gender

Genderkid, Andrea J., Laura S., and Jessica C. all sent in links to the Fallen Princesses photographs. About her project, photographer Dina Goldstein writes:

These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues… Disney’s perfect Princesses [are] juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

You may want to check out a discussion on Racialicious about presenting Jasmine in a war zone and Women’s Glib‘s discussion of the representation of fatness as “fallen” (and the stereotype that fat people gorg on fast food).

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Jeffrey T. found this page on Amazon suggesting gifts for different people in your life. He thought it nicely illustrated not only “…gender roles in our society, but also of age roles and, perhaps, class roles as well.”

Here’s the page (below are close up screenshots and quick, snarky comments):

What is a woman’s lifecycle like?

Girlfriends and wives are apparently obsessed with fashion.  They want nothing else:

By the time you’re a mom, your interest in fashion is accompanied by escapism and the need for a freakin’ break (jewelry would be nice though):

Grandmas love flowers and they fill their days doing crafts, scrapbooking, and listening to showtunes:

Is it different for men?

After work, husbands/boyfriends take off their dress shirt so they can rock out and play games:

Dads are still into “action and adventure,” but they need a break too and, also, they suddenly feel a pressing need to know more about waging war:

By the time you’re a Grandpa, you just want to find a nice room away from Grandma’s show tunes to listen to classic music, watch documentaries (about war?), and read Time magazine with a safe, clean shave:

People who “have everything” (I think that means rich people), just need totally random unnecessary stuff (except for cocktail accessories, those are obviously a necessity):

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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.

Ryan G. alerted us to a commercial for First Response pregnancy fertility tests. He noticed that the commercial cuts off the pregnant mother’s head, turning her into a faceless baby incubator (like in these editorial cartoons and not unrelated to this photography).  Ryan writes: “It’s clear what’s most important in this picture.”

While Ryan couldn’t find the commercial to embed, he did take down the narration and sent in some screen shots.  Here is the text of the voiceover:

The moment we pass from womanhood to motherhood, we cross a threshold. For many of us, that step is filled with wish and worry, hope and how, wonder and when. Fertility is a woman’s most sacred birthright. For over twenty years, First Response has been there, helping women answer the most important questions of their lives. Now we bring you new help: the First Response fertility test for women.

Ryan offered commentary, so I’ll rely on him.  He writes:

…”womanhood” and “motherhood” are presented as two separate things, with motherhood trumping womanhood. I’m assuming this is partly because a woman is not allowed to have a sex drive after she becomes a mother, and we all know that a woman without a sex drive is the higher form of woman.

He continues:

“Fertility is a woman’s most sacred birthright.” God knows the most important thing any woman can contribute to society is being a baby farm. Strangely, I never see Viagra commercials arguing that knocking people up is a man’s most sacred birthright.

“[H]elping women answer the most important questions of their lives.” The most important question in a woman’s life doesn’t involve her own personal needs, but the needs of her children and soon-to-be children.

Finally, Ryan writes:

And of course, there’s no father pictured here, or even a passing mention of one. Why would there be?  Conceiving, planning for, and raising a child is exclusively the job–ahem, the “sacred birthright”–of the mother.

Thanks for the excellent and provocative analysis, Ryan!

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Animals Awake, a Dutch organization for animals akin to PETA in the U.S., “takes a page from [their] playbook,” according to David at Adfreak.   This commercial, in which a stripper is brutally murdered in front of a live audience, is so shocking that my first I thought was that it was a parody. It’s not.

Major major major trigger warning:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/5323112[/vimeo]

The critique, of course, is that Animals Awake is contributing to an atmosphere in which violence against women is ubiquitous (see Jezebel, for example).  But I actually think that this commercial works in that we are (I hope) genuinely horrified by the murder at the end.  I don’t think it normalizes violence against women like so many other ads/media/products do (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples).

BUT it does normalize the connection between violence and sex.  There is absolutely no reason why the person murdered in this ad had to a stripper.  There is no reason to spend the first half of the commercial titillating us, only to have it suddenly turned into a horror show.  There’s absolutely no connection.  But because sex and violence are so frequently linked in the American imagination, it actually took me a few minutes of thinking about it to remember that.  And I’m kind of horrified that, in my mind, sex and violence go together like peas and carrots.  This ad only reinforces that connection.

Sorry I made you watch it.

More images of sexualized violence here, here, here, here, here, here, here here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Here’s another PSA, this one from the U.K., with exactly the same idea.

UPDATE: In the comments, jeffliveshere points out that the commercial is based on a pun:

I agree that the sex and violence connection is unnecessary–but, to be clear, there is wordplay involved–“stripping fish” is apparently a technical term for removing the guts of fish…

Okay, so maybe there isn’t “absolutely no connection.” Even so?

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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.

I mean, it’s Ellen DeGeneres. She’s a comedian. Everyone knows she’s just being funny.

Besides, she’s totally gay. Gay ladies don’t really care about beauty, am I right or am I right?

What do you think?

I’ll tell you what I think. Satire or no, Cover Girl’s done a lot of market research and they think it’s going to make people buy make up just like any old advertisement.  And I think they’re right.

In fact, I think satire is disarming.  When we see this commercial, our “don’t fuck with us” response doesn’t kick in because it’s just funny ol’ Ellen bein’ wacky.  Advertising counts on us thinking it doesn’t affect us.  Otherwise we’d be pissed.  I think satire is a useful tool with which advertisers trick us into letting down our guard.

We’ve been hitting satire hard lately.  I think it’s because it’s really pretty tricky to figure out.  See our previous posts on or featuring satire here, here, here, here, here, and here.  Here’s one that actually refers to data (as opposed to just involves us mouthing off.)

(Via Moody Springs.)

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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.

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.

These Virginia Slims ads from 1969, sent in by Fred H., show how the idea of “progress” was as useful then as it is now (see also this post on the subject). The commercials suggests that the right to smoke is part and parcel of women’s liberation.

Fred also notes the suggestion that “petite things are meant for women.” Notice that the last commercial, on a different theme, uses not only the “slim” analogy, but also calls the cigarette “beautiful.”

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXUbkIkwn2Y[/youtube]

For other examples of co-optation, see these posts using feminism to sell guns (here and here), beauty products (here and here), botox, diamond rings, cars and credit cards, cars and bras, pornography, cleaning products, panties, and eyeglasses, washing machines, and, of course, cigarettes (here and here).

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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.