Playing Unfair: The Media Portrayals of Female Athletes
Karin A. Martin
Many feminist scholars argue that the seeming naturalness of gender differences, particularly bodily difference, underlies gender inequality. Yet few researchers ask how these bodily differences are constructed. Through semi-structured observation in five preschool classrooms, I examine one way that everyday movements, comportment, and use of physical space become gendered. I find that the hidden school curriculum that controls children’s bodily practices in order to shape them cognitively serves another purpose as well. This hidden curriculum also turns children who are similar in bodily comportment, movement, and practice into girls and boys-children whose bodily practices differ I identify five sets of practices that create these differences: dressing up, permitting relaxed behaviors or requiring formal behaviors, controlling voices, verbal and physical instructions regarding children’s bodies by teachers, and physical interactions among children. This hidden curriculum that (partially) creates bodily differences between the genders also makes these physical differences appear and feel natural.
Interesting article that details the ways in which preschool teachers instill an ethic of “boys will be boys” and female submissiveness.
A few of my favs:
Check on It: The Gendered Dynamics of Male Spectatorship in Urban Public Spaces
Naughty Girl: Disidentification and the Performance of Female Sexual Promiscuity
Cater 2 U: Female Subservience and the Reinforcement of Hegemonic Gendered Power Structures
Freakum Dress: The Role of Consumerism in the Construction and Assertion of Female Sexuality
Videophone: Social Networking Technology and the Deconstruction of the Dominant Gaze
Bills Bills Bills: The Dual-Income Model and the Reshaping of the Domestic Sphere
Soldier: The Hypermasculinization of U.S. Military Culture
Read more at the link above!
Asked by keksli
Ok i’m going to paste some notes I took for a sociology of gender class i took - in it I list the authors and texts we read and my explanations of them. Feel free to look into the areas & authors that pertain to the presentation the most! [its going to look really funky because microsoft word and tumblr hate each other and can never get formatting right…]
3/29 Masculinities
4/5 Gender and Violence
- • Guyland
- o Masculinity & masculinity policing – masculinity defined against femininity/homosexuality.
- o What is guyland?
- ♣ A change in the developmental phase of the life course. Its no longer regimented steps to “being a man”
- ♣ Everyone is experiencing adulthood differently, grow up faster
- ♣ More people going to college, new demographic of white middle class college guy [I thought this was always a demographic, but ookay]
- ♣ The idea of them are so much bigger (look @ movies like the hangover. Watch the office. Judd Apatow. Its all a celebration of guyland.)
- ♣ Man/boy – delaying adulthood.
- ♣ Within guyland: BEING A MAN [sexually active/sexual degradation/culture of entitlement/hooking up as if its obligatory]
- ♣ Women in guyland are defined by guys. (special snowflake.)
- o DISCUSSION RELATED TO GUYLAND
- ♣ Culture of entitlement
- ♣ Media depiction of rape black man/worthy white woman VS less stereotypical assailant/more violent/less worthy victims
- o Connections to ridgeway & correll [other sociologists on gender]
- ♣ Hegemonic gender norms
- ♣ Opposition to subordinated
- ♣ Complicit (not all men comply, but they may benifit)
- ♣ There are still marginalized voices in all of this.
4/7 Power, Sex, and Work
- • Perry, Barbara. 2009. “Doing Gender and Doing Gender Inappropriately,”
- o Men have power over women, they have a responsibility to enforce gender roles [keeping women in their place]
- ♣ Men assume ownership ownership, presumption of male control by the female due to structural position – ownership can extend to her sexuality
- ♣ Violence emerges as a perceived loss of relative position
- ♣ At the workplace, women are expected to act like women, take subordinate positions. Men are expected and pressured to “act like men” make the “hard decisions”, be a leader do manual tasks.
- ♣ Pay equity derives from the devaluation of women’s work.
- ♣ Sexualizing the workplace reaffirms the males heterosexual dominance. Violence against women rose as women’s economic position got better (response to feeling threatened)
- ♣ Black men aren’t as entitled, which affects relationship to black woman
- ♣ Sexuality and violence
- ♣ Gay bashing
- o Rape/abuse the exaggerated gender roles used to punish gender non-comformity. Ex: one lady didn’t have dinner ready, slapped in the face.
- o Rape & sexual assault as an outgrowth of culture.
- • Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality”
- o Women & minorities. Myth of mutually exclusive traits
- ♣ Both are felt at the same time
- o Masculinity > femininity but white femininity > black femininity
- o Sexual assault studies ignore black experiences
- o How resources are distributed
- o Turning away non English speaker @ shelter
- o “saying nappy headed hoes is just racist denies a black woman’s femininity”
- o anti - racist discourse ignores women of color. Feminist discourse ignores women of color
- o women of color in different social position, extra barriers ex: rape crisis centers dealing with preliminary issues before actual rape. Direct targeting is needed
4/21 Bodies and Popular Culture
- • Strip Club
- o Organization = emotional labor/power dynamics/feminization of social work.
- o Emotional labor
- ♣ Your job to elicit emotional response (safety, trust, value, intimacy)
- ♣ Because its your job to elicit certain emotions, usual things that wouldn’t be allowed on the job are brushed off
- ♣ Body labor: surface acting vs DEEP acting (affects WHO you are and your intimate relationships with others)
- ♣ Drug use/getting drunk
- o Power
- ♣ Male workers responsible over women
- ♣ Most sex work requires third party
- ♣ Workers compete with one another
- ♣ Most workers are expendable/other options
- 4/19 Bodies and Popular Culture
- • Milkie. “Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and Mass Media: The Impact of Pervasive Beauty Images on Black and White Girls’ Self-Concepts.”
- o Magazine covers
- o Perpetuate need to worry about what men want
- o Girls of color less affected “I’m not supposed to look like her anyway”
- o Reflected appraisal: media images give us a sense of the generalized other. Media isn’t important to them, but they believe the other cares significantly more.
- o Black girls are more critical of, and are more able to see, the fakeness of images
- • Banks, Ingrid. 2004. “Why Hair Still Matters,”
- o Black hair trends readily criticized since white people are blind to any culture other than their own (serena and tennis beads)
- o WHITE WOMAN BEAUTY STANDARDS
- o Hair & femininity Lack of hair gets femininity questioned. Sexuality is questioned. Men can have long hair and be masculine, women who cut their hair face resistance.
- o Global hair issues: politics of hijab
- • Morgan, Kathryn 1991. “Women and the Knife: Cosmetic Surgery and the Colonization of Women’s Bodies.”
- o Women & the knives that sculpt their bodies to make them beautiful. The gift of knives cutting your flesh
- o Very costly, some REQUIRE anesthesia and doctors to prevent complications
- o Technology/technological beauty imperative: genetic engineering. Artificial/”perfect” everything overriding genetic code
- o Woman’s attractiveness on a scale of “to men”
- o Beauty experts
- o Choice?
4/26 Reproduction
- • Fitts, Mako. 2008. “’Drop It like It’s Hot:’ Culture Industry Laborers and Their Perspectives on Rap Music.”
- o Focused on creative control and artist marketing
- o Hip hop USED to be socio political
- o Analysis is either lyrical, historical, looks at effects on black public sphere
- o Music videos start when an outside director and production company is called to take care of ALL the structure. Artist rarely in charge of picking talent. Large pool of women applicants
- o Women in music videos: Made into an additional commodity used to sell product and be advertising for industry
- o When the job focuses on the body, the women are in a dangerous environment
- o Bodies for male strip show world
- o Video girls typecasted
- o No creative control, usually pick the idea that the copany had in mind over the artists
- o Set as a site for gender exploitation
- o Featured talent that sleeps around get treated better & glorified
4/28 Gender and the State
- • Kristin Luker, “Motherhood and Morality in America”
- o History of debate
- o Woman’s contrasting obligations to self and others
- o Two visions of motherhood at war
- o Activists: pro-choice higher change of high income. Unmarried. Pro life probably already had kids. Most pro life currently religious, but both groups raised religious.
- o Pro=life typically traditional gender roles.
- • Angela Davis, “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights,”
- o Black women not included in birth control fights – “too busy/distracted”
- o Most illegal abortion deaths tied to women of color
- o Blur between abortion rights and abortion advocacy
- o Eugenics and imperialism
- o Racism of forced birth control caused black women to be suspicious
- o White feminists didn’t want to also call for the end of sterilization abuse
- o [abortion movement neglects sterilization and the RIGHT to reproduce]
- • Greenhalgh, Susan. 2001. “Fresh Winds in Beijing: Chinese Feminists Speak Out on the One-Child Policy and Women’s Lives.”
- o Full government control
- o Salvation narrative
- o Birth planning good, anti-reductionist to labor
- • Haney, Lynne. 1996. “Homeboys, Babies, Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance.”
- o State is capitalist & patriarchical. Dependent on state as father. Citizen as male with gun.
- • Orloff, Ann Shola. 1993. “Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States.”
- o State is “gender neutral”/ male standards who’s the ideal worker???
- o Aspects of citizenship: civil rights, political rights, social citizenship
- o In welfare states, programs MITIGATE against market inequality
- o Decommodification: to which degree does the state support you if the market isn’t enough/women empowered by commidification (paid for home labor)
- o Provide childcare if you’re gonna force people to work, ass
5/3 Feminism in the United States
5/6 Gender and Social Change
- • The Combahee River Collective Statement
- o Work with black men. Diverse issues
- • The Redstockings Manifesto
- o Don’t let men get away with their oppression
- o Women are oppressed, men are the agents of oppression. Don’t blame institutions or women. women CANT oppress men.
- o Raise female class consciousness
- • The National Organization of Women’s Statement of Purpose, 1966
- o True equality/human rights
- o Women are humans. Lets be active. Women, now more than ever, can compete in labor market. educate. Stop giving men the burden of support. New concept of marriage
- • “The ‘Feminist’ Mystique: Feminist Identity in Three Generations of Women.”
- • “In Sweden, Men Can Have It All,” New York Times, June 9, 2010 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10ihtsweden.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)
Five genders
I thought this might be interesting to some of you. This is a group of people who believe that in order to live harmoniously with each other they must all openly accept all five genders. This culture is called Bugi.
In essense the five genders according to this culture are cismen (oroané), ciswomen (makkunrai), transmen (calalai), transwomen (calabai) and genderqueer (bissu).It is sad that westerners are still hung up on the rules of religion and what is considered taboo. On the plus side, it is wonderful to see other cultures moving forward in such a way.
