Ann S. sent us this promotional photograph of Beyonce. In it, I think, she is wearing something which is supposed to be a motorcyle that she is then riding. !?
So she is a motorcycle and she is riding herself? This is such a mess of objectification that I cannot bring it into focus:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Kitty sent us this cover for Wad, an “urban fashion and culture magazine.”
It kind of sums things up, doesn’t it?
1. Women are objects.
2. Women are for consumption.
3. Women are violable.
4. Women are interchangable.
5. Women are rewards.
6. Violence against women is cute and funny.
Anything else?
UPDATE! In our comments, KJK notes that there appears to have been a male version of the cover too. There is no #10 and no text beneath the magazine title… so I’m a little confused as to whether it was a cover. The production quality seems the same, though. For what it’s worth, here it is:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Sarah S. sent in these two commercials for am/pm:
Dear am/pm:
1. I am a customer and I have a vagina. To be more specific, I am not a 20-year-old, het, white dude who likes sports, video games, and top ramen. Also, my mom doesn’t still do my laundry. (I’m just guessin’.)
2. Women are not stuff. They should not be lumped in with Funyuns. Get a clue.
Here’s a couple similar posts: Women are precious belongings (bubblewrap them) and pieces of furniture.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comic-Con ended yesterday, so I’m afraid you’ve already missed out on a wonderful opportunity. I don’t mean attending Comic-Con itself. I’m referring to a contest that S. and Mordicai K. told us about, the Sin to Win contest from video game company EA (image from Kotaku; also see the discussion at ars technica):
The text about the “steps” of the contest:
1. Commit acts of lust. Take photos with us or any booth babe. 2. Prove it. [Gives Twitter and email address]. 3. Repeat. Find more babes for more chances to win.
Brian Crecente at Kotaku says,
Despite the tone of the contest, the rules state that judge’s reserve the right to disqualify any submission that are “inappropriate for any reason, including without limitation, for depicting or mentioning sex, violence, drugs, alcohol and/or inappropriate language.”
Um…ok…Mixed messages, anyone?
As S. pointed out in the email to us, the “You” figure in the instruction is almost certainly meant to be male (though it theoretically could be a short-hair female), and the prize is specifically a woman–not a date with an attractive person. So we see the reinforcement of the presumption that “gamer = heterosexual male.” S. also says,
You can take photos of “us” (presumably EA employees or possibly developers) instead of or in addition to “booth babes”, but you cannot apparently win dinner with one of “us” — only with “two hot girls.”
So the possible prize isn’t to maybe hang out with some of the people who maybe create or market games, because apparently, who’d want to do that? Or, perhaps, what developer/EA employee wants to spend an evening being forced to hang out with some random contest winner?
For other examples of women being offered as (less explicit) rewards to men, see this post about Tag, a Dell Computer ad, and an Air Conditioning Technical Institute van. I was going to post links to posts about the presumption that gamers are male, but there were so many, it’s easier just to tell you just to go to the “More” tag and then search for “video games” or “video games gender.”
Readers’ minds think alike, sometimes, and the changing advertising campaign for the “empire building” video game Evony caught the attention of fds, torenc, Assaf N., Elisabeth R., Sabriel, Nicole O., and Liz B. (images found at Gawker and Coding Horror, and hope I didn’t miss anyone who sent it in). Online ads for the game started out like this:
Then they added a woman with a little boob showing:
In case people weren’t noticing the cleavage, the ad evolved into one where the boobs are pointed out a bit more explicitly:
Moving on to a slightly more realistic look:
Christina W. sent us one with a woman actively disrobing and saying “Come play, my Lord”:
Mick H. found a close-up version similar to the one above:
D.R.S. sent us another:
And then they realized they could just dispense with all subtlety and get to the important part:
If that didn’t work, why not straight up near-nudity. Dan J. found this one here:
This ad submitted by both Alex B. and Kim H. seems to be taking the advertising to a whole new level. No longer content with boobs, they seem to be moving towards implied female masturbation:
Wtfcats sent this one in:
NEW (Dec. ’09)! Tom R. sent in this next one with a nice “we’re lesbian, but just for you” flair. Using the term “discreetly” to imply porn, it reads “join the fun”:
NEW (Jan. ’10)! Thanks to Chris M., Tinpantithesis, and Ryan, we now know that there is an Evony ad that doesn’t say anything about the game at all. You simply see this image and are invited to click on her boobs, butt, or lips to turn her into the “ideal woman”:
When you click, you are taken to this site, which asks you to sign up for the game because “obvious[ly],” “it makes you feel like King!”
Or sometimes apparently you get this view:
Presumably some players will be disappointed that there isn’t a female “queen” to be saved or oogled in the game at all–the women were invented only for the purpose of adding boobs to the ads. Jeff A. from Coding Horror says,
Evony, thanks for showing us what it means to take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom … then dig a sub-basement under that, and keep on digging until you reach the white-hot molten core of the Earth. I’ve always wondered what that would be like. I guess now I know.
ALSO NEW (Dec. ’09)! Apparently the Evony ads have become such a thing that other games are referencing them to advertise themselves. Timm F. sent along the ad below making fun of the Evony ads. It reads, “She is actually in our game, my lord”:
I’m not quite sure what to make of this but, after clicking through this Time magazine slide show of Bruno hype by Sacha Baron Cohen, I noticed that there appears to be a rule regarding his entourage: all its members must differ from him in one consistent way and, in that same way, they must all be alike. This translates, in these images, into his entourage always being (a) women or (b) men of color, but never both:
Any thoughts? Is there some social psychologist out there with some speculation? Readers, what do you think?
P.S. – To the person who commented in the thread of our last Bruno-related post about never wanting to see his face again: I say, “Sorry.”
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Will M. sent in these spots, by Rethinking Autism, designed to counter misinformation about autism:
Sex sells, I guess. Or, as we’ve discussed before, women’s sexual objectivity and men’s sexual subjectivity sells.
Also see these controversial faux-ransom notesaimed at drawing awareness to autism and other cognitive conditions.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
I know I’ve been negligent in my posting for a few days. I was grading and busy watching old Michael Jackson videos and performances on YouTube and feeling unexpectedly sad about everything his life represented, and also the realization that people I idolized as a kid are now in their 50s.
Anyway, Sarah N. sent in a link to a story at the Mail Online about how women’s perceived attractiveness plays a part in deciding which matches will be played on the main court at Wimbledon. The organizers of Wimbledon don’t try to hide the fact that the appearance of the competitors is taken into account when scheduling matches:
…the All England Club admitted that physical attractiveness is taken into consideration. Spokesman Johnny Perkins said: ‘Good looks are a factor.’
Some women who were scheduled to play on Center Court, the main area, and their world rankings:
World No. 45 (unseeded) Gisela Dulko
World No. 59 (unseeded) Maria Kirilenko
No. 28 seed Sorana Cirstea
Women who played on the other courts, with their rankings:
No. 5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova
No. 2 seed Serena Williams:
Attractiveness doesn’t seem to play such a factor in scheduling the men’s matches:
In the men’s tournament, five-times winner Roger Federer and British hope Andy Murray invariably play on Centre.
The scheduling of women by perceived attractiveness may have something to do with attracting television viewers. A comment from a BBC television employee:
But obviously it’s advantageous to us if there are good-looking women players on Centre Court…Our preference would always be a Brit or a babe as this always delivers high viewing figures.
Of course, it’s nothing new that female athletes are judged on their appearances as well as their athletic abilities. Female athletes have often felt pressure to meet conventional standards of beauty. This isn’t just about looks; it’s also about doing heterosexual femininity. Female athletes have long been suspected of being lesbians, particularly if they did not seem to actively seek male sexual approval. In fact, WNBA players have been encouraged to wear make-up and jewelry, have their hair long, and bring up their boyfriends, husbands, and/or children to prove their heterosexuality. Thus, in the end women’s appearances, and willingness to play up their gender in an approved way, often trumps their athletic accomplishments in a way that male athletes don’t usually face.
Other posts about female athletes and attractiveness are here, here, here, here (watch the second video), here, and here.
