I borrowed this image years ago from Myra M. F. Thanks Myra!
NEW! More satirical pro-gay marriage messages (found here and here):
gender: history
Laura R. sent us this 1939 test for husbands and wives, developed by an M.D./Ph.D. in psychology, designed to determine how well each is performing in his or her gendered role with marriage. For proper behavior the spouse earns merits, for improper, demerits. Below is the front page and the first page of the test for both men and women. Click here to see the whole thing (via boingboing).
Thanks Laura!
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.
Kate N. pointed us towards this article in the New York Times today discussing 25 years of Marines recruitment aimed at women. Below is the content of their slide show.
1976:
1978:
1980:
1984:
1988:
1995:
1995:
2000:
2000:
The article says that the Marines have only recently began a concerted attempt to recruit women. Does anyone have any information about the shift in the racial targeting? Or is that just an artifact of the slide show?
Thanks so much for the tip, Kate!
Also in military recruitment: which military would you join?, the homefront, and war as entertainment.
.
The first time I saw this, I was suspicious that it might be a hoax. But it turns out it’s real (at least Snopes says so).
Thanks, Orla H.!
This famous Life Magazine cover from 1971 trumpeted the feminist movement:
Six years later, in 1977, Time Magazine reminded us that gender difference (and inequality?) was genetic and, thus, out of our control:
And don’t miss the famous 1978 Hustler cover that appeared the very next year!
This ad “liberates” women from the kitchen through technology and capitalism… but not, alas, through true partnerships with men. Women should spend less time cooking, but it’s still HER job.
Oh, also, the reason women haven’t achieved greatness in the United States is because she’s too busy to be bothered. It has absolutely nothing to do with sexism and institutional constraints.
Thanks to Julie C!
This ad, from the 1970s (I think), has the exact same message: “For women with more exciting things to do than scrub floors: ‘One-step floor care.'” Congratulations women, now you can scrub floors faster… but don’t think you can get out of scrubbing floors.
Found at Vintage Ads.
And this one, from the 1950s (I think) is extra creepy (found here). Like the other ads, it replaces “women’s work” with a technological solution. And that solution a gift from her husband. The text:
The one gift that quietly ends garbage ‘trudgery’ — frees the little woman from disagreeable trips to the garbage can… She’ll thank you every time she uses it…
The caption to the photo said, “New York plastic surgeon Jacob Sarnoff drew this vision of total transformation–entitled ‘diagrammatic illustration of common deformities amenable to plastic surgery’–in 1936.”
I found this in Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery, by Elizabeth Haiken (1997), page 13.
These two images were used in a 1927 ad for Wimbledon. Lisa actually sent them to me a couple of years ago but has never posted them, so I’m doing it. The point of showing the two images next to each other was to stress how liberated women were by 1927–they aren’t wearing stuffy old dresses to play tennis, and men aren’t shocked by the sight of a leg.
I use these, along with some of the “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” Virginia Slims ads, to show how “women’s liberation” is used by advertisers to sell products, as well as to imply that “now” (whenever “now” is) is always better than “then” (some indeterminate point in the past) and that the struggle for equality and freedom is over.
Laura R. sent us this 1939 test for husbands and wives, developed by an M.D./Ph.D. in psychology, designed to determine how well each is performing in his or her gendered role with marriage. For proper behavior the spouse earns merits, for improper, demerits. Below is the front page and the first page of the test for both men and women. Click here to see the whole thing (via boingboing).
Thanks Laura!
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.
Kate N. pointed us towards this article in the New York Times today discussing 25 years of Marines recruitment aimed at women. Below is the content of their slide show.
1976:
1978:
1980:
1984:
1988:
1995:
1995:
2000:
2000:
The article says that the Marines have only recently began a concerted attempt to recruit women. Does anyone have any information about the shift in the racial targeting? Or is that just an artifact of the slide show?
Thanks so much for the tip, Kate!
Also in military recruitment: which military would you join?, the homefront, and war as entertainment.
.
The first time I saw this, I was suspicious that it might be a hoax. But it turns out it’s real (at least Snopes says so).
Thanks, Orla H.!
This famous Life Magazine cover from 1971 trumpeted the feminist movement:
Six years later, in 1977, Time Magazine reminded us that gender difference (and inequality?) was genetic and, thus, out of our control:
And don’t miss the famous 1978 Hustler cover that appeared the very next year!
This ad “liberates” women from the kitchen through technology and capitalism… but not, alas, through true partnerships with men. Women should spend less time cooking, but it’s still HER job.
Oh, also, the reason women haven’t achieved greatness in the United States is because she’s too busy to be bothered. It has absolutely nothing to do with sexism and institutional constraints.
Thanks to Julie C!
This ad, from the 1970s (I think), has the exact same message: “For women with more exciting things to do than scrub floors: ‘One-step floor care.'” Congratulations women, now you can scrub floors faster… but don’t think you can get out of scrubbing floors.
Found at Vintage Ads.
And this one, from the 1950s (I think) is extra creepy (found here). Like the other ads, it replaces “women’s work” with a technological solution. And that solution a gift from her husband. The text:
The one gift that quietly ends garbage ‘trudgery’ — frees the little woman from disagreeable trips to the garbage can… She’ll thank you every time she uses it…
The caption to the photo said, “New York plastic surgeon Jacob Sarnoff drew this vision of total transformation–entitled ‘diagrammatic illustration of common deformities amenable to plastic surgery’–in 1936.”
I found this in Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery, by Elizabeth Haiken (1997), page 13.
These two images were used in a 1927 ad for Wimbledon. Lisa actually sent them to me a couple of years ago but has never posted them, so I’m doing it. The point of showing the two images next to each other was to stress how liberated women were by 1927–they aren’t wearing stuffy old dresses to play tennis, and men aren’t shocked by the sight of a leg.
I use these, along with some of the “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” Virginia Slims ads, to show how “women’s liberation” is used by advertisers to sell products, as well as to imply that “now” (whenever “now” is) is always better than “then” (some indeterminate point in the past) and that the struggle for equality and freedom is over.