{"id":42083,"date":"2011-12-16T12:40:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T17:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=42083"},"modified":"2013-11-09T04:52:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T09:52:47","slug":"baby-lips-thanks-for-the-infantilization-maybelline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/12\/16\/baby-lips-thanks-for-the-infantilization-maybelline\/","title":{"rendered":"“Baby Lips”: Thanks for the Infantilization, Maybelline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Maybelline’s brand of lip gloss, “baby lips,” is a straightforward example of the infantilization of adult women:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We should be worried about the infantilization of women for two reasons:<\/p>\n

First, it’s directly related to the sexualization of young girls. \u00a0The two phenomena, when considered together, clearly point to the convergence of female children and adult sexuality<\/em>. \u00a0As I wrote in a previous post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

…on the one hand, women are portrayed as little girls, as coyly innocent, as lacking in power and maturity. On the other hand, child-likeness is sexy, and girls are portrayed as Lolitas whose innocence is questionable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Second, the need for women to look like babies to be beautiful (and the requirement for women to be beautiful), turns aging into a trauma for women. \u00a0Susan Sontag, in her (truly beautiful) essay\u00a0The Double Standard of Aging<\/a>, put it this way:<\/p>\n

The great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man… A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another…<\/p>\n

There is no equivalent of this second standard for women. The single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. Every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A very lucrative defeat for Maybelline, if we buy into it.<\/p>\n

More of the quote at a previous post<\/a>. \u00a0And, for more on the infantilization of women, see our posts on baby teeth<\/a>,\u00a0lady spanking<\/a>,\u00a0Glee<\/a>,\u00a0this collection of examples<\/a>, a\u00a0vintage example<\/a>, and\u00a0the Halloween edition<\/a>.\u00a0Link via BagNewsNotes<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms. Maybelline’s brand of lip gloss, “baby lips,” is a straightforward example of the infantilization of adult women: We should be worried about the infantilization of women for two reasons: First, it’s directly related to the sexualization of young girls. \u00a0The two phenomena, when considered together, clearly point to the convergence of female […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,55,2089,778,23703],"class_list":["post-42083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-gender","tag-gender-beauty","tag-intersectionality","tag-marketing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42083"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58569,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42083\/revisions\/58569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}