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db, Lindsey B., and ABC News asked us to talk about the recent scandal over Walmart pricing a darker-skinned version of the Ballerina Theresa doll less than its white counterpart.  The evidence (from FunnyJunk):

Walmart claimed that the doll was priced less because they were trying to move inventory (ABC News).  It’s possible that the doll wasn’t selling (low demand) or they had ordered more than they could sell (high supply) and so the doll went on sale.  In fact, we know that people of all colors tend to absorb a color hierarchy in which whiteness is nicer, more beautiful, and more valuable (test your unconscious preferences here), so maybe the white doll WAS outselling the non-white doll because both white and non-white people were buying it, but not the darker-skinned doll.  Walmart, in this case, would only be following the market so as to maximize profits.

Walmart, however, could have chosen, in this case, to opt out of profit maximization.  The market isn’t physics; a company doesn’t have to follow its laws.  Walmart could have said, “You know, putting the dark-skinned doll on sale symbolically values whiteness higher than blackness.  Perpetuating that stereotype isn’t worth the money.”  That is, they could have decided that anti-racism trumped profits.

But they didn’t.

It’s important to say that I know of no study showing that, as a rule, white dolls are priced higher or are less likely to go on sale than other dolls.  It may be true that, if we were paying attention, we’d see all kinds of disparate pricing and it wouldn’t pattern itself on race.  Even in this case, I still think that companies need to be cognizant of the context in which they price their products.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that I think it is perfectly fine to discount white dolls while other dolls are left undiscounted, but not vice versa.  Why?  Because we live in a world where discounting dark-skinned dolls resonates with a discourse the symbolically devalues dark-skinned human beings.  Discounting white dolls simply does not carry the same problematic message.

Costco faced this kind of problem when it’s black Lil’ Monkey doll was pulled from shelves.  It turned out that the Lil’ Monkey doll came in three different races, but the black doll carried connotations that the others did not because black people have been compared to primates for centuries in an effort to dehumanize them.  A black Lil’ Monkey is wholly inappropriate in a way that a white Lil’ Monkey is not.

Companies make and sell products in a context.  Following market demands is not opting out; often, it reproduces the status quo.

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Image via Wikipedia A study released this week has shown that racial minorities in the U.S. are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia than whites are, suggesting once again how powerful the link between social status and health can be. When people write about intersectionality, it can seem impersonal: this force and that [...]

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.

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Michelle DuB. sent in some data from the Toronto Star, showing that blacks are more likely than whites to be stopped by police in every single patrol zone except for one.  The disproportion was even high in mostly white areas; they were stopped up to 17 times as often (darker red is most disproportion):

Click here for a video showing what some citizens and a bunch of Toronto police have to say.

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See also our posts showing how the stopping of people on the street usually results in… nothing (other than people feeling harassed) and how racial profiling turns out to be ineffective anyway.

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The image below shows who has broadband internet (as opposed to dial up or no internet at all). It was sent in by Dmitrity T.M., who sees no surprises here. Do you?

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So, what is it? Only white men are important? While I don’t regularly read the obituary section of any newspaper, it was pointed out to me (by my mother nonetheless) that the obits are mostly written about white men. While I wasn’t surprised by this observation, I wanted to see it for myself. So I first [...]

Carolyn L., who blogs at Remodel Minority, found these and other mascot costumes at Costume Shop.  They are, from left to right, the “Mexican Costume Mascot”, “Mandarin Man Chinese Costume”, “Native American Chief Costume Mascot,” “Native American Indian Costume”:

The costumes start at $887.   This reminds us that racist mascots are an industry, not just a poor choice.  It would be much more difficult to field a team called the Indians, the Gauchos, or the Orientals if there were no pre-made costumes to buy.

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

With the ongoing debate (endless and ineffective) about the impact of global warming–and the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile–this report is timely.  The UK-based Women’s Environmental Network has just released a report titled “Gender and the Climate Change Agenda.”  The main conclusions are that “[g]lobally, women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to different and unequal social roles and status” and that “[w]omen contribute less to climate change, are impacted more by it, and have less say in decisions about the problem.”  (See treehugger.com for more analysis of the report.)

For example, 10,000 women die each year from weather-related disasters such as tropical storms and droughts, compared to about 4,500 men.  And women comprise 20 million of the 26 million people estimated to have been displaced by climate change.  The report says that global warming (and its impacts on such things as food production, severe storms, and drought), impact the world’s poorest nations the hardest. As a consequence, women make up 80 percent of “climate refugees.”

The report cites the recent “Human Impact Report” from the Global Humanitarian Forum, which estimated that “300,000 people are already dying each year as a result of climate change, of which 14,500 deaths are directly caused by weather-related disasters attributable to climate change, and it is highly likely that the majority of these victims are female.”  The differences are most pronounced in countries that have the strongest gender inequality.  The reasons for this are staggering:

Experience from recent disasters supports [the fact that the majority of victims are female]: in the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, the mortality rate for women aged 20-44 was 71 per thousand, compared to 15 per thousand men of the same age – almost five times higher for women. Reasons for the disparity include women not having been taught to swim, clothing restricting mobility and cultural norms regarding the preservation of female honour causing many women to leave their homes too late because they waited for a male escort. In addition, men were able to warn each other of the danger as they met in public spaces, but only conveyed the information back to their families sporadically.  Similarly, one factor in the higher female mortality rates following the 2004 tsunami (although not caused by climatic factors) was women being unable to climb trees.

That is really hard to swallow.  More women than men are being killed in natural disasters because of not being given the same opportunity as young boys to learn to swim or climb trees.  Most egregiously, they are being killed because their culture does not allow them to go out of their homes without a male escort and deprives them of normal communication with people outside of their homes so that they are not warned of an imminent disaster.  Not surprisingly, the men were more concerned about themselves than they were about their families.

On the other hand, in countries in which there was more equality between men and women, studies show that there was little or no difference in the number of women and men that died.

The report goes into many more reasons for why global warming has more impact on women than men.  For instance, “i]n many developing countries, increased water scarcity linked to climate change is increasing the distance women must travel to collect water and fuel, and means that children, usually girls, are increasingly being kept out of education to help with the often exhausting task.”  And there were more women killed than men in heat waves in Europe in 2003 and London in 1995, with the speculated reasons being related to “poverty, deprivation, living alone, vulnerability to associated air pollution, and the increased difficulty that women above the age of 60 have in regulating their internal temperature.”

As for Hurricane Katrina, the report says:

Women were disproportionately represented among those left in the city following the storm. Despite making up 54% of the population of the city, 80% of those who were left were women. In many cases, this was because they lacked the means to leave. They did not have access to the private transport that the authorities assumed in their emergency planning, or have the resources to pay for petrol or accommodation on leaving the city.

Not a pretty picture.  Global warming should certainly have a high priority among feminist issues.  The 65-page report from the Women’s Environmental Network reaches this conclusion:

Climate change is the biggest challenge humanity has faced, and will only be addressed through global cooperation. Yet the world is currently trying to do so using only 50% of its intellectual and social resources. This report has exposed the injustice of environmental policy and explored how women are directly, specifically and unjustly affected.

The changes that are required to tackle climate change have the potential to radically alter global political and economic systems, either for better or worse. We must find initiatives that deal with climate change and at the same time address the injustice of the current system, bringing about a fairer and more equitable global society, rather than allowing climate change policies to reinforce and exacerbate existing inequalities. Changing existing structures and developing the capacity of women to allow their equal participation in decision-making doubles our chances of finding effective solutions. Indeed, climate justice will not be achieved without doing so.

In “The Yellow Fever Pages” (full citation below), Karen Eng discusses a recurring problem she, as a Chinese-American woman, faces when dating: that many men, particularly White men, who express interest in her are not interested in her as an individual, but rather in a generalized Asian woman and the fantasies that are associated with them. Eng sums up the fantasies many men hold about Asian (particularly Japanese) women:

The fantasy Asian is intelligent yet pliable, mysterious yet ornamental…perpetually pre-pubescent–ageless and petite…high-pitched, girly–while simultaneously being exotic and wise…She comes from a culture where women traditionally serve men… (p. 68).

Thus, when men ask her out, Eng has to figure out whether they are asking her out because they think she specifically is interesting, or whether they’re asking her out because what they see is an Asian woman to whom they attach all kinds of expectations about exoticism, subservience, and so on. As she puts it, regardless of how she presents herself, the interests she expresses, the type of music and clothing she’s interested in, “…they still see a little Oriental flower.”

I could not help but think of Eng’s article when one of my students, Casandra L., let me know about the dating website ClassyAsianLadies:

The website specifically markets Asian American women to men in the U.S., drawing on all of the stereotypes Eng describes. Here are some images from the site; I highlighted some of the most blatant examples of the “Asian women as hot but also passive” stereotypes in red:

So they aren’t trying to use you to get to the U.S. (though, after stating these are women living in the U.S., they are always described as Asian, not Asian American). And the men who want to date them just love and respect “the Asian culture” (and, you know, there’s just one culture in all of Asia). And how do you show your appreciation for a culture? By marrying someone who personifies the elements of that culture you have romanticized.

Notice the guys using the site appear to expect quite a lot in a woman: she has to remain “a lady,” be “sweet, gentle, beautiful, loving, fun,” but also be “intelligent and independent.”

I don’t know to what degree the website specifically targets White men. There were three photos of Asian women with men on the site; two showed Asian women with White men, one showed an Asian woman with an Asian man.

In case you aren’t convinced yet, here’s some more information on why you should marry an Asian woman:

Unlike “the average woman” (which presumably means White women in the U.S., since we’re the majority of women and all), Asian women haven’t become too competitive (just intelligent and independent! But that’s different!) and certainly aren’t “masculine.” Again we see the romanticizing of a certain stereotype of “Asian culture,” with Asian women having a “well-known cultural attitude of gentle and caring support” and “Eastern values,” which apparently involves being sweet and supportive. Though they’ve also “learned Western values,” which here is associated with being “outgoing…independent and fun…”. Thus, the West = independent, fun women, while the East = supportive, submissive ones.

Notice the last line in that image:  “…that perfect Asian girlfriend or wife.” This is what Eng was getting at: this isn’t about finding the perfect girlfriend or wife; this is about a fantasy of the perfect Asian girlfriend/wife. “Yellow fever” refers to the fetishization of Asian women by men who have a specific idea of what Asian women are like and view them as particularly desirable mates based not on their unique personalities but because of the “Eastern values” they supposedly adhere to. The women thus become somewhat interchangeable. Eng’s frustration grew largely out of the difficulty of getting men to notice her, as opposed to her status as an Asian American woman.

Some other gems:

Asian women are exotic but also make a lot of money (no gold-diggers here!). Men find them “intoxicating.” They’re loyal, and “dedicated to their men.” An Asian woman “always thinks of her man first!” They’ll help with financial planning without being “intrusive”–that is, they’ll make suggestions, but it’s ultimately up to him to decide and she’ll accept whatever he decides on.

They’re “easy to be with…rarely complain…and constructive with their criticism.”  One of my students said the whole “Wonderfully easy to be with” section made her think of the way people describe breeds of dogs: “Get a Labrador! They’re smart, fun, and easy-going! They’ll make a nice addition to any family!”

The translation to all of this: Asian women will offer their wisdom and support, but will then step back and let their men decide. They aren’t bitches who will nag at you or criticize you in a nasty way, or complain that you aren’t doing half the housework, or expect to have an equal role in financial decisions. And she won’t let herself go and become a fatty, so be assured–what you see now is what you can expect she’ll stay like forever.

Aside from the objectification of Asian women (and “the Asian culture”) as having a predetermined set of characteristics you can count on, this says a lot about concerns surrounding changes in gender roles in the U.S. These women are being marketed as the antithesis of the “average” woman in the U.S., who is demanding, hard to get along with, too competitive, and doesn’t stay sufficiently attractive. Female assertiveness or insistence on gender equality is de-feminizing and unattractive; it turns us into masculinized women who won’t submit to men’s authority to take our ideas into consideration but make final decisions based on what they think is best.

For a certain group of men, then, dating an Asian woman is a way to reclaim a romanticized gender hierarchy in which women mix cultural elements associated with the “East” and the “West.” They’re independent and make money (the fun part of female empowerment, unless the independence goes to far and they get uppity), but they retain “Eastern” gender roles in which their independence is, ultimately, limited by their passivity and submissiveness to men, as well as appropriate displays of femininity (being thin, beautiful, and exotic). And, thus, this type of relationship allows men who believe they have been victimized and emasculated by the women’s movement to reclaim some of the overt patriarchal power the believe they’ve been robbed of.

(“The Yellow Fever Pages.” 2000. Bitch issue 12, p. 68-73.)

Also check out Lisa’s post on marketing Asian women to specifically anti-feminist men.

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This vintage ad is a great example of the intersection of sexism and racism. She’s there for YOU because YOU, white family, are “important”:

Text:

It’s not just the fact that she’s a multilingual, knowledgeable, helpful girl who, among other things, knows how to handle a family on the move. It’s the fact that to your JAL Ground Hostess, anywhere in the world, you’re her passengers.

We never forget how important you are.

JAPAN AIR LINES

(Source: Vintage Ads.)

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