gender

Beth sent in a link to WowWee, a company that makes robot toys, including Robosapien:

The description of Robosapien:

Robosapien™ is a sophisticated fusion of technology and personality. Loaded with attitude and intelligence, Robosapien is the first robot based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics. With a full range of dynamic motion, interactive sensors and a unique personality, Robosapien is more than a mechanical companion — he’s a multi-functional, thinking, feeling robot with attitude!

There is also a female version, called Femisapien:

From the website:

Intelligent and interactive, RS Femisapien™ speaks her own language called “emotish” which consists of gentle sounds and gestures. There is no remote required; interact with her directly and she responds to your hand gestures, touch, and sound.

So the default robot is male, with the female being not a female Robosapien but rather an entirely different product. And the photos and descriptions of Robosapien emphasize aggression, movement, personality, and “attitude,” while Femisapien speaks “emotish” (seriously?), which is “gentle”–a characteristic that seems to be missing from Robosapien, who is dynamic and, um, maybe shoots lasers from his hands.

It’s a nice example of gendered assumptions being built into product design and marketing. There’s no particular reason that the male and female versions of a robot have to look so very different, but even if they did, the decision to associate one with words and characteristics that evoke emotion and gentleness and the other with aggression and movement isn’t accidental; it’s a result of how we think about males and females.

For another excellent example of the men are people and women are women thing, see this post on the Body Worlds exhibit.

NEW! Kyle M. sent us a link to his post on the advertising for the sci-fi show Surrogates.  He makes some great observations.  I noticed, too, that the way in which the robotic components of men and women were designed differed slightly in gendered ways.  The “spines” of the men are significantly more robust than the thin, spindly spines given to the female characters.  Notice, also, that the way in which the models are posed emphasizes women’s thinness (in all of these ads, she is positioned sideways, minimizing her size) and men’s broadness (positioned so that the width of his body is emphasized).

Abby K. alerted us to this video from the New York Times about boys who cross traditional gender lines to compete on a double-dutch jump-roping team in Brooklyn:

Click here for the NYT article that accompanied the video.

It’s a good illustration of the pressures boys face to avoid anything defined as feminine, usually more than girls are told to avoid things that are masculine (which can sometimes make them cool). ZeAndre Orr’s mom tried to dissuade him from doing something that was for girls, other boys at school picked on him because of his involvement with double dutch, and of course there is the time-honored tradition of calling boys who participate in “girly” activities sissies. For many boys, the fear of such repercussions–particularly harassment by other boys–is enough to make them steer clear of things they might be good at or like doing. And yet, despite these pressures, both boys and girls do cross gender lines all the time…a fact we conveniently forget when we talk about gender in a way that implies that “real boys” just naturally like certain things and not others, for example.

The other thing this made me think about is the way that physical activities get defined as sports…or as something else. If jump-roping were in the “sport” category, it would be socially acceptable, even encouraged, for ZeAndre to take part. And there’s no particular reason I can see that double dutch is clearly not a sport–it requires stamina, physical skill, fitness, and excellent hand-eye coordination, and involves team competition. I’ll probably get myself yelled at here, but seriously, this looks like it has as much of a claim to be called a sport as golf does.

But much like competitive cheerleading, competitive jump-roping has not attained social recognition as an athletic endeavor. Some sociologists argue that physical activities that predominantly attract women tend to be defined as something other than sports simply because we associate athletics with men, not women. I’m not arguing about whether or not competitive jump-roping should be seen as a sport–I really don’t care–but you might use this video as a starting point for a discussion about why we define some activities as sports but not others, and how gender might play into this.

Back to the issue of the messages boys get that discourage them from doing things coded feminine, Nathan M. (see his truly awesome artwork at The House of Tomorrow) sent in a link to this Nike ad (found at gigposters), which makes it clear that parents are supposed to be horrified at the idea that their son would be in ballet:

Thanks, AK and Nathan!

This excellent documentary documents the powerful interests behind Disney and criticizes the extent to which young American children’s childhoods are influenced by the company. The comments on the messages behind Beauty and the Beast are particularly troubling.

Christoph B. sent in these Goldstar Beer ads, found at BuzzFeed, that show the differences between men and women:

I know that I, for one, immediately start thinking about marriage every time I meet a guy. My new male neighbor waved at me the other day, and I ran out and bought a wedding dress, just in case.

The other thing here is the assumption that a) the viewer is definitely a man and b) of the two options, the “man’s” life is always preferable. I suppose in the second two ads that might be reasonable–although I never experience all that many problems using public restrooms, but whatever–but why is it automatically better to have sex with no emotional attachments or expectations of ever interacting again? I doubt that all men enjoy such encounters, any more than all women are thinking of marriage every time they have sex with someone.

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

Via Adverbox.

Erin S. sent in this screencapture of a set of ebay gift suggestions:

Erin says,

For her?  A Roomba automatic vacuum!  For him?  A new sports car, of course!

Apparently Zunes are an androgynous gift, which is good to know.

Random, non-sociological story: My ex-stepdad once got my mom a mop for their anniversary. For her birthday he got her a live mouse trap–the type that doesn’t kill them but just keeps them contained so you can take them outside. She actually liked these gifts better than the time he got them “both” a rifle for their anniversary, as a “shared” gift. Ah, romance.

Thanks for the image, Erin!

NEW! (July ’10): Carissa sent in an image of an advertisement for an eBay Coupon Event that provides suggestions for different groups. There’s a clear assumption of who would be most interested in the different categories, with the other gender thrown in as an afterthought. But it’s also an example of how we insist on dividing things by gender, even when there’s absolutely no reason to do so. If you’re acknowledging that both men and women might like everything listed, why bother to categorize them by gender at all? Why not just have  a list under “All Categories” and leave it at that?

Edward L. sent in a link to Ultra Culture’s post about trailers for the new Will Smith movie “Seven Pounds” market the movie differently depending on whether the target audience is men or women. Ultra Culture’s analysis is funnier than anything I’d say, so I’m just going to quote it.

Here’s one trailer:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kpK1fKzoDs[/youtube]

Ultra Culture says:

WOMEN!
This is the film for you! Its got that sexy Will Smith in it (from Hitch!) and just look at all the emotional turmoil he’s going through with Rosario Dawson. And did you see that? It’s directed by the guy who did Pursuit of Happyness! What a lovely, life-affirming film that was.

Another trailer:

Again from Ultra Culture:

MEN!
This is the film for you! Its got that cool Will Smith in it (from Hancock!) and just look at all that fast paced action he’s going through with that gruff-voiced man. And those fast cuts, whooshing noises and gradually fading words remind me of Enemy of the State! What a heart-pounding thrill-ride that was.

You might pair this with a discussion of how other products are marketed differently to men and women, such as cars or food.

Thanks, Edward!

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

Freud distinguished between a “mature” (vaginal) and “immature” (clitoral) orgasm, telling women that to require clitoral stimulation for orgasm was a psychological problem. Contesting this, in 1970 Anne Koedt wrote The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.  She explains:

Frigidity has generally been defined by men as the failure of women to have vaginal orgasms. Actually the vagina is not a highly sensitive area and is not constructed to achieve orgasm. It is the clitoris which is the center of sexual sensitivity and which is the female equivalent of the penis… Rather than tracing female frigidity to the false assumptions about female anatomy, our “experts” have declared frigidity a psychological problem of women.

Indeed, studies show that about 1/3rd of women regularly reach orgasm during penile-vaginal sex.  The rest (that is, the majority) require more direct clitoral stimulation.  Koedt goes on (my emphasis):

All this leads to some interesting questions about conventional sex and our role in it. Men have orgasms essentially by friction with the vagina, not the clitoral area, which is external and not able to cause friction the way penetration does. Women have thus been defined sexually in terms of what pleases men; our own biology has not been properly analyzed. Instead, we are fed the myth of the liberated woman and her vaginal orgasm – an orgasm which in fact does not exist.

Koedt’s article was highly influential and rejecting the notion of the “vaginal orgasm” (both anatomically and functionally) was part of second wave feminism. 

Still, the vaginal orgasm keeps coming back.  During the ’90s, it came back in the form of the G-spot.  You, too, can have a vaginal orgasm if you can just find that totally-orgasmic-pleasure-spot-rich-in-blood-vessels-and-nerve-endings-that-makes-for-wildly-amazing-orgasms-with-ejaculation that you, strangely, never knew was there!  (See what Betty Dodson has to say about the g-spot here.)

Most recently, the vaginal orgasm has come back in the form of orgasmic birth.  The idea is that women can, if they really want to, have an orgasm (or orgasms) during childbirth. 

Now, I don’t want to argue that women never have orgasms from penile-vaginal intercourse.  They do.  I also don’t care to debate whether a g-spot exists.  And I am certainly not going to look a mother in the face and tell her she did not have an orgasm during childbirth.  I am sure some women do.  (And, anyway, I get a kick out of thinking about such a mother telling her teenager the story of his birth, so I’m going to keep believing it is true).

Anyway, what I do want to do is discuss how the video below uses the idea of orgasmic birth to reinscribe the myth of the vaginal orgasm.  The reporter says that orgasmic birth is just “basic science” and then turns to interview an M.D.  The M.D. uses the vaginal orgasm as scientific evidence for the possibility of orgasmic birth.  She says: obviously a baby would cause an orgasm when it comes out the vagina, since a penis causes an orgasm when it goes into the vagina.  But, of course, it usually doesn’t.  That last part isn’t “basic science,” it’s ideology (as Koedt so nicely points out).

I wonder how many women now feel doubly bad.  Not only can they not have orgasms from penile-vaginal intercourse, they also experienced pain during childbirth!  Bad ladies!  Watch the whole 8-minute clip or start at 3:28 to see the interview with the M.D.:

Via Jezebel.