gender

Anjan G. sent in an interesting pair of ads that ran as part of a Molson beer campaign in 2002/2003.  One appeared in Cosmo; it involves a man in a sweater cuddling with puppies and drinking a Molson.  It’s an example of an ad that glamorizes a soft and sensitive masculinity:

The other appeared in men’s magazines, including Playboy and FHM.  It tells readers, explicitly, that the first ad is designed to manipulate women into being sexually attracted to men who drink Molson:

The text is worth reading:

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN.
PRE-PROGRAMMED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE.

As you read this, women across America are reading something very different: an advertisement (fig. 1) scientifically formulated to enhance their perception of men who drink Molson. The ad shown below, currently running in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a perfectly tuned combination of words and images designed by trained professionals.  Women who are exposed to it experience a very positive feeling.  A feeling which they will later project directly onto you. Triggering the process is as simple as ordering a Molson Canadian (fig. 2).
…
Extravagent dinners.  Subtitled movies. Floral arrangements tied together with little pieces of hay. It gets old.  And it gets expensive, depleting funds that could go to a new set of of 20-inch rims. But thanks to the miracle of Twin Advertising Technology, you can achieve success without putting in any time or effort. So drop the bouquet and pick up a Molson Canadian…

The second ad, then, portrays men as lazy, shallow jerks who are just trying to get laid (not soft and sensitive at all).  And it portrays women as stupid and manipulable.

The two ads are a nice reminder that marketers count on their audiences being separate.  They can send each audience contradictory messages, confident that most women will never pick up Playboy and most men will never pick up Cosmo.  This is an assumption that marketers have long counted on. Miller Beer, for example, includes pro-gay advertising in magazines aimed at gay men, counting on the idea that heterosexual men, many of whom are homophobic, will never see that Miller markets itself as a gay beer.

So Molson was counting on women never seeing their ads in men’s magazines.  Alternatively, they were perfectly happy to alienate female customers.  Or maybe both.

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.

Adoption is a complicated system that both builds and separates families, frequently across lines of social privilege.  It involves ideas about who society believes should be parents and under what conditions we believe children should be raised.  And, as adoption becomes more open, it also becomes a lifelong process of constantly redefining family.  Unsurprisingly, most television representations fall short of representing adoption with the nuance it deserves. Many, such as Glee, Parenthood, 16 and Pregnant, and Teen Mom, present problematic portrayals of adoption.

ABC’s Once Upon a Time involves dual plotlines: one story evolving in fairytale-land, the other taking place in Storybrooke, Maine, where fairytale characters are trapped and unaware of their past identities.  While the series’ story arc is extremely complicated, suffice it to say that the main character is a birth mother, Emma, whose son was adopted by Regina.  Regina, is — quite literally — the Evil Queen, poised to do epic battle with Emma.  Regina actively threatens and insults Emma in her attempt to exclude her from their shared son’s life; Emma, who is presented as the hero, blatantly ignores Regina’s wishes and develops a secretive relationship with Henry:

The message is clear: birth and adoptive parents are opposing parties, with a child’s attachment to one serving as a threat to the other.  Representations such as these make open adoption, or any type of cooperative and supportive relationship between the parents, seem like such an oddity, even as it becomes more of the norm within adoption communities.

In the video, Regina presents Emma as an unfit mother who cavalierly “tossed him away,” leaving her to do the hard work of parenting. Her remark, “who knows what you’ve been doing,” further presents Emma as unfit, presumably living a lifestyle that precludes her from any claim as a loving mother.

However, on a more recent episode, Once Upon a Time delved into explored adoption from a bit of a different angle. Emma assisted a character who was being coerced into giving her child up for adoption. Despite the many layers and plot devices, this example is one of very few mainstream media representations of a manipulative adoption.  Ashley is told she can’t parent, that she shouldn’t parent, that her daughter would have a better life if someone else parented her; ultimately, she’s subjected to financial coercion. It’s left up to Emma — herself a birth mother — to convince Ashley that if she wants to parent, she should take control of her own life and do so.

So often adoption is represented purely as a joyful resolution, with a focus on a family being formed.  But the complex realities behind adoption can’t be ignored in favor of only considering the happy ending.  Ann Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade, shows how, before abortion was legal and single motherhood was visible, young, unmarried, pregnant women were subjected to the same manipulation and coercion that Ashley deals with on Once Upon a Time.  And these abuses aren’t just things of the past; even today many young women end up placing children for adoption because they simple can’t navigate through barriers like classism and sexism that set up adoption as a fundamental way to “redeem” herself for the “sin” of being unmarried and pregnant.

More nuanced portrayals of adoption could make viewers questions their presumptions about who birth mothers are, why they make the choices they do, and what their lives look like afterward, as well as how adoption can work.  Once Upon a Time, then, both gives and takes: it allows viewers to more carefully consider the power dynamics behind adoption, while at the same time clinging to old ideas of birth and adoptive parents in opposition.  These are challenges first mothers deal with every day: how do they do the work of openness in a world where their relationship with their child’s adoptive family is still viewed as suspect?  Forming a lifelong relationship with strangers and finding a balance of contact that meets everyone’s needs is complicated enough, without images everywhere portraying openness as, at best, an unnecessary oddity, and, at worst, a threat to the child or adoptive family.

How can birth and adoptive parents form beneficial relationships if we frame their interests as mutually exclusive, and consistently portray them as alternately undermining and being threatened by each other? While Once Upon a Time is far from the careful discussion adoption deserves, it does perhaps move us closer to a world where more productive dialogues around the issue are not a fairytale.

———-

Gretchen Sisson recently completed her doctorate at Boston College, and is currently working as an independent researcher and freelance writer. Her work focuses on the “right” to parenthood: who has it, why some don’t, and how society enforces its ideal of an acceptable pursuit of parenthood. To examine these questions, her qualitative research has examined couples pursuing infertility treatments, teen parents and teen pregnancy prevention frameworks, and parents who have placed (voluntarily or otherwise) infants for adoption.  For December and January, she’ll be writing on social class and inequality in popular culture for Bitch Magazine’s blog.  You can find her on Twitter @gesisson.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Well, folks, we’ve gotten enough submissions of gendered products that I decided it’s time for another round-up. To start off, way back in February Annie J., a librarian from Vancouver, sent us this ad she saw in a mall in Surrey, British Columbia, for Movado watches. The ad labels the man’s and woman’s watches with the characteristics supposedly appropriate for their wearers:

The bolded text for the man’s watch: man of many interests, manages risks, is strong and dependable, remains flexible, always has your back. Bolded text for the woman’s watch: a contemporary woman, loves a bit if mystery, knows exactly what she wants, craves a touch of luxury, gets what really matters.

From Carrie Brennan, we get a pair of gendered klompen, which were seen at Zandse Zaanse Schans, in the Netherlands:

The pink ones are emblazoned with the word lief, which translates as sweet or lovable; stoer, written on the blue ones, means tough or sturdy.

For all the women out there who have struggled with big ole regular-sized pens, you may be happy to know (via Dmitriy T.M., Monica C., and Katrin) that BIC has introduced a pen just for us! The BIC Cristal for Her, which is “reserved for women,” is thinner than regular pens so we can handle them better:

If the website is correct regarding availability, since I do not live in Europe, I must sadly muddle along with my giant, over-sized pen. Alas!

But there’s more! Maybe you’ve been needing a wrist brace, but you worry that it’ll make your wrist look bulky. Fear not! Lauren K. came across women-specific wrist braces:

As she explains at her blog, Diary of a Messy Lady, it promises a “slim silhouette” and has a “contoured fit tailored to the natural curves of a woman’s wrist and arm.” Because the definite distinction here is between men’s and women’s arms; in no way would it make sense that the major distinction might be, say “small” and “large” or something.

Another reader sent in a link to a truly essential cookbook, Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys: Recipes, Strategies, & Survival Techniques: Bringing Back the Family Meal, by Lucinda Scala Quinn:

According to the description on Amazon, the book includes “…winning strategies for how to sate the seemingly insatiable, trade food for talk, and get men to manage in the kitchen.” It is a relief to finally have a cookbook that specifically explains how to feed men and boys, since up until now men and boys  have largely gone hungry, with no one cooking them meals and regular cookbooks including recipes that only women and girls could digest. And how super awesome if, in return for being cooked just the right thing, a guy will “trade” some conversation with you!

David M. is a member of Historic Scotland, an organization that maintains a number of historic sites throughout Scotland. As a member, he receives a copy of their magazine. A while back, it came bundled with a catalog (posted at Flickr by Wish I Were Baking):

It’s for the website Presents for Men, a website dedicated to stocking a wide array of things it defines as male-specific, though there’s also a “gifts for girls” section. David was less than flattered by their perceptions of the preferences of men these days. Scrotum-shaped golf-ball holder, anyone?

Back in August, Helen L. went to the Coleman website to look at camping gear. She was greeted with a pop-up that made clear, in no uncertain terms, who they expect to be using, and inheriting, their lanterns:

Chelsea N. saw some laxatives just for women available at Rite Aid; other than being pink, it’s unclear what is gyno-specific about them:

In another case of truly pointless gendering, Grace W. was at Target shopping for body scrubbers; they may look to you like anyone could use them, but the tag under the bin said otherwise:

There were none at all available for men, sadly.

Finally, Jordan J. sent in an image of two onesies, previously available from Gymboree. Your options? You can be “smart like dad” or “pretty like mommy”:

They’re either sold out or they’ve been removed from the website.

This picture — a woman marked up for the plastic surgery she would require if she were to look like Barbie — captures in a moment what Dove’s Evolution video took over a minute to convey — the media images and fashion icons that we aspire to emulate are constructions.  Like billboard signs and magazine editorials, the pictures are manipulations that distort our sense of normal bodies.

We are trapped in a narcissistic world of images, where we must self-surveil our bodies with beauty as one of our primary goals.  We invest in and manipulate our bodies and engage in body regimes to cultivate our physiques, often towards unattainable goals of perfection.  We become subjects (in the Foucauldian sense) to our own projects of becoming, as we police ourselves and internalize a normalizing gaze.  The only way to achieve these kinds of bodies, like Barbie’s proportions in this image, is through dramatic, invasive cosmetic procedures.  Yet, we still labor over our bodies, continually trying to shape it in accords of dominant ideals.  We have forgotten (or simply ignored) that these kinds of bodies are fantastical images.

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.

Dolores R. sent us the newest message from associated with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).  Sponsored by both PETA and the Ministry of Waxing (a pubic-hair removal site), the ad features a fur-covered “wallet” (via Ms.):

I guess it’s just an ad for waxing your pubes, but the logic is so convoluted that I’m having a hard time getting my head around it.  The fur of slaughtered animals is gross/unethical, so you should shave off your public hair?  Pubic hair is gross and that’s how you know wearing animal fur is gross?  Shave your public hair as a token of your objection to wearing fur?  Skin yourself, not animals?

Or perhaps my problem is looking for a logic in the first place.

UPDATE 1: A reader sent in a clarification regarding the relationship between PETA and the Ministry of Waxing, one with its own sociological lessons about social movement organizations.  It appears that the Ministry has donated money to PETA for the privilege of using the “PETA Business Friend logo.”  While PETA has apparently made a deal with the Ministry of Waxing, they legally disclaim any responsibility for how their logo is used and it’s possible that they did not approve this ad.  Details on the program here.

UPDATE 2: Another reader, though, argues that the logo on the ad isn’t the “Business Friend” logo (see below), but the “real” PETA logo.  He links to a page on the PETA website where they endorse the program.  This reader writes:

…PETA isn’t somehow being used against their knowledge; they’re co-promoting it.  There’s no disclaimer, no weaseling out, no “we didn’t know about it”; this is 100% PETA-approved.

Also in PETA: women packaged like meat and imagined as meat, and in cages, women who love animals get naked (men wear clothes), the banned superbowl ad, and a collection of various PETA advertising using (mostly women’s) nudity.

See also our post on leftist balkanization, or the way that leftist social movements tend to undermine each other.

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 August 13 column in the Washington Times Communities section, Rebekah Kuschmider declares proudly, “So here’s the thing: I am not embarrassed about my stretch marks.” It’s a great message. Women should love their aging skin and reject the impossible Photoshop beauty standards that make us hate ourselves. Kuschmider describers herself as, not a Barbie Doll, but a “Velveteen Rabbit, so worn and loved that I’ve become real.”

Two curious images, however, accompany this story about a (presumably) wealthy white woman’s stretch marks. The two women pictured with Kuschmider’s column are actually a Thai woman from a village near Burma and an Indian laborer from the city of Diu (according to the Flickr pages from which the photos were captured). The old Thai woman’s face is a shrunken apple;  tattoos cover the younger Indian woman’s neck, and the whites of her eyes are yellowed from exposure to the sun. Both women are beautiful.

But why don’t we see, not to get too invasive here, the stretch marks of which Ms. Kuschmider is justifiably proud? Why do we instead see haunting portraits that seem to come straight off the pages of National Geographic? The underlying message from whoever chose these photos (the author? an online editor?) is that wrinkles look exotic on poor women whom privileged Americans love to gawk at. We don’t expect them to be attractive by our standards – they’re so lovely in their way, so tragic. But wealthier white women?

The image below is an advertisement for Essure, a sterilization procedure for women. It vividly illustrates the heterosexual male gaze in the marketing of birth control: the female observes his leisure experience, while their children play in the background. She sits upright, supporting his head as he lays with his eyes closed. The male’s need to avoid “worrying about unplanned pregnancy”, so he can relax and enjoy a day in the park, takes priority, despite the fact that this procedure permanently modifies the female’s body.

The following video uploaded by Essure offers a more blatant effort to use male perspectives in their marketing:

Using male fears about having their scrotums operated on, the appeal of female sterilization over vasectomies is made clear. “Let’s face it: when it comes to their balls, guys just don’t have any… Essure: because you can only wait so long for him to man up.” While the narrator is addressing potential female consumers, the gaze is again fixed on the (unwanted) male experience of sterilization.  Her experience of the surgical and emotional process of sterilization is erased, meanwhile indulging men’s fears is used as justification for forcing women to take responsibility for birth control.

TLC’s new reality program, Big Sexy, features five self-identified plus-size women who work in the fashion industry as models, stylists, and makeup artists. Their mission is to challenge contemporary bodily aesthetics that privilege the thin body and demonstrate that fat can be sexy.

In an interview for the Huffington Post, one of the featured women, Heather, explains, “You can be whatever size you want to be and work in the fashion industry.” However, as we see in this clip of Tiffany’s meeting with her modeling agent, that is not entirely the case. In the exchange, the agent informs Tiffany that a client wants her to lose weight and that “it’s a waste of time and money if the numbers are not right.” At her present size, Tiffany was dangerously close to exceeding the boundaries of plus-size required of models.

In modeling, an inch here or there does matter. In my research of plus-size modeling, I have witnessed other plus-size models, like Tiffany, face pressures from their agents to alter their bodies. These women, in order to work in fashion, must utilize their bodies as capital and embark on a variety of body projects. If their measurements are not in perfect proportion, some stick padding onto their hips, “chicken cutlets” onto their breasts, and squeeze themselves into a pair of Spanx. If a model loses weight, clients tell her to do whatever it takes to gain the weight back, even if that means binging on fat-laden foods that can wreak havoc on any individual’s body. Failure to do so would mean the end of her career.

Beauty is a social construction, but these women are not the ones in charge of its construction. Plus-size models must conform to an image created by fashion’s tastemakers, i.e., agents and designers. Ultimately, they must mold their bodies to fit an image, instead of being empowered in a way that allows them mold the image to fit their bodies. In this sense, they face the same pressures as thin models to be within a fraction of an inch of a shape predetermined by others to be acceptable.

Amanda M. Czerniawski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Temple University. She specializes in bodies and culture, gender and sexuality, and medical sociology.  Her past research projects involved the development of height and weight tables and the role of plus-size models in constructions of beauty.  Her current research focuses on the contested role of the body in contemporary feminist discourse.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.