gender: femininity

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Earlier this week I posted about the Badminton World Federation’s attempts to change the dress code to require women to wear skirts or dresses as an effort to give a more “attractive appearance.” The changes emphasized certain standards of femininity over concerns about how the clothing changes might impact players’ performance. Rodeo queen competitions illustrate this tendency to value feminine appearance over the skill or physical prowess the women are ostensibly there to perform.  A rodeo queen competition is sort of an amalgam of a beauty pageant and rodeo or riding competition; the winners serve as ambassadors, promoting rodeo, riding in parades, and so on. Though the events usually have many of the trappings of a standard beauty pageant — appearance and personality are both judged — the riding elements (which may include barrel racing, reining demonstrations, etc.) provide a sense that this isn’t just about meeting standards of femininity, but also athletic ability.

But a video Lisa sent me about a recent rodeo queen competition in Utah New Mexico makes it clear where the emphasis lies. If you don’t care greatly about horse-related things, you may not know that there has been an outbreak of equine herpes in the western U.S., which is extremely contagious, may be fatal, and spreads through nose-to-nose contact. As a result, many horse-related competitions have been canceled or postponed. But the Davis County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse Junior Queen Contest in Farmington, Utah, found a way to continue with the competition — they had the contestants ride stick horses around the arena, something I can’t imagine being done with, say, roping competitions and other male-dominated rodeo events that could be altered to create a horseless version:

Some images from the story at KSL:

I can’t help but feel this undermines efforts to separate rodeo queen competitions from beauty contests. In fact, the Miss Rodeo USA site says that appearance and personality make up 80% of the competition, and riding skills only 20% — and personality and appearance count when judging the riding, too. And while having women ride children’s toys around an arena may still test the women’s knowledge of the patterns, and requires them to show physical stamina, it also seems infantilizing and silly. It makes it clear that rodeo queen competitions have little to do with horse riding skills, which are entirely dispensable in a pinch.

UPDATE: Well, I stand corrected. Reader Zula did find a video of another competition (cutting) in which the men used stick horses due to a 2001 equine herpes outbreak, with a lot more falling in the dirt than in the clip above:

UPDATE 2: Reader Megan says,

I have zero experience with rodeo, but I do ride hunters and foxhunters on the East coast. I know that there are a lot of technical points that could easily be demonstrated while on a stick horse. Obviously, completing certain movements is a lot easy when you have direct control over your legs rather than asking a 1000 pound animal to step to the side with a careful nudge. Despite the “challenge” being removed, these contestants can still demonstrate a large amount of knowledge and understanding on stick horses. I watch lots of kids playing “horse” when they can’t be riding: cantering around, changing leads, and jumping jumps. Those kids take turns and critique each other’s forms, working on learning cadence, balance, timing, and adjustability.When I was a kid, I did the same thing.

So, I absolutely must state that I understand the idea behind the substitution and it didn’t entirely degrade the competition.

UPDATE 3: Alexandra Hinton wrote a humorous reply over at Fem Pop that’s worth a look.

Abby Kinchy (and Assistant Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and Emily Birch  sent us another example of the pressure put on female athletes to be not just amazing at their sports, but attractive while doing it. The New York Times ran an article about changes in the Badminton World Federation’s required dress code for players. The BWF issued guidelines that sought to “ensure attractive presentation” at tournaments. They also insisted on reinforcing gender differences; women players “must wear skirts or dresses.” The policy, initially intended to be implemented by May 1st, said it was acceptable to wear shorts or tracksuit pants under a skirt “where cultural or religious sensitivities require legs to be covered.” However, the guidelines stressed that it was not acceptable to wear a sheer skirt over the shorts or pants, and was absolutely unacceptable to wear shorts or pants alone.

The dress code was roundly criticized as a sexist marketing ploy that might hamper some players’ performance. While the Iranian players would be able to continue wearing their long pants, they would have to wear a skirt over them — which, as the NYT article points out, could be cumbersome and restrictive, putting some players in the position of having to accept potentially negative effects on their performance in return for being allowed to wear shorts or pants.

The BWF argued that this was for women’s players’ own good, since it would bring more attention to the sport, pointing out that they recently increased the prize money for women’s tournaments to be equal to men’s and added women’s competitions to be sure men and women have the same options for participation. The argument seemed to be that they are trying to make women’s badminton more popular, and thus the least the women can do is play their part — which means not just being excellent players, but looking more attractive to viewers.

However, as some players and other critics pointed out, the concern with using dress code to enhance the popularity of the sport seemed to fall disproportionately on women, and seemed to focus primarily on making women conform to ideals of femininity:

Interest is declining, Rangsikitpho said, adding that some women compete in oversize shorts and long pants and appear “baggy, almost like men.”

[From NYT.]

The dress code for men, on the other hand, simply requires “proper attire.”

After all the criticism, the BWF delayed implementation of the rules for a month to provide time for more discussion. Finally, in late May, they put off implementation indefinitely.

Though the dress code is on hold for the moment, it’s a great example of the way that concerns about appearance may trump functionality when it comes to women’s sports. In addition, it shows how a particular version of femininity — one that involves showing significant amounts of skin and that accepts skirts and dresses as default women’s clothing — is elevated as the ideal presentation. The fact that many badminton players have cultural or religious reasons to want (or have) to wear pants to play doesn’t require rethinking standards of femininity, but only a work-around that still upholds the ideal by requiring a skirt over pants.

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

Sociologists use the term “androcentrism” to refer to a new kind of sexism, one that replaces the favoring of men over women with the favoring of masculinity over femininity. According to the rules of androcentrism, men and women alike are rewarded, but only insofar as they are masculine (e.g., they play sports, drink whiskey, and are lawyers or surgeons w00t!). Meanwhile, men are punished for doing femininity and women… well, women are required to do femininity and simultaneously punished for it.

Illustrating this concept, much more concisely, is this altered photograph of James Franco in drag. Sent along by Stephanie V., the photo was originally for the cover of Candy, a “transversal style” fashion magazine.  I’m not sure who added the copy,* but I like it:

* So Caro Visi, where I found the image, credits Virus, but I can’t find it there.  I’m happy to properly credit if someone can point me in the right direction.

UPDATE: Sarah and John, in the comments thread, pointed out that the language is borrowed from a movie titled The Cement Garden.  Jennifer points out that Madonna used it, as well, in her song What it Feels Like For A Girl.

Clip from The Cement Garden:

More posts on androcentrism: “woman” as an insult, making it manly: how to sell a car, good god don’t let men wear make up or long hair, don’t forget to hug like a dude, saving men from their (feminine) selves, men must eschew femininity, not impressed with Buzz Lightyear commercial, dinosaurs can’t be for girls, and sissy men are so uncool.

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.

Katrin and Danny sent in a heart-breaking video that highlights the damage that has sometimes been inflicted on children, with the guidance of researchers, because of adult concerns about behavior that deviates from socially-accepted gender norms. In this segment with Anderson Cooper, two siblings and their mother discuss the treatment their brother suffered, with the approval and encouragement of UCLA researchers, as a form of “anti-sissy” therapy:

It would be nice to be able to write this off as completely debunked practices of an earlier time, based on premises that would never recur today. But as the video makes clear, the publications that resulted from this study continued to be cited by those who argue that through therapy, gays and lesbians can be “cured.”

Here’s the second part of the story:

There will be a third installment tonight; I’ll update the post once the final segment is available online.

UPDATE: Here’s the third segment, about a boy who underwent anti-gay therapy in the ’90s:

UPDATE 2: Also, Danny was wonderful enough to type up transcripts of the first two videos! They’re after the jump.

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Esther C., Erin R., and Scott P. sent in an interesting video, “Sexy Girls Have It Easy,” showing woman testing how her physical appearance affects whether she can get free things. She asks for a number of free things — ice cream, baked goods, a cab ride, carousel rides, and so on — while dressed in two ways to see if she is treated differently when she conforms more closely to standards of feminine beauty:

Documentary : Sexy Girls Have It Easy from Examples of Film & TV work on Vimeo.

It’s a non-scientific test, obviously, since she doesn’t ask the exact same people for free things dressed each way. Some commenters at Vimeo argue that she acts more confident and positive when she’s dressed up, and thus people are reacting to her attitude, not her appearance. Yet, even if this is true, we can’t necessarily separate our perceptions of someone’s confidence from their appearance, which may influence whether we interpret behavior as “confident” or as “pushy.”

Thoughts?

Emma M.H. sent us a commercial for Cougar Life, a dating site that promotes itself as a place to meet older (but still sexy!) women interested in dating younger men. Despite the name, the site actually welcomes women of all ages. When you go to the website, you specify whether you’re looking for a “cub” (women aged 18-35) or a “cougar” (aged 35-65). Similarly, Emma was struck by how young the women in the ad look:

So though the company brands itself as a site about cougars — which would imply an emphasis on middle-aged and older women — here it markets itself almost entirely with women who would fall into no more than into the “cub” category or the very lowest end of 35-65 age range that defines cougars on the site, while the song declares they’re “all cougars.” It’s possible the company thought that women who look older than 40 would be unacceptable even to potential customers of a dating website specifically promising the ability to meet such women. But it also seems like the term “cougar” is being used to apply to a wider array of women than when it first entered pop culture — not just older women who date younger men, but practically any woman past her early 20s who has a voracious sexual appetite. Cougar Life draws on this, assuring us it was recently voted the “wildest dating service in America.” The defining feature may be less age than the idea that a woman is not just sexually available, but almost predatory in her search for sex — that is, that she seeks sex in a way we generally find acceptable only for men.

UPDATE: Reader Anna caught a mistake I made. The “cub” category was for the men seeking women on the site, not for younger women. She explains,

If you look at the site carefully, the “cubs” category means men the ages of 18-35, not women of these ages. Choose “looking for a cub” and the pictures are all male, and that term is often used for the younger male partner of an older women. The only women “available” on the site are 36 years old and over, so the site in effect bans both middle aged men and young-ish women from participating.

Thanks, Anna!

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Way back in September of last year, Baxter sent us this Star Trek promotional poster, which showed the main cast staring straight out at the viewer, with the exception of the one female character, who was turned to the side, glancing sideways at the viewer with her mouth slightly open:

We didn’t get around to posting about it at the time, but I thought of it when I saw the image from the Hulu site for the U.S. version of The Office, sent in by Jessica F. Similarly to the Star Trek poster, all of the male characters are looking straight out at the viewer, mouths closed, while the one female character has her head turned to the side, mouth slightly open; in this case, she’s looking at one of the male characters, not the viewer:

In both these posters, the men meet the viewer head-on, if you will.  Their bodies are aimed straight at the viewer, they make eye contact, and that contact is confident. In contrast, the women avert themselves.  Their body language is less self-assured.  The woman in the Star Trek poster is alluring, a passive sexiness; the woman in the Office poster is referential, using her eyes to draw attention to the show’s star.

After initially posting those, I asked for more examples and readers sent them in. Jessica T. pointed out this banner ad for Thor:

She also found an ad for the TV show Bones, which has the women smiling at the camera much more openly (well, except for Bones):

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We’re trying to get our inbox under control, so I decided it was time for another of my occasional round-ups of gendered kids’ items, so here you go. My favorite example was an ad from a flyer for Save On Foods in Victoria, Canada, sent in by Joanna M. The advertised products are boysz and girlsz inhalers, for all your gendered breathing needs. The boyz’ version is in green and gray with a graphic of a skateboarder, while the girlz’ inhaler is, of course pink, with a flower:

Amanda K.H. took this photo of 3 kid-sized Civil War hats for sale at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, IL. In addition to the Union blue and the Confederate gray, there was a pink version:

The Pragmatist let us know about onesies for sale at Mommy and Kids Allure Boutique. The onesies include lists of “ingredients” for boys and girls. What are boys made of? Love, energy, and dirt:

For girls, it’s love, beauty, and kindness:

Elliott M. noticed that the Garanimals website doesn’t just just divide the clothing into boys’ and girls’ sections, but uses gendered language to describe them. The boys’ clothing is described with active language (“ready, set, go!”), and they’ll look “cool”. Girls, on the other hand, are “sugar and spice, everything nice” and a “princess,” and they’ll be “looking great and feeling better,” “cute,” “eye catching,” and “adorable”:

An anonymous reader saw these sets of stickers, divided into themes for boys and girls:

What are boy themes? Space, travel/transportation, dinosaurs, sports, and pirates, among others. Girls, on the other hand, are associated with stars, flowers, butterflies, clothes, makeup, personal hygiene, cheerleading, and shopping. Since the reader was buying them to give out to a Girl Guide group (equivalent to Girl Scouts in the U.S.) for badges about science, being active, and personal hygiene, she had to buy both sets.

Finally, Sarah M. sent in a photo she took at Target of two toys that define boys by what they do and girls by what they are. The toys are those types of little sit-and-scoot toy cars kids push around with their feet. The boys’ version is red and is, appropriately, called a Lil’ Fire Truck Ride-On. The pink version, on the other hand, is the Lil’ Princess Ride-On — because apparently there’s no appropriate vehicle to define as “girly,” so the easiest way to gender the toy was just to call it a thing for princesses and be done with it:

UPDATE: Philip Cohen pointed out another example on his blog, Family Inequality. Baby blankets at Amazon were available in blue for the “little man” and pink for the “little cupcake,” in case your baked goods are cold: