Both (here and here) at Found in Mom’s Basement.
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.
Consider this a catch-all post showing the many ways in which marketers use the excuse of gift-giving to reinforce gender stereotypes.
Exhibit One: Katrin sent along this example from Zazzle. She writes:
The gift guide section is great… Men fish, hunt, are tech nerds, BBQ kings, and are in the military. And, if you really have to, there is a “Metro Man gift” section as well. Women are animal lovers, spiritual, environmentalist, interior designers, teachers, brides, sorority members AND they “support the troops” as military wives. Of course THEY are NOT soldiers. Just like men cannot be married to and much less, support, a woman in the military. The only thing men and women have in common? The 80s.
Exhibit Two: Keely W. sent along this delightful gift suggestion. Moms, need a gift that costs just a little but seriously pays off? Buy your daughter these eyebrow tweezers! They’ll make for hours of wonderful mother-daughter time! Here’s to the intergenerational transfer of patriarchal beauty standards!
Exhibit Three: Maggie G. sent in these screen shots from the Lego website. First, notice that, just as with the dinosaur website we posted about recently, legos are assumed to be for boys, unless they are specifically for girls. The girls category in the bottom row makes all the other categories, by default, for boys:
If you click on girls, you get two options, Belville and Preschool:
Here’s what the Belville sets look like (all pink with horsies, puppies, and fairies!):
Legos aimed at younger kids are, I guess, gender-neutral… which is consistent with the increasingly pressure to gender-differentiate as kids get older:
Got any more gendered x-mas guides? Send them in and I’ll start a post for next year.
See also this post on gendered gift-giving guides.
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.
This ad, found in Town and Country, features a man battling “a gift list of frightful aspect.”
Text:
THE FABLE OF THE GENEROUS GENT AND THE LOATHSOME LIST.
Once a generous sir, beset by a gift list of frightful aspect, vanquished the beast with one fell stroke of genuis in a quest triumphant at The Forum Shops.
It draws attention to what many of us feel, few of us say, and very, very few advertisers would emphasize: the gift giving mandate associated with Christmas (and, to a lesser degree, other U.S. holidays) can be an incredible emotional and financial burden, as well as a time suck. I have no doubt that expressing dissatisfaction regarding gift giving is more acceptable, in general, for men than women (despite the fact that women do the majority of holiday-related chores). Thus, it’s no accident that this ad is aimed at men.
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.
About a year ago, Gwen posted about the evolution of the Sun-Maid, the young spokeswoman for Sun-Maid raisins:
In her post, she asked: “I wonder if Sun-Maid has stayed with the de-sexualized icon because raisins are associated with children?”
Well, Gwen, I’m afraid you spoke too soon. Here, via Jezebel, is the new Sun Maid:
Noticably slimmer and with more form-fitting clothes, this new Sun Maid is clearly not hyper-sexualized, but it’s a move in that direction.
Here’s a commercial in which, building on her increasing sexualization and objectification, she turns into a Hollywood celebrity for a sec:
I think–considering also the recent makeovers of Dora the Explorer, Holly Hobbie, and Strawberry Shortcake–we can officially call this a trend.
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.
Joshua B. (of Jack-Booted Liberal) let us know about a post at Make about alternative toy warning labels they’d like to see. Dale Dougherty says,
…American kids are raised in an overly cautious manner, out of fear that they might get hurt, and we are limiting their ability to explore a wider range of experience.
The proposed warning labels:
The labels highlight the fact that we worry about some threats to children but not others, and also the way that the potential dangers of toys are often exaggerated (“Studies have shown that these toys…produce uniformly underperforming children who later become credit card abusers.”).
Not that I advocate letting your kid play with a plastic bag. But a giant appliance box with some catalogs to cut pictures out of and glue on as decoration? Best. Toy. Ever.
Also check out our post on the commercialization of childhood.
In my Power and Sexuality class, I sometimes assign articles from a book called Whores and Other Feminists. All of the essays are written by current and former sex workers who identify as feminist. It’s pretty fascinating.
Some of the phone sex operators talk about what they do while having “phone sex,” like chores and booking airline tickets and whathaveyou. It really demystifies the industry.
As do the photographs by Phillip Toledano, sent in by Phillip B.
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.
Nora H. sent in this excellent example of how advertisers gender chores. The ad goes through how generations and generations of women have done laundry.
For more examples, see these: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,.
See also our posts about how funny it is when men do housework: one, two, here, and three.
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.
Perhaps bored, certainly creative, fi5e at ni9e tore all of the faces out of the SkyMall magazine and arranged them on her tray by race and gender.
Here’s what it looks like by gender:
By race:
So women outnumbered men significantly and the magazine included almost exclusively white (appearing) people.
She also arranged them by size and hair color, if you want to check it out.
Thanks to Macon D for pointing to this post in a comments thread!
—————————
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
