children/youth

Ada A., Katrin, Filip S., and Missives from Marx all let us know about PinkStinks, a campaign in the UK that “challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives”.

The aim is a worthy one: the webpage discusses concerns about girls’ body image, self esteem issues, the sexualization of young women, and so on.

They link to this video, which I thought was neat:

While I totally get the idea and support the effort to provide girls with a wider set of images of what they can aspire to do or be like, the “pink stinks” name, and some of the t-shirts on the site, give me a some pause.

If you read different parts of the site, it’s clear that pink is a stand-in for the socialization of girls into a particular type of femininity, and the campaign is attempting to combat the narrowing of girls’ aspirations and role models. But it brings up an issue I face whenever I’m trying to pick out clothes for my 3-year-old niece: how do you reject the trappings of that socially-approved version of femininity without devaluing femininity, girls, and women themselves? All things equal, I’ll usually pick a green t-shirt instead of a pink t-shirt for my niece because I feel like giving her a pink t-shirt signals to her an approval of all the things we associate with “pink culture”–valuing looks over smarts, worrying about boys, and so on, and because I know she is frequently encouraged to declare pink her “favorite” color by those buying her gifts.

But we often see that in the attempt to provide girls with more options, those who accept elements of mainstream femininity are devalued. My students who are trying to distance themselves from ideas of passive femininity often disparage “girly-girls,” those they see as unambiguously accepting pink culture. Thus, wearing a sparkly barrette or painting your nails pink becomes inherently problematic, a sign that you must be boy-obsessed, dumb, superficial, and so on.

I don’t think this campaign overall is doing that–if you read through it, the message is more complex and clearly about giving girls a wider array of options to choose from as they construct their identities. But much of the online discussion of it seems to miss the nuance and veer more into the simplistic interpretation of “pink stinks” as “empowering girls means rejecting and devaluing everything currently associated with femininity, as well as those who do it,” and the t-shirts seem to play into that a little.

Many of the things associated with femininity–being nurturing, say, or liking to cook–are, in fact, quite lovely, and problematic only when we say that only girls can/should like them, that all girls ought to, and that they’re less worthwhile than things boys do. Adding to the devaluing of women and femininity in an attempt to resist gender norms is, ultimately, counter-productive.

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

Anna sent in another example of a brand marketing itself as for-manly-men-only.  Add this one, featuring McCoy Crisps, to some of our other examples: Dockers, Klondike Bar, Alpo, Oberto beef jerky, and Ketel One.

The first thing that the McCoy Crisps Pub site requires is that you tell it what kind of shoes you’re wearing:

If you answer “incorrectly,” the website says: “No, not right.  Get inside and learn how to be a real man.”

When you enter the online pub, the first thing you see is a woman that you are supposed to be disgusted by.  Immediately a set of beer goggles flies up onto your face (because you wouldn’t want to look at her for more than a split second, apparently):

Then you see this (phew! that was close!):

Alongside playing darts, drinking games, and playing manly trivia, you can get tips on how to be more manly.  Such as “How Not to Look Like a Girl Watching TV” and “How to Get Away with Not Ironing”:

And you can also take a manly quiz to find out how manly you are.  The quiz nicely tells you exactly how you are allowed to behave and what you are allowed to like.  Some examples of questions:

So being a guy means manipulating women with puppies, making fun of your brother-in-law for being a good husband and father, making women cook for you, eschewing personal grooming and healthy eating as much as possible, objectifying women, and enjoying the Pirelli company calender.

Oh, and, if you haven’t seen the Pirelli calendar, you really, really, really don’t want to click here (NSFW; trigger warning).

So there you have it: another marketing campaign that assumes that men are stupid, shallow, sexist, sport-o-holics.  I don’t understand why men tolerate it.

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.

Example One: Is it me, or do the bare buns in this ad seem just a little bit child-porny?  It’s a nice example of how our sensibilities change; these days there is a loud and ubiquitous discourse around children’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation.  A discourse that, I think, would make this ad inappropriate today.

Example Two: After decades of anti-smoking public health initiatives which included, along with health warnings, the association of smoking with bad breath, yellow teeth, and stinking clothes and hair, I somehow don’t think food would be marketed with a cigarette in its mouth (1950).

Example Three: This candy ad begins “Some tigers eat people.  I eat tigers.  His tail was 3 chocolates longer.”  Then, it continues, “P.S. I made a gun from the tube.”   Today, in most parts of the U.S., childhood innocence is no longer marketed with firearms.

Source: Vintage ads (here, here, and here) and Found in Mom’s Basement.

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.

db, Lindsey B., and ABC News asked us to talk about the recent scandal over Walmart pricing a darker-skinned version of the Ballerina Theresa doll less than its white counterpart.  The evidence (from FunnyJunk):

Walmart claimed that the doll was priced less because they were trying to move inventory (ABC News).  It’s possible that the doll wasn’t selling (low demand) or they had ordered more than they could sell (high supply) and so the doll went on sale.  In fact, we know that people of all colors tend to absorb a color hierarchy in which whiteness is nicer, more beautiful, and more valuable (test your unconscious preferences here), so maybe the white doll WAS outselling the non-white doll because both white and non-white people were buying it, but not the darker-skinned doll.  Walmart, in this case, would only be following the market so as to maximize profits.

Walmart, however, could have chosen, in this case, to opt out of profit maximization.  The market isn’t physics; a company doesn’t have to follow its laws.  Walmart could have said, “You know, putting the dark-skinned doll on sale symbolically values whiteness higher than blackness.  Perpetuating that stereotype isn’t worth the money.”  That is, they could have decided that anti-racism trumped profits.

But they didn’t.

It’s important to say that I know of no study showing that, as a rule, white dolls are priced higher or are less likely to go on sale than other dolls.  It may be true that, if we were paying attention, we’d see all kinds of disparate pricing and it wouldn’t pattern itself on race.  Even in this case, I still think that companies need to be cognizant of the context in which they price their products.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that I think it is perfectly fine to discount white dolls while other dolls are left undiscounted, but not vice versa.  Why?  Because we live in a world where discounting dark-skinned dolls resonates with a discourse the symbolically devalues dark-skinned human beings.  Discounting white dolls simply does not carry the same problematic message.

Costco faced this kind of problem when it’s black Lil’ Monkey doll was pulled from shelves.  It turned out that the Lil’ Monkey doll came in three different races, but the black doll carried connotations that the others did not because black people have been compared to primates for centuries in an effort to dehumanize them.  A black Lil’ Monkey is wholly inappropriate in a way that a white Lil’ Monkey is not.

Companies make and sell products in a context.  Following market demands is not opting out; often, it reproduces the status quo.

NEW (Mar. ’10)! Sarah G., after seeing a different post on a multicultural cast of Barbies, looked them up on Target only to discover that the light-skinned Barbies were all priced at $19.99 and the dark-skinned Barbies were all priced at $19.95.  Here are all of the Barbies:

I don’t know, people.  I just don’t know.

See another example here.

NEW! (July ’10): Christine B. sent in images from Target that show Black Baby Alive dolls (two different types) on clearance (down from $19.29 to $13.50) while the White versions aren’t; the Black dolls are clearly marked on the shelf and with individual stickers:

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.

E. W. sent in a three-page internet ad for the 2010 Chevy Traverse.  The Traverse seats eight, but the ad campaign suggests that it is perfect for just four.  E.W. offers the play-by-play:

The first image of the ad shows a young boy and girl in the first row of seats in an SUV.  They are separated by at least a foot of space.  The young boy is poking the girl (presumably his sister) in the shoulder.

The following images show the two kids in various seating arrangements where they are always separated by the seating rows (one in front and one in back).

The end tag (car-two) states “Finally, you can separate them.”

“To summarize the ad in my words,” said E.W., “Buy a car that can seat 6 kids because you can’t control your 2.”

Or, in my words, in the face of an economic crisis peppered with sky-high fuel prices, we are desperate for another way to try to convince Americans that they need giant cars.

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.

Sometimes when we put up hyperfeminine clothes and toys for girls, people argue that no one has to buy those clothes, so there is no point in critiquing their existence.  The implication is that all conformity to gendered expectations is voluntary (on the part of both mothers and their daughters).

However, the recent furor over Shiloh Jolie-Pitts haircut and boyish outfit, sent in by Tara C., Cailin H., and Lindsay F., shows us that having a gender-consistent appearance isn’t simply voluntary; when you don’t perform gender, other people will police your choices.  In this case, people are questioning whether she is harming her child by turning her “into A BOY?”

In this case, of course, it’s mass media doing the policing (or inviting readers to do the policing).  In the lives of non-celebrities, this same sort of policing is often done by family members, friends, and even strangers.  For the non-conformist (parent), then, gender non-conformity can be a real drag.

Image borrowed from DListed.

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 a reminder: being a girl means wearing pink and thematically attiring yourself in cooking and baking implements! Erica Glasier, who snapped and sent in the photo, writes:

The message is clear: little girls, you’re going to grow up cooking, and you’re going to like it. Needless to say the little blue jammies had no such future drudgery being celebrated on their fabric.

The pjs are Joe Fresh brand, sold at Superstore.

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.

In this video, sent in by Martha, Lindsay Ellis asks why it is that female characters in general-audience cartoons, if present at all, are always plot points for the male characters. Her point is clearly sound, but damn does she marshal the evidence!  She appears to have really done her homework… but I have no doubt that those of you who are experts in My Little Pony, Transformers, Scooby Do, and She-Ra will have something to add.

Here’s another video on the same topic:

For more on the phenomenon in which women are women and men are people, see our analysis of the “Human” Bodies exhibit, girls as an afterthought, dinosaurs are for boys (and girls), traffic lights with female figures, stick figures and stick figures who parent, and default avatars.

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.