gender: femininity

Alli, YetAnotherGirl, Molly W., and Laurence D. all sent in links (via The Mary Sue and Feminist Law Professors) to a post at The Achilles Effect on gendered language in children’s toy commercials. Crystal Smith created word clouds based on 658 words in 27 TV commercials generally aimed at boys (products included “Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Kung Zhu, Nerf, Transformers, Beyblades, and Bakugan”) and 432 words from 32 TV commercials generally aimed at girls (products: “Zhu Zhu Pets, Zhu Zhu Babies, Bratz Dolls, Barbie, Moxie Girls, Easy Bake Ovens, Monster High Dolls, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Polly Pocket, and FURREAL Friends”).

This clearly isn’t a random sample of all toy commercials on all TV channels to all age groups; as Smith points out, it ignores toy companies that can’t afford TV ads, and it’s not a huge sample. However, given that these are popular toys that were being marketed during shows (such as cartoons) that are aimed at children, the word clouds provide a basic overview of gendered language in toy ads.

The word cloud for the boys’ list shows the emphasis on action and violence, with others depicted as opponents, a nemesis, or enemies:

For girls, the words are much more about appearance/fashion, relationships (friends, friendship, etc.), and playing mommy:

You can see larger versions at Wordle (girls and boys) and Smith says she has a reference list of all the commercials she a reference list of all the commercials available, which I requested. I’ll update the post with the list when I get it.

UPDATE: In response to my email, Crystal Smith cautioned, “This is a very small sample of brands that tend to appear frequently during kids’ cartoon blocks on TV. They are highly gendered toys, which explains the incredible contrast between the two lists.” She sent along the references; the girls’ list is available here, the boys’ list here.

Men and women are told, in a myriad of daily ways, that being masculine is good and feminine bad. It sneaks into our daily language in ways that are so common that we fail to even see it anymore. For example, a recent New York Times article about Google’s effort to determine what makes managers successful featured a list, written by Google, of what makes a good boss.

I noticed that they added The New York Times added the phrase “Don’t be a sissy” to “Good Behavior” #4.  It reads “Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.”   It’s the only Good Behavior that includes a derisive slur. And while I’m accustomed to seeing terms like “sissy” thrown around as insults, it occurred to me that the very next rule #5, “Be a good communicator and listen to your team,” could easily have been prefaced with “Don’t be a man.”

But being a “sissy” (that is, feminine) is something that we can all agree is bad, while being a man is good.  So, even when the rules suggest that men take on feminized traits, they’re unlikely to adorn the suggestion with a denigration of masculinity.

Via Teppo at OrgTheory.

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.

Feminist Frequency‘s Anita Sarkeesian has released the first of her series of short videos examining the roles women are often assigned in movies and television.  In this one she goes after the “manic pixie dream girl,” or the female side character who helps the male main character find himself, love life again, or overcome some obstacle.  This character, Sarkeeisan argues, is problematic because she “perpetuates the myth of women as caregivers at our very core”; her main role is to “‘fix’ these lonely sad men, so that they can go ‘fix the world.'”  The women themselves?  They’re too busy being adorable.

(Transcript after the jump.)

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Lisa recently posted about Abercrombie Kids selling push-up bikini tops (though I just went to the website and they seem to have removed the “push-up” description). In another example of encouraging pre-teens to sexualize their bodies, Meghan L. sent in the clip “You’ve Got Snooki” from AOL Video in which Snooki, from Jersey Shore, does a makeover on an 11-year-old girl, since you’re “never too young to look bangin'” or to start thinking about how you look to boys:

In a perfect example of the tendency to sexualize women but not men, MM sent in a screen capture of an image for the graphic t-shirts section of the Urban Outfitters website, in which the men are all fully clothed and the women…less so:

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Andi S.-R. noticed an interesting segment in a German textbook used to teach English. In the last few years, 12th-grade English classes have started including a section about gender, so textbooks have added chapters on the topic. Andi found a supplement from Klett, one of the major German publishers of educational materials, provided a supplement for covering gender that included a brainstorming exercises. While the idea was to foster discussion about gender stereotypes, Andi questions whether the sample comments provided as examples would help with that goal or would prime students to focus on stereotypical behavior by providing it as a model:

A second section helpfully suggests “bitchiness” as a quality students might associate with girls:

Again, the idea is to promote discussion, an excellent goal. But Andi succinctly points out the potential pitfalls of such a superficial approach:

…it’s unclear how students are supposed to know if these are “views” or “facts”, and having a discussion based on gut-feeling alone seems only likely to reinforce and teach as “facts” those stereotypes the students are familiar with, anyway.

In the six-and-a-half minute video below, Feminist Frequency‘s Anita Sarkeesian makes the controversial argument that True Grit‘s Mattie Ross is not a feminist character.  Her argument revolves around an important distinction: the difference between admiring women for doing masculinity and admiring them.

Our instinct to see Ross as a feminist character comes from her performance of masculinity: she is aggressive, tough, and vengeful.  But is the valuing of masculinity feminist?  Some say no.  Instead, such detractors might argue, a true feminist perspective involves not just valorizing women who do masculinity, but coming to value femininity.  In fact, valuing masculinity over femininity might be part of the problem.  On this blog, we call this “androcentrism.”

Here’s how Sarkeesian makes the argument:

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.

Leslee Beldotti sent in this 7-minute video from The Escapist that discusses female characters in video games and how game developers could incorporate women as complex characters rather than stereotypes. Leslee points out that the video somewhat conflates sex with gender in the discussion of biological vs. social behaviors, but it highlights the outcomes of making video games through a gendered lens (sorry about the 30-second intro ad):

On this topic, also see Lisa’s recent post on boob inflation in video games.