gender

Here is an ad put out by the McCain campaign that associates Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton:

What struck me about it is that associating Obama with some young women is a way to imply he’s not a serious candidate (see this post from yesterday on a similar theme). I mean, they could have used, say, Tom Cruise of one of the examples of overwhelming celebrity, but part of the image of the Obama campaign is that many of his followers are sexy but vapid young women. (Also, as far as I’m aware neither Britney Spears nor Paris Hilton have actually been connected to Obama, unlike Scarlett Johansson, who sent him emails; the media frenzy over the idea that he was her “email buddy” eventually forced him to distance himself from any association with her. Why this was such a big deal, I do not know, since there was no indication that the emails were inappropriate in any way.)

Also: Paris Hilton has now become part of our political discourse? Really?

NEW: Marc S. sent in a link to the humorous response from Paris Hilton. It might be a humorous intro to a discussion of the way that we assume that certain types of femininity (particularly the type associated with tanning and liking the color pink) are incompatible with being intelligent or politically aware.

Thanks, Marc!

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

My friend at Trucker Bomb alerted me to this clip from the 1956 film “Indestructible Man.” I’m saving it until one of my students waxes nostalgic about the “good old days” in which gender roles were clearer, and people didn’t have to be so confused all of the time about, say, whether it’s okay to open a door for a “lady”. This sort of comment often comes up when we discuss the difference between courtesy (which can apply to everyone) and chivalry (which is predicated on the notion that women are weaker than men). It could also be useful in discussions about gender as it relates to marriage, careers, or golly, just about anything!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgGFzUS4tkg[/youtube]

Man, the good old days were awesome, in a pause-while-laughing-to-barf-a-little kind of way.

Annie G. sent in this ad for the Baby Wee Wee doll, which was sold in the UK and Ireland for a while but was manufactured by a Spanish toy company (and is also called Piolin Pipi):

Notice that, although it’s girls who are shown playing with the doll, the parent they’re showing it to and playing with is the father, which is pretty unusual. Also, the doll is uncircumcised, which could be used for an interesting discussion of culture and representations of the body–if the doll had been manufactured in the U.S., it almost certainly would have been circumcised, and that’s the image of what penises look like that the kids playing with it would get. I find that more interesting than the gendered element of the ad–the way that the male body is being depicted, how that might be different depending on where the doll was manufactured, and how that reflects cultural norms about circumcision and what a “normal” penis looks like.

Of course, you could also discuss parenting styles and the types of parents who might find this appropriate, and why parents who might find the “girl-style” peeing dolls (i.e., those that “pee” through a hole between their legs) perfectly fine might still be offended by this doll (I’m just guessing that a lot of people would not want to buy this for their kid and might think it’s inappropriate for little girls to be playing with a doll with such a “lifelike” penis, but maybe I’m wrong). And there’s the whole issue of whether different viewers and/or regulators would find this ad appropriate for TV (I’m guessing it wouldn’t run in the U.S. Actually, I’m just gonna make a declarative statement: this ad would not run on TV in the U.S.).

Thanks, Annie!

More ads portraying men as stupid and trivial. Click here for more.

Miguel E. found all of these here!

NEW: In our comments, Pharmacopaeia pointed us to this commerical from New Zealand:

See also bros before hos.

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 her book Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School, Barrie Thorne looks at how children play an active role in socializing themselves and one another. It’s an interesting insight because we often portray children as these passive, empty vessels who are acted upon by adults, the media, and so on, but who play no role in defining or interpreting the world around them (sometimes in ways that are much more rigid and cruel than what adults do).

An example of this is the way that kids often play with toys in ways that aren’t, um, intended by the manufacturers or parents. I mean, Barbie may represent a certain type of femininity, and kids may receive that message and be affected by it…but they often also make Barbie have an awful lot of casual sex, have superpowers, or become horribly deformed after being mutilated (my cousins and I played a game where we tried different ways of popping Barbie’s head off). My point is simply that kids aren’t just passive recipients of a set of messages about the world and, thus, that we can’t always assume that because a toy is “supposed” to reflect a certain cultural ideal that kids are always unambiguously getting that message.

Elizabeth Z. sent in a good example of this when she describes how her daughter plays with some Playmobil figures. Here is a picture of the Silver Knight:

A description from a website selling the figure:

The Playmobil Silver Knight is a perfect addition to your world of Playmobil Toys. He is as strong and valiant as knights come! Riding a black horse and carrying his flag of honor, the Playmobil Silver Knight is ready to take on any battles and enemies that get in his way – and of course he’ll be successful! The Playmobil Silver Knight set includes a knight dressed in silver/purple armor, a black horse in black/purple riding gear, shield, and battle flag.

While this company has very clearly gendered this figurine, on the Playmobil website, the gender is not given–it’s just “Silver Knight.”

Now, my guess is that a lot of parents buying this toy are going to interpret it as a male knight for the simple reason that, you know, knights are guys. The princesses they save are girls. I have no idea what Playmobil intended–if this is supposed to be a gender-ambiguous figure that could be male or female or not (Elizabeth points out the hair is long, and thus “feminine,” by our standards but would have been pretty clearly an acceptable hairstyle for men in medieval times).

But regardless of what Playmobil “means” this toy to be (that is, whether or not they manufactured it to be gender-neutral), kids such as Elizabeth’s daughter are going to do their own interpreting:

I noticed that my daughter’s micro castle world…had two knights, and she called them the boy and the girl. They didn’t to my eye appear to be a boy and a girl — the “girl” had hair in a cut that’s called a “pageboy” for a reason, you know — but I could see why she thought of that way…my [daughter] has an answer she’s happy with to the question about where the princess is; not captive, not sitting at home in a dress, but riding on a horse with a big sword. That works for her.

When we’re talking about kids, toys, and socialization, we should keep in mind that kids can be awfully creative and smart and might not be seeing things the way us adults do.

Thanks, Elizabeth!

Thanks to Thorsten S. for the link!

Bob K. sent in this image of Liquid Virgin Tightening Lubricant (found here):

According to the website,

This product is called a Vaginal Contracting Lubricant. It is Similar to the age-old China Shrink cream. These drops work to temporarily tighten the walls of the vagina. I have never tried it but our sales representative says they work. I didn’t ask how she knew.

This could be used in a discussion of how women’s bodies are perceived, and particularly stereotypes of sexually active women’s bodies. After all, the word “loose” implies that a woman is slutty and therefore her vagina is all, you know, stretched out and stuff. Because that’s totally how that works.
The implication is that sex with such women will be less pleasurable for men than sex with women who have had less sex…such as virgins. You might also want to talk about vaginal rejuvenation surgery as part of this topic.

Since we’re on the topic of images of sexually experienced women, Jenelle and Marcello both sent in this ad for BMW used cars (found here):

“You know you’re not the first.”

Here’s an example of another ad (found here) from the Polish used BMW campaign that doesn’t use a woman to sell cars. So apparently it can be done.

Thanks, Bob, Marcello, and Jenelle!

As we’re sure you’ve noticed, one thing we’re really interested in is the social construction of gender and the way the world is divided into things that are ok for men to do and things that are ok for women to do. This dividing of the world by gender includes everything from food (salad vs. steak), pets (cats vs. dogs), and even colors (pink vs. blue). Generally, people are punished for not following these rules, though men are often punished more harshly for crossing into “feminine” or “girly” territory. At the same time, because these rules are socially constructed, they get fiddled with and sometimes people can get away with crossing the gender line–or even make it cool to do so.

Abby sent in this photo of a t-shirt (found here) similar to one she saw a boy wearing at a school picnic recently. Another boy was also wearing a pink shirt, though without the explanation for why.

Abby says,

I think it is interesting the way the shirt challenges some dominant ideas about gender (pink = smart) while reinforcing others (e.g. men don’t know how to do laundry).

Another example of pink being redefined as an appropriate color for men to wear (other than Don Johnson in the 1980s) is Andre 3000 from Outcast (image found here):

In fact, Andre 3000 was one of several hip-hop stars in the last few years who have clearly cared about fashion and re-popularized what has been described as a “dandy” fashion sense (see next photo, found here). So something that we generally associated with women (caring intensely about fashion) has become an acceptable, or even hip, part of a masculine image.

Here’s Kanye West in pink (found here):

Here is a picture (found here) of the character Chuck Bass from the TV show “Gossip Girl”:

Huh. While looking for other examples for this post I came upon The Charming Dandy, which has the tagline “a feminine eye for every guy.” It gives advice about fashion, manners, decorating, and tips for grooms (I did not previously know the names for shawl, peak, and notch lapels). The things you discover.

Anyway, these pics could be useful for showing how our gender dichotomy (pink = girls, blue = boys) is actually a lot more contradictory, that there is nothing “natural” about associating pink with girls, and that we often change gender rules while failing to acknowledge this has any bigger implications for our entire system of dividing the world by gender.

Thanks to Abby for the image and post title!