feminist blogs

Liz B. sent in a screen shot and some commentary.  She did such a nice job explaining that I’m just going to let her do it:

I’m an undergraduate student at a Big Ten school, and today I was perusing the course tracking website that gives students access to their grades, their homework etc. One of the features is that you can change the “theme” of the site… I came across the “physiology and anatomy” theme…

What struck me was not that they had a physiological representation of both sexes, but by how gendered their stances are. The man stands straight, looking ahead, even weight distribution. The female form is almost classically passive, hands held behind her back, weight distribution uneven.

Close up:

Liz continues:

Its striking that these notions about gendered bodies are inserted into even seemingly scientifically oriented things. Its a fair assumption that the designers for the site intended this theme for those who are participating in an anatomically related major, people who are being (or should be) trained to view the body, sans socially constructed gender norms. Yet, here, we see a prime example of gender presentation used in a scientific context… [A]re our doctors and scientists being instilled with these kinds of images throughout their academic lives? If so, its no small wonder why there are doctors and scientists who lend credibility to gender norms by operating on them as if they are nature, or why many people view gender as so fatalistically natural.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

YetAnotherGirl and Anna D. let us know about the new Mad Men Barbies; for $75 each you can get dolls representing several members of the cast (from The Consumerist):

Several critics have pointed out the way that the Joan Barbie differs from the character Joan (played by Christina Hendricks, image from People):

So here we have a Barbie that is not being produced for the mass market, and presumably not for girls to play with in the way they do other Barbies. I doubt the usual constraints on what a Barbie can be like apply–the need to fit existing Barbie accessories such as clothing, cars, and so on. I assume the target is collectors. Mattel deviated from the “normal” Barbie mold in terms of the faces, the color of the plastic, the hair, and the position of the hands. And yet the character still has to be significantly slenderized to meet the general Barbie ideal.

The Roger Sterling doll seems to be quite a bit more imposingly broad-shouldered that the character too, if you ask me. The dolls in general reinforce the idea that male bodies are significantly larger—taller, broader—than women’s bodies are.

The Mad Men fans out there will be sad to hear that no martini glass or cigarettes come with the dolls.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

The Marital Bliss Bar, sent in by Chenoa A.:

The description of the candy bar at the source says:

Here’s a sweet way for “soon-to-be-married” or “brand-new” grooms to get used to the fact that they’ll have to re-learn how to calculate percentages once married….talk about new math!

So, just to be clear, the narrative is:

Guys… in marriage, women get more; getting used to it is the only way you’re going to be happy.

Turns out the data suggest otherwise.  The following things are true, on average:

1.  Married men are happier than unmarried men.  But the opposite is true for women.  Unmarried women are happier than married women.

2.  Women are more likely to file for divorce than men and, after divorce, women are happier, while men are less happy.

And yet, time and again, we’re told that getting men hate the idea of getting married and are wives are such a drag (see here and here for examples).

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One of the reasons, by the way, that women are less happy in marriage is because they do a disproportionate amount of housework and childcare.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Dmitriy T.M. sent in this graph from CNN (found at Gawker) using info from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,  rating the “best” jobs in America:

I zoomed in so you can read the chart better. The second line under each icon tells you what job sector the BLS categorizes it as and the total number of jobs. On the third line, the salary in regular font on the left is the median salary for that job, while the salary in bold in the right is the highest reported salary. The colored icons represent different things (i.e., highest overall median salary) that aren’t as interesting, at least to me, as the other info:

Labor force broken down by sex and race/ethnicity (notice that the numbers are in 1000s, so there are actually 66,208,000 women in the workforce and so on):

I calculated the percentages of each race/ethnicity by sex and noticed a few differences. Here are the % of the workforce that falls into each racial/ethnic category, broken down by sex (sorry if the formatting’s showing up all weird):

Whites:                              Women = 80.6         Men = 83.7

African Americans:            Women = 12.4          Men = 9.3

Hispanics:                        Women = 12.1          Men = 15.8

Asians:                              Women = 4.7            Men = 4.8

So we see differences between men and women for every group except Asians. Notice that African Americans stand out as the only group where women make up a larger proportion of the workforce than men do. I know I’ve read things suggesting that African American men face a tougher job market than African American women do because of negative stereotypes (they’re angry, they don’t work hard, they don’t interact with customers well), leading to more discrimination against Black men than Black women (who clearly also face job discrimination). Other explanations?

And of course, we always have to remember that BLS data is based on official job reporting; off-the-books or informal employment, which some groups are likely overrepresented in, aren’t included.

And notice that in the sex/ethnicity breakdown, we see two icons, one clearly marked as female and the other as male, but in the rest of the chart, where sex is not explicitly discussed, all of the icons are the male version. Just another example of using male icons as “neutral” and female icons only when discussing sex/gender specifically.

Related posts: sex  and starting salaries of college grads, joblessness by race/age/sex/education, more on joblessness, race, and education, men in “good” jobs by race, race and the economic downturn, changes in type of work over time, gender and the wage gap, trends in academic employment, science/engineering Ph.D.s for women and minorities, changes in compensation by job sector, more on the male/female wage gap, gender and the recession, gendering jobs, do immigrants work harder?, and the post-industrial economy.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

This Dove deodorant commercial, sent in by Emma H., is a nice, simple example of how women are taught that certain feminine performances are required.  In the commercial, the woman wants to wear a sleeveless dress. Her comment is followed by the following text:

Emphasis on “has” and “of course,” of course.

Watch it:

This is the same Dove, of course, that markets itself with the “real beauty” campaign and is owned by the same company as Axe.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Reader Clifford McC. and his (female) partner both receive Bicycling magazine (which, he explains, is more of a free advertisement that they get whether they want to or not).  In any case, this month’s issue was the 2010 Buyer’s Guide and, though the issues each received were identical, the one addressed to his partner was stickered:

The sticker read, “BONUS! SPECIAL WOMEN’S SECTION.”

Perhaps they were trying to be inclusive, but a sticker advertising a special women’s section just goes to show that the magazine is, first-and-foremost, for men.

For the same phenomenon elsewhere, see our posts featuring websites selling dinosaur toys and Legos (see “exhibit three”), each with a special section for girls.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

From the New York Times (link via this ain’t livin’):

The upper house of India’s Parliament passed a bill Tuesday that would amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of the seats in India’s national and state legislatures for women, after the measure stirred two days of political chaos that could whittle the governing coalition’s majority to a dangerously thin margin.
[...]
Tuesday’s vote was the first of four hurdles the measure must clear. The lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, must pass the bill, then the proposed amendment will need to win approval from at least half of India’s state legislatures. Then India’s president, a largely ceremonial post, must sign off.

Click through for some context and criticisms of the bill, for instance there’s concern ‘that it will favor wealthy upper-caste women at the expense of the lower castes and Muslims’.

The Indian Express provides some regional and international context. They also have an article on latest UNDP report, which suggests that ‘that quotas for women-held seats in political bodies can be “effective” and are “necessary” for overall growth.’ And here’s an article at the Hindistan Times that is well worth a read. cim from Refusing the default has an analysis of how quotas work and might work in various political systems, jumping off from the criticism mentioned above.

Dmitriy T.M., Christina W., Kelly V., and George asked us to comment on Vajazzling. Dmitriy, who sent in the video link, said he was too frightened to press play, but I am very brave and now I know what vajazzling really is! It’s hard to know because the term “vajayjay” is, um, who knows what that word means… and the term “vagina” (which actually refers to what is otherwise known as the birth canal) is now used to mean the vulva and, apparently, anything within 12 inches of it.

In any case, the video below, in which a woman documents the vajazzling of her “vagina,” reveals that the term refers to the placing of a field of tiny crystals where your public hair would be. So, you essentially replace your pubic hair with shiny objects.

So, brave souls who pressed play, sociologically analyze away.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

If you’re interested, I wrote a piece for The Daily Mirror about my recent trip to the LAPD’s “Behind the Scenes” exhibit here in Vegas (which got a lot of media attention when the Kennedy family protested the inclusion of bloody clothing from Robert Kennedy’s shooting). My friend Larry was interested in the politics involved–whose personal tragedy gets put on public display? Were the displays as sensationalistic as he suspected they would be? He was particularly interested in how the case of the Black Dahlia (aka Elizabeth Short) would be presented, and what the LAPD would think was appropriate to display for public consumption.

So I agreed to go take a look. And I was horrified in so many ways. Absolutely stunned. You can find the piece here.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Allie B. sent in this image found at Washington City Paper that shows how many men and women (aged 18-29) would be pleased by an unexpected pregnancy, despite reporting they wish to avoid pregnancy (additional images taken from the report found here):

Notice that in every category, men are quite a bit more likely to report they would be happy by an unplanned pregnancy. As the WCP article suggests, this would seem to undermine the common perception that women are baby-crazy and secretly hoping they’ll get pregnant.

Perhaps not surprisingly, both men and women are more likely to report they’d be happy about a pregnancy as they get older.  Hispanics also stand out as significantly more likely to report they would be happy about an unplanned pregnancy than non-Hispanics.

Despite this, the vast majority of all groups said that pregnancy should be planned, with men actually a little bit more likely in all categories:

The responses to these two questions seem contradictory: you believe pregnancy should be planned, yet a significant proportion say they would be happy about an unintended pregnancy. Thoughts about what’s going on there? Perhaps individuals are saying that though they don’t want a pregnancy, they would not be devastated by one, or their distress would be outweighed by the excitement of having a baby, even if they hadn’t actually planned on doing so? Maybe a sense of fatalism–pregnancy should be planned, but sometimes things just happen and you have to make the best of them? I’m somewhat stumped on this one, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.

We also see that, while in many cases the difference is negligible, in general women are somewhat more likely to say it’s acceptable for a woman to have a child outside of marriage:

It’s interesting that despite the common stereotype that African Americans are more accepting (or even encouraging) of single motherhood, in this study they were actually less likely to support doing so than were Whites and Hispanics.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)