gender: femininity

Erin S. sent in this screencapture of a set of ebay gift suggestions:

Erin says,

For her?  A Roomba automatic vacuum!  For him?  A new sports car, of course!

Apparently Zunes are an androgynous gift, which is good to know.

Random, non-sociological story: My ex-stepdad once got my mom a mop for their anniversary. For her birthday he got her a live mouse trap–the type that doesn’t kill them but just keeps them contained so you can take them outside. She actually liked these gifts better than the time he got them “both” a rifle for their anniversary, as a “shared” gift. Ah, romance.

Thanks for the image, Erin!

NEW! (July ’10): Carissa sent in an image of an advertisement for an eBay Coupon Event that provides suggestions for different groups. There’s a clear assumption of who would be most interested in the different categories, with the other gender thrown in as an afterthought. But it’s also an example of how we insist on dividing things by gender, even when there’s absolutely no reason to do so. If you’re acknowledging that both men and women might like everything listed, why bother to categorize them by gender at all? Why not just have  a list under “All Categories” and leave it at that?

Eva M. sent in an image (found here) of a Beauty Smile Trainer:

Presumably you’re supposed to wear it regularly to train yourself to smile the big, wide smiles needed to win beauty contests. It’s another example of how we no longer think of beauty as something “natural,” but rather as something that you get through products, training, and, if necessary, surgery. I guess you can wear this along with your teeth-whitening treatments to get the perfect smile.

Thanks, Eva M.!

In The Gendered Society, Michael Kimmel argues that women often have to be very careful how they dress, lest they be seen as too frumpy, too old, too slutty, too smart, trying to hard, etc.  In comparison, men can often just go as a guy.

Two examples:

Nancy: The invitation says black tie, I guess you’ll wear your tux?

Frank: Yup.

Nancy: Mr. Easy.  Once choice, one look.  I have to ponder endless combinations of hair, makeup, gowns, shoes, jewelry.  I have to decide if I want to look sultry, subdued, glittery, basic, bright, dark, modern, traditional…

Frank: Hon, who do you want to please?

Nancy: You, of course.

Frank: I stopped listening after “sultry.”  There, Mr. Easy to the rescue.

Nancy: Gee, thanks.  Sultry’s the hardest one.

The fact that women can’t just be a “person” at the bar or the black tie event is related to the fact that women are a marked category, while men are culturally neutral.  That is, women are women and men are people.  For more posts on this idea related to gender and other categories, see this post on toys for kids and our post on that famous real bodies exhibit.

(I found the first image here; the LuAnn cartoon was given to me by Myra M. F.)

The 1966 and 1976 editions of this old board game illustrate both historical ideas about gender and the way they can change in just ten years.

The 1966 version for girls (found here):

Options for girls include going to charm school to become a model, nursing school to become a nurse, drama school to become an actress, college to become a teacher, ballet school to become a ballet dancer, or airline training school to become an airline hostess.

The 1966 version for boys (found here):

Options for boys include going to law school to become a statesman, graduate school to become a scientist, medical school to become a doctor, college to become an athlete (!?), technical school to become an engineer, or flight school to become an astronaut.

They revised the girl’s game (I’m not sure about the boy’s game) in 1976 (found here).  Girls could now choose between going to medical school to become a surgeon, the riding academy to be a jockey, flight training school to be an astronaut, college to be a commentator, drama school to be a director, and law school to be a lawyer.

I wonder if the revised boy’s version included going to college to become an elementary school teacher, to medical school to be a pediatrician, or to a dance academy to become a dancer.  I predict not.

Breck C. encouraged us to post about photographs of body building women from a new book.  When Feministe and Boing Boing posted about them it, predictably, prompted a rash of comments to the effect of “those women are gross/disgusting/unattractive.”

I think Roy at No Cookies For Me says it best:

It doesn’t matter if you find those women attractive or not. They’re very likely not doing it for you. That you find body building “grotesque” is completely beside, behind, or even miles away from the point. Nobody gives a shit that you find it disgusting. If you find it disgusting? Don’t do it. [And n]obody is trying to make you become or date a body builder…

Nicely put.  This reflexive judging of women’s attractiveness reveals the entitlement that many feel to be aesthetically pleased by women’s appearance and, thus, the expectation that women owe it to the world to be attractive (as the world defines it, of course).  It also demonstrates the related idea that women are, first and foremost and no matter what else they do, sexual objects.

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.

The belief that men and women are “opposite sexes” doesn’t come out of thin air.  It doesn’t, very often, come out of our life experience either, as most people most of us know are not living stereotypes.  No, in fact we are TOLD that men and women are “opposite sexes” constantly.  Consider this submission from Andrea G.:

You can now buy One-A-Day vitamins for teens, boy and girl teens that is (and in case you can’t tell which one is which, they’re color-coded).  According to Women’s Health News, the vitamins “for him” have more magnesium and the vitamins “for her” have more calcium and iron.

(1) Notice the obnoxious invisibility of dad (my emphasis):

Did you know there are gender specific teen multivitamins to address the top health concerns of moms and teens?

This is annoying, of course, because it reproduces the idea that dads don’t care about or aren’t paying attention to their kids.  But it’s also kind of ridiculous because, as long as we’re going by stereotypes, if there’s one social group less concerned with health than men, it’s teenagers.

(2)  I will leave aside whether teenaged female and male bodies are so dramatically different that they need different vitamins and minerals (I am not convinced), and instead just point out that One-A-Day has gendered what vitamins are for.  Check out the first bullet point in the close-up (in case you can’t tell which is which, the “For Him” is in block letters with stripes across his torso and the “For Her” is in cursive with spirally curves):

So boys need vitamins for muscles and girls need vitamins for clear skin?

I bet these vitamins will sell like hotcakes.

Thanks Andrea!

Motrin shows ads on the sides of bus shelters in the Boston metro area. Here’s one, which says, “High heels…when you strut, we feel your pain.”

Another ad in the series says, “30-pound stroller…when you lift, we feel your pain.” I can only find these 2 examples so far, and it seems they are both gendered feminine, associated with a shoe style worn almost exclusively by women and with an activity [stroller use = child care] connoted as feminine.

Mary K. took this picture of two magazines covers side-by-side in a magazine holder in an acupuncturist’s office.  The one on the right is for parents and the one on the left is for women going through menopause.

Mary writes:

The cover of both is donned with females at very different points in their life trajectories with the exact same pose. I couldn’t help but think the woman on the left was socialized just as the baby on the right is currently being. My first reaction was definitely not “Aww how cute. Look at the baby pretend to model.”

Neat find, Mary!