clothes/fashion

Last night some friends and I were on the Strip here in Vegas and wandered over to look at City Center, the new casino/very high-end shopping center/”walkable city within a city” that was such a big deal when it opened recently that national news outlets, including NPR, talked about it. Anyway, we were wandering around and came upon a lingerie store with this mannequin in the window:

She’s blindfolded, handcuffed, on her knees. Another mannequin was also blindfolded, with ties around her ankles, and a third had a long pearl necklace wrapped around her neck and then tied around each wrist.

Our reaction was, basically, “Agh! Agh! WTF? Why?!?” We all, men and women alike, interpreted it as an icky depiction of sexual domination of women, perhaps even violence.

But of course, there’s another way to interpret it, particularly given that it’s a lingerie store: as consensual participation in S&M/bondage or sexual role-playing.

I still can’t shake off my initial feeling. We often see implied, or obvious, violence toward or sexual harassment of women as marketing or entertainment (see the trailer for the movie Bounty Hunter, vintage Betty Crocker ad, PSA for labeling cleaning products, violence against women in prime time, ad for CSI, t-shirt to show team spirit, ad for shoelaces, Lanvin ads, trailer for Dead Girl, Barney’s window display showing splattered blood and mannequins under attack, is stalking romantic?, trailer for Observe and Report, Rene Russo photo shoot, ha ha! She wasn’t being beaten!, “going in for the kill has never been so satisfying”, oops, I strangled a woman, and…oh, there are many more, but I don’t have time to link to them all). It seems naive to think that people can see mannequins posed like this and completely disconnect them from other portrayals of women bound, gagged, dead, sexually assaulted, etc., that are meant to be funny or sexy.

But it also seems problematic to dismiss the idea that in at some situations, such as this one, the situation could be consensual S&M. Allusions to at least light bondage has become more common in pop culture, particularly handcuffs as a sexy prop (sometimes used for laughs if one partner ends up handcuffing the other to something and then robbing them, stealing their clothes, etc.). Yet those who participate in S&M are also often stigmatized as sexual deviants.

But then, how do we think about S&M/bondage given that the sexual norms common in the U.S. include the idea of female sexual passivity and submission? Is this mannequin problematic in any way even if the store meant to invoke the idea of sexual role-playing?

I am confounded by this. The mannequin creeps me out. I don’t like it. But I’m sure many people can make eloquent arguments against my reaction, or how we approach the various issues involved. So what to make of this mannequin, readers? Help me out.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): SOM sent in this photo of the display in the window of the shoe store Sole Experience in Edmonton, Alberta, that shows a woman in high heels with her feet bound. This image, to me, seems to more clearly imply violence than the one above, possibly because of the use of rope rather than handcuffs, which are associated with sex role-playing:

Via Vintage Ads.

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.

I always enjoy having my preconceptions challenged and I had a nice moment while visiting the website of a U.S. company, East Essence, that sells clothes for Muslim women.

They offered some of what I expected, such as traditional clothing and hijabs:

And also some things I didn’t expect:

The fact that the website includes traditional and modest clothing, and also models wearing tight jeans and revealing their midriffs, challenges the notion that Muslim women always dress according to strict rules, as well as the ideas that all Muslim women dress alike or that any given Muslim women dresses the same from day to day.

For more on Muslim fashion, see our posts here, here, here, and here.

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.

Rhea D. sent us a link to an ad campaign currently running in India for the shoe company Redtape. In the ads, a guy gets to select which woman he wants from a vending machine or his closet:

I think the fantasy is not just to have a specific hot chick, but to be able to pick out which one you want and get her immediately. It’s the ultimate form of objectification–women as simply something to pick from and purchase at your leisure. Rhea points out that everyone in the ad is quite light skinned, which is widely associated with beauty and success in India.

See our posts on skin lightening cream for men, skin lighteners as liberation, skin lightening as modernity, and hot girls make your Ecko jeans.

V. and Anna G. sent in this ad for a LOLCats T-shirt.  Notice that the woman’s t-shirt is for women only, but the man’s t-shirt also doubles as a unisex shirt.

Both Emily W. and Sabine M. sent in this example of the same phenomenon at Mental Floss:

Mindy J. sent us a third example from Secret Society of Vegans:

From Johanna G:

Finally, Jessica S. sent in this example from Kung Fu Nation:

This is just another example of the phenomenon of how we take one half of a (false) binary (such as man vs. woman) and make one generic and the other specific.   Men can be human, but women are always female humans; white people can be just people, but non-white people are always other; Christian symbols are for everyone, but non-Christian symbols are exclusive; and so on and so on.

For more examples, see these posts on how racial and ethnic identity adds spice, Sotomayor’s racial bias, male neutrality in stick figures (here and here), male-default avatars, flesh-colored products, for normal to darker skin, Michelle Obama’s “flesh-colored” gown.

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.

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.

Chelsea S. sent in a link to the BVD website and its BVD MANual campaign. BVD is a brand of men’s underwear. The site has several tabs that let you “study” men in various ways. In the Chemistry section we see what men are made up of (larger version here):

So guys are made up of, among other things, obnoxium, machisium, bragnausium, and larcenic.

If you go to the Sociology section you can take two quizzes. The first is about getting dressed (take the quiz here). If at the first step you answer that you are male you are taken to a second step that asks “model or guy?” If you answer model, you are directed to the female category. Once on the female track, you get to go through a series of questions playing on stereotypes of women and, apparently, men who don’t qualify as “guys”:

The second one is on being comfortable (quiz is here). In the second step you have to choose between “sensitive type”  or “guy,” and if you choose “sensitive type,” you go to the female section:

In both cases, at the end of the female path, the last question is “Wouldn’t you rather just be a guy?”

It’s a great example of the association of “real” manliness with obnoxious characteristics, while men who don’t meet the requirements for being real men are feminized. While real guys are stereotyped (they’re self-centered, obnoxious, and braggy), those characteristics are still preferable to being a “sensitive” guy with “feelings” and “needs.” And of course, it also denigrates women when being associated with femininity is a way of ridiculing men.

Eloriane sent in a photo shoot for V Magazine (September 2009) that is both fascinating and confounding.  I noticed two things:

First, while the women are more or less fully-clothed, the men are naked.  Really naked.  Well, about as naked as they could be.  But the effect is really eerie, with one model looking like some combination of distressed, surprised, and high in most of her shots.  It’s nothing like our previous post featuring a photo shoot with clothed women and naked men, where the women appear gleeful about the situation.  To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it, but my instinct is that, for some reason, this is not reversing the gendered power dynamic we typically see.

Coincidentally, Elle P. sent in a Dolce & Gabbana ad to similar effect.  You can see it below as well.

Second, the photo spread is titled “Wild Things” and subtitled “Adopt a Neo-Hippie, Anything Goes Approach to Dressing with Furs, Fringe, and Everything Animal Print.”  Then the photo titles refer to American Indians (“Warrior Princess,” “Navajo Sun,” and maybe “Indigo Girl”), Asians (“Eastern Promises”), Gypsies (“Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves”), and Africans (“Tribal Council”) alongside animals (“Animal Instincts,” and “Wild Things,” of course), and Bohemians (“Boho in Paradise”; more akin to “neo-hippies”?).  So, again, we have the association of people of color with animals and human primitivity (here, here, and here)… even as no actual people of color show up in the photo shoot.

Images after the jump because WAY not safe for work:

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