gender: masculinity

Today’s XKCD strip bothers me, a little. It reminds me of the discussion about assertiveness amongst nerd guys brought up when Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade were talking about “pick-up artists” (PUAs) a while back.

Here’s my issue: I get that a lot of straight guys (and women, but I want to primarily talk about men here) who identify as nerds (or don’t, for that matter) have confidence issues, especially around romantic or sexual interests*. But I also think that messages like the XKCD strip really reinforce that idea of isolation and make the world out to be filled with potential mates — if only you’d just talk to them! There’s some truth here, in that it’s pretty hard to meet people if you find it hard to talk to communicate with others. But the more insidious, unintended message I’m seeing is one that just feeds into the PUA logic — given enough confidence and skills, all women are yours for the taking.

I know some people are probably going to think I’m reaching here, and are going to say that it’s just a comic, and maybe just meant to make a cute little statement about how everyone just wants to make a connection. Sure, and I think there’s something to be said for nerd guys shedding the whole Nice Guy complex and acting assertively. The problem is that there’s a fine line between that and the PUA viewpoint I described earlier. That woman next to you might not want to talk about her netbook. She might not be interested in you, specifically. She might not be interested in men, generally. She probably wouldn’t have the same reaction as in the strip, because society teaches women that they should expect male attention, and calling it out isn’t usually looked too kindly upon.

So this is the crux of the issue for me: nerds really are members of a subordinated masculinity, and from within that viewpoint it’s easy to dismiss anything which says that you are privileged and not downtrodden. Once you’re in that space, it’s really easy to start thinking in a certain way that says you’re not privileged just because you’re a man — and I think things like this XKCD strip can contribute to that way of thinking.

Of course, any man who falls farther from the pinnacle of hegemonic masculinity is less privileged than his more “masculine” counterparts, but he’s still a man. Nerd discourses sometimes let us forget that, and let us think we operate outside the system, because we’re not like those other, sexist guys — but it’s a fantasy. We can be better than that, but it means telling ourselves the truth, and not pretending that our interactions with women — even a simple conversation on a train — aren’t influenced and structured by the patriarchy.

*Note: I realize that I don’t mention queer nerds here. I don’t have a lot of experience with the topic, besides an understanding that nerd communities can be just as homophobic as more mainstream groups. Also, most of the discussions I’ve seen around nerd shyness have been in terms of male shyness towards women — summed up in the Nice Guy trope. I think this definitely speaks to the silencing of queer nerds in certain communities, but it also leads me to believe that this phenomenon is primarily an issue for a certain type of (self-identified) heterosexual masculinity.

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About his interests, Matt Kopas writes:

In a famous misattribution, Andre Malraux was held to ask “What is a man?” I feel like most of the answers to this question that men have available to them these days are at best outdated and at worst oppressive and restrictive. What does it really mean to be a man? How can men recognize their privilege and become better allies? As a first-year graduate student at the University of Washington, these are some of the questions I’m interested in. I blog about masculinity issues at The Disenchanted World, where I also talk about other topics such as sexuality, evolutionary theory, and really anything else that strikes me as sociologically interesting.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Lynn drew our attention to the American Apparel webpages for men’s and women’s clothes.  She notes a distinct difference:

On the Women’s clothing pages, the girls are modelling THEMSELVES in addition to the clothes.  You see a butt purposefully sticking out here, a shirt pulled up to there, a head thrown back in a coquettish manner, a back arched this way and that.

On the Men’s pages, the men are essentially just “standing there”, letting the clothes speak for themselves.

I’ve included screen shots of all of the models in the slide show, so you can judge for yourself (sorry for the funky formatting; there were more images of women than men).

The men:

The women:

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Kristyn G. sent in this excellent image showing the clear division of the world into two paths: that of the sexually active flirt, destined to a life of shame and loneliness (by age 40), and the good girl who can become a happy mother and grandmother:

Apparently it appeared in a “social hygiene” manual in the early 1900s.

Also see these trailers for old movies about teens gone wild.

NEW! Awesome reader Maria found the boys’ version:

Once again Larry at The Daily Mirror dug up something interesting from the L.A. Times archives. It’s a 1969 article about–gasp!–a female ranch hand. What’s fascinating is the way that, while discussing how she does things that aren’t traditionally considered female, the reporter describes her in ways that emphasize her femininity so we know she’s not completely un-womanly.

She’s as cute as all get-out and as strong as a heifer. She’s the only female ranch-hand (“don’t call me a cowgirl, it’s a dude term”)…

…”I was never quite like all the other little girls.” Beverly always wanted to be a cowboy–always wore bluejeans to school…

But she also succeeded in remaining ultrafeminine in an impish sort of way…She bemoans the fact that she has to keep her hair trimmed to a maximum of two inchles all over her head…

And:

Text:

“I enjoy working,” she said. “I don’t whine or cry when there is a lot to do. I love my job.” For this she is known as “comadrie,” meaning little mother…”

She’s also described as “coy”:

But to the likely relief of many readers, she goes on to say that probably she eventually will get married. Reading the entire article, I can’t help but suspect that’s more out of a sense that you have to than a real desire on her part. She kind of reminds me of my grandma, who I think got married and had kids mostly because what else could a woman do? I suspect if she’d been able to get a job as a ranch hand, she would have happily done that instead.

And while they don’t call her a “cowgirl,” this title from the second page of the article might not be what she was hoping for instead:

Now, if this was just an historical curiosity, I wouldn’t have posted it. But the thing is, we still see this type of emphasis on the femininity of women who succeed at things we consider “men’s work.” For instance, see this post on WNBA player Candace Parker, or Lisa’s post about Caster Semenya. Or even just compare the uniforms of male and female athletes.  We’re more comfortable with women who break some gender rules as long as they maintain their femininity by following other rules.

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

…there’s Kleenex for men:

In case you don’t know that brown, black, and gray = men, it says so right on the box!

Apparently these are on sale in the U.K.  I haven’t seen them in the U.S.

In looking this up, I discovered that gendered Kleenex marketing is nothing new.  This ad, from Life magazine, is from December 1964:

Images found here, here, here, and here.

Also in gendered products: tv dinners, uniforms, candy bars, ear plugs ‘n stuff, deodorant, Pepsi, and mosquito repellent.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Cross-posted at Montclair Socioblog.

Claude the brand consultant was consulting with me – i.e., he was picking up the cappuccino tab at Starbuck’s. He was about to start teaching a course called something like “Communications and Public Affairs,” and not being an academic (though he’s a really good teacher), he wanted some advice on the syllabus.

We finally got around to the idea that Messages about Issues had to be tailored for specific Audiences or Publics, particularly their Interests and Values. (Those capitalized words were possible major headings in the syllabus.)

I immediately thought of the example of Texas and litter. How could you convince Texans to be more respectful of public places and not toss all that crap out onto the roads they drove on? The Ladybird Johnson approach – “Highway Beautification”?

Wrong audience. The people who were littering obviously didn’t care about highway beauty.

The guy you were trying to reach was Bubba, the classic red stater – fiercely individualistic, anti-government, macho. A slob, and probably proud of it. You couldn’t appeal to self-interest since it’s in Bubba’s self-interest to chuck his garbage out the window. Even hefty fines (and they are hefty) would work only if you could catch litterers often enough – unlikely on the Texas highways.

The best way in was Values. But how? “Don’t be a Litterbug, Keep Your Community Clean” would be noo nice, too feminine or babyish, and, like “Pitch In” too collectivist. Instead, Roy Spence and Tim McClure at the Austin ad agency GSD&M had the Texas DOT go with chauvinism – Texas chauvinism. The idea they played on was not that littering was ugly or wrong or costly, but that it hurt Texas. And thus in 1985 was born one of the most famous and effective campaigns in the history of advertising.

With its double meaning of “mess,” it captured Bubba’s patriotism and pugnacity. The bumper stickers were soon everywhere. The TV ads featured famous proud Texans. One of the early ones (so early, I can’t find it on YouTube) featured Too-Tall Jones and Randy White, two of the toughest dudes on the Cowboys defense, picking up roadside trash.

JONES: You see the guy who threw this out the window, you tell him I got a message for him.

WHITE: (picks up a beer can): I got a message for him too.

OFF-CAMERA VOICE: What’s that?

WHITE: (Crushes the beer can with one fist). Well, I kinda need to see him to deliver it.

JONES: Don’t mess with Texas.

Litter in Texas has been reduced by 72%, the campaign is still going strong a quarter-century later, and McLure and Spence have a book about it. My source was Made to Stick by the Heath Brothers (no, jazzers, not thoseHeath brothers), Chip and Dan.

Kelebek sent in an Australian commercial for Brut deodorant. In it, a male robot transforms various objects (a motorcycle, a drink) into “better” versions, more fitting of a super macho robot. One of the improved items is a Barbie doll/woman:

The woman is, quite literally, an object, to be “modified,” and then posed with his other belongings. And as we see, being “brutally male” is associated with drinking a lot, driving powerful vehicles, having hot women, and probably engaging in the type of risky behaviors that partially explain why men in many industrialized nations live shorter lives than women.

The commercial was pulled from TV by the Advertising Standards Bureau after they determined it was offensive to women. The commercial had to be recut…so that the woman isn’t one of the “objects” in the back of his vehicle at the end. The scene where he modifies the Barbie to be a live woman, and the phrase “reject, modify object,” weren’t removed. And:

Brut brand manager Deane De Villiers defended the ad, saying the robot carried the woman with the utmost of respect “as one would carry one’s bride”.

Yes. If your bride were an object you created to your very own specifications.

And for fun, read the comments to that Sun-Herald article.

My friend Larry, of The Daily Mirror, found some awesome old ads for Bull Durham tobacco. Here’s the original, with both a map of North America on his side and a scrotum that is partially obscured by still clearly present:

Here’s the version that ran from 1919-1924. Notice the difference?

No more shocking reproductive organs! Also, he doesn’t have a map of North America on his side any more. As Larry says, clearly a subversive plot to try to symbolically emasculate the U.S., probably so the socialists could take over.

I do wonder what was going on during that particular time period that would make marketers at Bull Durham believe that a less anatomically correct version was necessary. Any thoughts (other than it being a subversive plot)?

More recently we saw men’s nipples airbrushed out of a Wrestle Mania billboard. On the other hand, testicles were added to a statue of Civil War General John H. Morgan sitting in his favorite horse, Bess…who, as you might have surmised, wasn’t a male horse and did not have testicles. But, you know, testicles made her look more appropriate for a military figure to ride.