Wanna get clear on the relationship between sex, gender identity, sexual and romantic orientation, sexual behavior, and gender role? Watch this video by the Vlog Brothers, sent in by Jeffrey B.:
UPDATE: Comments closed.
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’ve posted more than once, and gleefully, about the weird American habit we have of associating dogs with men and cats with women.
Well, Adrienne H. sent in a particularly humorous example: an advertising image from Pajamagram, featuring “hoodie-footies” for the entire family. They are color-coded — pink for girls, blue for boys — all the way down to the dog and cat.
So, there you have it; I’m not crazy after all.
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.
A while back, David Dismore posted about his archive of suffragist postcards, which appeared in the early 1900s as part of the campaign for women’s right to vote. The postcards got the messages of the movement across in short, clear, and often humorous ways.
Those opposed to women’s suffrage also used postcards to get their message out to the public. The Palczewski Postcard Archive at the University of Northern Iowa, sent to us by Katrin, has a number of great examples that illustrate the frames used to present women’s full political participation as threatening.
For instance, a 12-card series produced by Dunston-Weiler Lithographic Company presented suffrage as upending the gender order by masculinizing women and feminizing men. Suffragists, the postcards tell us, cause women to abandon their household duties and become aggressive and unladylike:
In an effort to win her own rights, then, women make their families suffer — a message complete with visuals that don’t seem out of place among stock images of crying babies and their working mothers today, as Katrin pointed out:
Equality in voting rights is clearly presented as female domination:
Postcards issued by other groups reflect these same themes. The clear message is that giving women the right to vote threatens men, the family, and the entire natural order of things:
The archive has a bunch more examples, categorized by various themes — including Cats and Suffrage, because lolcats are timeless.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
About a gazillion twitterers and three readers — Andi, Ria, and Jenna B. — have asked us to comment on the new Honda Fit She’s begin marketed in Japan. It’s a car. For ladies. It’s pink. It reduces wrinkles. The apostrophe in the logo is a little heart. Etc.
My only response to this is: “how very la femme!” Dodge La Femme that is.
The Dodge La Femme was sold for two years in the U.S. — 1955 and 1956 — and could be considered a fore mother to the She’s. We originally posted about it in 2007.
Here is some of the advertising:
Pictures of a restored La Femme from a fan website show that the car was indeed two-tone pink, with pink rosebud patterned upholstery, and a matching umbrella, raincoat, a compact, and coin purse.
One of the reasons that the La Femme didn’t sell was because women were, frankly, offended. Gender politics are different today, and they’re certainly different in Japan than they are in the U.S., so it’ll be fascinating to see how the She’s is received.
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.
Nate Silver, the statistics guru behind FiveThirtyEight, is predicting that the gender gap in tomorrow’s election will be “near historic highs.” According to Silver’s averaging of recent poll data, Obama has a 9-point lead among women, Romney has the same size lead among men.
Women haven’t always leaned Democratic. The trend started in the 1990s, as data at Mother Jones reveals:
Single women are especially likely to vote Democratic. Seventy percent voted for Obama in 2008:
A concern for reproductive rights, especially in light of recent Republican comments, are likely a big driver of women’s retreat from the political right. Their concerns very well may swing the election. In a poll of swing states, Gallup found that abortion topped the list of concerns for women; it didn’t make men’s top five:
It will be interesting to see how long the Republicans will hold onto positions unfriendly to women’s reproductive options.
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.
A few years back I posted an photograph of two costumes side-by-side: labeled “Beer Man” and “Beer Girl.” I wrote that the practice of using “man” alongside “girl” “reinforces a gender hierarchy by mapping it onto age.” We see this outside of a Halloween context too, like in this vintage ad for pens.
Sara P. found another example, this time from iparty. The flyer puts a girl and a boy side-by-side in police officer costumes. The boy’s is labeled “policeman” and the girl’s is labeled “police girl.”
This phenomenon is an example of just how mundane and ubiquitous gender messages can be.
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.
It’s officially a tradition. Here is our annual post featuring sexy costumes that we think are just… bizarre. When sexy “overtakes all reason,” you can sexualize just about anything.
Sexy snowy owl:
Sexy gnome:
Sexy macaw:
Sexy tootsie roll:
Sexy skunk:
Sexy Ernie(submitted by Chrissy Y.):
Sexy hamburger:
Sexy Chinese take-out:
Costumes from Party City, Halloween Express, and Yandy.
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.
Yesterday I posted about how “couples costumes” seemed to inevitably include a man and a woman. Since then I found one top listed online costume seller that doesn’t follow this heteronormative trend, PartyCity. While most are male/female, here are four of the couples costumes they feature:
Interestingly, I didn’t see any costumes for two women, which is consistent with the lesser visibility of lesbians relative to gay men (if, of course, that’s part of Party City’s logic for offering guy-guy costumes in the first place).
UPDATE: Sara P. found an online flyer for iparty that had both guy/guy and one girl/girl “double the fun” costumes:
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.
