anti-Hillary Clinton sexist images

Despite all kinds of "truces" and "promises" in the media lately about "leaving race and gender out" of the democratic primaries, gender and race are obviously a part of this presidential election cycle.

But, here's a newsflash: even when the candidates are all white men, gender and race are STILL a part of the decisions made about who should be president.

Think back to 2004 for a moment-- remember all those political cartoons criticizing Kerry for being too "French" (as opposed to American Cowboy) and generally feminizing his image (feminine = bad for politics) in political cartoons. Here are 2 examples:


I'm fascinated by the anti-Hillary Clinton facebook groups. There are dozens of these groups, but four groups have the most members.

• Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich-- 30,000+ members
• Anti Hillary Clinton for President '08-- 65,000+ members
• Stop Hillary Clinton: One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary-- 700,000+ members
• Life's a Bitch, Why Vote for One?-- 14,000+ members
  

So this morning I spent some time looking at the images that dominate these groups. The images these groups use to criticize Clinton as a presidential candidate make it pretty clear that sexism is alive and well (beyond the protesters asking Clinton to iron their shirts)-- and that gendered ways to talk about politics are as cogent as ever! Here's a smattering for you-- there are so many I couldn't possibly post them all!













And the intersection of race and gender...

Misogynist Slang I Didn't Even Know Existed

Thanks to Laura K. for bringing my attention to UrbanDictionary.com, a site where users provide definitions for slang terms and examples of their usage. Here's a real gem:

Life support system for a pussy: Any human being that is female. Good lord, woman, all you are is a life support system for a pussy!

That's...great. Note the tags on the post too--equally charming.

Excellent find, Laura K.!

Knowledge About The Clitoris And Orgasm For Women

Shameless self-promotion... and some really interesting findings regarding knowledge and frequency of orgasm in a non-random population of undergraduates. This first graph shows the percent of male and female respondents who (1) correctly located the clitoris on a map of the vulva and (2) correctly answered a series of true/false questions about the clitoris.

You'll see that there is surprising little difference between men and women (considering that women have had access to a clitoris all their lives and men have had access only recently, if at all), though you'll see that men are more likely to think most women will have an orgasm from penile-vaginal sex (most women don't) and women are more likely to think the g-spot is another name for the clitoris (it's not). These two cancelled each other out such that the average knowledge score for men and women was statistically the same. The same!

It's this next graph that's the real kicker. This graph shows the relationship between how well a woman scored on the clitoral knowledge tests (on a 0-5 scale) and how frequently she has an orgasm during masturbation and with a partner. You'll see a nice positive relationship between knowledge and orgasm in masturbation and no relationship at all between knowledge and orgasm with a partner. (For fun, notice that the average score on the clitoral knowledge measure for women who'd never had an orgasm with a partner and who always do is the same. Also notice that there are 124 women in that never category, it's not just a handful of women who are somehow "dysfunctional.")

So, for some reason (feel free to speculate), even when women know about their own bodies, they either keep it to themselves, or have partners that don't want to hear it, or both.

If you want to see the paper, here's the cite:

Wade, L., E. Kremer, & J. Brown. 2005. The Incidental Orgasm: The Presence of Clitoral Knowledge and the Absence of Orgasm for Women. Women and Health 42, 1: 117-138.

Email me at lwade@oxy.edu if you'd like a copy.

Teen Magazine for Muslim Girls

Muslim Girl is a teen magazine aimed at Muslim Americans. The idea is to provide a magazine that still has the fashion and advice columns of normal teen mags but addresses the special concerns of Muslim girls--where to find more modest clothing, whether it's okay to go on a date without supervision, and so on. From looking at the article titles on the left, it appears they also include much more political content than any mainstream teen mag every thought about.

This could go along with a discussion of the websites selling modest clothing or the video humanizing Muslims.

Kudos

Thanks to a link from lawgeek, Sociological Images was linked by boingboing and we had over 12,000 visitors in 48 hours! Who knew high heels could cause such a stir? Super thanks to both!

Thanks also to Monsoon and Anomie for their link from Wicked Anomie, and for the kind words and endorsements from the Humane Education Blog, Girl With Pen, and Feminist Law Profs.

"The Orchid Of Beer"

These images are of a beer marketed specifically to women in 1953, Storzette by Storz.



From the website:

"In 1953 Storz tried to market a new product for women, 'Storzette.' Designed to be a beer for the ladies it was supposedly not too bitter and was calorie controlled. it also came in a smaller can, 8 ounces, which Storz called "Queen sized" and it came in four can packs called "Princess Packs." The brewery noted that market studies showed that many women felt that the standard 12 oz can provided too large a serving. The beer inside was also different, made to be less bitter than standard beers. The can even had a pink orchid pictured on it to help it appeal to women. It's initial test market results in San Diego seemed positive, but in the end the effort was not successful and Storzette did not last long on the market. As a result, the little can with the orchid is very scarce. Storz also used a slogan on its regular cans for awhile in the 1950s, "the Orchid of Beer" which has to be one of the more unusual beer advertising slogans."

Using Women's Bodies to Sell Residential Developments

I came upon this series of ads in a local Las Vegas magazine (although I've forgotten which one; sorry). The first two images were at the front of the magazine.




I turned to page 13 to see what this super-skinny, barely-dressed woman was being used to sell.


Of course! Houses!

Note the very passive positioning of the model--she looks like she's about to faint, or maybe is in the act of fainting. And the background on the other two images appears to be gold satin--evoking satin sheets, perhaps?

World Statistics

Click here for a "world clock" (by http://www.poodwaddle.com/) that constantly updates the total number of, well, lots of stuff: births, abortions, deaths of different types, prisoners, marriages, divorces, extinct species, gallons of oil pumped, and computers, cars, and bicycles built. You can choose to display it by how much has happened in the last year, month, day, or even from a moment, like right... now.

Thanks, Mom!

Trophy (Wife) Hunting: Ad for Men's Slacks

Ad for men's slacks. Thanks to Dorotha for finding it here.

Here's the text:

“Though she was a tiger lady, our hero didn’t have to fire a shot to floor her. After one look at his Mr. Leggs slacks, she was ready to have him walk all over her. That noble styling sure soothes the savage heart! If you’d like your own doll-to-doll carpeting, hunt up a pair of these he-man Mr. Leggs slacks. Such as our new automatic wash wear blend of 65% “Dacron” and 35% rayon—incomparably wrinkle-resistant. About $12.95 at plush-carpeted stores.”

"I Love It When You Talk Clean to Me"

Here is a link to a book called I Love It When You Talk Clean to Me: Porn for Women, published by the Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative.

"Oh look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair."


"As soon as I finish the laundry, I'll do the grocery shopping. And I'll take the kids with me so you can relax."

"Why don't I get a minivan, love, so you can drive something fun."


Thanks, Jessica C.!

Jennifer Love Hewitt Bikini Photo Controversy

Above are photos of Jennifer Love Hewitt that have been showing up everywhere since they were taken in December. They were used as evidence that she has gotten fat.

Here is a video from youtube called "Is Jennifer Love Hewitt Fat?" It starts out with pictures of her in formal dresses, then moves on to the bikini pictures and splices in shots of her eating, then shows the bikini pics again...and again...and again. Then toward the end it shows her bikini pictures next to the Hanes ads she's in, where she obviously looks a lot thinner. Then they show several ridiculing images people have made of Jennifer Love Hewitt since the bikini photos came out, showing her incredibly obese.



Here is a video of Jennifer Love Hewitt responding. I couldn't figure out how to embed it, sorry.

And here is a video from youtube of Janice Dickenson, a former model, defending Jennifer Love Hewitt...by calling Tyra Banks fat.



These could be used lots of different ways. Obviously you could discuss the pressure on female celebrities to be super thin, and the scrutiny every part of their bodies gets. But you could also look at the discourse going on here. Jennifer Love Hewitt responded by saying "A size 2 is not fat!" Janice Dickinson defends her by comparing her to a woman who supposedly is fat. So the ultimate message isn't necessarily that women shouldn't have to be thin, but that this particular woman isn't fat. That could lead to a useful discussion on empowerment--what's the difference between empowering an individual woman ("I'm not fat!") and empowering women as a group ("We need to fight against this idea that only one body shape is acceptable")? Is the discourse we find here really liberating to women in general, or just to those who are a size 2 or smaller?

Most female celebrities, when photographed in an unflattering manner, disappear for a month and then reappear in transformed bodies that have been starved and exercised until they are worthy of display; they are then welcomed back with open arms and their transformation is praised. It might also be interesting to use Hewitt's responses in a discussion of how difficult it is to try to resist hegemonic ideals of beauty--how do you defend yourself and respond to mainstream ideals when you're one of very few people even trying to do it?

Footbinding

These images, via NPR, are of 86-year-old Zhou Guizhen. We were hesitant about posting them when they were first forwarded to us (without information of where they came from) because of concerns about how the pictures were taken--were they taken by a tourist, who was viewing this woman as a freak to laugh at? We were also concerned that presenting these pictures would objectify her, turning her into evidence that non-Western societies are barbaric and backward (and, therefore, that those of us in the West should pat ourselves on the back for how enlightened we are). This would be similar to how Muslim women who wear veils are used in discourses about how oppressive and barbaric Muslim societies are, with no allowance for the many meanings a veil can have and the fact that women are actors in their societies and may not all view the veil as automatically or unequivocally oppressive.

Ultimately we decided to post them when we were able to ascertain that they are publicly available. Also, the very fact that we ourselves struggled with what to make of them and how to present them, seemed to indicate that they are very powerful images that bring up complicated ideas about women, bodies, objectification, and how these are connected to judgments of the modernity or backwardness of cultures.

We post these pictures with the intention that we view this woman as a human being who embodies a complicated tradition. This means that we refrain from calling her, her body, or her culture any names that we would not want to be called ourselves (names like "grotesque," "ignorant," or "barbaric"). We hope that, as we view these images, we are mindful of the ways that bodies are altered across the globe and throughout history... not only in places that we do not understand, but in places that we understand only too well.

-- Gwen and Lisa

Destabilizing Heteronormativity

Click here to read about Silo and Roy, gay penguins. They were together for six years before they broke up. One of them paired up with a female.

These two male storks, living in a Dutch zoo, are raising a chick together. The zookeepers don't know how they came across their egg, but somehow they did, and now they're parents! Click here for the story and a video.


About 20 percent of all black swan couples are male/male according to this study:

Carlos and Fernando just celebrated their fifth anniversary (see here):

A museum in Oslo has gained some attention for their exhibit, Against Nature?, featuring homosexual behavior among animals. Check it out.

Pillows for Japanese Singles

'Boyfriend's Arm Pillow' - Strong Silent Type. Likes to Cuddle.


Via: USA Today


'The Lap Pillow' by Japanese toymaker Trane Co.

Via: Tribune India

Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat: The difference in performance measured when the belief that people like you (blacks, women, etc) are worse at a particular task than the comparison group (whites, men, etc) is made salient.

The left side of the bar graph is the performance of blacks and whites on a task (on which whites are stereotypically believed to be superior) when stereotype threat is activated (blacks and whites are reminded of the stereotype in some way). The right side of the bar graph is the performance of blacks and whites on the same task when the stereotype remains unactivated. Note the remarkable difference. This demonstrates the ways in which stereotypes, when made salient, affect our performances on "objective" tests.


From: The Effects of Stereotype Threat on the Standardized Test Performance of College Students by J Aronson, CM Steelel, MF Salinas, MJ Lustina. In Readings About the Social Animal, 8th edition, edited by E. Aronson. Stolen from Wikipedia.

Awesome Fallacious Chicken Family

I love this picture!*

It's a wonderful illustration of the way in which we tend to project a gendered nuclear family model onto animals in ways that make that model seem more "natural" and "universal" than it is. (For the argument, try Donna Haraway's Teddy Bear Patriarchy.)

Chickens, at least in captivity, do not live in lovely nuclear families like the nice chicken family above. They live in harems with just one rooster and lots of hens. Notice, too, how the hen is looking down (lovingly? maternally?) at her chicks, while the rooster is looking out into the distance (for danger? the protector?). Or maybe he's checking out all those other "chicks" he gets with.** You know, a man has got to sow his seed. Oh wait, he's not a man, he's a CHICKEN!)

Even their bodies match our culturally and historically specific norms. Their height difference nicely matches the ideal in our society for male/female pairs (but not the reality, see here). To take the anthropomorphization further, you can almost see the hen's fertile hips and the rooster's strapping shoulders (am I going to far?).

* Unfortunately, I've had this picture for a long time and I'm afraid I don't remember where it came from.

** Did you see that? I managed to get in the infantilization of adult women, um, hens, and the sexualization of young girls, um, chicks.

Racist And Anti-Immigrant Signs

These signs, photographed for posterity by their author, have each had their day outside of Casa D'Ici in North Versailles, Pennsylvania. There are more signs on the website.

Sexism In Politics (Again)

Don't miss the classic PMS crack in the bottom left.

Via the Washington Post.

Humanizing American Muslims

While this video is more activist-y than scholarly, I think it might be useful as a way to demonstrate that our taken-for-granted categories (whether they be based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender or otherwise) are falsely homogeneous.

Hunting for Bambi (That Is, Women)

Here is a link to a website called Hunting for Bambi that says it is "a highly unique, niched, and controversial comical video series that spoofs hunting." It spoofs hunting by filming men shooting naked women with paintball guns.

You can buy this DVD. Note that the men are in a Hummer.

I'm not sure what they mean by spoofing hunting. Is it making fun of the stereotypical hunter? Or of hunting itself? Or is it a "spoof" that's supposed to actually appeal to the supposed targets of the joke? Regardless, it's interesting that the parody uses women as prey as the source of the joke.

Oklahoma's Marriage Initiative: Marriage as a Solution to Poverty

Here is a link to the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, a publicly-sponsored marriage-promotion program. The idea behind it is that increasing marriage, particularly among poor women, would decrease poverty and, therefore, welfare rolls.

Here is a link to the parenting section. Among other things, couples will learn "the benefits of marriage" and "strengthening the father-child bond." Nothing is said about the mother-child bond--presumably it's just fine. Note also that in the artwork for the page is very gendered--the woman is holding the baby, the male figure is standing over or protecting her. If you go to the photos section (pictures of actual participants), there are pictures of men holding their babies.

It might be useful to read the article "The Marriage Cure," by Katherine Boo, in the August 18 & 25, 2003, issue of The New Yorker as well--Boo follows several poor black women as they go through the program and try to figure out how to find marriagable men (and it is made clear to them that they need to look for a man, any man).

I'm going to use this in my Intro to Sociology course as a way to discuss the idea that poor women wouldn't be poor if only they would get married--to anyone.