Eyebrows and hair, the key to the White House?

Ron Paul.

A friend of mine posted about fashion in politics on her blog, Applying Aesthetics, and I would like to address a similar issue. In less than a month, two articles have come up in my Google Reader from the NY Times regarding the appearances of the GOP candidates. Unlike the Applying Aesthetics post, both articles were about the men. In her post, Meghana discusses how women are prone to more scrutiny when it comes to how they dress and present themselves, but I think men are not immune to this scrutiny, especially in politics.

The first article that came up was about Ron Paul's eyebrows. Basically Ron Paul used fake eyebrows and in the hot studio lights of the presidential debate at Dartmouth, and the adhesive melted causing his fake eyebrow slipped creating the awkward appearance you can see to your right. A campaign spokesperson blamed Paul's allergies and denied that Ron Paul used fake eyebrows. I believe that was the best explanation, because everyone knows that allergies cause abrnomal growth of your eyebrows. What I am really curious about though is why Paul felt that he needed bushier eyebrows? This goes back to an earlier post I did about the advantages of appearance in elections. There must be data out there to support that voters favor candidates with fuller brows.

Mitt Romney.

The second article that I stumbled upon had to do with Mitt Romney's hair. The article describes how Romney's hair has come to represent him, "many [see] in his thick locks everything they love and loathe about the Republican candidate for the White House. (Commanding, reassuring, presidential, crow fans; too stiff, too slick, too perfect, complain critics)", claims the article. I always seem to underestimate the power of appearances. Literally Mitt Romney's hair could either be the key to the White House, or his demise. I thought back to the 2008 presidential election when Mike Huckabee took a crack at Romney by saying, "I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off". This comment killed him. His image became one of a slick, greedy business man and not a trustworthy leader. None of these critiques center around actions or ideology, but rather appearances.

An Illustration of Military Spending.

This is a really striking graphic that illustrates our military expenditures that I found on the Bold Faith Type blog:


From: MilitaryEducation.org

This graphic really puts things into perspective and makes me question what our priorities are as a nation.

Catholics, Muslims, and American History

These images were first shown to me in a presentation by a University of Chicago professor, Alex Barna, regarding historical stereotypes and their relation to the current negative Islamic stereotypes. What struck me about the two images was that they were expressing the same negative stereotype using the same symbolism, but they were created roughly 100 years apart and address two totally different groups.

The first image depicts the Statue of Liberty with a Catholic clergyman as lady liberty and he stands on a bed of skulls. The second image depicts the Statue of Liberty shrouded in a burqa. Both warn of the impending invasion and take over of American values by a certain religious group. Having grown up in Chicago where almost all my neighbors are Catholic, anti-Catholicism in the United States is completely foreign to me, but there was a time in our history when Catholicism was seen as a threat, some argued we couldn't let Catholics into the government otherwise the Pope and Rome would eventually take control of the United States. This situation is eerily similar to the current movements in 13 states to ban the use of Sharia (Islamic law) in American courts. This article is somewhat biased, but it echoes my views. Fears about Sharia overtaking the American judicial system are completely unfounded. Sharia has many different interpretations and we can rest assured that no one will be sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery in the United States, just as they are not in many Muslim countries.

I think it helps to think about our Islamophobia in the context of the anti-Catholicism that used to be rampant in the United States. A lot of our fear and misconceptions come for a general ignorance about Islam, but having much more exposure to Catholicism, it seems absurd to me that people were ever afraid of Catholic invasion. The Pope has yet take control of the United States and I'm sure he does not plan on it. It is harder to dismiss Catholics as all a bunch of fundamentalist crazies because we know more about them. Now if we take a step back, we see that history is repeating itself, but this time people are screaming about a Muslim invasion. In this blog post by Americans for an Informed Democracy, they do a fantastic job of discussing a variety of factors that have contributed to anti-Muslim sentiment as well as a brief history of it. It cites media, politicians, and the $40 million efforts of seven anti-Islam organizations as some of the major causes for our misunderstanding of the faith and its follwers.

We seem to always have a scapegoat. What we as a society claim are their faults don't change much, and neither do the threats they pose. We merely put a new outfit on the Statue of Liberty and warn our fellow Americans of the new impending invasion.

Ignorance, a two-way street

After last week's post, I was really curious about the other side of this issue of stereotyping. People are more likely ignorant than informed, so I figured there had to be equally as inaccurate stereotypes regarding Americans. With the help of the same PBS article, and an assortment of political cartoons and blogs, I've chosen five common misconceptions to address that the rest of the world may hold about Americans.

1. All Americans are rich. I feel as though this is a stereotype that people internalize, but with a little bit of thought they know it cannot logically be true. In fact, about 15% of Americans live in poverty, but that isn't the image we try and project to the world at large because that is not part of the "American dream". The TV shows we send abroad tend to focus more on the glamorous Hollywood side of things, which fuels more negative stereotypes.
2. American women are promiscuous. Again, thank you Hollywood. This misconception seriously struck me though, because I think women are highly sexualized in American, there are many Americans who would say the same of European women. I know among my high school we would venture to make that judgement given our experiences with exchange students. European teens just seem so much more wild than us. They can drink and go to night clubs, while we have curfews until we are 18. I found it ironic that the country founded on Puritanical values now has a worldwide reputation for promiscuity.
3. Americans are hypocrites. This stereotypes has validity in regards to the American government though. Obviously when we say we stand for freedom, but prop up dictators, we are labeled as hypocrites. Take for example our part in the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat, or even our involvement in Iraq can be seen with some hypocrisy. Although we do the same, projecting the actions of a government onto the population of a country, we all need to keep in mind that there are always people who opposed the government and no one idea or belief is shared by everyone in a country.
4. Americans are lazy. This probably stems from the fact that one-third of Americans are obese, but I actually find this stereotype ironic because there is also the impression that Americans are always busy and always working. I keep playing with the idea of how you can be both lazy and incredibly over-scheduled?
5. Americans are stupid. Well my appologies President Bush, but you didn't help us out much there. As an American who does not consider herself to be particularly stupid, this is one of the most offensive stereotypes to me. And here is a study, that is cited in the book Stupid White Men that made me feel better about my fellow Americans, turns out we are not alone in our stupidity...

89% of Canadians couldn't locate Iraq on a map, a higher "ignorance rate" than that of the United States.
81% of Canadians couldn't locate Israel on a map
5% of Canadians couldn't locate Canada on a map
90% of Britons couldn't locate Iraq on a map, again a worse figure than that of the US
21% of Britons couldn't locate the USA on a map
7% of Britons couldn't locate the England on a map
Swedes scored highest in the poll -- but even there 70% couldn't find Iraq

How Americans Perceive the Middle East

In my English class we are learning about the Middle East and have taken a couple of days to address common misconceptions about the area. I was struck by how prevalent these misconceptions were and how I was tempted to accept some of them as fact. I will address the five that were the most striking to me. It's incredible how wrong our perceptions can be.

1. All Arabs are Muslim and vice versa. Actually, most of the world's Muslims live in South East Asia in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Click here for a map of the world's Muslim population. A minority of all Muslims are Arab, and not all Arabs are Muslim. There is a sizable Christian population in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. There are also Zoroastrians and Baha'i followers, although most of them are in Iran and Iranians are not Arab, they are Persian, which is a whole new misconception.
2. Islam is a violent religion. "Islam" itself literally means "peace and submission to God", and every chapter of the Quran (the holy text of Islam) begins with, "In the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate". That was about all the convincing I needed to prove that the religion itself isn't violent, but instead a small minorities interpretation of the scripture is violent.
3. Islam is oppressive towards women. Again we are confusing the culture of some Muslim societies with the religion of Islam. Just like there are conservative Americans who argue that women should "stay in the kitchen", there are conservative Muslims that believe in a domestic and restricted role for women. The difference is that in America, those who advocate fewer women's rights are not in power whereas the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Al Saud family of Saudi Arabia, and Islamic Republic Party in Iran are actually in power.
4. The Middle East is one big sandy desert with lots of camels, populated by... men in turbans and long white robes... women in black with their faces covered... men waving long curved swords... harems with scantily clad women serving one man... husbands with four wives... rich oil sheikhs... and terrorists. I borrowed this from a PBS article because I believed it captured exactly how most Americans perceive the "Middle East". I don't think many people understand that the Sahara is in fact in Northern Africa, other than that the Arabian peninsula has deserts, but Iraq and Afghanistan are mountainous. Also turbans are not exclusive to Islam, Sikh men also wear turbans, and the harems and swords are reminiscent of Aladdin. Here again, most of Americans' knowledge of international culture comes from Disney movies.
5. The veils are a sign of oppression, and all veils are burqas. First of all, there many different styles of veils ranging from just a head scarf or hijab, to the ultraconservative burqa which is extremely rare. Click here for an illustration of the different styles. Although we've adopted the word burqa, it is the most uncommon form of veiling. Even in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Islamic states the burqa is uncommon. Secondly, the veils are not always a sign of oppression. Many women feel freer while wearing a veil because they are free from unwanted male attention; they feel less likely to be sexualized and viewed as an object while veiled. Some Muslim women also believe that women in the West are more oppressed for this same reason. Because we are so sexualized, they view that as just as much oppression, the same way we view the veil as oppression. These opposing view points really interested me because I had never imagine wearing a veil as freedom, but then I thought about how nice it would be to avoid unwanted attention...

Another great resource, click here to read Ruben Navarrette, a Muslim and Chicago native, debunk more myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims.

I'm too pretty to...

This first tee shirt was featured in a blog post on the Beauty is Inside blog. I agreed with the post that wearing a shirt like this gives not only a highly-sexualized image of young girls, but it also makes them seem untrustworthy. The author found this shirt in the juniors department, which seems way too young to be flaunting your man-stealing prowess.

Upon reading this post, I was reminded of a similar controversy involving a girl’s tee shirts sold at JCPenney (click here to read about it). The following shirt was pulled after complaints poured into JCPenney.

What bothers me the most about all these tee shirts is that they reinforce sexism and sexualize girls at a very young age. Here words and appearance come together to teach young girls that math is only for ugly girls, and judging by the shirt design, we are also telling 7 or 8 year old girls to use their bodies and not their brains to get things done. As a high school senior in my second year of AP math classes, I find it offensive that we still market smart girls as ugly, weird, or nerdy. I am not an ultra-feminist, but these shirts are only a few examples of tons of sexist shirts on the market (click here for more examples).

Another thought that bothered me was that there are parents that let their children wear shirts with messages like this, or worse parents that buy these shirts for their kids. It’s disturbing when parents are actively involved in the premature sexualization of their own children. I’ll be honest, Toddler and Tiaras on TLC is one of my guilty pleasure shows, but beauty pageants are one of the most concrete examples of such a phenomenon. All of these subtle forms of sexism and sexualization of girls keep all females stuck in traditional gender roles.

Simba doesn't live in Nairobi...

Consider for a moment the two attached pictures; which one best represents Africa?

My gut reaction was to chose the UNICEF advertisement with the despondent-looking children. But taking that stance infantilizes Africa. The second picture is one of Nairobi, Kenya, which although it may not be Chicago or New York is a functioning “modern” city that is also a part of Africa. I began to question what made me view Africa as a continent of starving orphans and not a place with a wide variety of people and problems? I came to the conclusion that American media coverage makes Africa appear helpless, childlike, and unable to solve its own problems.

To test this theory, I went to the New York Times and browsed through the articles of their Africa section. To my surprise, only one of the articles listed was about progress in Africa, and the rest were about either political unrest, violence, and natural disaster (I invited you to follow the link and see for yourself, that hardly any of the articles pertain to progress). To further support for my hypothesis, when I clicked on a link to read about Ugandan government officials stepping down amidst scandal, the following advertisement appeared at the top of the screen...

“Children are dying in East Africa”, and cue photo of a despondent child.

Now I don’t mean to dismiss the tragedies and suffering in Africa, but I would like to make clear that there are modern cities and capable adults in Africa. Until I was about twelve years old, I believed Africa was essentially The Lion King or The Jungle Book and I believe that kind of ignorance is dangerous. There has been a recent back lash against foreign aid in Africa and I would have to agree with it. The people of Africa are perfectly capable of solving their own problems, they only need capital and international support to do so.

Since most of our exposure to Africa is through ad campaigns such as UNICEF, Heifer, or the Red Cross, which want to illicit guilt through their photos, we are left with a distorted sense of Africa. For one we categorize the whole continent as one, like I have done throughout this post, even though there are innumerable tribes, languages, customs, and cultures throughout the continent. We also tend to cast Africa in victim narratives because of our media perception. We look to give handouts instead of advice, and want to intervene instead of assist. Our media perception causes us to act a certain way in regards to Africa; so if we alter the media image or Africa, maybe we can shift people’s thinking as well?

I am curious to see how Africa appears to other people, feel free to comment!

Hot or Not Elections

We would all like to believe that we live in a democracy populated by informed voters that cast their ballots based on a candidate’s credentials and perceived ability to lead, but how much of that perception has to do with ‘looking’ like a leader?

Appearance came into politics with force after The Great Debate between Nixon and Kennedy. It was the first presidential debate to be televised and Kennedy’s more youthful appearance gained him widespread support. More recently though political science researchers at MIT have discovered that there is somewhat of an international idea of what a good leader looks like. In the study they showed people in the United States and Canada pictures of election match ups in Mexico and Brazil. Participants were able to predict the election outcomes with 68% accuracy based on physical appearance alone. Even more surprising, the people from India and the United States chose the same candidate 75% of the time. Despite vastly different cultures and ideals of beauty, all four populations had similar ideas of what a good leader looks like.

In another study, researchers found that “low-information voters”, or people in the lowest quartile of political knowledge, were most heavily influenced by a candidates physical appearance. The effect was magnified by the amount of time the voter spent watching television. To me, this is very concerning. I never realized that the attack ads and incessant campaign ads actually worked, even after having interned on a senatorial campaign. I remember one of the staffers telling me, “Politics are nasty. We do what it takes to win, and trust me if people didn’t respond to nasty we wouldn’t use it”. The combined effect of low-information voters being swayed by appearances is roughly equal to the advantage of being an incumbent, researchers found. Again, this is a red flag. Human behavior isn’t going to change on it’s own, which makes me believe we need stricter campaign laws. If appearances alone can determine an election, something has to change.

I liken the dangers of looks being able to win elections, to the dangers of rhetoric alone winning elections. Charismatic and verbose leaders can sometimes be the most dangerous, igniting violence and spewing hatred with their words. There is danger in electing any sort of leader without first considering their qualifications. A country cannot be lead by a pretty face or great speeches; we need a doer.

Introductions

First impressions matter. Typically our first judgements of people come from the way they look, because no matter how many times we are told not to judge a book by its cover, we do. That’s why we even have a business sector devoted to marketing, and publishers that hire artists to create artwork for book covers. Scientists will argue that it's human nature to be attracted to more beautiful people and things, and people will argue that the world is shallow and narcissistic. Regardless of the angle you take, one fact remains: how things look is crucial.

We live in an image obsessed culture, where in many cases presentation means more than substance. I am experiencing my teenage years, developmental years heavily influence by appearance, in this image obsessed culture. I think this provides an interesting perspective, because my age group’s added attention to appearance has made me hypersensitive to it. The purpose of this blog will be to explore and discover new ways in which appearance impacts life.

Because I am a visual learner, I have always paid special attention to visual cues. I tend to notice how people dress, style their hair, and do their make up. I try not to judge them based on how they look, because my whole moral upbringing has been about getting to know people on the inside, but I cannot ignore the fact that looks matter. How a person decides to present themselves to the world has a lot to say about who they are. It is the ideas of visual cues and initial judgements that have captured my imagination and made me want to explore the varying roles of appearance in our lives. I want to know the science behind images, the psychology, and the larger cultural impacts of images. Appearances can influence behavior, reinforce stereotypes, and win elections. Looks matter, so it’s about time I tried to understand them.