gender

Life magazine offers a really neat set of photos of women soldiers, from many countries, during World War II.  Below are some of my favorites.

Women firefighters aim a hose at the fire after the attack on Pearl Harbor:

A member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Britain):

Italian resistance fighters:

A member of the Finnish paramilitary:

England’s first female military pilot: Pauline Gower:

Chinese women soldiers:

Via Shakesville.

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.

In this 11-minute video, Dalton Conley interviews Victor Rios about the youth control complex.  He argues the that punishing arm of the state (the prison system) and the nurturing arm of the state (the education system) work together to criminalize, stigmatize, and punish young inner city boys and men.

Rios’ ideas apply very well to the treatment of Latarian Milton, the 7-year-old boy who was charged with grand theft auto for taking his grandmother’s car for a joy ride.

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.

Cross-posted at FemmePolitical.

As many as 4 million people — most of them women and children — are sold into slavery globally each year, according to the United Nations, and 70 percent of those women are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation [PDF]. An estimated 200,000 American children are at risk for sex trafficking each year, and the International Human Rights Law Institute estimates that 30,000 sexual slaves die annually from abuse, torture, neglect and disease.

So why is Disneyland still asking us to laugh at an overt depiction of sexual slavery in its popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride?

Many of us have floated past the scene of a pirate captain selling captured women as “brides,” with the banner “Auction: Take a Wench as a Bride.” Viewer focus is drawn to a rotund woman on the auction block, an object of open derision due to her weight, as well as to a red-haired woman with her breasts on display, an object of hoots and hollers from surrounding drunken pirates.

These two women are linked to four other women-for-sale by ropes cinched around their waists. One of the captives–a teenager–cries profusely into a handkerchief while an older woman tries to comfort her. This disturbing scene of women being sold into sexual slavery is supposed to be amusing.

What makes this all the more alarming is that the Disney folks altered the ride to be less sexist during a major renovation in 2007. It originally included a scene with male pirates chasing unwilling (but giggling) townswomen and another in which an overweight male pirate, exhausted from his pursuit of a teenage girl, holds a piece of her dress and says, “It’s sore I be to hoist me colors upon the likes of that shy little wench” and, “Keep a weather eye open, Mateys. I be willing to share, I be” (an implied gang-rape invitation?).

The pirates-ravaging-wenches aspect of the Pirates attraction was planned from its inception in the late 1960s. Several sketches from illustrator Marc Davis conveyed the rapacious spirit of the scenes:

And they included the notion that women might even enjoy being sold into sexual slavery:

So why didn’t Disney get rid of the sexual slave auction when it had the chance? What arguments were put forth by corporate executives to justify showing these images to as many as 40,000 visitors a day, many of them children, with jovial music playing in the background? (Note: Pirates was the last exhibit Walt Disney oversaw before his death. The auction scene is the only one he saw fully animated, and the only scene that has never been altered.)

Disney has unparalleled power to shape young hearts and minds. If the Pirates of the Caribbean ride normalizes sexual slavery with humor, it can desensitize viewers to this heinous and very real gendered crime.

When will Disney learn that sexual slavery is no laughing matter? Contact the company to let them know what you think.

Special thanks to C. Martin Croker for his insightful research on the ride and to Theme Park Adventure magazine for images and history on the ride.

Named after the classic New Orleans cocktail, the Sazerac bar excluded women until 1949 when the hotel’s owner, Seymour Weiss, moved it to the Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel and opened its doors to women.    Long thirsty for the best Sazerac in town, women crammed into the bar on September 26th.  The moment was captured in this fabulous photo:

Last month the Roosevelt had an event commemorating 60 years since the “stormin’ of the Sazerac.”  My friend and photographer Brian Huff captured the re-creation:

If anyone knows the photographer who took the 1949 photo, please let me know so that I can credit him.

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.

We’ve documented dozens of instances in which products are coded with gender (e.g., with colors and patterns) but sometimes, as in the example of a toy cop car, it is specified that items are for girls or for boys.  More than simply following gendered themes and allowing us to infer their meaning, these items offer a gendered prescription for use.

Kelly, for example, sent in a JC Penney page for a Hello Kitty sewing machine that specifies that it is for girls (it was also specified as for girls at Target):

Likewise, Coley L. bought a shorts-and-shirt swimsuit for a daughter.  The green swimsuit, however, was labeled explicitly for boys:

And MP sent in a link to a downloadable foldable gift card holder that specified whether it was for him or her in the url:

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.

Sharon Gefen sent along a five-minute SPARK Summit video on the sexualization of women and girls in the media and its effects on young women:

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 reader associated with WOW/WGSGO, two feminist groups at Louisiana State University, sent in an image a friend took of a banner that is currently on display at an apartment complex near the campus in Baton Rouge, presenting two supposed LSU fans and one University of Alabama fan (in anticipation of tomorrow’s football game between the two teams):

As the sender-inner points out, the banner “is obviously sexist, fat-phobic, and caters to a male gaze and sports rivalry through objectification of women.” Individuals from WOW and WGSGO have repeatedly called the apartment complex to ask that the banner be taken down, so far to no avail.

It’s a perfect example of how fat bodies are both themselves stigmatized and used to stigmatize others. In this case, not only is this individual woman being mocked, but marking her as an Alabama fan serves to mock and denigrate all other fans by association. Because, as we all know, the campus with the hottest (according to conventional standards of attractiveness) chicks wins!

In this ten-minute Black Tree Media video, sent in by Janet F., black intellectuals and artists debate sexism in hip hop. The video features over a dozen perspectives — Stanley Crouch, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Ben Chavis, Nelly, T.I., Chuck D, MC Lyte, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Mike Jones, Master P, and Kim Osorio — and covers a lot of ground.

My apologies if the video is preceded by a commercial:

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.