children/youth

Josh W. emailed to let us know that he was recently browing the website Toys to Grow On and was surprised when he noticed that girls were used to model a number of toys that we’d normally see with boys:

The degree to which toys are gendered really struck me when I realized how surprising these images are–that a girl dressed up as an FBI agent, or using tools, was something to be excited about because it’s so unusual.

Interestingly, I looked through the rest of the site and didn’t find an equivalent effort to show boys playing with stereotypically feminine toys. In fact, boys were quite underrepresented on the site–there are many more girls than boys. If I had to just hazard a guess, I’d think this has something to do with the fact that we tend to imagine gender equality as a world in which women have access to the same things men have–jobs, equivalent pay, and so on. We worry that girls are being harmed if they’re told girls aren’t good at math, never see images of women as doctors, and so on. Most people are less likely to think boys are being treated unfairly by not seeing images of boys playing with dolls or an Easy Bake oven, so the absence of those types of images don’t get as much criticism or attention.

UPDATE: Commenter Alyssa nicely summarizes why see this difference:

Unfortunately, we don’t see boys as being treated as unfairly when they don’t get to do “girl things” because girl things are considered inferior. It seems natural to people that girls and women want to do boy/men things because we see these activities as worth while. But a boy or man doing girl/women things is seen as somehow deviant because they are seen as wasting their time doing something useless.
But the truth is things that are usually labeled as feminine, are worthwhile. Boys certainly are disadvantaged when they are discouraged to learn how to take care of themselves. They are disadvantaged when they are discouraged learn empathy and social skills. Our view of all things feminine are inferior hurts both boys and girls.

The Oral Cancer Foundation released this video last month, just a couple of weeks before the FDA was scheduled to vote on approval of the ‘male’ Gardasil vaccine.

Whether you’re pro- or anti-vaccine, you might wonder why has FDA testing of and approval for Gardasil’s use on males lagged three years behind the female-only “cervical cancer” vaccine? Most of us who have followed Gardasil’s development were not surprised when the FDA recently voted to approve its use on boys and young men for the prevention of genital warts. However, this limited focus on male genital warts ignores the growing number of medical studies which have shown causal connections between two cervical-cancer causing types of HPV (covered by Gardasil) and a variety of cancers that can have devastating health consequences in female and male bodies.

In light of this body of research, many were dismayed by the fact that the CDC decided against recommending routine use of the Gardasil vaccine for boys.  A NYT article reported that this committee will likely consider data on Gardasil’s ability to protect against male cancers when it meets again in February.

As more Americans learn about the causal links between HPV strains covered by Gardasil and serious (sometimes fatal) oral and anogenital cancers, it will be interesting to see if U.S. boys/young men get vaccinated at as high a rate as girls/young women.

To educate people about the risk of oral cancer from sexually-transmitted HPV, the Oral Cancer Foundation released this video:

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Adina Nack is an associate professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University specializing in medical sociology, gender inequality and sexual health.  Nack’s book, Damaged Goods?  Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases came out in 2008.  You can see an earlier post of hers, about sexually transmitted disease and stigma, here.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Kay, a student at a University in Munich, sent along an invitation for a Corps Isaria fraternity, or or “Burschenschafts,” party. The cover for the invitation reads “Isarias Gute Kinderstube” which, she explains, “translates literally to good nursery and means something like being well raised, knowing how to behave.”

When you open the invitation you see a naked woman, covered only by a teddy bear, alongside baby-related items (a Snuffalufagus, a rocking Zebra, and a crib) and party-related items (a disco ball, a stag’s head, and high heeled shoes):

Kay explains that the copy, “Das Corps Isaria gibt sich die Ehre und laedt zur eskaloesesten Pyjamaparty der Stadt” translates into something like “The Corps Isaria is honored to host the most risque sleepover in town.”

The invitation is another example of the infantilization of women. Or, as Kay put it, a “mixture of the male gaze and child porn fetishism.”

For more infantilization of women, see here, here, here, here, and here, and here.

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

Cute Bruiser brought our attention to some Halloween costumes for girls that illustrate parallel trends. Her pictures are from a Shoppers store in Canada.

1. Girls as bratty. In this case, the Drama Queen (“It’s all about me!”):

(I know, that costume doesn’t even make sense.)

2. The sexualization of young girls. In this case, The Ravager from The Covenant:

Since that’s a little blurry, here’s an image from a website:

Miley Cyrus’ 9-year-old sister, Noah, chose to go this direction, as reader Kristyn G., Spagnoli F., and Jen C. pointed out:

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

Earlier, in our comments thread to this post, junequest observed:

I also find it disturbing that many of the “sexy” costumes are highly sexualized versions of characters who are supposed to be little girls–Alice (in Wonderland), Dorothy, Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, and other popular or fairy tale characters.

The fact that many women dress up as sexy little girls points to both the sexualization of female children and the infantilization of adult women.

Jillian York linked to an example from her flickr page, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz:

Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears:

Alice from Alice in Wonderland:

Little Red Riding Hood:

The phenomenon isn’t restircted to the fairy tale.  There is always the classic sexy school girl:

And its zeitgeist version (also from Jillian’s flickr):

And the related Girl Scout, eh em, Cookie Girl:

Just to see, I did a search and I found these sexy “baby” and “girl” costumes:

Actually, I’m not sure if the baby doll is a “sexy” costume, or if I’m so overwhelmed by women + Halloween = sexy that I can’t see anything else.

For more material showing the conflation of women and little girls, see these creepy posts: the cover girl mouth, innocence is sexier than you think, and compete with your daughter’s little girl look.

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

Another doozy in the sexualization of young girls: “Girl’s Fishnet Tights.”

Borrowed from Lotería Chicana’sflickr set.

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

Here’s a vintage ad for Swift canned meat products for babies:

(Found here.)

Are parents still encouraged to have “husky” babies? I have a feeling our changing ideas about body size and health have affected how we view babies as well (and I’ve heard of a couple of recent cases where insurance companies turned down infants for being too fat).

We’ve long seen meat associated with strength, particularly when it comes to men. And while the connection between meat and healthy growth is interesting–for instance, think of what we mean when we say someone is a “vegetable,” compared to the message here–what grabbed my attention was a line from the next-to-last paragraph of the ad text:

Baby’s choice of delicious beef, lamb, pork, veal, liver, heart.

It’s a great example of the social construction of what kinds of foods are appropriate and tasty. I highly suspect if Gerber’s put out a line of liver or heart baby food, it wouldn’t sell particularly well. I searched Gerber’s website and couldn’t find anything of the sort available (though they do still have veal with veal gravy). Most Americans simply don’t think of liver and heart as desirable foods any more, and would probably consider canned minced beef heart a more appropriate food for dogs than babies.

Of course, if you call liver paté or foie gras and make is sufficiently expensive, then it can become desirable again.

I love that this vintage ad suggests that Chrysler cars are for the young at heart. When I think Chrysler, I think of grandparents.

But no, “youth is a state of mind” and, according to this ad, it involves “a purposeful look,” “clean” “lines,” “no excess ornamentation,” and “safety.”  And ice cream, of course.

What a different social construction of what being young is all about!

NEW (Dec. ’09)! Dmitriy T.M. sent us another example:

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