gender: beauty

In her book The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg has a chaptered titled “Perfect Skin” in which she looks at the rise of acne as a significant concern among adolescent girls. Because pimples and blackheads were believed by some people to be a sign of immorality–masturbation, lascivious thoughts, or promiscuity–both teenagers and their parents were quite distressed at the appearance of teen acne. Though teens had long been concerned about their appearances, the widespread use of mirrors in bathrooms starting in the Victorian Era gave them many more opportunities to examine their faces and find themselves lacking. And girls tended to be more concerned about their faces than boys, perhaps because girls were judged more harshly for any perceived sexual immorality. A whole industry arose to sell generally useless products to teens, particularly girls, to cure their acne.

Marketers for soap and other products used concerns about morality in their ads. Here is an ad for Hand Sapolio, a popular soap in the early 1900s (found in a 1906 issue of McClure’s Magazine):

Notice how the text in the top box mentions that cosmetics, which might be used to cover pimples, were being “inveighed against from the very pulpits,” meaning good moral girls couldn’t use cosmetics to hide their acne. Also I like how the title (“Be Fair to Your Skin, and It Will Be Fair to You–and to Others”) implies that if you aren’t fair to your skin, it is going to do something dreadful to the people around you…presumably busting out into a hideous display of pimples that will pain people to look upon.

I zoomed in and did a couple of smaller screen captures of some sections of the text that also stress morality or “goodness”:

Be clean, both in and out. We cannot undertake the former task–that lies with yourself–but the latter we can aid with HAND SAPOLIO.

This section of text makes it clear that good skin is essential for popularity, at least among the “best” people:

This Hand Sapolio ad (from a 1903 issue of New England Magazine), sums it up:

The first step away from self-respect is lack of care in personal cleanliness: the first move in building up a proper pride in man, woman, or child, is a visit to the Bathtub. You can’t be healthy, or pretty, or even good, unless you are clean. HAND SAPOLIO is a true missionary.

So there we see a connection being made between having good skin and being “good,” which means that, like missionaries who help save heathens, Hand Sapolio is a “missionary” spreading moral goodness and self-respect. Because what could build up self-respect more than being told that if you have less than perfectly clean skin, you can’t be pretty or good?

These could be useful for discussions of how physical appearances were steadily connected to ideas of morality and how biological processes, like getting pimples in adolescence, were turned into diseases that required (often expensive) intervention to “cure.” They could also be good for a discussion of marketing, particularly how ideas of morality were tied to particular products, such that goodness was commodified–by buying the item, you were buying goodness.

In a comment to a post a while back, Macon D. drew my attention to a post on Womanist Musings about Yolanda Charley, Miss Navajo Nation 2008. The post points out that she (and past winners) show a range of body sizes and shapes that would be unusual in a “mainstream” beauty pageant. The competition emphasizes knowledge of Navajo culture and traditions; contestants must be fluent in Navajo and English and be knowledgeable about Navajo traditions and rituals, according to the Miss Navajo Council website. This is a picture of Miss Charley:

Although I didn’t want to automatically romanticize or fetishize it (as the “good” pageant vs. the “bad” mainstream ones), I’m always happy to see examples of different beauty standards. I rummaged around on the website for a while, and some other things about the pageant also struck me, such as the following rules:

…there is no contact with your parents once you arrive for the pageant.

Contestants must dress themselves individually. (i.e. make your own Navajo hair bun, wrap leggings, etc.) THIS WILL BE STRICTLY ADHERED TO.

I assume the point is to try to make the girls rely on their own skills rather than parents and professional stylists (as well as to reduce the amount of parental hovering and interference that probably occurs at most pageants).

The competition includes traditional skills/talent and traditional techniques competitions. The traditional technique is chosen for them and could include butchering. I tried to imagine Miss America contestants having to get ready entirely on their own, without help doing their hair and makeup, and being forced to butcher an animal in front of a crowd. I also tried to imagine the Miss America audience watching them butcher anything. Despite being a vegetarian, I giggled a lot.

I kept reading and noticed rules about not marrying or living with anyone and not becoming pregnant during their reign; these are pretty standard for beauty pageants. I also saw a document with proposed changes to eligibility rules. Here are some new or revised items (all typos/errors are from the original):

Candidate must be 18-25 years of age, never have co-habituated, never been married (including marriage annulments, common law marriage, same-sex marriage/relationship and/or divorce) and have never been pregnant.

Candidate must have an official birth certificate indicating gender at birth.

Candidate will not have a hetero/or same sex relationship during reign.

The obsession with making sure beauty pageant contestants have never been married or pregnant fascinates me. For one thing, although you can verify that someone has never been married, how do you verify someone has never been pregnant? Critics usually focus on the beauty standards imposed by pageant judges, but the insistence on sexual purity is interesting as well–apparently having ever been pregnant (or married) means you are not worthy to be the paragon of beauty. This isn’t specific to the Miss Navajo pageant–similar standards apply for Miss America and, as far as I can tell, most beauty pageants. And that standard boils down to, “girls who have clearly had sex are not appropriate representatives.” You could be the prettiest (by the pageant’s standards), the most talented, and so on, but the pageant isn’t about just that–you also have to be free of any proof that you are not a virgin. Although you can be sexy, we don’t want to know if you were sexual.

It’s also interesting that future Miss Navajos may have to prove they were female at birth. I looked for a similar requirement for Miss Americas, but couldn’t find a full list of eligibility requirements, so I don’t know if they have it or not. This could be useful for discussions of gender in Native American communities. As is well known, many Native groups had a more fluid, or at least expansive, idea of gender than the current mainstream binary of male/female; many groups had a “third gender,” often referred to as berdache. While this is interesting and makes it clear that our current gender system is just one way of thinking about gender, I find discussions of berdache often devolve into simplified “American culture is oppressive and homophobic, while Native tribes allowed people to just be who they are and didn’t confine or stereotype people based on gender rules.” Anyone who has talked to American Indians who are gay, lesbian, or transgender can tell you there is homophobia within Indian groups. To imply that all Native American tribes are accepting of the GLBT community both greatly simplifies the role of the berdache (which didn’t exist in every tribe) and assumes that tribes have not been affected by homophobic trends in the larger American society of which they are also a part. Whatever traditional Navajo conceptions of gender might be, apparently for the purpose of selecting Miss Navajo Nation, the mainstream binary view of gender (you are born male or female, and that’s what you “really” are for the rest of your life) may be used as an official eligibility requirement.

In any case, it’s very interesting how this Navajo pageant manages to both challenge and conform to elements of the mainstream Miss America-type pageant model.

Thanks for pointing the pageant out, Macon D!

Seemingly just seconds after the news leaked this weekend that current Alaskan governor Sarah Palin was McCain’s pick for vice president, merchandise appeared to capitalize on her conformity to current white bourgeois beauty standards. [Thanks to Shakesville’s Sarah Palin Sexism Watch for alerting me to the existence of this stuff.]

For example, I found this bumper sticker on zazzle.com, a site where users can upload their own images for use on T-shirts, stickers, baseball caps, etc. The caption above the sticker says, “This year, vote for HOT!” See screengrab below.

“MILF” is a slang term for “Mother I’d Like to F**k.”

This [and the many other examples that I’m sure will be added to this post] would be useful in an ongoing discussion about the deployment of gender in this year’s presidential elections, especially comparing/contrasting the popular portrayals of Hillary Clinton with those of Sarah Palin.

The AFP disembodies Palin in a “news photo” published on September 1. When body parts of male candidates are shown, they are identified as, for example, “the hand of Candidate X was seen waving.” However, in this example, Palin is identified as her legs. [Again, hat tip to Shakesville for photo and commentary.]

Caption accompanying photo reads:

Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin stands on stage during a campaign rally in O’Fallon, Missouri on August 31. Palin got comfortable in her new role as a vice presidential candidate as she made the Republican case to stay in power. (AFP/Robyn Beck)

Dubi K. sent us the following picture that has been making the round on the Internet [it is reportedly the icon for a Facebook group called “I’d Bang Sarah Palin!”]. It is a manipulation of a photo of a woman in a bikini with a gun. Palin’s head is superimposed on the woman’s body. Snopes, clearinghouse on Internet memes and urban legends, summarily debunks the picture’s supposed authenticity and supplies simiilar examples.

An opinion piece, “The Dominatrix,” by Gary Kamiya on Web magazine Salon is advertised on the front page [as of September 9, 2008] with the following poorly done Photoshop of Palin as a stereotypical dominatrix, bringing America [as moose?!] to heel:

Note the equation of a powerful, assertive woman with non-heteronormative, kinky sexuality that some people find morally repugnant. My point is not to start a debate on bdsm, but to show that this picture and the accompanying article make the tired old connection between a powerful woman and “perverted” sex.

Laura C. sent in a link to this image (found at Carrion Bag) of Palin supporters:

Might be good for a discussion of the ways in which sexualization of Palin is coming from both opponents (see here) and supporters, and the ways that women may actively take part in sexualization that trivializes women as a group.

Thanks, Laura C.!

Finally, there are now action figures of Sarah Palin. The one below is the “Sarah Palin School Girl Action Figure.” Setting aside how I feel about Sarah Palin personally and politically, I hate to see a woman’s political power attributed to how sexy she might be. There are already dozens of groups on Facebook about how “sexy” or “hot” Palin is, and they have thousands of members.

In the contemporary U.S., the feminist movement has been so thoroughly intertwined with the pro-choice movement that the rhetoric of choice has become a common way to talk, more generally, about women’s liberation.  And women’s liberation, as we have demonstrated (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), is frequently co-opted for the purposes of selling women all sorts of products (including those in decided conflict with mainstream feminism, like this one and this one).

A reader, Tracy in Canada, saw these ads at Sears.  In them, the phrase “the right to choose” is used to invoke feminist ideals and applied to the right to select a “gift adapted to your beauty concerns.”

NEW! (Nov. ’09): Kristyn G. sent in this commercial for a cable company in India that also co-opts the right to choose…in this case, the right to choose her own husband:

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 am writing a lecture about the social construction of race/ethnicity and wanted to show some pictures of people who are grouped into a single racial category in the U.S. but, in fact, show enormous variety in their skin tone, facial features, etc., so I quickly googled the phrase “African American skin tone.” And I found this flyer for a party at a club where light-skinned women would get in free ( found here):

My reactions, in order: “What the f**k???” “This is clearly made up.” [After finding this AP story about it]: “Son of a bitch! It’s real!” Due to the outcry, the event was canceled and the event planner expressed sorrow and dismay that he would have offended anyone. Because who could have guessed this would be problematic?

This image should be perfect for illustrating a number of topics, such as the way hierarchies often emerge within racial groups based on skin tone, facial features, etc., so that racial discrimination does not just occur between different groups, or the way that light skin is still prized in our society, even in racial/ethnic minority populations. You could also focus on the gender angle and compare it to photos of African American women who are often “whitened” or required to have light skin tone in order to be models, actresses, etc. (for example, see this post), or the whole issue of why clubs allow women, but not men, in for free.

I’m going to pair this image with Margaret Hunter’s article “Light, Bright, and Almost White: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Light Skin” (from Skin/Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the ‘Color-Blind’ Era, 2004).

The way that Jessica Alba uses her will (she goes after what she wants) to pursue make-up, of all things, reminds me of these, these, this, and these examples of the commodification of feminism.

Enjoy this clip from Fox’s Battle of the Bods where women try to guess in what order men will rank them according to their face, their body, and both.  As I suggest in my title, I think it’s a wonderful example of how being objectified places women in competition with each other and, thus, creates conflict and antagonism.  Thus, women are “catty” because of gender inequality, NOT because of those two pesky X chromosomes or something to do with hormones.

See this post for a breast implant ad suggesting that bigger boobs make you look smarter. And see this post for ads capitalizing on the stereotype that women are naturally bitchy to each other.

Via Feministe and The Feminist Underground.

Click here to watch a 1 1/2 minute segment about Dr. Matlock and vaginoplasty.  It’s TOTALLY SURREAL.  (And not safe for work.)

Also, and this drives me crazy, the proper term is “vulva,” not “vagina.”  To call the whole thing a vagina reduces women’s genitals to where the penis goes in/baby comes out.  There is a lot more going on down there! 

I blame you, Vagina Monologues.