Jamie Keiles is a new high school graduate from Pennsylvania who embarked on a fantastic project: trying to live according to the advice of Seventeen magazine… and blogging about it.
Her insights are many and she’s funny and accessible. The whole blog is worth reading. And you can check out her new project at Teenagerie.
Magazines profit from ad sales more than they do from newsstand sales or subscriptions. From a business standpoint, the essential purpose of magazines (or television, or radio) is to round up a group of similarly demographic’d consumers that advertisers can easily target. I figured that the advertising content might have something to say about what the average Seventeen reader is imagined to be like. In the 171 page issue, there were 91 ad spaces. Here is how the content broke down:
So… mostly, as Jamie puts it, “stuff that makes you look better.” Jamie then broke it down by advertisements for products and ones for experiences:
She ponders:
I’m not heading toward any sort of conclusive argument with these graphs. Just thought it was an interesting exercise to explore how low the bar is set for Seventeen readers when it comes to what advertisers think will interest them. Products advertised definitely skew more toward tangible than experiential, and more toward short-term use than long-term investment. It would be interesting to do a similar data sample with the Economist or the New York Times. Wonder if this way of thinking is something that applies to all demographics, or mostly just teens.
Leontine G. sent in a troubling example of the framing of children’s deviance, and their own complicity in this framing. While we usually try to keep text down to a minimum on SocImages, this one needs to be handled with care. So please forgive the unusual length of this post.
Leontine included two links: one to a Today show story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police, and one to a CNN story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police. Different 7-year-olds. One white, one black.
The white boy, Preston, is interviewed with his family on the set of the Today show. Knowing his kid is safe, his Dad describes the event as “funny” and tells the audience that if this could happen to a “cotton candy all-American kid like Preston,” then “it could happen to anybody.”
When the host, Meredith Vieira, asks Preston why hid from the police, he says, “cause I wanted to, and she says, “I don’t blame you actually.” With Preston not too forthcoming, his Mom steps in to say that he told her that “he just wanted to know what it felt like to drive a car.” When Vieira asks him why he fled from the police, he replies with a shrug. Vieira fills in the answer, “You wanted to get home?”
Vieira then comments on how they all then went to church. The punishment? Grounded for four days without TV or video games. Vieira asks the child, “Do you think that’s fair?” He says yes. And she continues, “Do you now understand what you did?” He nods and agrees. “And that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing?” He nods and agrees. “You gonna get behind the wheel of a car again?” He says no. Then she teases him about trying out model toy cars.
They conclude that this incident just goes to show that “Any little kid, you never know what can happen…” and closes “I’ll be seeing you at church buddy boy!”
The video:
All in all, exactly what you’d expect from the Today show: a heartwarming, human interest story with a happy ending. The child is framed as a fundamentally good kid who was curious and perhaps a bit impetuous. When he has no answers for Vieira’s questions, she slots in innocent ones. And the mild punishment is seen as incidental to the more important idea that he learned something.
This story contrasts dramatically to the CNN story about Latarian Milton, a black 7-year-old who took his family’s car on a joy ride. I’ll put the video first, but be forewarned, it’s disturbing not only because of the different frame placed on the boys actions, but because of the boy’s embracing of the spoiled identity:
With an absolutely polar introduction of “Not your typical 7-year-old,” this story is filmed on the street. Whereas the Today show screened the chase footage in real time, this one is sped up, making it seem even more extreme.
The interviewer, off-camera, asks Latarian why he took the car. He replied: “I wanted to do it ’cause it’s fun, it’s fun to do bad things.” The interviewer asks further, “Did you know that you could perhaps kill somebody?” And he replies: “Yes, but i wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friends.”
The interviewer asks him what punishment he should receive and Latarian offers a punishment very similar to Preston’s: “Just a little bit… no video games for a whole weekend.” The reporter then explains that the police plan to go forward with charges of grand theft against him. While he’s “too young to go into any type of juvenile facility,” he says, “police say they do want to get him into the system, so that they can get him some type of help.”
The implication here, of course, is that this child is not innocent or impetuous like Preston, he’s a pre-criminal who needs “some type of help.” The sooner they get Latarian into “the (prison?) system,” the better. No cotton candy kid this one.
Unfortunately, Latarian says all the right things to make the narrative fit. He says he likes to do “bad” things, calls himself a “hoodrat,” and seems unremorseful, even defiant, for at least part of the interview (he looks a bit sheepish in the end when he finds out his grandmother is going to have to pay for the damage he did to other cars).
One way to interpret this is to say that Latarian IS a pre-criminal. That he DOES need to get into the system because he’s clearly a bad kid. Someone inclined to believe that black people were, in fact, more prone to criminal behavior could watch these two videos and feel confirmed in their view.
But there is good evidence that people, beginning as children, internalize the stereotypes that others have of them. As Ann Ferguson shows in her book, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, black children, especially boys, are stereotyped as pre-criminals; not adorably naughty, like white boys, but dangerously bad from the beginning. And studies with children have shown that they often internalize this idea, as in the famous doll experiment in which both black and white children were more likely than not to identify the black doll as bad (see this similar demonstration of white preference on CNN and a discussion of the original doll experiment at ABC). So I think this terribly sad story of Latarian is showing us how children learn to think of themselves as deviant and bad from the society around them. Latarian, remember, is seven, just like Preston. They’re both children, but they are being treated very differently, as these programs illustrate, and it is already starting to sink in.
This two-minute clip from Toddlers and Tiara’s (a reality show about child beauty pageants), sent in by Dmitriy T.M., is a great example of how mothers teach their daughters that beauty hurts… and that pain is a price they should be willing to pay:
Last week I posted photos of the Justin Bieber/Kim Kardashian photoshoot for Elle. I compared it to my earlier post on the sexualization of Jaden Smith. In both I argued that we accept the sexualization of boys at younger ages than girls, seeing it as adorable and proof that they are sufficiently heterosexual and masculine rather than that they are in danger of sexual exploitation.
Yesterday Rob W. sent in a photo that I think illustrates this point well:
Who is the adult woman wearing this shirt? That’s Karissa Shannon, who is dating Hugh Hefner.
Imagine, if you can, if this were an adult man associated in some way with a famous producer of pornography widely known for dating groups of much younger women, and that adult man’s shirt had this same message but about two teen/pre-teen girls (or, for that matter, imagine a famous gay man wearing this exact shirt). And then imagine the concern and horror that would ensue, the apologies through the man’s agent, and so on.
A short google search did turn up a post (re-posted in several other places) calling the shirt inappropriate, but given that Shannon is referred to as “sloppy seconds” in it, I’m not sure how to take it (since “sloppy seconds” reaffirms a sexual double-standard itself). A lot of other sites, on the other hand, found it adorable and/or funny, and asked readers to weigh in on Team Justin vs. Team Jaden.
Chen and Kristyn both sent in examples of gendered chemistry sets.
Chen found this example at Nemo, a science museum in Amsterdam. Notice that the kit with boys on it a boy in the foreground and a girl in the background is “Disgusting Science” and the kits with only girls on it are “Perfumery” and “Spa Science”:
Meanwhile Kristyn spotted these Cosmetic Science kits in Auckland, NZ. There were apparently at least four different kits aimed at making beauty products for girls.
Cleansing Pack 2, featuring Pearly Shampoos and Face and Body Cleanser:
Rejuvenation Pack 3, featuring Soothing Cream and Body Mist:
Enhancing Pack 4, featuring Glitter Hair Gel and Silvery Shimmer Lotion:
Amanda M. and Lisa C. both submitted a recent Toy Story 3-themed commercial for Visa, pointing out how nice it is to see the Buzz Lightyear character advertised to girls.
I won’t disagree that it’s nice that girls are being included in the marketing for Toy Story 3 (especially as the movie appears to be as boy-centric as most), but I don’t see it as revolutionary. In fact, because we largely value masculine characteristics and pursuits, the idea that girls would be interested in boy things (like space travel) is generally regarded as cute, neat, or even awesome (this is why I like to order bourbon neat on a first date — impresses the men every time). The problem is that the reverse is not true. Because we devalue feminine characteristics and pursuits, we rarely respond to boys’ experimentation with girly things in the same way. In that case, it’s worrisome, strange, or even grotesque. We call the valuing of masculinity over femininity “androcentrism.”
So I would argue that this particular advertisement actually fits nicely with the source of gender inequality today: a devaluation of feminine things at the same time that women are required to perform some degree of femininity (the girl in the commercial is still girly, wearing baby blue, a skirt, and hugging Buzz delightedly before she blasts him off). Of course, this means that men’s life options are narrower than women’s because they have to avoid the stigma of femininity (and that must suck, truly), but at least the things men are restricted to doing and being are valued (both abstractly and with money).
Women spend their young and young adult lives dreaming of their wedding day, or so the stereotype goes. Where might girls get the idea that weddings are a particularly important day in a woman’s life?
SociologicalMe sent in a wedding day toy for girls found at a Pathmark grocery store in Delaware:
And Mary, who blogs at Disney Princess Recovery, collected these examples of Disney Princess-themed wedding books for little girls:
Eden H. sent in an interesting post about kids’ stereotypes of scientists. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab conducted an interesting project where 7th graders were asked to draw and describe a “scientist” before and after visiting the lab on a class trip. When students visit, they first read about the Fermilab, then come to the lab and meet with some of the scientists and talk about their work. From the Fermilab website:
What we changed for this field trip was the before and after descriptions and small group sessions for each student to meet with two of three physicists rather than one large group session. We deliberately chose a typical white male, a young female and an African American physicist. We let the students and physicist take their discussion where they wanted.
Here are some of the before-and-after pictures and descriptions (all 31 are available here):
In general, the students seemed to come away with an idea of scientists as being more like “normal” people, not just stereotypical geeks in lab coats. But some of the other changes are interesting, too. The author of the post at Restructure! analyzed the before-and-after images (as best as she could identify the sex of the drawings):
Among girls (14 in total), 36% portrayed a female scientist in the “before” drawing, and 57% portrayed a female scientist in the “after” drawing.
Among boys (17 in total), 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “before” drawing, and 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “after” drawing.
I looked through all of them and only saw one instance (posted above) where the child changed the scientists to be clearly non-White.
Of course this is a small sample, but the results seem to reproduce what other studies I’ve read about (sorry, I’m in L.A. and don’t have the specific citations with me) have found regarding the importance of role models and gender stereotyping, in particular, that girls are more likely to imagine themselves in careers when they see women doing them. For instance, the relative lack of female professors in male-dominated departments such as engineering may play a role in discouraging women from choosing to major in such fields (as well as other factors such as steering, concerns about family/work conflicts, etc.).
I was surprised to see that none of the boys changed the sex of the scientist they drew, though, and only one child changed the race (there’s no info on the race/ethnicity of the students who drew them). Thoughts about what’s going on there?
And does anyone know of any studies on whether more passive exposure to role models — say, seeing female scientists in textbooks — has the same impact as active exposure such as that explained here?
Diego Costa recently pointed out to us the sexualization of Jaden Smith. In that post, I wondered if race played much of a part in this process; while non-White boys are often adultified, it wasn’t clear to me that it was a major factor in this case. Diego followed up by sending along some photos of White teen heartthrob/pop star Justin Bieber, who you may know better as that kid on the cover of magazines whose hair you desperately want to brush out of his eyes. He’s a bit older than Jaden, so the idea of him dating or talking about girls isn’t surprising, but the specific example Diego sent in is.
Apparently Justin Bieber, who is 16, met Kim Kardashian, the 29-year-old reality-TV personality and model, earlier this year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (and no, I didn’t know teen pop stars go to the Correspondents’ Dinner, either). Apparently after she Tweeted that she had “Bieber fever” and he joked about her being his “girlfriend,” Bieber fans flipped out and sent her death threats and such.
Following this, the two recently posed together for a fashion shoot for Elle, presumably making fun of and capitalizing on the earlier frenzy and publicity regarding their friendship. The photo shoot had them walking on the beach, in the water, holding hands, and in other ways hinting at romance; in some cases, Bieber’s light-colored shirt is wet and you can see his entire chest through it:
Diego asks how this would go over if the roles were reversed: if Elle had images of a 16-year-old female teen star in a see-through shirt walking on the beach with, or getting a flower from, a 29-year-old male celebrity “mostly known for…posing nude several times and making money off of his condom-free sex tape…” (after a sex tape of Kardashian with her ex-boyfriend appeared, she sued and settled with the company distributing it for $5 million).
I’m not trying to stigmatize Kardashian; I’m not interested in her, or why she’s famous, here. But I think Diego has a very good point: it’s unlikely many people will think this is an inappropriate sexualization of Bieber (though perhaps Kardashian will need some extra security guards when Bieber’s fans see these). As the reaction to Jayden Smith indicates, we accept the idea of boys being sexual, or sexually interested, at younger ages than girls, and any interest they show in older girls or women is a sign of their sexual precocity — and, of course, heterosexuality — not a sign that they are either in danger of being preyed upon or that they are tempting Lolitas (and thus dangerous to men). We simply don’t worry as much about a 16-year-old teen boy shown in a photo like this because we don’t think of sexuality being dangerous for them in the way we think it is for girls.
UPDATE: Sorry comments were previously turned off — some type of glitch.
Thomas S. sent in this photo of the toy options for kids meals available from Burger King as part of their tie-in with the Marmaduke movie. The dogs are helpfully divided, as in most kids’ meals at fast-food chains, into those for girls and boys:
Notice the gendering of the dogs. Both girls and boys have the option of a Marmaduke figurine, though they are posed in different ways: the girl version is lying down, while the boy version seems posed to run or jump. The other girls’ options are passive in their poses, the descriptive words in their names (cuddly, loungin’, comb ‘n’ style), and what they do:
Comb ‘n’ Style Jezebel: you can comb her hair
Bone Catchin’ Marmaduke: his tail wags when you move the bone
Loungin’ Giuseppe: he just sits on the tassled cushion
Cuddly Raisin: he’s soft
On the other hand, the boys’ options are given active descriptive names and different types of actions:
Pouncin’ Marmaduke: leaps in the air
Darting Lightning: you wind him up and he moves
Stick ‘n’ Move Bosco: you attach his leash and he walks
Turn ‘n’ roll Mazie: you wind up her tail and she rolls over
So the boys get the option of a doberman (or maybe a Rottweiler?) and what looks like an Australian shepherd, while the girls get a toy dog (a papillon, I think) and a collie, which is also a herding dog but here is presented as something to groom.
Obviously, the breeds and names (Bosco, Giuseppe, etc.) come from the movie, so Burger King didn’t create that part. But in creating the tie-in toys, different dogs from the movie were defined as girls’ or boys’ toys, and were designed accordingly.
It’s a great example of the feminine = passive, masculine = active gender dichotomy and the way children are socialized into it. Toys aimed at girls emphasize posing and appearance/grooming, while boys’ toys are usually more active and rarely involve grooming or dressing up (unless you count changing out the weapons G.I. Joe dolls action figures carry).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that kids and their parents will request the gender-intended toy. My sisters and I didn’t get kids’ meals often, but when we did, my mom almost always requested boys’ toys because they were usually more fun and did something, whereas the girls’ toys often just sat there. I’ve heard similar stories from lots of women. Given that men are discouraged from crossing gender lines more than women are, though, I wonder if parents are as willing to get their sons the girls’ toys if the son asks for it. And if we found the girls’ toys boring and wanted the boys’ versions, it seems likely that boys would generally reject them too.
If you ask US Airways, the answer appears to be “yes.”
Heather, who took this photo in the SciStore at the Franklin Institute, said that there were only male pilots and female flight attendants. There were black flight attendants, but no black pilots.
UPDATE!*Wow, preconceived notions in action! Commenters have pointed out that both dolls are actually flight attendants and it says so right on the boxes! Both Heather and I totally missed this! So what happened? Well, as well-socialized people, we “read” blue boxy tie guy as a pilot and pink, curvy, blonde as flight attendant. In this case, it was our acceptance of the gendered codes (flight attendant as feminine and pilot as masculine) that made us see it that way. Ironic, no? What a great example of how our cultural training makes us see culturally-relevant patterns even when they’re not there. In fact, social psychological research has shown this to be true. We often believe stereotypes because we project them onto the world, not because we actually see them.
In any case, this is a great example of the fact that, no matter how hard one tries to be cognizant of these things, one often ends up reproducing them.
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* And to the commenters who were frustrated because we didn’t catch and correct this immediately: we don’t read all of the comments right away, or sometimes ever if we’re really busy. (In this case, I broke my leg and was a little bit distracted.) That is, we never intend to fail to address good corrective comments, but sometimes we do miss them.
Cheryl S. was playing Peggle, a G-rated video game for all ages, and she noticed something interesting. The game comes with fake high scorers and, she noticed:
…by in large, they are white, and male. There’s 2 “girl” names I’ve been able to spot – Marcia and Heather, but Dan and Chad have far more high scores! I think “Tysen” is the only name that’s not 100% WASP, too; there’s certainly no Akmed, Magda, Natasha, Mai, Suresh, Hiroto, or Arrtu…
It’s a small thing, right? But it’s one of the many, many small things that add up to the marginalization of women and non-whites from the world of gaming.
Chloe Angyal (from Feministing) sent me a link to an interesting, if disheartening, segment of her from GRITtv with Laura Flanders about women’s willingness to suffer as they try to meet beauty ideals. Seems that if you want to discourage women women from using tanning beds, don’t warn them about skin cancer. Just tell them it’ll make them ugly. For instance:
The women in the study were more concerned about avoiding ugliness than about avoiding potentially deadly cancer.
UPDATE: Be sure and check out the comments to the video over at YouTube. Really fascinating: lots of comments about Angyal’s appearance and statements like, “chole looks like a feminist, very ugly.” For an interesting discussion of the “feminists are ugly” reaction, read this post at Yes Means Yes.
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