(no subject)

[onefixedstar]

Tonight's tutorial was about sex and gender, so I raised the issue of the textbook cover, seen here on the far left. Personally, I think of Trinity from The Matrix when I see it, but I've been told that there are female academics who find it overtly sexual and inappropriate for a textbook. Interestingly, when I asked my students what they thought of it, none of them described it as sexual (although The Matrix did come up). The prevailing attitude seemed to be that the woman was strong, muscular, and had absolutely nothing to do with sociology. I wonder if this reflects a generation gap in the perception of portrayals of women and/or sex, or if it's a question of false consciousness. It's possible that older female academics, who had to fight harder for what they have, are more sensitive to images that they think might undermine women professionally. It's also possible that there are so many highly sexualized images out there that the bar has been raised for younger people as to what constitutes a sexual image.