Tim Wise answers just this question in this 2 1/2 minute clip featured on his website. Sneak peak: His answer begins with “No. You should feel angry.”
Laurie J graciously pasted the transcript in the comments; I’ve added it after the jump.
emotion
Advertisers have mystified chocolate, portraying it as an intoxicant possessing the power to comfort, reward and satisfy women’s sexual desires. In doing so, these ads instruct the viewer to frame and interpret their own chocolate cravings in ways that overcome any resistance to consuming it.
To begin, consider this commercial for Dove:
Consider, also, this ad for Ferrero Rocher:
In particular, advertisers portray chocolate as satisfying female sexual desires. Such advertisements lead female viewers to understand their own desire for chocolate as a natural expression of their sexy femininity. The association of chocolate with luxury and the upper classes renders this sexuality socially acceptable. The symbolic sex is not that of the “crude lower class,” but the refined upper-class.
Text:
NOW IT CAN last longer THAN YOU CAN resist.
UNWRAP. INDULGE. REPEAT.
The misconception that chocolate is an aphrodisiac is exploited by these advertisements. The idea that chocolate contains chemicals that are similar to the mild-altering components found in ecstasy and marijuana, and evoke a feeling similar to falling in love, is now widespread. In actuality, studies have found that the amounts of these mood-enhancing chemicals are at such a low level that it is unlikely they lead to the euphoria that some feel when they consume chocolate. The findings of what could be called “chocolate propaganda research,” then, are negligible. Yet, marketing continues to perpetuate chocolate’s association with love and sex and its implied special relevance to women.
The association is so ubiquitous that it was mocked in an Axe commercial. Screenshot:
So why the insistence on indulgence?
Chocolate marketing must overcome the chief factor inhibiting women’s consumption: the fact that consumption of a fat, sweet food is inherently taboo for women, who are supposed to watch their weight. As a result, advertisers have replaced this food taboo with a sexual one. They have turned chocolate into a sexual, self-indulgent, private experience that invokes a taboo similar to that of masturbation. The intent is to equip her with an automatic inner-response to overcome her moment of self-restraint: the belief that chocolate consumption represents and enhances her femininity via satisfying her sexually, but tastefully, of course. Advertisers, then, overcome viewer resistance by shaping how they interpret and frame their own desires.
————————–
Jamal Fahim graduated from Occidental College in 2010 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Film and Media Studies. He was a member and captain of the Occidental Men’s Tennis team. After he graduated, Jamal moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the intention of working in the film industry as a producer. His interests include film, music, digital design, anime, Japanese culture, improvising, acting, and of course, chocolate!
If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.
Doris G. sent in this commercial for Jack & Jones jeans, in which a man laments the way that women just want to use him for sex:
The website indicates that if you go to a store and buy a jacket, you can get a pair of headphones that come in packages that show different versions of Girl Toys. Here’s the “bad boy rebel wearing a bomber jacket”:
You can also choose from the “outdoor living macho dude wearing a wool coat,” “casual cool big-city guy wearing a peacoat,” and “urban sports hunk wearing a soft-shell jacket.”
Of course, the reason this works — the reason it’s supposed to be funny instead of disturbing — is because of gendered ideas about sex (masculine) and romance (feminine). Men are generally assumed to want sex any time they can get it, and to be able to completely separate it from emotions and love and such. Truly masculine sex is no-strings-attached sex for physical pleasure. The idea that a guy would be disturbed because hordes of conventionally attractive women want to have wild sex with him but require no greater commitment, is laughable if you accept an ideology in which that’s how girls act.
This ideology obscures the reality that men do want to make emotional connections with their partners. Michael Kimmel summarizes the research on gender and relationships in his textbook, The Gendered Society (2nd edition, 2004):
Men, it seems, are more likely to believe myths about love at first sight, tend to fall in love more quickly than women, are more likely to enter relationships out of a desire to fall in love, and yet also tend to fall out of love more quickly. Romantic love, to men, is irrational, spontaneous, and compelling emotion that demands action… (p. 227)
But the masculinization of sex discourages men from thinking about sex in terms of emotional (as opposed to primarily physical) satisfaction and prevents us from acknowledging that boys and men can, in fact, be uncomfortable with women’s advances, or even be sexually victimized by women (see our posts here and here).
The New York Times reports that there has been an increase in the percent of Black Americans reporting that they are “pretty” or “very” happy (though Blacks lag behind Whites in happiness). Indeed, while their happiness quotient appears to have dipped a bit this decade, Blacks have reported significantly higher rates of happiness in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s, compared to the ’70s.
Still, the article entirely skips over the fascinating gender difference. While American Black men’s happiness appears to have peaked in the ’80s and ’90s, they show real losses in reported happiness in the ’00s. In contrast, Black women’s happiness has been steadily rising; they neither express the same rapid increases or decreases that characterize the trend among men.
When we look at race and gender together, Black men are often among the most disadvantaged groups in society. They are among the most hard hit by the recession in terms of joblessness. They are less likely than Black women to enroll in and complete college. That said, I am hardly an expert in happiness studies… any ideas as to why the gender disparity in self-reported happiness would be so much stronger among Blacks than Whites?
Via Racialicious, and sender-inners Patricia P. and Dmitriy T.M.
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.
Cross-posted at Jezebel.
Sarah P. sent in this stunning video, from the the Wall Street Journal, about how to advise women about investing. The video has a simple message:
Women are women. They’re weird and need their weirdness to be attended to. But they don’t want to think that you’re treating them like women. They want to think that you’re treating them like human beings (whatevs!). So, whatever you do, never let them know that you’re treating them like women. If you do this, you will make gazillions off of them. Go forth!
The video after a short commercial (selected transcription below):
Selected transcription:
We all know women can be a little difficult… no one wants to feel that they are… being treated differently from the men, so what can advisers do to try to connect with women and keep from following that stigma?
In other words, women are different and also more annoying than real people (e.g., men), so you need to treat them accordingly. But they don’t know that they’re different from real people (they’re “difficult,” after all), so you have to work around that.
First… you can’t approach women as women… don’t treat her like a lady, treat her like a person… women need more time, they ask more questions… get to know what motivates her… if you connect with her on that level, not on the basis of her gender, that’s the first mistake most advisers make…
In other words, pretend like you’re treating her like an individual, but know that what you’re really dealing with is a creature named W.O.M.A.N.
Second… she’s gonna triangulate, women seek many sources of opinions… just know she’s gonna do that, why don’t you play along… give her other sources of information that augment the advice that you’re giving her… that’s a good way to play to women’s natural ability and need to triangulate on advice that they’re getting. She’s gonna do it anyway, put that to your advantage.
In other words, the goal here is to manipulate her essential woman-ness to your advantage. Don’t actually help her learn more about investing, just feed her information that confirms what you’re telling her. She’ll never know the difference!
Third… be aware and be prepared to invest. It’s gonna take more to serve her… It takes time, she needs education… she’s gonna ask a lot of tough questions… but if you invest that time up front… she’s a better client… what advisers tell me time and time again: women are more fun.
In other words, women are “better clients,” even though they’re a drag because they’re “more fun”! Woo hoo! If women aren’t good for fun, what are they good for!
The conversation just goes on from there… the expert here tries so hard to balance the essentialization of women’s nature and the social construction of gender, but she just really fails because she goes back and forth between both and her interviewer keeps cornering her with questions about how frustrating it is to work with women.
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 ten-minute talk, super-famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo talks about cultural differences in the perception and orientation towards time… and how that translates into boys dropping out of high school and underperforming in college. How does he make the link? Watch:
Via BoingBoing.
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.
Given the intense publicity given to Chris Brown’s violent beating of singer, Rihanna, and the subsequent release of her domestic violence-themed single, Russian Roulette, it’s hard to interpret her partnership with Eminem on the new song, Love the Way You Lie, as anything but symbolic. Unfortunately, it’s also hard to interpret this video as anything other than the message that true love is violent.
Eminem sings about how he hates the woman he loves, and alternates between expressing shame for his violence and describing how badly he wants to hurt her. Simultaneously, Rihanna’s beautiful vocals tug at the heart strings, representing the love side of the coin against Eminem’s angry voice. Add to this the acting by Lost’s Dominic Monaghan and super-sex-symbol Megan Fox, who alternate between beating each other and appearing to be deeply, profoundly in love. Eminem closes by threatening to kill her if she ever tries to leave him and, in the end, they lie in each others arms.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful song. Rihanna’s vocals are gorgeous; it’s was hard to not feel heartfelt while listening to them. And that’s the problem. It’s a powerful form of socialization. That we might internalize the message that passionate love and incontrollable rage go hand-in-hand is really very scary. It suggests not only that you should tolerate interpersonal violence but that, if there is no violence in your relationship, perhaps you don’t really love one another. Better go out and find someone who will beat you.
I’ve never been in an abusive relationship of that sort but as a young adult I thought I knew what love felt like. To me, it felt like fear. I knew that I was in love when I became deeply frightened that someone would leave me. It took me until around my 30th birthday to realize that a strong, loving relationship should make me feel secure, not terrified. These messages are insidious and ubiquitous and I do believe they shape real relationships.
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.
Crossposted at Jezebel.
Understandably, parents are eager to memorialize pregnancy and the birth of their child (well, the nicer parts of them, anyway). Some of this is done informally by parents or relatives themselves. Earlier this summer I took my 4-year-old niece for her first ever haircut because my sister loves long hair and couldn’t bring herself to get it cut, but I’m a big meanie with no soul and it didn’t bother me to cut a little girl’s butt-length hair into what seemed to me a much lower-maintenance, reasonable length. But I digress. The point is, my sister’s one requirement was that I save her hair and bring it back in a ziploc bag. Not one or two curls; all of it. So I handed over to her a freezer-size bag full of a lot of hair. Many of us have baby books from when we were young where our parents saved our first lost tooth, hair from our first haircut, or other things deemed to have sentimental value.*
But an industry has also arisen to help parents turn every step of the pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy process into a precious memory, whether it’s paying to get a video of the childbirth or the enormous number of scrapbooking supplies that provide an array of materials and pre-printed statements to help you express your joy.
RudolfoRabulous sent in a coupon for a product that takes this process of turning every single event in a pregnancy and child’s life to a new level. If you buy an e.p.t. pregnancy test, you can send in a coupon for a FREE promotional “keepsake gift”…a pouch to save the used pregnancy test in, to “remember the moment you knew”:
I am sure there are people who treasure their used pregnancy test, perhaps because they were trying to get pregnant for a long time or wanted a baby more than anything in the world. I’m not trying to deny the importance that finding out you’re pregnant has for people who are actually happy about it. But…e.p.t. has created purple pouches you’re supposed to send in for so you can keep a peed-on stick in it (notice the coupon says, in bold, “Please do not send in your stick”).
This strikes me as part of the trend to treat increasing amounts of our lives as unique, precious moments that require formal remembrance through some type of physical creation/artifact, rather than something to remember fondly as a non-material memory. Technologies such as film and video cameras, and consumer products such as physical and digital scrapbooking materials and the wide array of “keepsake” items you can buy, both allow and encourage this process. It’s not that the desire to have physical reminders of important moments in our lives is new, we just have a much greater variety of ways to do that now, and many have become quite cheap (digital photos, for instance, have no cost, really, once you’ve bought the camera, unless you want to print them out). Those two factors mean we now have the ability to turn many more life events from intangible memories into an end product, either on our own or with the aid of the items provided by a helpful memory industry.
* Am I the only one who wasn’t really sure what to do with this stuff when my mom decided it was time to hand it all over to me? What am I going to do with my old teeth? Why on EARTH would I want my umbilical cord? I kept the baby book itself but all the bottles and baggies of accompanying biological materials went in the trash.
And what would you do if your mom gave you her used pregnancy test? Would you be excited or touched? Or creeped out? Or just confused/indifferent?
Advertisers have mystified chocolate, portraying it as an intoxicant possessing the power to comfort, reward and satisfy women’s sexual desires. In doing so, these ads instruct the viewer to frame and interpret their own chocolate cravings in ways that overcome any resistance to consuming it.
To begin, consider this commercial for Dove:
Consider, also, this ad for Ferrero Rocher:
In particular, advertisers portray chocolate as satisfying female sexual desires. Such advertisements lead female viewers to understand their own desire for chocolate as a natural expression of their sexy femininity. The association of chocolate with luxury and the upper classes renders this sexuality socially acceptable. The symbolic sex is not that of the “crude lower class,” but the refined upper-class.
Text:
NOW IT CAN last longer THAN YOU CAN resist.
UNWRAP. INDULGE. REPEAT.
The misconception that chocolate is an aphrodisiac is exploited by these advertisements. The idea that chocolate contains chemicals that are similar to the mild-altering components found in ecstasy and marijuana, and evoke a feeling similar to falling in love, is now widespread. In actuality, studies have found that the amounts of these mood-enhancing chemicals are at such a low level that it is unlikely they lead to the euphoria that some feel when they consume chocolate. The findings of what could be called “chocolate propaganda research,” then, are negligible. Yet, marketing continues to perpetuate chocolate’s association with love and sex and its implied special relevance to women.
The association is so ubiquitous that it was mocked in an Axe commercial. Screenshot:
So why the insistence on indulgence?
Chocolate marketing must overcome the chief factor inhibiting women’s consumption: the fact that consumption of a fat, sweet food is inherently taboo for women, who are supposed to watch their weight. As a result, advertisers have replaced this food taboo with a sexual one. They have turned chocolate into a sexual, self-indulgent, private experience that invokes a taboo similar to that of masturbation. The intent is to equip her with an automatic inner-response to overcome her moment of self-restraint: the belief that chocolate consumption represents and enhances her femininity via satisfying her sexually, but tastefully, of course. Advertisers, then, overcome viewer resistance by shaping how they interpret and frame their own desires.
————————–
Jamal Fahim graduated from Occidental College in 2010 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Film and Media Studies. He was a member and captain of the Occidental Men’s Tennis team. After he graduated, Jamal moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the intention of working in the film industry as a producer. His interests include film, music, digital design, anime, Japanese culture, improvising, acting, and of course, chocolate!
If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.
Doris G. sent in this commercial for Jack & Jones jeans, in which a man laments the way that women just want to use him for sex:
The website indicates that if you go to a store and buy a jacket, you can get a pair of headphones that come in packages that show different versions of Girl Toys. Here’s the “bad boy rebel wearing a bomber jacket”:
You can also choose from the “outdoor living macho dude wearing a wool coat,” “casual cool big-city guy wearing a peacoat,” and “urban sports hunk wearing a soft-shell jacket.”
Of course, the reason this works — the reason it’s supposed to be funny instead of disturbing — is because of gendered ideas about sex (masculine) and romance (feminine). Men are generally assumed to want sex any time they can get it, and to be able to completely separate it from emotions and love and such. Truly masculine sex is no-strings-attached sex for physical pleasure. The idea that a guy would be disturbed because hordes of conventionally attractive women want to have wild sex with him but require no greater commitment, is laughable if you accept an ideology in which that’s how girls act.
This ideology obscures the reality that men do want to make emotional connections with their partners. Michael Kimmel summarizes the research on gender and relationships in his textbook, The Gendered Society (2nd edition, 2004):
Men, it seems, are more likely to believe myths about love at first sight, tend to fall in love more quickly than women, are more likely to enter relationships out of a desire to fall in love, and yet also tend to fall out of love more quickly. Romantic love, to men, is irrational, spontaneous, and compelling emotion that demands action… (p. 227)
But the masculinization of sex discourages men from thinking about sex in terms of emotional (as opposed to primarily physical) satisfaction and prevents us from acknowledging that boys and men can, in fact, be uncomfortable with women’s advances, or even be sexually victimized by women (see our posts here and here).
The New York Times reports that there has been an increase in the percent of Black Americans reporting that they are “pretty” or “very” happy (though Blacks lag behind Whites in happiness). Indeed, while their happiness quotient appears to have dipped a bit this decade, Blacks have reported significantly higher rates of happiness in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s, compared to the ’70s.
Still, the article entirely skips over the fascinating gender difference. While American Black men’s happiness appears to have peaked in the ’80s and ’90s, they show real losses in reported happiness in the ’00s. In contrast, Black women’s happiness has been steadily rising; they neither express the same rapid increases or decreases that characterize the trend among men.
When we look at race and gender together, Black men are often among the most disadvantaged groups in society. They are among the most hard hit by the recession in terms of joblessness. They are less likely than Black women to enroll in and complete college. That said, I am hardly an expert in happiness studies… any ideas as to why the gender disparity in self-reported happiness would be so much stronger among Blacks than Whites?
Via Racialicious, and sender-inners Patricia P. and Dmitriy T.M.
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.
Cross-posted at Jezebel.
Sarah P. sent in this stunning video, from the the Wall Street Journal, about how to advise women about investing. The video has a simple message:
Women are women. They’re weird and need their weirdness to be attended to. But they don’t want to think that you’re treating them like women. They want to think that you’re treating them like human beings (whatevs!). So, whatever you do, never let them know that you’re treating them like women. If you do this, you will make gazillions off of them. Go forth!
The video after a short commercial (selected transcription below):
Selected transcription:
We all know women can be a little difficult… no one wants to feel that they are… being treated differently from the men, so what can advisers do to try to connect with women and keep from following that stigma?
In other words, women are different and also more annoying than real people (e.g., men), so you need to treat them accordingly. But they don’t know that they’re different from real people (they’re “difficult,” after all), so you have to work around that.
First… you can’t approach women as women… don’t treat her like a lady, treat her like a person… women need more time, they ask more questions… get to know what motivates her… if you connect with her on that level, not on the basis of her gender, that’s the first mistake most advisers make…
In other words, pretend like you’re treating her like an individual, but know that what you’re really dealing with is a creature named W.O.M.A.N.
Second… she’s gonna triangulate, women seek many sources of opinions… just know she’s gonna do that, why don’t you play along… give her other sources of information that augment the advice that you’re giving her… that’s a good way to play to women’s natural ability and need to triangulate on advice that they’re getting. She’s gonna do it anyway, put that to your advantage.
In other words, the goal here is to manipulate her essential woman-ness to your advantage. Don’t actually help her learn more about investing, just feed her information that confirms what you’re telling her. She’ll never know the difference!
Third… be aware and be prepared to invest. It’s gonna take more to serve her… It takes time, she needs education… she’s gonna ask a lot of tough questions… but if you invest that time up front… she’s a better client… what advisers tell me time and time again: women are more fun.
In other words, women are “better clients,” even though they’re a drag because they’re “more fun”! Woo hoo! If women aren’t good for fun, what are they good for!
The conversation just goes on from there… the expert here tries so hard to balance the essentialization of women’s nature and the social construction of gender, but she just really fails because she goes back and forth between both and her interviewer keeps cornering her with questions about how frustrating it is to work with women.
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 ten-minute talk, super-famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo talks about cultural differences in the perception and orientation towards time… and how that translates into boys dropping out of high school and underperforming in college. How does he make the link? Watch:
Via BoingBoing.
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.
Given the intense publicity given to Chris Brown’s violent beating of singer, Rihanna, and the subsequent release of her domestic violence-themed single, Russian Roulette, it’s hard to interpret her partnership with Eminem on the new song, Love the Way You Lie, as anything but symbolic. Unfortunately, it’s also hard to interpret this video as anything other than the message that true love is violent.
Eminem sings about how he hates the woman he loves, and alternates between expressing shame for his violence and describing how badly he wants to hurt her. Simultaneously, Rihanna’s beautiful vocals tug at the heart strings, representing the love side of the coin against Eminem’s angry voice. Add to this the acting by Lost’s Dominic Monaghan and super-sex-symbol Megan Fox, who alternate between beating each other and appearing to be deeply, profoundly in love. Eminem closes by threatening to kill her if she ever tries to leave him and, in the end, they lie in each others arms.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful song. Rihanna’s vocals are gorgeous; it’s was hard to not feel heartfelt while listening to them. And that’s the problem. It’s a powerful form of socialization. That we might internalize the message that passionate love and incontrollable rage go hand-in-hand is really very scary. It suggests not only that you should tolerate interpersonal violence but that, if there is no violence in your relationship, perhaps you don’t really love one another. Better go out and find someone who will beat you.
I’ve never been in an abusive relationship of that sort but as a young adult I thought I knew what love felt like. To me, it felt like fear. I knew that I was in love when I became deeply frightened that someone would leave me. It took me until around my 30th birthday to realize that a strong, loving relationship should make me feel secure, not terrified. These messages are insidious and ubiquitous and I do believe they shape real relationships.
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.
Crossposted at Jezebel.
Understandably, parents are eager to memorialize pregnancy and the birth of their child (well, the nicer parts of them, anyway). Some of this is done informally by parents or relatives themselves. Earlier this summer I took my 4-year-old niece for her first ever haircut because my sister loves long hair and couldn’t bring herself to get it cut, but I’m a big meanie with no soul and it didn’t bother me to cut a little girl’s butt-length hair into what seemed to me a much lower-maintenance, reasonable length. But I digress. The point is, my sister’s one requirement was that I save her hair and bring it back in a ziploc bag. Not one or two curls; all of it. So I handed over to her a freezer-size bag full of a lot of hair. Many of us have baby books from when we were young where our parents saved our first lost tooth, hair from our first haircut, or other things deemed to have sentimental value.*
But an industry has also arisen to help parents turn every step of the pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy process into a precious memory, whether it’s paying to get a video of the childbirth or the enormous number of scrapbooking supplies that provide an array of materials and pre-printed statements to help you express your joy.
RudolfoRabulous sent in a coupon for a product that takes this process of turning every single event in a pregnancy and child’s life to a new level. If you buy an e.p.t. pregnancy test, you can send in a coupon for a FREE promotional “keepsake gift”…a pouch to save the used pregnancy test in, to “remember the moment you knew”:
I am sure there are people who treasure their used pregnancy test, perhaps because they were trying to get pregnant for a long time or wanted a baby more than anything in the world. I’m not trying to deny the importance that finding out you’re pregnant has for people who are actually happy about it. But…e.p.t. has created purple pouches you’re supposed to send in for so you can keep a peed-on stick in it (notice the coupon says, in bold, “Please do not send in your stick”).
This strikes me as part of the trend to treat increasing amounts of our lives as unique, precious moments that require formal remembrance through some type of physical creation/artifact, rather than something to remember fondly as a non-material memory. Technologies such as film and video cameras, and consumer products such as physical and digital scrapbooking materials and the wide array of “keepsake” items you can buy, both allow and encourage this process. It’s not that the desire to have physical reminders of important moments in our lives is new, we just have a much greater variety of ways to do that now, and many have become quite cheap (digital photos, for instance, have no cost, really, once you’ve bought the camera, unless you want to print them out). Those two factors mean we now have the ability to turn many more life events from intangible memories into an end product, either on our own or with the aid of the items provided by a helpful memory industry.
* Am I the only one who wasn’t really sure what to do with this stuff when my mom decided it was time to hand it all over to me? What am I going to do with my old teeth? Why on EARTH would I want my umbilical cord? I kept the baby book itself but all the bottles and baggies of accompanying biological materials went in the trash.
And what would you do if your mom gave you her used pregnancy test? Would you be excited or touched? Or creeped out? Or just confused/indifferent?