gender

Kari B. sent in an example of the sexualization of teen boys, found at Evil Slutopia. Justin Bieber appears on the cover of the February 2011 Vanity Fair covered in lipstick, with a hand grabbing him by his necktie:

An image from the article:

Justin Bieber is 16 years old — just a year older than Miley Cyrus was when there was a scandal about her photoshoot for Vanity Fair, such that it appeared to potentially threaten her career at Disney by ruining her safe, clean-cut image. I think it’s safe to say that if Miley Cyrus, or another female teen star, posed in photos that showed evidence of being kissed or grabbed by male fans, people would be up in arms about the sexualization of girls. But as we often see, there’s a double-standard, based on the idea that boys are naturally sexual at earlier ages and that boys are sexually invincible. While we might see a teen girl surrounded by men as being in danger, we don’t think of girls as being sexually threatening to boys, or of male teen celebrities’ sexuality being as open to exploitation by publicists, photographers, or other members of the media. And thus, these types of images of Justin Bieber don’t lead to the same outcry as similar images of female teen stars, and don’t cause concern that his career as a teen idol is over.

We’ve discussed the adultification of Justin Bieber before, here and here; you might also check out our post on the sexualization of Jaden Smith.

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

In their article, The Male Consumer as Loser, Michael Messner and Jeffrey Montez de Oca try to explain the recent rash of advertising featuring mediocre men.   These ads, and their film and television counterparts, skip the hunky-manly-hunk-dude in favor of less hunky men: young, heterosexual, usually white males who are short on cash, low on maturity, and have a penchant for irresponsibility. They dominate Judd Apatow “bromances” (e.g., Knocked Up), frequent TV sitcoms (e.g., The Drew Carey Show), and are used to sell everything from Mike’s Hard Lemonade to Twix candy bars. These are not studs. They are moderately good-looking, but small, skinny, chubby, or otherwise uncool compared to real hunks.

On the face of it, the mediocre man is a self-deprecating character who undermines idealized masculinity by being likeable despite being decidedly non-ideal.  Messner and Montez de Oca, however, show that the mediocre man, nevertheless, reproduces notions of men’s superiority over women.  The women in these narratives tend to be of two types: “sexy fantasy women” and “real women.”  The men bond over the unattainability of the sexy fantasy women and the burden of maintaining relationships with real women, their girlfriends, wives, and mothers.  The “real women’ are usually portrayed as bitches, harpies, and nags, while the “sexy fantasy women,” upon interaction, often turn out to be just as bad.

The viewers are meant to identify with the mediocre men, who revel in each others’ company, happy to be dudes free from the clutches of the women in their lives, even if they aren’t sleeping with supermodels.  The mediocre man may be kind of a loser, indeed, but he can thank God he’s a man. P.S.: Women suck.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in an example of the “mediocre man” narrative, the trailer from the movie, Hall Pass:

(Probably in the end they realize they love their naggy wives, but whatevs.)

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.

A student of mine, Tim C., wrote a nice analysis of two Dolce and Gabbana ads, one which has been widely castigated as a glamorization of gang rape, and one that I’d not yet seen.  The familiar ad, below, features four mostly dressed men standing/crouching over a restrained woman:

The second ad is very similar thematically, but instead of a group of mostly-dressed men standing/crouching over a mostly-naked woman, it’s a group of mostly-dressed men standing/crouching over a naked man (though with no restraint).

What does Tim make of this?

One can make the argument that Dolce & Gabanna, through these two ads, are not promoting male dominance over females.  Instead, they are promoting the dominance of the men who wear these brand name clothes, but through means of controversial ideas that society takes for granted.  They want people to see the superficial idea that if you wear these clothes, you will feel powerful and in control (just like these men in the ads).  This works because the social construct of our society has accepted this idea of male dominance [over women and inferior men].

What do you think?

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.

Sociologists have noted that wives of men with very high-paying, high-status job often serve as a non-official, auxiliary employee to the company for which their husbands work. They do so not only by ensuring that his house is clean, his clothes washed, his belly full, and his kids are raised, but by supporting his actual work. For example, they may act as a second secretary in the evenings: typing or editing his writing, keeping his calendar, and screening his calls.

The commercial for Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese is a great example of this kind of relationship. In the video, a man surprises his wife by bringing a “client” home for dinner. The wife is pissed off at the lack of notice, but the idea that women should be entertaining men to lubricate their husbands’ work relationships is taken-for-granted. This dinner is work, for both the husband and the wife, but only the husband is on the payroll.

Thanks to my good friend Nils for sending along this video.

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.

G.M. Cairney pointed out a set of photos at Time that highlights the scrutiny women’s bodies are under, the expectation that we constantly work to make our bodies look smaller, and a general cultural fat phobia, while making me wonder, again, why does this merit a slideshow? The article (which features only women) focuses on celebrities’ outfits at the Golden Globes on Sunday and makes it very clear what the main criterion for success is: could it possibly, in any way, from any angle, make these celebrities, most of whom are tiny, look even slightly larger than they are?

Here’s one of the offending garments, on Jennifer Lopez:

I don’t know that I particularly like the dress, but does it make her look fat? The author assures us, though, that this is a disaster: “White is a fright on an ample derriere, or on anyone who is not a size 0.” That’s right: if you’re over a size 0, the entire color white is off-limits to you.

Christina Aguilera’s dress commits the sin of making her look “buxom” and “hippy,” and she is rather oddly compared to Mae West as though that’s a bad thing:

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s dress is described as a “high-calorie confection,” reinforcing the association with fat.

All of these criticisms rest on the central assumption that there is an ideal body type that we should all be aspiring to, and that the role of fashion is to “camouflage” any areas that don’t conform. Any outfit that doesn’t do this has, by definition, failed, no matter how it actually looks on the person. Yes, the specific dress is supposed to be unique, individual, unlike anything else there, but the body inside it isn’t.

As Lisa once asked, wouldn’t it be something if instead we thought the point of fashion was to emphasize whatever shape we have, to  make our bodies look different from one another? Crazy thought, I know.

Everyone says that Barbie has unrealistic proportions, but have you seen them? Denise Winterman at the BBC decided to make a visual, borrowing one Barbie doll, one real human woman, Libby, and the wonders of photoshop.

First, Barbie’s measurements:

• bust 4.6ins (11.6cm)
• waist 3.5ins (8.9cm)
• hips 5ins (12.7cm)

Second, the transformation:

Writes Winterman:

If Libby’s waist size of 28ins (71.1cm) were to remain unchanged, then applying Barbie’s proportions to her would mean Libby shoots up in height, to an Amazonian at 7ft 6ins (2.28m) tall. That’s just two inches shorter than the world’s tallest woman, Yao Defen. She would also have hips measuring 40ins (101.6cm) and a bust of 37ins (83.9cm).

But what if, instead, Libby’s height of 5ft 6ins (1.68m) was to remain unchanged. Doing the maths, Libby would have an extraordinarily tight waist of just 20ins (50.8cm), while her bust would be 27ins (68.5cm) and her hips 29ins (73.6cm).  Even the famously slight Victoria Beckham reportedly only has a 23ins (58.4cm) waist. But neither are they unheard of — Brigitte Bardot was famous for her 20ins (50.8cm) waist.

Citing scholarship, Winterman reports that “the likelihood of a woman having Barbie’s body shape is one in 100,000. So not impossible, but extremely rare.”

Via Jezebel.

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.

Many Americans are familiar with “female genital mutilation.”  The term is typically applied to practices occurring in some parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but not to genital cutting practices that happen in the U.S. and other Western societies (including cosmetic surgeries on the genitals, surgeries on children with ambiguous genitalia, and transsexual surgery) and, by definition, not to genital cutting practices that happen to men in both Western and non-Western countries (male circumcision and other rare but more extreme practices).  “Female genital mutilation” elsewhere, then, is widely condemned by Americans, but rarely condemned in light of these other genital cutting practices, nor America’s own history of genital cutting.  In fact, it was not unusual to subject women in the U.S. to proper circumcision (removal of the clitoral prepuce, or foreskin) until the 1960s and these procedures remained legal until 1996 (though, as far as I’m concerned, their legality is still up in the air).

In any case, RabbitWrite gives us a glimpse into this era in American history. Reading from a Playgirl published in 1973, she recounts the confessions of a woman who chose to be circumcised and offers a short critique.

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.

Jacqueline S. told us about a post at DarrenBarefoot comparing the words that appears most frequently on the covers of Cosmo and Maxim. Darren typed a list of every word that appeared on the covers for three years (2007-2010 for Cosmo, 2005-2008 for Maxim; he doesn’t explain why he chose different time periods) and then made word clouds to illustrate frequency. The results for Maxim:

And Cosmo:

So in both cases, sex rules, followed by a reference to the category of people you’re supposedly interested in having sex with (since both magazines pretty much exclusively assume heterosexual relationships). The word “sex” or “sexy” appeared at least once on ever single Cosmo cover in the 3-year span, and most Maxim covers as well.

But notice how much more the language on Cosmo covers focuses on sex and relationships than Maxim‘s does, with more frequent use of words that explicitly refer to men and/or sex. Of course, those familiar with Cosmo, or most other women’s magazines, know that its headlines about sex make it clear what the point is: various ways to please your man, which translates into increasing your own pleasure. Maxim, on the other hand, focuses less attention on relationships (or health/fitness) and more on money, travel, and pop culture (sports, TV, movies).

To highlight how dominant sex is on Cosmo covers, Darren made a 15-second video of them in rapid succession, back and forth:

I doubt any of you are shocked by his findings, but it’s a nice illustration of the way magazines aimed at women reinforce the idea that our primary goal should be finding, pleasing, and keeping a heterosexual partner to a degree not usually found in men’s magazines.