gender: femininity

Mickey C. sent in this ad for the convenience store, Racetrac.  It’s fascinating in how overtly they take the good girl/bad girl dichotomy and apply it to food.   You are a good girl if you eat fruit, white meat sandwiches, and spinach wraps; you are a bad girl if you drink soda and eat cookies and hot dogs.

This is a narrative that we largely take-for-granted.  We are bad when we “indulge” in “sinfully” delicious treats and good when we do not.  Parallel is the narrative: you are a good girl if you resist your desires, a bad girl if you do not.

It reminds me of an NPR audio slide show about teenagers trying to lose weightwho confess, with guilt and glee, one night of indulgence at Taco Bell.  It’s not sinful to have a cookie, for goodness sake, or to eat at Taco Bell now and again.  And women cannot be separated into heaven-bound angels and hell-bound broads.

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.

Lynne S. clipped this coupon for a “lovers special” at Cassano’s Pizza.  Notice it both presumes heterosexuality and genders meat as masculine and veggies as feminine.

We saw the same gendering of food in the Brick House Tavern Menu, TV dinner categories, and a vintage Campbell’s soup ad.

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.

Fun Fact #1: Female figure skaters are required to wear skirts and men must wear “full-length trousers: no tights.”

Note: This isn’t true anymore; “this rule was repealed in 2004, allowing women to wear tights, trousers, or unitards” (http://www.frogsonice.com/skateweb/faq/rules.shtml)

Sonja Henie, of Norway, is credited with introducing the short skirt to women’s figure skating.  She won gold medals in 1928, ’32, and ’36:

According to Abigail Feder, in her article ” ‘A Radiant Smile from the Lovely Lady’: Overdetermined Femininity in ‘Ladies’ Figure Skating”, the International Skating Union (ISU) introduced a rule requiring that women wear skirts after they were scandalized by Debi Thomas’ unitard at the 1988 Olympics:

(source)

An NPR slide show explains:

Today, according to the ISU, figure skating’s governing body, “Ladies must wear a skirt. The Ladies dress must not give the effect of excessive nudity inappropriate for an athletic sport. Men must wear full-length trousers: no tights are allowed and the man’s costume may not be sleeveless.”

So, just to be clear, the performance of femininity and masculinity, as defined by the ISU, is required if one is to be a competitive figure skater… all skills aside.

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Fun Fact #2: People used to make their costumes by hand; today they are high fashion.

The 1976 Olympics were the last in which figure skating costumes were mostly handmade.  Here Dorothy Hamill competes in a costume her mother made for $75:

Today, costumes frequently cost thousands of dollars.    Michelle Kwan and Nancy Kerrigan both competed in Vera Wang (who, in 2009, was inducted in the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame for her designs).  Kerrigan:

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.

Marketing hygiene/beauty products to men by implying it will make them more masculine and attractive to women is nothing new, but a recent Old Spice commercial throws in something I haven’t seen much: the ad is aimed at women.

C.J. and Anna M. pointed out the commercial, in which women (who, presumably, do the shopping) learn that we’d find men more attractive if we bought them the right body wash so they didn’t smell like women. Notice the stereotypes of the things that women really, really, really find attractive about men, namely, the ability to buy boats and diamonds and act out plot lines from romance novels:

Old Spice also targets men more directly, as in this commercial Katrin found:

Sofia R. sent in an ad that goes along with the commercial:

Guys, don’t ever forget that if your masculinity is in any way open to question–like, say, you have a stupid, gender-ambiguous name–you need to compensate by being sure to distance yourself from any other signs of girliness.

If you don’t like Old Spice, perhaps you’d be interested in the new line of products for men from Dove, sent in by J.Z. and Alexandra N.:

Once you have finally proven your manliness by doing enough sufficiently manly things (and making sure to procreate, and probably not having a name like Jamie), it’s safe to care about your skin and stuff.

Commenter Jennifer says,

I’m wondering if the Dove commercial, rather than using stereotypes solely for the purpose of selling products, is attempting to buck some of the stereotypes. I mean, it seems like the commercial points out some of the aspects of life that prove “Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too” like the necessity to be good at sports, be brave and strong, and be heterosexual. In some ways, I thought the commercial kind of refreshing.

Poor men. They feel so put-upon with all the expectations of them. Especially the ridiculous things women ask them to do. Women are so whiny and demanding and sap all the fun out of men’s lives. As this Dodge commercial sent in by Sara P. shows, the only thing left for a guy to do is take a “last stand” by getting a macho car:

Sara and Jesse W. also sent us this parody of the above ad, from a woman’s perspective, cracks me up:

Just in case you might not have gotten the main points, let me summarize for you:

* Don’t be a sissy! Show you’re a man with manly beauty products! Chicks will dig it.

* But once you’ve proven you’re a man, you can be a little more open about using manly beauty products.

* Having relationships with women totally emasculates you! Why won’t they just shut up?!?

UPDATE: Reader Theo linked to another commercial about how women just won’t shut up!

NEW! (Feb. ’10): Emma M.H. and Liz M. sent in this commercial for FloTV that also shows women emasculating and controlling men:

ALSO NEW! (Feb. ’10):This Daily Show clip, sent in by Chrissy B., summarizes just how very bad men have it these days:

Nikki L. sent in images of an article titled “Are You Turning Your Boyfriend into a Girlie Man?” from the February 2010 issues of Cosmo. Nikki says,

The article discusses how many women are treating their boyfriends like their girlfriends, making them go shopping, do yoga, and eat vegan food. It says the gender roles are being blurred, and that’s a good thing up to a point. The article says that eventually your man will push you away and resent you for making him girlie. It gives a list of things your man shouldnt be doing, as it might damage his masculinity…

The first page:

Notice the subtitle in red and the text below it:

First, why would you want to act like your BF or husband is one of the girls anyway? Your pull to do girlie things with him stems from experiences with your female friends. “Women are intimate with their close friends, we share everything,” says JoAnn Magdoff, PhD…

Yes. Why on earth would you want to recreate that type of relationship with a guy? Who wants to be intimate, emotionally close, and share everything with their partner? Yuck!

Here are some things you do not want your boyfriend/husband to do:

Just to reiterate: men cannot care too much about their personal appearance. They cannot try to eat healthily, or be vegetarian/vegan. If they’re gonna cook, they better not try to keep from burning their hands by wearing items specifically designed for that task. Sissies!

The article also provides a list of “manly date ideas” you can do with your guy to avoid turning him into one of the girls:

That’s just…stupid! It’s stupid! Gah! It’s such a ridiculous division of the world into the stereotypically masculine and the stereotypically feminine with policing to remind us that men must never be feminine. Ever! And women, stop emasculating men!

Men like meat! And pizza! Girls like chef salads without eggs, bacon, or cheese in them. Men like dogs! Women like cats. Have you ever known a woman who liked dogs? As if! Men like walking in the park and the beach. Except in movies where walking on the beach is portrayed as all annoyingly mushy and romantic, something men do because women like that sort of thing.

I’m also pretty sure if his favorite video game turns out to be Bejeweled, that goes up on the list of things you never wanna see.

Tara C. sent in this video about why big blockbuster video games haven’t tended to appeal to women, and what might need to change to make the (non-casual?) gaming world more interesting to women in general:

Apparently the creators of this trailer for Record of Agarest War, sent in by Goku S., hadn’t seen the video (NSFW):

Nor, presumably, did the creator of the Pocket Girlfriend iPhone app, sent in by Suzanne B.:

You’ll be excited to know that she’s real!

Pocket Girlfriend moves, she’s interactive, and most importantly she’s real. YES SHE’S REAL!!!! She’s not some 3D rendered mannequin. Seriously, why would you want to buy an application of a dancing mannequin?

Looks like Yahoo didn’t get the message either when it hired lap dancers to attend an event to recruit developers to build things for Yahoo.com, and then posted images of the dancers on the Yahoo Developer Network blog:

Yahoo later apologized.

[And for the record, yes, I realize these are just some examples and don’t represent the entire gaming community, especially the Yahoo thing. That’s true of anything we post–they’re specific examples that we try to fit into a larger context.]

On a related tech-and-gender note, Brigid told us that Wired magazine recently described a study that suggested the stereotype of computer scientists as “unwashed nerds” may be off-putting to women and discourage them from going into computer programming:

Cheryan and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky—Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books — or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral— coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.

Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room’s décor made no difference.

UPDATE 2: Upon request that I rethink closing comments, I’ve cleaned out some problematic ones and am reopening the comment thread. Please remember–no personal attacks or insult wars. Play relatively nice.

In the book Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sports, Pat Griffin discusses the pressure on female athletes to constantly prove they, and their sport, are acceptably feminine, for fear of being labeled lesbians. Women who engaged in, and openly enjoyed, sports have often been viewed with suspicion or concern, ranging from beliefs that physical exertion might make them infertile to a fear that women’s sports teams serve as recruiting sites for lesbians. Some college coaches even try to get young women to play on their teams by hinting to their parents that other schools their daughter is considering are known for having a lot of lesbians and it might not be the “type of environment” where they want their sweet little girl to go.

Female athletes, and women’s sports teams, thus often feel a lot of pressure to prove their heterosexuality to quell homophobic fears and to make women’s sports appealing to a broad audience. One way to do so is to dissociate themselves from lesbians. Another is to emphasize the femininity of female athletes, signaling that they are, despite their athletic abilities, still physically attractive to, and interested in, men.

Texas A&M put out this promotional media guide, which features an image of the male coach surrounded by the team in sexy clothing:

While these types of materials have traditionally been for the media, they’re increasingly used as recruiting tools for players as well. Those who produce them argue that they’re just trying to put out something distinctive that will set them apart. And as Jayda Evans at the Seattle Times says, it’s not like men’s sports teams are never photographed off the court.

But as many researchers have pointed out, and as Evans herself discusses, female athletes are often photographed and discussed in ways that largely erase their athletic abilities. When men’s teams are dressed up for publicity materials, it’s usually for one or two images that are outnumbered by ones that highlight their sports participation. For female athletes, images that exclude any connection to sports often become nearly the entire story. And despite the fact that the creators often stress their interest in doing something unique and distinctive to set themselves apart, there is a very common set of elements in promotional materials for women’s sports: clothing, make-up, hair, and poses that sexualize the players and implicitly include a reassurance to parents, potential players, and fans that the women are pretty, charming, and feminine, regardless of what they do on the court or the field.That is, they are blending masculinity and femininity by being athletic and pretty, not giving up their femininity altogether.

Of course, part of an acceptable performance of femininity is showing that you want male attention, and that you actively try to make yourself appealing to men. So while these materials might do many other things, they also carry a particular message: these girls like to pretty themselves up, and that should reassure you that it’s not a team full of lesbians.

The effect of all this is that female athletes may feel pressured to keep their hair long, wear make-up even on the court, and emphasize any relationships they have with men or children to “prove” they are straight, and a lesbian who likes makeup and sexy clothing may face less suspicion and stigma than a straight woman who doesn’t.

Also see our posts on Serena Williams’s ESPN cover, Candace Parker “is pretty, which helps,” groundbreaking female sailor is also pretty, sexualizing female Olympic athletes, diets of champions, media portrayals of female athletes, and valuing dads in the WNBA.

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

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.