gender

Consider this a catch-all post showing the many ways in which marketers use the excuse of gift-giving to reinforce gender stereotypes.

Exhibit One: Katrin sent along this example from Zazzle.  She writes:

The gift guide section is great… Men fish, hunt, are tech nerds, BBQ kings, and are in the military.  And, if you really have to, there is a “Metro Man gift” section as well. Women are animal lovers, spiritual, environmentalist, interior designers, teachers, brides, sorority members AND they “support the troops” as military wives. Of course THEY are NOT soldiers. Just like men cannot be married to and much less, support, a woman in the military.  The only thing men and women have in common?  The 80s.

Exhibit Two: Keely W. sent along this delightful gift suggestion. Moms, need a gift that costs just a little but seriously pays off? Buy your daughter these eyebrow tweezers! They’ll make for hours of wonderful mother-daughter time! Here’s to the intergenerational transfer of patriarchal beauty standards!

Exhibit Three: Maggie G. sent in these screen shots from the Lego website.  First, notice that, just as with the dinosaur website we posted about recently, legos are assumed to be for boys, unless they are specifically for girls.  The girls category in the bottom row makes all the other categories, by default, for boys:

If you click on girls, you get two options, Belville and Preschool:

Here’s what the Belville sets look like (all pink with horsies, puppies, and fairies!):

Legos aimed at younger kids are, I guess, gender-neutral… which is consistent with the increasingly pressure to gender-differentiate as kids get older:

Got any more gendered x-mas guides?  Send them in and I’ll start a post for next year.

See also this post on gendered gift-giving guides.

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.

Over Thanksgiving we posted a Bed, Bath, and Beyond ad that illustrated the fact that women, overwhelmingly, take responsibility for the work involved with holidays.  Victoria S. sent us a U.K. website illustrating the same idea.  The website, for a shopping center, is using the slogan, the 12 Mums of Christmas.

Victoria writes:

…it assumes that the mum of the family does EVERYTHING for the family/friends.  It also forgets about people who therefore don’t have children, or people who are on their own, or those that don’t have a mum-type figure in their lives etc…

The site even nicely describes the various tasks that “mums” are responsible for.

The shopper:

The planner:

The wrapper:

The party girl:

Mums!  Do all the work!  Look great!  And have a good time, too!  Or else you fail as a mother.  Just sayin’.

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.

My besties gave me a copy of the target toy catalog for 2009 and pointed out the front cover.

At first i thought it was just your typical run of the mill gender socialization propaganda…

White girl on the cover? Check.
Is she wearing pink? Check.
Is she wearing a tiara? Check.
Is she wearing a tutu? Check.
Is the tutu pink? Check.
Is she smiling? Check.
Is she playing with barbie? Check.
Is there a little boy in the image? Check.
Is he doing one of the following: making a mess, eating something or expressing anger? Check.

Ok, the basics are covered.

But upon further inspection, I realize that the barbie is holding Lego flowers…. and… wait a minute… are those church bells I see?!  …

This ad, found in Town and Country, features a man battling “a gift list of frightful aspect.”

Text:

THE FABLE OF THE GENEROUS GENT AND THE LOATHSOME LIST.

Once a generous sir, beset by a gift list of frightful aspect, vanquished the beast with one fell stroke of genuis in a quest triumphant at The Forum Shops.

It draws attention to what many of us feel, few of us say, and very, very few advertisers would emphasize: the gift giving mandate associated with Christmas (and, to a lesser degree, other U.S. holidays) can be an incredible emotional and financial burden, as well as a time suck.   I have no doubt that expressing dissatisfaction regarding gift giving is more acceptable, in general, for men than women (despite the fact that women do the majority of holiday-related chores).  Thus, it’s no accident that this ad is aimed at men.

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.

Following up on a previous post about gendered gift giving guides at Lego and Toys R Us, I discovered something interesting.

I was intrigued by the Toys R Us guide because it asked the buyer to specify the gender of the child, but then tended to have more or less the same “personality” and “interests” options.  For example, below are the choices for girls and boys.  You’ll see that they are very similar.

Girl personalities:

Boy personalities (same, sans “Glamour Girl”):

Girl interests:

Boy interests:

So, why even ask about gender, I wondered?  I did a test.  For both boys and girls ages 12-14, I checked “techie” and “building” to see what I would get.

What I got was rather fascinating.  I can’t remember where I originally heard it, but someone somewhere observed that when it came to technology, there was a stereotype that men were  the engineers and designers and women were the consumers and users.  That is, both men and women might like technology, but men were active in producing technology and women just got to benefit from men’s hard, brainy work.

Well, that’s essentially what Toys R Us told me.  Remember, for both boys and girls, I checked “techie” and “building.”  Here is the top 24 gift suggestions for boys:

So that’s 13 building/engineering games (like Lego and KNEX), 3 ipod accessories, 4 portable DVD players, 2 MP3 players, and a few other things.

What do girls get?  Seven ipod accessories, 5 portable DVD players, 4 MP3 players, 3 laptop computers, 3 cameras, and one building/engineering game.  One.

Sure enough, Toys R Us confirms that girls may like technology, but boys build it.

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.

The ad below, sent in by Corinne C., expresses nostalgia for “classic” beers and classic women:

(From TimeOut Chicago.)

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 a twist on the men are people and women are women theme, Catherine L. sent in this screen shot of a Business Week article about women hedge fund managers.  Notice that it’s placed in the “working parents” section of the website, even though the article does not say a single thing about kids or, even, work/life balance.

Also, women produce double the returns!?  Double!?  Damn!

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.

About a year ago, Gwen posted about the evolution of the Sun-Maid, the young spokeswoman for Sun-Maid raisins:

In her post, she asked: “I wonder if Sun-Maid has stayed with the de-sexualized icon because raisins are associated with children?”

Well, Gwen, I’m afraid you spoke too soon.  Here, via Jezebel, is the new Sun Maid:

Noticably slimmer and with more form-fitting clothes, this new Sun Maid is clearly not hyper-sexualized, but it’s a move in that direction.

Here’s a commercial in which, building on her increasing sexualization and objectification, she turns into a Hollywood celebrity for a sec:

I think–considering also the recent makeovers of Dora the Explorer, Holly Hobbie, and Strawberry Shortcake–we can officially call this a trend.

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.