Tags: consumption/consumerism, gender, marketing/brands, organizations/occupations/work, housework, representation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 0:29 Access: iSpot.tv Summary: Unlike other advertisements for cleaning and household products that might at least attempt to covertly embed sexist messages about women and domesticity (here and here), this advertisement for Quilted Northern toilet paper makes no qualms about explicitly linking women to the domestic sphere. One of the primary ads for Quilted Northern's new Soft & Strong brand toilet paper originally opened with a male voiceover explaining that, “We went around the country asking women to speak frankly about something no one wants to talk about.” The unspoken phenomenon mentioned in the ad referred to that taboo topic of toilet paper. While the male voiceover implicated himself in the story as part of the “research team” that interviews women across the country, women in the ad are positioned as experts of the domestic domain, able to speak knowledgeably and credibly about toilet paper. This ad appears to have been removed from YouTube and in its place are two shorter clips, and much like the original, each features a woman describing what she needs from toilet paper. The new advertisements, like the original, deploy the persuasive technique of ethos, or an appeal to credibility or character. Instructors can point out that what’s significant here (and in thousands of other commercials for household products) is that, unlike appeals to ethos that involve, for example, Michael Jordan endorsing Nike or “9 out of 10 dentists” endorsing toothpaste, the credibility of the Quilted Northern experts lies solely in the fact that they are women. They are not avid toilet paper enthusiasts or physicists that can speak to the durability of the toilet tissue fibers. The message is that being a woman, and specifically a woman with a family, enables one to speak credibly about matters involving the domestic sphere. As consumers, we are told to trust and purchase this household product because an “extremely reliable source”—i.e., women—told us to. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp
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Tags: gender, inequality, organizations/occupations/work, sex/sexuality, sexual harassment, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 1:03 Access: YouTube Summary: Cultural Anthropologist, William M. O'Barr (2010), notes of the popular television show, Mad Men, "[It] is a world of heterosexual, white, male privilege." O'Barr further observes that "Gender displays recur. The social structure of the office—men in professional positions, women as their assistants—rings true of pre-Feminist Movement America in the 1960s. Every woman is either a Jackie or a Marilyn and every man wants them both—or at least most of the men. The admen direct the lives of women, not just those in the agency, but those in the entire society. It is a world in which men are dominant and women are subordinate and sexualized." O'Barr draws on a number of clips to make his argument, but one in particular (Season 1, Episode 12, “Nixon Vs Kennedy”) struck me as a useful supplement to a discussion on sexual harassment. The clip features an adman chasing and wrestling a woman to the ground during an office party. Pinning the woman to the floor, he demands to see the color of her panties. The scene is a relatively unambiguous example of sexual harassment, but students might object that the woman who was tackled seems to be participating and even laughing. Here, it might be helpful to note the two women in the clip who were uncomfortably observing the incident and to encourage students to think about sexual harassment as a form of gender discrimination, which creates an unequal work environment for all women. Irrespective of the tackled woman's outward expression, the incident clearly reinforced for everyone the ideas that women in the ad office are first and foremost valued for their capacity to sexually titillate, and they can be made to submit to the demands of their male colleagues. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Economist Muhammad Yunus and local villagers Tags: community, economic sociology, organizations/occupations/work, global development, grameen bank, income, microcredit, microfinance, networks, poverty, social capital, women's autonomy, women's empowerment, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2010 Length: 9:45 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip profiles the founding of the Grameen Bank by economist Muhammad Yunus and its development in rural Bangladesh. Both the bank and Yunus were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." Specifically, the bank is known for microcredit, or giving relatively small, low interest loans to poor people who seek to create businesses. Yunus explains that the world's financial system effectively rejects two-thirds of the world population, but the concept of microcredit is innovative in that it allows such people to participate. The lending system is peculiar in that it requires no collateral, no legal contract, and 96% of the loans are made to women. Each week these loan recipients gather in a center meeting to pay their installments directly to a regional Grameen banker and to discuss shared challenges. While much has been written on the Grameen Bank as an institution which promotes social capital, women's empowerment, and the eradication of poverty, I think this clip is particularly useful for setting up a discussion of social capital. Social capital is often conceived of as a form of capital which inheres in social relations and enhances the ability of actors to draw upon the resources of neighborhood and community. Following Robert Putnam (2001), communities can even be described as having "stocks" of social capital. After watching this clip, students can be encouraged to discuss how such stocks of social capital might be increased through the introduction of microcredit. More than simply flooding a community with material "money" capital, the lending system provides a pretense for women to leave their homes, nurture friendships, and share resources with each other. Note that this video was made by Izzit, which is a company that produces a variety of educational videos. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: consumption/consumerism, gender, marketing/brands, organizations/occupations/work, housework, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 0:31 Access: YouTube Summary: In this clip, women are ushered into the Clorox 2 Stain Research Facility to observe the power of Clorox. The most obvious message in this commercial is that laundry is women's work. A second, complimentary message is that science is men's work. With the exception of a brief and fleeting appearence of a woman scientist at about 19 seconds, the serious and purposeful work of science is all performed by men. Notice too how even the dummies in the research facility are blatently gendered. The commercial works well for encouraging students to contemplate the ubiquity of gender stereotypes in the media. This is now the second commercial from The Clorox Company posted on The Sociological Cinema, which can be used to illuminate the way advertisements often reinforce gender stereotypes. The first Clorox ad was posted here. Thanks to Sociological Images for suggesting this clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: crime/law/deviance, gender, organizations/occupations/work, violence, war/military, masculinity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 4:57 Access: YouTube Summary: In this interrogation tape, Spc. Adam Winfield tells an Army investigator about a series of premeditated murders of innocent Afghan civilians by fellow platoon members. Speaking of the “ringleader” of the misconduct, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, Winfield says, “He likes to kill things. He is pretty much evil incarnate.” While Winfield attributes “evil” to Gibbs’ predilection for killing and violence, Cynthia Enloe’s essay “Wielding Masculinity Inside Abu Ghraib” offers an alternative explanation. Contrary to arguments about a few “bad” (or “evil”) apples, Enloe points to the systematic masculinized culture of the US military. This culture (characterized by violence, assumptions around American/Western superiority, and the subjugation of femininity) goes unaccounted for in most military scandal investigations. Enloe argues men and women are pressured to endorse and participate in this culture of masculinity. Responding to how Gibbs might have reacted to Winfield’s refusal to take part in the killing, Winfield says, “I think -- one, he wouldn't have kept me in the loop on things and, if they had thought I had ratted, they would have come after me.” After the killing Winfield said Gibbs told him “he was part of the group.” The investigator asks, “Did he ever hold against you that you killed a man?” Winfield replies, “No, he told me I was a made man after that.” Coupled with Enloe's essay, this clip is useful for showing students how organizations are gendered, and the ways in which patriarchy functions as a system (and is not the product of "a few bad apples"). Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Barbara Ehrenreich Tags: capitalism, class, inequality, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, theory, Ehrenreich, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2007 Length: 9:45 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip is an interview with journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, who discusses the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. In Ehrenreich's estimation, the US is "the most class divided of the industrial countries." The clip works well as a means of underscoring the concept of class inequality in the United States, and is particularly useful because Ehrenreich's conclusions are based on her own experiences as a person who attempted to survive on lower class wages. At six minutes, Moyer asks, "Don't people call you a Marxist?" and in fact the clip works well as a way of opening discussion about whether Marx's ideas of growing class inequality are being realized in the United States. Finally, the 10 minute clip is also a nice addition to classroom discussions dealing with the ideas in Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: corporations, organizations/occupations/work, theory, weber, alienation, authority, bureaucracy, rationalization, white-collar, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins Year: 1999 Length: 6:20 Access: Extended clip no online access; (short 2:11 clip available at MovieClips) Summary: While the entire Office Space film is a great satire on bureaucracy and office work, this excerpt (on DVD begin at 0:30; end at 6:50; shorter clip available above) is particularly good for demonstrating Weber's concept of bureaucracy. It is also super funny. This clip specifically conveys key dimensions of bureaucracy: functions and roles organized by rules; positions organized in a hierarchy; administrative acts, decisions, and rules communicated through written documents; division of positions based on competencies; those in authority have greater pay and social status compared with those they manage; and positions within the bureaucracy are not dependent on an individual. Weber viewed bureaucracy as essential to industrial capitalism, but noted that the rationality of bureaucratic workplaces often turn us into "specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart." Like Lumberg in the clip above, the rationalized organization of the contemporary workplace (and life more generally), can rule over us like an "iron cage." As one watches the clip, you may want to consider how the workplace depicted in this clip does or does not match up to Weber's ideal-typical bureaucracy, and what are its consequences on workers and everyone throughout society? Submitted By: Paul Dean Tags: capitalism, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, alienation, mass production, labor process, fordism, 06 to 10 mins Year: 1936 Length: 7:25 Access: YouTube Summary: This short excerpt (if using the entire film, begin it at 2:50 & end at 10:15) is an excellent illustration of Marx's concept of alienation (including alienation from the production process, the product, species-being, and fellow workers). First, Charlie Chaplin’s character is alienated from the production process. On the assembly line, he has no control over the speed of the assembly line, how it is arranged, or his role within it. His boss stands over him barking commands at him, probably telling him to speed up and work harder. This type of alienation is pushed even further when he is subject to the automatic "feeding machine” and Chaplin even loses control over the basic activity of eating. Second, we know that Chaplin will not be able to keep the products he produces; it is not even clear from the video what he is producing. Like any capitalist enterprise, these products will become the property of the capitalist and thus the worker is alienated from them. Third, Chaplin is alienated from his own species-being. Through interaction with the industrial machinery, he is interacting not with nature through any creative means, but in an incredibly boring and monotonous fashion. The mind-numbing work requires no creativity, which Marx believes to be an essential element of human nature. Finally, the workers are alienated from each other in this clip. They are made to function in isolation, needing to each do the single mundane task assigned to them by the owner. There is no cooperation or social element to their work. Through the automatic “feeding machine,” the capitalist seeks to “eliminate the lunch hour” and “increase production.” As a consequence, the lunch hour, which is normally a social time for the worker, is lost. When showing the video in class, I ask students to identify how Chaplin's character is alienated and how this relates to Marx's broader theory about capitalism and class. Submitted By: Paul Dean
Tags: consumption/consumerism, gender, marketing/brands, organizations/occupations/work, housework, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2007 Length: 0:35 Access: YouTube Summary: The clear message sent in this Clorox commercial is that laundry is women's work. The commercial states that throughout time and despite many changes (one might even include the Women's Movement as a part of this timeline), women continue to trust Clorox. The underlying message is that laundry continues to be a form of women's (unpaid) labor. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp |
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