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Tag Archives: gender stereotypes

The Rise of the Romantic Ideal

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Love love love. All you need is love. Love is like oxygen. Love lifts you up. Love is everything, or is it. Romantic love wasn't always the Walt Disney deal it is today. It got started at a certain historical period (long before the 20th century) and has blossomed to iconic status, and a multi-billion dollar cultural industry. But what is it really? Perhaps it is just a distraction designed to keep the worker bees focused on something other than their oppression. Perhaps it is, like the author says, the last kick at the cat of passion as the inexorable march of rationalization strips our world of humanity, feeling, and meaning. Whatever it is it is certainly a topic worthy of Sociological investigation!

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Where Are All the Women? How Traditional Structures of Academia Hinder Female University Professors.

The penetration of women into academe is growing, but at what cost? Babies get in the way and require valuable time away from a job that otherwise requires intense attachment and commitment, and so if women are to compete and advance at acceptable rates, they choose to postpone family. Do men make the same sacrifices? Is this fair to the children whose parents may be enmeshed in the demands of work and emotionally, even physically, absent. Inquiring sociologists want to know.

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Care Bears vs. Transformers: Gender Stereotypes in Advertisements

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While traveling recently, I stopped at a fast food restaurant with my 6-year-old daughter. When we sat down at the table to eat, she disappointedly pulled a pink care bear out of her cheeseburger meal. When I asked her what was wrong she asked why the woman had given her a care bear when she wanted a transformer. She went on to explain to me that she liked boy’s toys because she was a tom boy. Why did the fast food worker assume that my daughter wanted the care bear? Why is the transformer considered a boy toy?

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