discourse/language

Abby K. sent me a link to this New York Times article about the August issue of Vogue India. The issue has sparked controversy because of a fashion spread that shows poor Indians modeling extremely expensive brand-name accessories, such as this child modeling a Fendi bib that costs around $100 while being held by a woman prominently missing teeth:

Or this one of a barefoot man, also missing teeth, holding a Burberry umbrella that costs about $200:

From the article:

Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s message to critics of the August shoot: “Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview. Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said.

I’m not sure where to even begin with this one. The objectification of the poor, who are used as props in a fashion magazine aimed at people very different from them? The oblivious discussion of the “power of fashion,” while ignoring the issue of how much these luxury items cost relative to average incomes in India? I’m especially struck by the way that the inability to spend $200 on an umbrella is no longer seen as a privilege because “anyone” can “carry it off”; it’s not about having $200 extra dollars, it’s about having the mindset to know you can carry these items and won’t make them look ugly or tacky, apparently. There’s a complete denial of privilege and power having anything to do with wealth,  social stratification, or any inequality more consequential than some people maybe worrying that they won’t “make” fashion “look beautiful” (which in and of itself is an interesting idea–it’s not whether the fashion items make you look beautiful, it’s what you do for them).

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

In the contemporary U.S., the feminist movement has been so thoroughly intertwined with the pro-choice movement that the rhetoric of choice has become a common way to talk, more generally, about women’s liberation.  And women’s liberation, as we have demonstrated (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), is frequently co-opted for the purposes of selling women all sorts of products (including those in decided conflict with mainstream feminism, like this one and this one).

A reader, Tracy in Canada, saw these ads at Sears.  In them, the phrase “the right to choose” is used to invoke feminist ideals and applied to the right to select a “gift adapted to your beauty concerns.”

NEW! (Nov. ’09): Kristyn G. sent in this commercial for a cable company in India that also co-opts the right to choose…in this case, the right to choose her own husband:

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 took these pictures of a flyer and a banner for “Ladies Night” at Tenders Lounge in Goose Bay – Happy Valley, Canada.  I noticed that the word “Ladies” did not include an apostrophe: it’s “Ladies Night,” not “Ladies’ Night.”  That is, it is advertised as a night of ladies, not a night for ladies.  To put it more bluntly, the ladies are not guests, they’re bait.

(That’s Steve.  It was not, in fact, Ladies Night and I asked him to look disappointed.  He is worried that you will think he was really disappointed.  I assure you, he was not.)

I am wondering if this is typical or unusual.  Readers, feel free to send in pictures of advertising for Ladies(‘) Nights.  I’m curious what we’ll find!

Today I saw an interesting talk about public reaction to the Humane Society (HSUS) video of cruel treatment of cattle at the Westland/Hallmark slaughterhouse in Chino, California. As you may recall, someone from the Humane Society took a job at the plant and secretly videotaped the practices there for about four months. In late January, 2008, HSUS released the video. Here is a video from the HSUS website that shows images from the original video footage (and yes, it’s a disturbing video, even by my Oklahoma-ranch-raised standards):

The talk I saw today, titled “Westland/Hallmark: When You Don’t Care Enough to Send the Very Best,” by David Holt and Michelle R. Worosz (presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society in Manchester, NH) provided an interesting analysis of how issues get framed in the public. The HSUS undertook this investigation, and released the video, primarily because of concerns about animal cruelty and the mistreatment of cattle, particularly those that could not stand or move on their own.

But as sociologists studying framing and social movements have often noted, once an issue gets out there, organizations can’t control what the public, lawmakers, or the media will make of it, and this case is a good example. Once the news broke, what came to the forefront were food safety issues, particularly the idea that so-called “downer cows” (that is, cows that can’t stand or walk on their own) might have made it into the food supply. Downer cows are a concern because of the (very small) risk that they might be suffering neurological damage from BSE, or Mad Cow disease. After an outcry several years ago downer cows were barred from human consumption, but back in 2007 the USDA quietly relaxed the standards so that downer cows can be slaughtered for human consumption if a Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinarian inspects and passes them.

Anyway, it turns out that this particular meat processor was a major supplier of beef to the nation’s school lunch program. This exacerbated concerns about the (remote) possibility of BSE-infected meat getting into the food supply. And that quickly overwhelmed the animal-cruelty concerns that had motivated the HSUS investigation in the first place. The Congressional hearings and (superficial) changes to processing practices that occurred as a result of the video focused primarily on improving food safety, with little discussion of how animals bound for slaughter are, or should be, treated.

It reminded me of how Upton Sinclair said that, when he wrote The Jungle, that he “aimed for the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,” meaning that he’d meant to bring attention to the horrific conditions immigrant workers faced at work but what the public outcry centered on was the idea of rats in their meat.

I thought this might be a good example of how activists try to frame issues but have incomplete control of the framing process once it enters the public domain and may find that media depictions and public discussions of the issue take a very different path than they would have liked.

This is why Gwen was pessimistic about the New Yorker cover.  Another product sold at the Texas Republican Convention:

Also sold at the Texas Republican Convention: If Obama is President… Will We Still Call it the Whitehouse?

Found here via Copyranter.

Melissa at Shakesville has captured these examples of Reuter’s “Odd News” lists (see here).  She collects instances of:

…the wire services’ insistence on trivializing women’s lives, actions, experiences, and issues by categorizing as “Odd News” stories about the mistreatment of women, or stories about women that aren’t “odd” in any way aside from the fact that there’s a women at their centers.

A woman kidnapped for rejecting a man and sexualized prison politics.  How odd!

A woman was violent; another was sexually assaulted.  Women should have the right to nourish the next generation?  How odd!

Women are abused and a desperate girl is given away in a poker game.  Jealous husbands shouldn’t be allowed to do illegal things.  How odd! 

Rape, how odd!

Found at Vintage Ads (date not specified).

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.