history

One thing I do in my classes is show my students evidence that things that seem very individualistic and unique are often influenced by social patterns to a much higher degree than they’d think. I often bring up the example of baby names. On one level, it’s an extremely personal and individual-(family)-level decision: people pick names they like and that are meaningful to them, and many would deny that larger social influences had anything to do with what they named their child. And yet names come into and out of fashion quite abruptly among lots of people at the same time, indicating that either a whole lot of people somehow independently make the same decision or that there’s a social aspect to baby naming–so naming your baby “Isabel” might not be the totally unique, personal decision you thought.

Well, now I can quantify this. It turns out the Social Security Administration has this nifty little website where you can put in any year since 1880 and find out the most popular names (from the top 20 up to the top 1000) boys’ and girls’ names for that year, including percentages of babies born that year given each name.

Here are the top 10 names for boys and girls in 1916 and 2016.

From 1916:

From 2016:

Only 1 name (William) that was most popular in 1916 was still in the top 10 in 2016. There was also a lot more concentration in 1916 than in 2016. For boys, the top name in 1916 made up 5.4% of names, while in 2016 the most popular name was only 0.9% of all names. For girls it went from 5.7% to 1.0% (I rounded all percentages to the nearest tenth of a percent). Also, in the past there was more clumping in boys’ names than girls’ names, though this is no longer the case. So in addition to just pointing out that preference for names has changed over time, it might be interesting to discuss the increasing emphasis in our culture on trying to have a “unique” name for kids that express their personality, so that there is more diversity in kids’ names today than in the past, and why until recently this was more true for girls than boys.

Jay L. provided a link to this neato site where you can type in any name and get an immediate graphic of its frequency per million babies. Totally addicting!

NEW: Abby sent in a link to Freakonomics Watch with the following explanation:

The other day a friend of mine said he was reading Freakonomics and there is a chapter on baby naming…the chapter presents a theory for how baby names become popular. People of higher education and socioeconomic status tend to seek out unusual names for their babies, which are then increasingly adopted by the masses.  Once the names become popular, cultural elites seek out a new batch of unusual names, and so on.  Based on this theory, the book gives a list of names that they predict will be popular by 2015.

You can find a table tracking the popularity of the Freakonomics predictions here. Abby was embarrassed to see that her 3-month-old son’s name is on the list.

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

In his book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (2005; New York: Touchstone), James Loewen discusses cities that had a “no Blacks after dark” policy. They were called “sundown towns” because African Americans were actively informed that they should be out of town by sundown; if not, they were subject to arrest or violence. Of course, the purpose of these regulations was to keep Blacks from settling permanently in these towns. If they couldn’t be in town limits after dark, they clearly couldn’t live there. Here is an example of a sundown town: this ad encouraging people to move to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, says, over in the lower right corner, “No Malaria, No Mosquitoes, No Negroes.”

Found here.

NOTE: As Mr. Loewen pointed out in a comment, I had originally said he discussed “cities in the South,” as though that was all his book concentrated on. That was poor wording on my part, as I had been reading the sections of the book that covered some areas in the South I was specifically interested in (particularly Oklahoma). I did not mean to imply that sundown towns existed only in the South or that Mr. Loewen only discusses the South.

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!

Hmmm… which Midol ad will you hate/love the most?

This one is from the 1960s (found here via Pam’s House Blend):

This one is from the 1990s (found at Feministing):

This is a brand new ad campaign from Midol (found at MultiCultClassics).  The text says “Reverse the Curse!”  The curse, of course, being women’s punishment for original sin. 

I found most these images at Photo Basement, but all were originally posted at The November Coalition’s Random History of Alcohol Prohibition page.

“Good for the engine, but not for the engineer. Good for commercial purposes, but not as a beverage.”

The white man’s burden isn’t infantile non-whites in need of oversight, it’s saloons.

Connecting drinking alcohol with nationalism and the downfall of America.

Again, being anti-alcohol is patriotic.

Do you love drink more than you love your children? Or America?

But we see many of the same themes in the anti-Prohibition campaign:

So now if you love your kids and want them (and, implicitly, America) to be secure, you’ll repeal Prohibition.

“Protect our youth. Stamp out Prohibition. Love our children.”

At first I wasn’t sure if this was pro- or anti-Prohibition (asking people to vote to repeal it, or to overturn the repeal). But according to this history of Prohibition, Democrats came out with a “wet” (anti-Prohibition) platform as a way of drawing “ethnic” (i.e., European immigrant) and working class votes. So the message here is that we need to protect our children (and wives?) from the hordes of gangsters and bootleggers who emerged because of Prohibition, and their way to do this is to vote Democratic.

Thanks for the tip, Miguel!

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

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: I am reposting this because I want to make clear that a couple of things that people picked up on in the comments are MY mistakes/confusing wording, not Jackson Katz’s. First, in regards to the Rambo movies, I was confusing Rambo:First Blood Par I, which came out in 1982, with Rambo:First Blood Part II, which came out in 1985, which is what Katz is quoting in the movie. I just googled the movie to find the year it came out and didn’t notice it was for Part I, not Part II. I have corrected that below.

As for the Terminator image, that is entirely my fault. I could not find the exact image Katz used in the documentary, though I searched for quite a while. I just put up an image I meant to be representative of both Terminator movies, and the one I used, as the commenters point ou, was not a good example of what I was saying. Since I can’t find the image Katz used, I have taken the Terminator image out of the post.

I just wanted to a) correct those two things and b) make it clear that they were my mistakes, not Katz’s.

*****

In the documentary Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity, Jackson Katz discusses how images of masculinity in pop culture have changed over time, and particularly how in the 1980s and 1990s images of male heroes got larger and more menacing, as well as hyper-violent. He uses Humphrey Bogart, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as examples. I’m basing my discussion of the images from movies on Katz’s analysis.

In this image of Humphrey Bogart (found here) in The Maltese Falcon (1941), his gun is very small compared to his body. His body language is not particularly imposing or threatening. Keep in mind this was during World War II (though the U.S. had not joined yet) and that machine guns had been invented during the Civil War. So Humphrey Bogart conceivably could have been shown holding some sort of automatic weapon instead of a small handgun.

Then we have Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, from 1971 (found here). The gun has gotten much bigger and the body posture a bit more threatening.

And in 1985 we get Rambo:First Blood Part II (found here), a military revenge fantasy in which a Vietnam vet gets to finish the war the U.S. military wasn’t “allowed” to win, presumably because of weak, feminized elements that controlled the government. Stallone’s body is huge and muscular, and the gun has gotten larger and more deadly.

Katz attributes these changes in images of masculinity to a growing concern in U.S. culture that we are somehow being “feminized” and becoming weak. He argues that the loss in Vietnam (or lack of an outright win, if you prefer) as well as political and economic gains by women and non-whites caused a cultural panic about the status of white men. As these men were supposedly losing power and status in everyday life, cultural images of them emphasized strength, power, and aggression as a version of ideal masculinity.

Here is a clip from Tough Guise:

And here’s a clip that takes the Tough Guise intro but adds some other images:

I was thinking about this because when I was in Oklahoma, I was around a lot of trucks, and specifically, a lot of old farm trucks. And one day when I was standing next to an old Dodge Ram, it hit me how much less…I don’t know…imposing it was than newer trucks. It seemed like a cute little toy truck. Here’s a picture of a 1985 Dodge Ram (found here):

The 2005 version of the Dodge Ram (found here):

Looking at my family’s old farm trucks (and we’ve got a collection of rotting, rusting trucks dating from the 1950s on; I did not post pictures of our trucks because my grandma would kill me for exposing our farm junkiness to the world), I kept thinking, “We used to haul cattle with that?” or “That was considered sufficiently masculine at one point?” And the answer is, yes. Yes, they were.

Now, I’m certain that a lot of the redesigns had to do with advances in safety and efforts to improve fuel efficiency (by making the truck body more rounded, for instance). But there also seems to be a pattern in trucks today to design their headlights and grills to look sort of “mean,” if you will–like they’re snarling or growling.

I’m not necessarily saying there’s a connection between Katz’s work and the way trucks have been redesigned to look meaner and more aggressive…but it just got me thinking.

Of course, as a farm kid, what strikes me about trucks is the way the newer designs make them less functional for the types of things you see people doing in truck ads. While the cabs have gotten larger, making room for more passengers (that is, more like a car), the beds have gotten smaller, so you can’t carry as much (or as long of) stuff in them–and carrying stuff in the back is what you supposedly need a truck for. Yes, you can still stick more stuff in the back of, say, a new Dodge Ram than in a lot of cars, but I’m just sayin’. (Also, you’d be shocked at how much stuff I can get in the back of a Honda Civic if I lay the seat down and am really motivated. And my mom once brought a 130-pound calf home in the backseat of a car–I had the fun job of trying to keep him from attempting to crawl into the front. And we had a woman in my hometown who used to haul pigs around in the backseat of her Caddy.) A lot of things we used to haul around in the back of our trucks wouldn’t fit in the beds of new trucks, or you couldn’t fit nearly as much of them. And of course the majority of people who buy trucks for their big motors aren’t doing the types of things (driving through extremely rocky or muddy country, hauling trailers full of cattle, etc.) that require such a huge motor in the first place. So why not just buy a car?

Just some thoughts that struck me while hanging out on the farm.

On-the-road post from Flagstaff, AZ:

The other day I was standing in a salon and noticed some styling products by Redken for Men. I realized they provide an excellent example of how, when companies try to convince men to buy things traditionally reserved for women (and thus marked feminine), they have to masculinize them. This is particularly true when it comes to beauty products, since men aren’t supposed to worry about things like their skin.

On the Redken website, the products are described as, “Focused technology for stronger hair and balanced scalp.” I’m not sure I’ve ever bought mousse or shampoo described to me as technology before. Notice how the names of these styling products attempt to make them seem manly:

Grip Tight gel.

Men maneuver things, like high-end cars and power tools. And their hair.

Don’t take dandruff lying down! Retaliate!

Tough = masculine.

Men work hard. So does their molding paste.

Bulk Up!

Be smarter and sportier than your hair.

Redken for Men’s gray-hair-covering service is not dye, it’s Color Camo.

It might be useful to compare images of products like these with this verse from the currently-popular country song “I’m Still a Guy,” by Brad Paisley:

These days there’s dudes getting facials
Manicured waxed and botoxed
But with deep spray on tans and creamy lotioney hands
You can’t grip a tackle box
With all of these men lining up to get neutered
It’s hip now to be feminized I don’t highlight my hair
I’ve still got a pair
Yeah, honey I’m still a guy

My eyebrows ain’t plucked
Theres a gun in my truck
Thank God I’m still a guy

I’ve driven from Vegas to Oklahoma and nearly back in the last 10 days. I’ve heard this song several times now.

Anyway, this could be good for a discussion of changing ideals of masculinity (and the idea of the metrosexual) or the gendering of products into men’s and women’s versions even though they’re really the same.

See also Touch of Gray hair dye and another set of beauty products for men.

In the comments, pharmacopaeia mentioned that the New Zealand salon Manscape caters to men and has to work to masculinize its services and products (starting with the name, obviously). Their tagline is “taking the ape out of the modern man.” They also offer clients cold beers while they get beautified. They offer a sports massage, “perfect for pre and post event training.” They reassure men about the eyebrow maintenance service by saying “Shape & tidy – there’s nothing girly about this!” The manicure (Man-I-Cure) is called Handy Work, and the pedicure is described as “manly.”

Thanks for letting us know, p.!

NEW: Here’s another example I found in Rolling Stone, which tells men to take charge of their hair:

Pro- and anti-natal policies are those that encourage and discourage childbearing respectively.  There’s an excellent article in the New York Times today about pro-natal efforts in Europe.  The population is falling there due to a low birth rate.

One of the things they mentioned in the article was the Third Reich “Mother’s Cross” (I found this one here).  Women who had four children were awarded a bronze medal, women who had six a silver, and women who had eight a gold. (This was a eugenic strategy, of course; an effort to increase the birthrate for pure, white people.) 

I think one of the most fascinating things about this medal is not so much the pro-natal, or even eugenic story, but the explicit linking of military service with motherhood.  There are plenty of good arguments to make that being a mother is a service to the nation just like military service.  After all, as is recognized in Europe, if women stop having babies, eventually there will be no nation at all.  Also, being a mother involves sacrificing yourself, taking time out of the labor force and, indeed, risking your life and health.  (Ann Crittenden makes this argument in The Price of Motherhood.)  Of course, in the U.S. we don’t value motherhood the way we value military service.   And, sigh, we are awarded no medals for bringing new human beings into existence.  We do, however, have pro-natalist policy.  The fact that we get a tax write-off for every child we have is a direct economic incentive to reproduce.