On the first day of class I arrive early (after a few other students are already in the classroom) and sit in the classroom as one of the students -- I dress appropriately as a non-traditional student. Often, I enter the classroom while on the cell phone, talking loud and usually carrying on about men. I then proceed to be one of those students that others fear to have in the class -- talking to anyone that makes eye contact. I find someone who has already purchased a book and ask to look at it. At the time that the class is suppose to begin, I start to make comments on the general tardiness of instructors as well as ask if anyone is familiar with the teacher of this class. I never say anything that indicates that I am not the teacher. After I have broken a sufficient number of norms, I start flipping through the book asking if anyone knows what Sociology is all about and suggest that we could teach ourselves, find the definition in the book and using the definition incorporate it as I stand up and expose my identity approaching the front of the room. (Shock, relief and understanding from the group.) >From this I am able to discuss group behavior, norms, deviance, etc.
I have found this a very successful way of developing the tone of the class, having them bond early on and start discussions immediately. I have very few people withdrawal from class. This of course becomes more and more difficult as people are referred to my classes and have already heard of my tactics. Cara Gluskoter Faculty, Department of Social Sciences Miami Dade College - North Campus 305-237-1821 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andi Stepnick Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 11:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Jason Maki; Karen Loeb; [email protected] Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: Dove soap--Real Beauty How funny, Karen. Glad it worked out. LOL! Here's the Times piece...Slate, Salon, Today, etc have all been talking about the campaigns. But they *are* rare. Still. Now...how about other first day ideas? August 17, 2005 For Everyday Products, Ads Using the Everyday Woman By STUART ELLIOTT Madison Avenue is increasingly interested in using everyday women in advertising instead of just waifish supermodels. The change comes after the Dove line of personal-care products sold by Unilever introduced what it called a "campaign for real beauty," which presents women in advertisements as they are rather than as some believe they ought to be. If the fad becomes a trend and shows legs, so to speak, it has the potential to fundamentally change decades of image-making on Madison Avenue. But that is a big if indeed. There have been many previous instances of ads that showed so-called real women in place of professional models, which receded as the allure of glamour again reared its beautiful head. This week, Nike is introducing a humorous print and online campaign for exercise gear, frankly glorifying body parts that until now were almost never seen in ads, much less celebrated. One ad, which begins boldly, "My butt is big," features an oversize photograph of the derrière in question. Another Nike ad declares, "I have thunder thighs," while a third asserts: "My shoulders aren't dainty or proportional to my hips. Some say they are like a man's. I say, leave men out of it." The Nike ads, by Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore., are arriving days after the Chicken of the Sea brand of tuna introduced a television commercial showing a gorgeous young woman being ogled by the men in her office. She can escape their wolfish ways only in the elevator, which she enters alone, then breathes a sigh of relief - revealing that she really has a more-than-ample stomach, which she had been holding in. The Nike campaign was in the works, executives say, well before the much-publicized arrival last month of Dove print and outdoor ads showing six women, none of them models, sizes 4 to 12, smiling in their underwear. (The first of the Dove "real beauty" ads, showing older, wrinkled women, started appearing last fall.) The Chicken of the Sea commercial is adapted from a spot that its parent, Thai Union Frozen Products, began running in Asia in 2001. Even so, the arrival of all the ads at the same time suggests that change may be in the air. "We've gotten tired of airbrushed pictures none of us can relate to or recognize," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, one of the most prominent women in advertising, whose agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group in New York, was not involved in creating any of the campaigns. Advertisers are "loosening the reins," said Ms. Kaplan Thaler, who is chief executive and chief creative officer at her agency, which is owned by the Publicis Groupe, in recognition of the reality that "women are the majority of consumers and are buying most of the products." But those facts have been evident for years. Why the new style of ads now? One reason, said Nathan Coyle, senior strategist at Brain Reserve in New York, a consulting company, is the advent of reality television. "Your neighbors, everyday people, are the new celebrities," Mr. Coyle said, which feeds the desire for marketers "to shift from depicting women who are unattainable to women who are attainable." Kelly Simmons, president of a brand consulting company in Philadelphia named Bubble, offered another reason: the aging of the baby-boom generation - the 76 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 - who have long set the pace for marketers and advertising agencies. The first baby boomers will start turning 60 on Jan. 1. "There's no question baby boomers feel better about their bodies," Ms. Simmons said, "and are determined to age beautifully," adding, "It feels there are real voices of women coming through" in the Dove and Nike ads. "I applaud the trend." Nancy Monsarrat, United States director for advertising at Nike in Beaverton, Ore., said that in addition to the different attitudes about body image among boomer women, "younger women have a different perspective" from that of their counterparts a decade or two ago. "They're more personally independent about who they can and should be," Ms. Monsarrat said, which is also reflected in the campaign's approach. "One of the things we've noticed is if you go to an exercise class, if you go to a marathon, active women come in a lot of shapes and sizes," she added. "This can be a great celebration of that." Fitness and health are also the focus of the Chicken of the Sea commercial, said John Signorino, the company's president and chief executive, in San Diego. He imported the spot to the United States after consumers - including, he said, his wife - received overseas versions of it from friends by e- mail. "It's an effort to show consumers, in an attention-getting way, that tuna, and Chicken of the Sea, fit into a healthy lifestyle," Mr. Signorino said. The commercial is being shown, or soon will be, on networks like ABC, CBS, HGTV and Oxygen, he added, and will be circulated through e-mail. The spot is adapted from the original version created by an agency in Bangkok named Chaiyo. Ms. Monsarrat said the Nike campaign, which is also scheduled to appear on a Web site (www.nikewomen.com), is in keeping with her company's efforts, dating back more than a decade, to address issues about women's self-images in a positive way, without stereotypes. She cited campaigns that carried themes like "This is not a goddess" and "If you let me play," all of which were intended, she said, to be "honest in how we communicate with our target consumer." Nike was not alone in the 1990's in running ads meant to question the conventional wisdom about images of women in advertising. In 1997, the Body Shop gained international attention for a campaign carrying the theme "Love your body," which featured a Rubenesque plastic doll named Ruby. The print ads and posters showed the voluptuous, even zaftig, Ruby reclining on a sofa under this headline: "There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and only 8 who do." And since 1997, the Advertising Women of New York club has presented awards to campaigns that its members deem to be breaking ground by portraying women in realistic, nonstereotypical ways. In addition to Nike, winners of such awards have included Adidas, Avon, Gatorade, John Hancock and Reebok. The waxing and waning of so-called real women in advertising comes as marketers and agencies embrace the idea, then revert to traditional images when they believe it is time for a new direction as consumers lose interest. "Advertising sometimes starts trends and sometimes it follows trends," Ms. Kaplan Thaler said. Even if they do not turn up in ads, "real women have always been here, are here and continue to be here," she added. "I'm always happy to see advertising that does not dictate a norm none of us can achieve." Still, said Ms. Simmons of Bubble, who studies sex issues in marketing, more remains to be done before the stereotypes are banished. "The emphasis is still on women's bodies" in the new ads, Ms. Simmons said. "It's not like we're looking at their irises." Andi -------------- Every object, every being, Is a jar of delight. Be a connoisseur. ~Rumi~ Life is raw material. We are artisans. We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful, or debase it into ugliness. It's in our hands. ~Cathy Better~ Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least. ~Johann von Goethe~ Dr. Andi Stepnick Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology 300-C Wheeler Humanities Building Belmont University Nashville TN 37212-3757 Direct Line: (615) 460-6249 Office Manager: (615) 460-5505 Sociology Fax: (615) 460-6997 ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 10:53 am Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: Dove soap--Real Beauty > > I heard on the radio this morning that Nike is apparently taking > on a similar > campaign of celebrating women's bodies with odes to large rear- > ends, hips, and > ugly knees? i think they feature women athletes. It's not quite > the same as > Dove and I haven't seen the ads yet, but it sounds promising. > > Adair > > Quoting Jason Maki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > Dear Karen, Andi, and others- > > > > Sorry to throw a wrench in the works of good teaching examples, but > > here's another twist: > > > > Dove soap has a new campaign to feature "real women" in their > ads and > > even has a website to celebrate this: > > > > http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/ > > > > Gotta love the URL, too! > > > > I am not a reader (I suppose I would fall into the category of > > "ogler") of fashion magazines, but I imagine Dove is an advertiser. > > > > I think this statement by Dove would provide another good > teaching- > > moment...what statement is Dove making by going against the > grain of > > "normal" advertisers? By commencing the "Campaign for Real Beauty" > > will the social definition of "Real Beauty" change? Dove is staging > > a campaign...is the campaign to change our definition of "real > > beauty" or is the campaign to sell more soap? > > > > Jason > > > > > > On Aug 17, 2005, at 9:28 AM, Karen Loeb wrote: > > > > > > > > Yeah, you know, I think I got the Merchants idea from you, Andi. > > > Oh, when I > > > present the scenario of the high school girl starving herself, > etc.> > I get a > > > little dramatic and thrust a recent fashion magazine picked up > from a > > > doctor's office or (sob!) my daughters, and challenge a (female) > > > student to > > > find a model in it that isn't pencil-thin. Then I ask the student > > > at the end > > > of the class to show us any non-thin models she found, which, of > > > course, she > > > hasn't, but one student a few years ago told the class she didn't > > > bother to > > > look because she knew she wouldn't find any. I don't recommend > > > giving the > > > fashion magazine to the guys--they just end up ogling the scantily > > > clad > > > models--defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. > > > > > > Karen > > > > >
