Sarah S. pointed us to a blog post by Bluemilk about the recent outcry over 15-year-old Miley Cyrus in this month's Vanity Fair (below) and the more general sexualization of little girls.
Bluemilk calls out Abercrombie and Fitch, Fred Bare, and, elsewhere, Bratz Dolls.
Abercrombie and Fitch marketed a pair of thong underwear that says "wink wink" and "eye candy" to ten-year-olds. The product was pulled after protests:
Fred Bare's summer collection includes a slide show with many images of little girls hinting at a sexuality utterly inappropriate for their ages:
And Bratz Dolls, well, are Bratz Dolls:
(found here)
(found here)
Halloween costumes too (found here):
I think it's interesting that the Miley Cyrus cover is getting so much negative press, when these other instances include girls who are so much younger. Thoughts?
Thanks to both Sarah S. and Bluemilk!
Also in the sexualization of young girls.
The Miley Cyrus scandal
Steak and a Blow Job Day
Krystle, a junior sociology major at Colorado College, sent us this link to the Facebook page for men's answer to Valentine's Day, Steak and a Blowjob Day.
There are at least a couple interesting things about this:
First, it nicely illustrates the feminization of love and the masculinization of sex. Since Valentine's Day is about love, it's gendered feminine, and the things thought to be appropriate gifts for Valentine's Day are both for her and feminine (candy, candles, flowers, romance, etc). The solution? Why a day for men, of course! (Since they get absolutely nothing out of Valentine's Day.) And what would a day for men include? Steak and blow jobs.
Second, the Day might be used as an example of social networks and how new technologies facilitate a completely different kind of communication. Click here for an analysis of how Steak and a Blow Job Day, with more than 38,000 confirmed guests for this year as of this post, is an example of successful "viral marketing."
Oh yeah... and the misogyny, always the misogyny:
Thanks Krystle!
Sexy Women as Toys
Notice the woman is headless, so she's completely robbed of any subjectivity. And this ad is totally aimed at men--the sexy woman as a potential gift and the violent action movies (Alien, X Trilogy, Rocky, Die Hard, and 007).
From Rolling Stone.
Halloween costumes
Newsweek had an article today wondering if girl's Halloween costumes might be too risky. I wasn't surprised (I remember being shocked when I saw young girls dressed up as Spice Girls in 1998) so I decided to look around the Internet to find other questionable costumes. Not surprisingly, Halloween costumes are markers of not only gender and heterosexuality, but of race and class as well.
Let's take children's "occupational" costumes, for example. Here are some for girls: The French maid, nurse, and cheerleader costumes were the most prevalent.
And what about occupations for boys?
And look at how race is marked with some of the children's costume models (2 cats, and a dancer):
And note how the intersections of race, militarization, sexuality and gender are also displayed in this costume. The first is a children's costume, and the second is for teenagers. Both costumes are called "Major Flirt."
And now let's move on to teenage costumes. Here are some particularly popular ones for teen girls-- sexy devils and sexy angels.
And some teen girl "occupation" costumes (prisoner, referee, navy):
And of course there are teen bunnies-- "Hunny Bunny Teen" and "Classic Playboy Bunny":
And what do teen boys get to dress up as? Scary clowns, murdering maniacs, and pimps.
The costumes for couples are also pretty telling-- marked by heteronormative stereotypes. The first is a "Pimp and Kristy" costume, the second is a cop costume, and finally a costume of a brick layer and a woman dressed as a home, where the woman is literally displayed as the object, as the object of a man's action.
Anyway, happy Halloween! Anna Rexia Halloween Costume
From the website: "Skeleton Costume includes... 'Anna Rexia' Badge and Ribbon Tie Belt [to measure your waist]."
Just in Time for Halloween...Sexism
The Halloween costume below, which is produced by Playboy, is called "Sexy Scholar".
Appropriation of the Other
This was sold on the website for "The O.C." On the show one character had a Jewish dad and a shiksa mom. He created a holiday called Chrismukkah to combine the two heritages and in one episode a friend sews a "Chrismukkah Yarmuclaus." Then they started selling them online for $16 to fans of the show.
