring men’s testosterone levels won’t tell you which men walking down the sidewalk will enter a strip club, but the men leaving the strip club will have higher testosterone levels than the men who passed it by.

Matt C. alerted me to a test of this phenomenon using the Presidential election.  There was a slight drop in testosterone levels for men who voted for Obama (normal because men’s testosterone levels tend to drop at night), but a dramatic drop for men who voted for McCain or the Libertarian candidate, Barr.

So, there you have it, biological responses to social cues.

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.

Serena Williams is on the cover of ESPN this month, as Becky T. pointed out. And Becky is torn. I’d like to put it up for discussion.

The cover:

So, on the one hand:   Dude. Why is it that a woman rarely makes it onto the cover of ESPN and, when she does, she’s freakin’ naked? And, of course (*sarcasm*), it’s for “The Body Issue” (because women’s bodies are where it’s at, right fellas?). I did a google image search for “espn cover” and the first page of results includes only two women. One is naked (Williams) and the other is pregnant.

On the other hand:  The cover doesn’t appear to be trying to hide or diminish Williams’ strength.  The girl is STRONG.  Check out that bicep!  Part of me wants to say that she looks good.  DAMN good.

What do you think?

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Hermes sent in a link to a feature in The Morning News titled “Men at Their Most Masculine,” in which men were asked about what made them feel masculine and photographed in situations that reflect their masculine identities. Some quotes from men included in the project:

“I feel masculine when I am home, I can take care of myself. I often feel emasculated when I leave my apartment though, with everyone asking me if I need help. I don’t need any help.”

“To be masculine is to dominate in one’s field of study.”

“I want to show that, despite stereotypes, gay men can be masculine too.”

“I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

“I am strong emotionally, have always stood up for myself, and fear nothing. I happen to be physically strong but that isn’t where I derive my masculinity.”

“I am masculine because I abandon women after taking their love. Because when you study Freud, you don’t let him study you. Because I study philosophy, not literature.”

Visit at photographer Chad States’s website. He apparently found all of the featured men via craigslist.

The photos and quotes illustrate some interesting contradictions in definitions of masculinity. Several of the men define masculinity in fairly traditional terms, using words like “dominate” or expressing masculinity as the ability to use women and then leave them. There is also an emphasis on being independent and not needing help from anyone else.

In other cases, the men redefine masculinity to at least some extent, such as the gay man who reclaims masculinity for gays, the guy who focuses on being emotionally strong, and the man shown posed in a way we’re more used to seeing with women.

It’s an interesting look at some of the ways men define masculinity at a time when we expect men to be more emotionally available and involved in family life (as opposed to the 1950s emotionally closed-off model) but provide mixed signals by also still judging men harshly if they seem too emotional or don’t meet ideals of what “real” men should be like.

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

Though EVERYONE knows that models are very skinny and that this is bad for the self-esteem and health of women, I was just shocked at how deathly thin the models were at the most recent Paris Fashion Week.

Ashley Mears has a really excellent and sophisticated article in the journal Ethnography, based on her experiences as a model, called Discipline of the Catwalk.  She describes how models are subject to (from the abstract) “…a disciplining labor process in which female bodily capital is transformed into a cultural commodity.” More, because market demand is based on constantly changing fashions in women’s “looks,” women have little to no control over their own value in the market.  Mears writes:

This labor process typifies the politics of gender, in which women exercise power over themselves insofar as they internalize and pursue the glamour of their regime.

Given that some things about our bodies are simply not under our control (e.g., height, skin and eye color, etc), thinness may be appealing as it is one thing that models can control.  And, apparently, being very, very skinny is still very, very in.

These women are modeling Lindsey Lohan’s fashion line only incidentally.  It’s just the particular post I happened to see over at Jezebel.

See also a previous post on how celebrity superstar women have been getting skinnier over time.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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.

Phoebe sent in this Moto Guzzi website.  You can see that it allows buyers to select a “lady seat” for their motorcycle:

What is a lady seat?  As Phoebe explains:

The lady seat is simply a lowered seat to allow people with shorter inseams to straddle the bike comfortably when stopped or maneuvering by foot.

So really, it’s just a lowered seat for people who are shorter than the imagined person for whom the motorcycle is being built.

This is a use of sex as a shorthand for referencing physical characteristics that (may or may not be) true on average, but are not categorically true.  That is, women may be on average shorter than men, but not all women are short and not all men are tall.  So we have (1) a conflation of women and short stature and (2) an erasure of short men that essentially means that they cannot buy a comfortable motorcycle (unless they’re willing to buy it with a lady seat).

This kind of thing is done all the time.  In fact, it is the primary conflation that we use to justify sex segregated sports.  Women, it is often argued, can’t play football because they are too small and would get too physically knocked around.  But this (1) assumes that all women are small (which they are not) and (2) erases small men.  Few people seem to notice that it’s not only women who are excluded from football, it’s also all of the men who aren’t big enough to play with the “big boys.”  Rather than excluding women from football, we might use a weight class system (like they do in wrestling).  If we had two football leagues (say, in high school) based on weight, both sex integrated, then not only could women get a chance to play football, lots of men who otherwise don’t get a chance to play could play too.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Jessica F. pointed out an interesting graphic at Fleshmap. They looked at which body parts are emphasized or referenced in different genres of music.

From the website:

Fleshmap is an inquiry into human desire, its collective shape and individual expressions. In a series of studies, we explore the relationship between the body and its visual and verbal representation.

You can also click on the genre headings and go to a larger breakdown of what percent of songs reference each body part.

I find this fascinating, in that it gives us some indication of which body parts might be considered particularly important for defining attractiveness to artists and listeners of various genres…and also which body parts are most likely to be criticized or ridiculed. After all, a reference to a body part may be mocking as well as complimentary.

Of course, there are always issues with dividing artistic works into genres (Who defines the genres? How do you decide which genre songs go into if they have things in common with things in more than one genre?). And while the website provides a methodology, it could definitely be clearer:

Based on a compilation of more than 10,000 songs, the piece visualizes the use of words representing body parts in popular culture. Each musical genre exhibits its own characteristic set of words, with more frequently used terms showing up as bigger images. The entrance image shows how many times different body parts are mentioned; the charts for each genre go into more detail, showing the usage of different synonyms for each part.

They don’t specify how many songs were in each genre, how they were assigned to genres, or what the compilation of 10,000 songs is. I wish we had that info. Still, it does tell us, generally, about some interesting patterns that show how different groups construct–and appreciate–the body differently.

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