gender

Kelly sent in a photo she took of a flyer she found on her car windshield recently. The flyer advertised an event at a local bar:

Notice that women ladies paid no cover all night, but men paid $5. In addition, men had to be 21 to get in, but women only had to be 18. And from 8-10 p.m. Sex on the Beach drinks, stereotyped as girly, were free.

It’s a particularly striking example of how bars use women as lures to get men in to buy lots of drinks. Ladies’ nights technically discriminate against men, who have to pay a cover while women don’t. But at the same time, women are being used by the bars letting them in for free.

Why let in women who can’t legally drink but not men of the same age? Because these establishments don’t see women as the real money-making customers. Letting some women in who might take up tables without buying expensive drinks is worth it if it gives the bar a reputation for having hot female patrons and, as a result, draws in men who will buy drinks, both for themselves and for women.

This works because of gendered norms in which men actively pursue and buy things for women they’re interested in, but not vice versa, and that men date younger women more than women date younger men. Given these assumptions, there’s no point in (intentionally) allowing underage men in or to let men in for free while charging women. The norms of dating make it unlikely that groups of women would show up and buy enough drinks for themselves and the men in the bar to make up for the free drinks the guys drank or the waived cover charges.

We see ladies’ nights much more frequently than guys’ nights or whatever the equivalent would be because patterns of dating and sexual interest make women passive players whose job is to attract male attention, largely by paying attention to how they look and dress. Men’s job is to see a woman they find attractive and then pursue her, partially by paying for drinks, dinner, movies, etc.

And bars such as this one capitalize on this by sacrificing some profits (through free drinks and no cover) to get more women to come in and as a result attract the male customers they count on to spend the majority of the money. Gendered norms of dating thus provide a pretty good marketing strategy for bars.

Reflecting the expectation that it is women who will do the majority of the child care, men’s bathrooms frequently do not have baby changing tables.   This particular bathroom at the Baltimore airport, however, is an exception.  Notice anything odd?

Thanks to Corey O., Monique P., and eaglevision for the submission!

See also our post on stick figures and stick figures who parent.

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.

Thomas S. sent in this photo of the toy options for kids meals available from Burger King as part of their tie-in with the Marmaduke movie. The dogs are helpfully divided, as in most kids’ meals at fast-food chains, into those for girls and boys:

Notice the gendering of the dogs. Both girls and boys have the option of a Marmaduke figurine, though they are posed in different ways: the girl version is lying down, while the boy version seems posed to run or jump. The other girls’ options are passive in their poses, the descriptive words in their names (cuddly, loungin’, comb ‘n’ style), and what they do:

• Comb ‘n’ Style Jezebel: you can comb her hair
• Bone Catchin’ Marmaduke: his tail wags when you move the bone
• Loungin’ Giuseppe: he just sits on the tassled cushion
• Cuddly Raisin: he’s soft

On the other hand, the boys’ options are given active descriptive names and different types of actions:

• Pouncin’ Marmaduke: leaps in the air
• Darting Lightning: you wind him up and he moves
• Stick ‘n’ Move Bosco: you attach his leash and he walks
• Turn ‘n’ roll Mazie: you wind up her tail and she rolls over

So the boys get the option of a doberman (or maybe a Rottweiler?) and what looks like an Australian shepherd, while the girls get a toy dog (a papillon, I think) and a collie, which is also a herding dog but here is presented as something to groom.

Obviously, the breeds and names (Bosco, Giuseppe, etc.) come from the movie, so Burger King didn’t create that part. But in creating the tie-in toys, different dogs from the movie were defined as girls’ or boys’ toys, and were designed accordingly.

It’s a great example of the feminine = passive, masculine = active gender dichotomy and the way children are socialized into it. Toys aimed at girls emphasize posing and appearance/grooming, while boys’ toys are usually more active and rarely involve grooming or dressing up (unless you count changing out the weapons G.I. Joe dolls action figures carry).

Of course, this doesn’t mean that kids and their parents will request the gender-intended toy. My sisters and I didn’t get kids’ meals often, but when we did, my mom almost always requested boys’ toys because they were usually more fun and did something, whereas the girls’ toys often just sat there. I’ve heard similar stories from lots of women. Given that men are discouraged from crossing gender lines more than women are, though, I wonder if parents are as willing to get their sons the girls’ toys if the son asks for it. And if we found the girls’ toys boring and wanted the boys’ versions, it seems likely that boys would generally reject them too.

Rose saw the ad below in a free UK parenting magazine.  She thought it was a great example of how an ad sometimes pays “lip service to being inclusive and PC, while [including] numerous elements [that] make it obvious that it isn’t what they really intend.”

So, yes, the ad specifies that the event is for “mums, dads and carers” and it’s nice that they went that far to include them.  But the event is clearly for mothers or women carers and their girl children (and, more specifically, the transfer of feminine training from mother to daughter).  The color of the ad, the feminine shoes with bows, the title (“Mummy Mornings”), and the feminized activities (including “beauty sessions” and the chance to be “spoilt”) are all elements that mark this as for-girls-only.

Is it better to include dads as an afterthought?  Or should we just acknowledge that we’re organizing parent/child activities around mothers (and in this case, daughters)?

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.

These Chilean ads for menstrual pain medication, sent in by Mia A., turn women into symbols of violent aggression: fighters, literally, but also men of color.  They simultaneously affirm, then, the association of violence with both masculinity and non-white skin and the de-association of women with those characteristics.  The message is that men of color are appropriately violent, while women are not.

(source)

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.

Dimitriy T.M. let us know about the Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey website, which has lots of fascinating information. The ATUS data for 2009 was just released but they don’t have charts available yet, so I’m presenting data from 2008 here.

This shows daily time spent in various activities for women who are married and have children under 6 living in the home, by their employment status:

They didn’t provide a similar breakdown for married men, oddly.

Hours spent daily on household chores, by sex (but not broken down by employment status):

The difference in hours spent on household activities is interesting, but since it’s not broken down by employment, and women are less likely to be employed full-time than men, it doesn’t really tell us to what degree this is women doing a “second shift” vs. household management as their primary activity, so that’s sort of annoying.

Volunteer activity by sex and age (notice that the columns represent the average daily % of the population who volunteered, not the number of hours they spent volunteering, and the data is an average for 2004-2008):

This isn’t surprising, given that social scientists have generally found that women do more volunteer work, more regularly, than men (again, I’d like to see this broken down by employment status).

It’s also interesting that men and women who volunteer tend to do different types of activities. As this graph shows, it mimics the indoor/outdoor household chores pattern we see in family life. Women are more likely to do food preparation, while men are more likely to do maintenance. Also, men seem somewhat more likely to have leadership positions or to attend skills-building activities, while women do organizational stuff:

For both men and women, volunteering is most common for those with school-aged children in the household, indicating that a lot of volunteering is probably for child-centered organizations such as sports teams and PTA meetings:

I was somewhat surprised by the relationship between volunteering and educational level. The percent of people who volunteer goes up with more education, but the hours spent volunteering per day goes down:

Though the daily difference isn’t huge (just a half hour less for those with a 4-year college degree and those with less than a high school degree), over the course of a month or year it would certainly add up.

If you go through the raw data files, I’m sure there are all types of interesting relationships that give more detailed information about sex, employment status, and time usage. A fun way to waste time if you ever need a procrastination tool.

This 1957 ad for an Exercycle tells young and old women and men exactly what they should be concerned about:

So old women are supposed want to be young, young women want to be slender, young men want to be strong, and old men want to be active.  I think it’s pretty much the same today.

Vintage Ads.

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.

Talking Points Memo has an article about a new advertising campaign from Spirit Airlines (as of this morning the images are still available on their homepage, though I presume — hope — they’ll be taken down soon). In order to highlight their fares to coastal locations no affected by the oil spill, they created an ad campaign titled “Best Protection”:

Get it? BP? Oh, funny.

The ads show bikini-clad women sunning themselves on the beach and carry the tagline “check out the oil on our beaches.” Two examples:

Honestly, I’m just stunned. Seriously, how do these things get made? Who comes up with this, and how is it that nowhere along the line from the idea to actually putting the images up on the website does someone in authority say, “Um, I think this is a really bad idea.”

Classy, Spirit Air. Classy.