Our culture is obsessed with gender. From the moment a new life enters the world, we feel the need to bombard them with “appropriately” colored gifts as a way to reinforce the gender we have assigned. I was aware of this phenomenon before starting work at a baby store, both from my experience as a babysitter and from my gender studies background, but I wasn’t fully aware of how serious people get about their child’s gender. We carry a variety of items in our store, including clothing that is both clearly gendered and gender neutral (or so say the colors). Despite the obvious trend of pink for girls and blue for boys, it still blows my mind when people refuse to buy something because it’s the wrong color. Continue Reading →
Gender
Recent posts
Men And Women, Sex Drives, And Misogyny
We are still trying to understand what differences, if any, exist between men’s and women’s sex drives, and how these differences might impact social differences. The problem gets trickier because it looks like social expectations impact how often men and women will report feeling aroused, as discussed in this Kinsey Confidential report. Researchers found that men reported thinking about sex quite often (though not as often as the “every 7 seconds” stereotype), while women reported thinking about sex pretty often too… but they might’ve under-reported because of social norms that are more permissive about men thinking about sex than women doing so. Why does this matter? Continue Reading →
Social Media And Gender: Pinterest
This essay on the trends in women adopting social media, focusing on Pinterest, highlights the gendered attitudes about blogging and other internet activities that tend to foreground “masculine” activities over “feminine” activities. I wonder: is it truly possible for a website or a blogging topic to be gendered? I know men who bake and women who enjoy motorcycles, so why would stereotypes be so lively on the internet? Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Follow Jeana, the author of this post, @foxyfolklorist. Continue Reading →
Cross-Dressing Couples
“Switcheroo” is the name of clever project a Canadian photographer, Sincerely Hanna, snapped of mostly heterosexual couples in their regular clothing and having switched outfits. The result is both amusing and thought-provoking. Many of the photos show, for instance, that even when women aren’t wearing skin-tight clothing or really short skirts, their clothes will look that way on their male partners! Go gender bending! Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Continue Reading →
New Research On The Gender Pay Gap
A new study indicates that, contrary to popular belief, women have begun to ask for raises as often as men – but they are less likely to receive them. What starts as an insignificant or nonexistent pay gap between the genders thus widens over time. One important implication of this research is that it’s not women’s fault that the pay gap exists; women aren’t being shy or reticent as commentators on this issue have argued in the past. So, once again, we have to look for larger systemic issues (and hopefully do something about them). Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Continue Reading →
Beautiful Women (Who Were Born Male-Bodied)
This list of 10 gorgeous women (who were born male) helps show how subjective gender is. While the models do conform to normative beauty standards, the pictures are also thought-provoking since they depict people who are beautiful and confident – regardless of which biological sex one might assign to them. Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Follow Jeana, the author of this post, @foxyfolklorist. Continue Reading →
Dualism And You: Part Two
In a recent post, Dualism And You, I discussed what dualism means and how it impacts contemporary Western ideas about sex and gender. I’m sure nobody will be surprised that I have more to say on this topic, specifically about sexuality. In that last post, I touched on ideas like mind-body dualism (which is super-inflected by gender) and the slut/stud dichotomy, which describes women’s and men’s sexual behavior in diametrically opposed terms. Yet there’s another huge way in which dualism impacts our ideas about sexuality: the very notion of heterosexuality vs. homosexuality. Think about it. Continue Reading →
Blogging And Gender
A recent study found that men and women are blogging in pretty much equal numbers; however, the topics on which they blog tend to be split down gender lines (for instance, more women write cooking and mothering blogs, while more men write political blogs). Perhaps the numbers will even out in the future, but at least it appears that both men and women are equally accessing and utilizing the internet as a resource. Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Follow Jeana, the author of this post, @foxyfolklorist. Continue Reading →
Performing Masculinity And The “Act Like A Man” Box
I’ve been researching and writing about masculinity recently (as my current dissertation chapter is on masculinity in fairy tales), and Charlie Glickman’s blogging has been really thought-provoking for me, both intellectually and personally. Starting with his post on the performance of masculinity and proceeding to his post about selectively performing masculinity by choosing attributes from the “act like a man box,” I’ve been thinking about why masculinity has such a pervasive, compelling presence–and what we can do about its negative aspects. By viewing masculinity as a set of traits contained within the “act like a man box,” Glickman has helped give us a language for discussing men’s behavior that is not, as much feminist language is, either very theoretical and abstract or condemning. And yes, a lot of masculine behavior should be condemned as violent, aggressive, misogynist, homophobic. But only using critical language ends conversations rather than starting them; telling a dude off for being a dude shuts down dialogue, and doesn’t give him a way to constructively participate in the effort to fix what’s wrong with hegemonic masculinity. Continue Reading →
The Gender Gap In Pay… Still There
According to a new study from Indiana University, working long hours is slowing the closing of the gender gap in pay. It is often easier for men to commit to overworking and spending more time at their jobs, while women are still burdened with traditional “feminine” tasks such as domestic labor and childcare. The bottom line is that women are only earning 81 cents to the dollar of what men make. And somehow people aren’t up in arms over this?! Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Continue Reading →