{"id":56717,"date":"2013-08-13T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56717"},"modified":"2013-08-09T23:48:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T04:48:53","slug":"ripleys-still-portraying-giraffe-necked-women-as-oddities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/08\/13\/ripleys-still-portraying-giraffe-necked-women-as-oddities\/","title":{"rendered":"Ripley’s Portrays “Giraffe-Necked Women” as Oddity in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month I enjoyed a lovely week with my mother<\/a> and step-father, during which we drove down to Key West, FL. \u00a0Flipping through the tourist book in the hotel, I was surprised to see this:<\/p>\n

\"20130805_165653\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been writing for Sociological Image for over six years now and, as a result, it takes a lot to shock me. \u00a0Well, you got me, Ripley’s! \u00a0I did not know that we were still marketing racial or ethnic others as “oddities.” \u00a0At least not this blatantly.<\/p>\n

The women who have historically practiced this neck lengthening illusion (what you are seeing is a depressed collar bone, not a longer neck) are a Burmese ethnic minority called Kayan or Padaung. \u00a0As late as the early 1900s, Europeans and Americans were kidnapping “Giraffe-necked women” and forcing them to be exhibits in zoos and circuses. \u00a0Promotional materials from that era look similar<\/a>. Here’s an example:<\/p>\n

\"114\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By the way, Kayan women weren’t the only humans kept in zoos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I knew that Westerners still\u00a0traveled to the communities where Kayan people live<\/a> to see them “in their natural habitat” (sarcasm) and I’ve argued previously that this is a case of racial objectification<\/a>. \u00a0I had no idea, however, that we still featured them as grotesque curiosities. \u00a0Ripley’s Believe It or Not!: “Proudly freaking out families for over 90 years.” Taking that tradition thing really seriously, I guess.<\/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":"

This month I enjoyed a lovely week with my mother and step-father, during which we drove down to Key West, FL. \u00a0Flipping through the tourist book in the hotel, I was surprised to see this: I’ve been writing for Sociological Image for over six years now and, as a result, it takes a lot to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":56725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,279,232,253,23703,701,3874,3920,283,285,20063,1757],"class_list":["post-56717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-objectification","tag-cultural-imperialismneocolonialism","tag-history","tag-marketing","tag-modernprimitive","tag-nation-myanmarburma","tag-nation-united-states","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/08\/Screenshot_113.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56717","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=56717"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56724,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56717\/revisions\/56724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}