Showing papers in "Gender & Society in 2011"
TL;DR: This paper analyzed 219 discrimination narratives constructed from sex discrimination cases brought before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and found that gender stereotyping combines in predictable ways with sex composition of workplaces and organizational policies to result in discrimination.
Abstract: Research on gender inequality has posited the importance of gender discrimination for women’s experiences at work. Previous studies have suggested that gender stereotyping and organizational factors may contribute to discrimination. Yet it is not well understood how these elements connect to foster gender discrimination in everyday workplaces. This work contributes to our understanding of these relationships by analyzing 219 discrimination narratives constructed from sex discrimination cases brought before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. By looking across a variety of actual work settings, the analysis sheds light on the cultural underpinnings and structural contexts in which discriminatory actions occur. The analyses reveal how gender stereotyping combines in predictable ways with sex composition of workplaces and organizational policies, often through interactional dynamics of discretionary policy usage, to result in discrimination. The findings suggest the importance of cultural, structural, and inte...
241 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine experiences of married couples to better understand whether economic shifts that push couples into gender-atypical work/family arrangements influence gender inequality, and find that the decision to have a father stay home is heavily influenced by economic conditions, suggesting that men's increased job instability and shifts in the relative employment conditions of husbands and wives push some men into at-home fatherhood.
Abstract: I examine experiences of married couples to better understand whether economic shifts that push couples into gender-atypical work/family arrangements influence gender inequality. I draw on in-depth interviews conducted in 2008 with stay-at-home husbands and their wives in 21 married-couple families with children (42 individual interviews). I find that the decision to have a father stay home is heavily influenced by economic conditions, suggesting that men’s increased job instability and shifts in the relative employment conditions of husbands and wives push some men into at-home fatherhood. However, this shift in family arrangements can promote change toward greater gender equality even in couples that initially hold entrenched, gendered beliefs. The data indicate that at-home fathers come to value their increased involvement in children’s care in ways that reduce gender differences in parenting and that have the potential to translate into institutional change, particularly when they reenter the labor fo...
206 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored how men experience shifts in the household labor division triggered by women's migration and shed light on the diverse ways notions of masculinity and gender identities are being reworked and renegotiated in the transnational family.
Abstract: This article explores an aspect of women’s transnational labor migration that has been understudied in many labor-sending countries: how men experience shifts in the household labor division triggered by women’s migration. In so doing, we shed light on the diverse ways notions of masculinity and gender identities are being reworked and renegotiated in the transnational family. Drawing on qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with carers of left-behind children in Northern Vietnam, we show how men are confronted with the need to take on child care duties, which have traditionally been ascribed to women, while at the same time being under considerable pressure to live up to locally accepted masculinity ideals. We provide interesting insights into the changing family structures and dynamics in Vietnamese society where patriarchal norms continue to exert significant influence on different facets of life.
184 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report findings from interviews with 26 openly gay male athletes who came out between 2008 and 2010, and compare their experience with those of 26 gay male athlete who did not come out between 2000 and 2002.
Abstract: In this article I report findings from interviews with 26 openly gay male athletes who came out between 2008 and 2010. I compare their experiencesto those of 26 gay male athletes who came out between 2000 and 2002. The athletes in the 2010 cohort have had better experiences after coming out than those in the earlier cohort, experiencing less heterosexism and maintaining better support among their teammates. I place these results in the context of inclusive masculinity theory, suggesting that local cultures of decreased homophobia created more positive experiences for the 2010 group.
171 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children's books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States and found that males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters.
Abstract: Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children’s books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series (i.e., Caldecott award winners, Little Golden Books, and books listed in the Children’s Catalog) are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children’s understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character (i.e., child or adult, human or animal), book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Li...
170 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that women draw on gendered expectations and norms within their disciplines to discursively distance themselves from other women they perceive as having deviated from such norms and expectations, and the types of distancing in which these respondents engage reflect and support gendered structures, cultures, and practices that ultimately disadvantage women and obscure gender inequality.
Abstract: Gendered barriers to women’s advancement in STEM disciplines are subtle, often the result of gender practices, gender stereotypes, and gendered occupational cultures. Professional socialization into scientific cultures encourages and rewards gender practices that help to maintain gendered barriers. This article focuses more specifically on how individual women scientists’ gender practices potentially sustain gender barriers. Findings based on interview data from thirty women in academic STEM fields reveal that women draw on gendered expectations and norms within their disciplines to discursively distance themselves from other women they perceive as having deviated from such norms and expectations. The types of distancing in which these respondents engage reflect and support gendered structures, cultures, and practices that ultimately disadvantage women and obscure gender inequality. I conclude by discussing the implications of women scientists’ distancing practices for efforts to change the gendered cultu...
161 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date and found that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships.
Abstract: “Hooking up,” a popular type of sexual behavior among college students, has become a pathway to dating relationships. Based on open-ended narratives written by 273 undergraduates, we analyze how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date. In contrast to the sexual script which holds that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships, students generally accorded women sexual agency and desire in the hookup and validated men’s post-hookup relationship interest. However, in explaining the sexless date, students typically reasoned the woman was being chaste and withholding sex to redeem her reputation whereas they often characterized the man’s abstinence in terms of a pity date. The findings underscore the tenacity of gendered sexual scripts around heterosexual dates and hookups but also reveal fissures and contradictions that suggest some changes to the sexual double standard.
115 citations
TL;DR: The most popular form of reversible contraception in the United States is the female-controlled hormonal birth control pill, and women take primary responsibility for contraceptive decision-making in relationships.
Abstract: The most popular form of reversible contraception in the United States is the female-controlled hormonal birth control pill. Consequently, scholars and lay people have typically assumed that women take primary responsibility for contraceptive decision making in relationships. Although many studies have shown that men exert strong influence in couple’s contraceptive decisions in developing countries, very few studies have considered the gendered dynamic of contraceptive decision making in developed societies. This study uses in-depth interviews with 30 American opposite-sex couples to show that contraceptive responsibility in long-term relationships in the United States often conforms to a gendered division of labor, with women primarily in charge. A substantial minority of men in this study were highly committed contraceptors. However, the social framing of contraception as being primarily in women’s “sphere,” and the technological constraints on their participation, made even these men reluctant to discu...
112 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used responses from 34 college women who completed an extra credit assignment in a women's studies class that asked them to reject social norms and grow out their leg and underarm hair for a period of 10 weeks.
Abstract: Research on bodies and sexualities has long debated ideas about choice, agency, and power, particularly as women conform to, or rebel against, traditional social scripts about femininity and heterosexuality. In this study, I have used responses from 34 college women who completed an extra credit assignment in a women’s studies class that asked them to reject social norms and grow out their leg and underarm hair for a period of 10 weeks. Responses reveal that women confronted direct and anticipated homophobia and heterosexism from others as well as hostility for rejecting traditional norms of femininity. Heterosexual women regularly encountered demands that they acquire permission to grow body hair from their male partners, while queer and bisexual women expressed reluctance about further “outing” themselves via their body hair. I consider implications for linking sexual identity discrimination and body hair practices, and for imagining bodies as sites of resistance inside and outside of pedagogical settings.
77 citations
TL;DR: In a recent status report on the gender revolution in Gender & Society (England 2010), the authors argued that change in the gender system has been asymmetric, with women changing more than men.
Abstract: In my recent status report on the gender revolution in Gender & Society (England 2010), I argued that change in the gender system has been asymmetric, with women changing more than men. I attributed this to the devaluation of and low rewards offered to those in roles associated with women, giving women an incentive to leave them (even when they find them meaningful) and men little incentive to enter. For example, large numbers of women jettisoned full-time homemaking to enter paid employment, and many entered “male” occupations and fields of study. In support of the unevenness of the gender revolution by class, I pointed to higher employment rates of college-educated than other women and the fact that women have entered male-dominated professions and managerial jobs much more than the largely male blue-collar trades. In this issue, several able critics comment on my piece but do not dispute these points. My critics take issue with two parts of my account. Some believe that I understated continuing progress toward gender equality. Evoking the most criticism was my supply-side hypothesis about why few women integrated male-dominated blue-collar jobs, while by contrast, male-dominated professional and managerial fields were substantially integrated. While considerations of space prohibit a response to all of the points made by my critics, I respond to some of their main critiques below. I also suggest types of research I believe we need to better understand these issues.
77 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined heterosexual fathers' descriptions of conversations with their teen children about sexuality and their perceptions of their teen adolescents' sexual identities and found that fathers construct their own identities as masculine and heterosexual in the context of these conversations and prefer that their children, especially sons, are heterosexual.
Abstract: This article examines heterosexual fathers’ descriptions of conversations with their teen children about sexuality and their perceptions of their teen children’s sexual identities We show that fathers construct their own identities as masculine and heterosexual in the context of these conversations and prefer that their children, especially sons, are heterosexual Specifically, fathers feel accountable for their sons’ sexuality and model and craft heterosexuality for them, even as many encourage their sons to stay away from heterosexual relationships and sex until they are older Fathers are more accepting of homosexuality for their daughters yet question the authenticity of teen lesbian identity and do not recognize their daughters’ sexuality as agentic They instead construct their daughters as sexually passive and vulnerable and position themselves as their daughters’ protectors The findings illustrate the complexities of heteronormativity in a context of shifting, frequently contested gender and sex
TL;DR: The authors examined how men negotiate the competing discourses of victimization, hegemonic masculinity, and stereotypes about domestic violence when filing for a domestic violence protection order against a woman partner.
Abstract: Previous research analyzing masculinity and domestic violence has focused on men’s accounts of the violence they have committed; relatively little research has focused on men’s accounts of victimization. This article critically examines how men negotiate the competing discourses of victimization, hegemonic masculinity, and stereotypes about domestic violence when filing for a domestic violence protection order against a woman partner. Three themes related to gender and victimization emerged from the men’s narratives. First, the men’s descriptions of the violence they had experienced focused on their power and control over their intimate partner. Second, the men described their active resistance to the abuse but were careful to note that their actions were not “abusive” and that they were not the “abusers.” Finally, although most of the men described both verbal and physical abuse, most did not express a fear of their partner. I discuss the results of this analysis in the context of the recent increase in ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze programs for undergraduate women in science and engineering as strategic research sites in the study of disparities between women and men in scientific fields within higher education, and reveal key patterns in the programs' definitions of the issues of women and engineering, their solutions to address the issues, their goals and perceived success with goals, and their organizational characteristics and relationship to the larger institutional environments.
Abstract: We analyze programs for undergraduate women in science and engineering as strategic research sites in the study of disparities between women and men in scientific fields within higher education. Based on responses to a survey of the directors of the universe of these programs in the United States, the findings reveal key patterns in the programs’ (1) definitions of the issues of women in science and engineering, (2) their solutions to address the issues, (3) their goals and perceived success with goals, and (4) their organizational characteristics and relationship to the larger institutional environments. The findings—which are conceptually grounded in the distinction between structural/institutional and individual issues facing women in science—have implications for understanding gender, science, and higher education, and for initiatives undertaken to improve the condition of women in scientific fields. The findings may also inform strategic efforts to reduce gender disparity in other organizational cont...
TL;DR: This article found that women's expectations about workforce participation stem from gendered, classed, and raced ideas of who works full-time, and the intersections of race, class, and gender play a central role in shaping women's expec...
Abstract: Using data from 80 in-depth qualitative interviews with women randomly sampled from New York City, I ask: how do women develop expectations about their future workforce participation? Using an intersectional approach, I find that women’s expectations about workforce participation stem from gendered, classed, and raced ideas of who works full-time. Socioeconomic status, race, gender, and sexuality influenced early expectations about work and the process through which these expectations developed. Women from white and Latino working-class families were evenly divided in their expectations about their future workforce participation, while the vast majority of white, Asian, African American, and Latina middle-class women expected to work continually as adults. Unlike their working-class white and Hispanic peers, all of the working-class Black respondents developed expectations that they would work continuously as adults. The intersections of race, class, and gender play a central role in shaping women’s expec...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that to gain a more complete understanding of how lesbian families experience parenthood outside of the heterosexual context, scholars must consider how co-parents negotiate a parental identity, rather than presuming that women parents want to mother.
Abstract: This article argues that to gain a more complete understanding of how lesbian families experience parenthood outside of the heterosexual context, scholars must consider how co-parents negotiate a parental identity, rather than presuming that women parents want to mother. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 17 women in a state that denies them parental legal rights, this article asks how a non—biologically related and non—legally related woman parent determines a parental identity in a social system that continually reminds her of her liminal position. Interviewees divided roughly evenly into the self-identified categories of “mother” and “father” and a collectively generated category of “mather,” a hybrid of the two words. The word mather served to anchor co-parents in otherwise uncertain seas, but the other groups felt their parental identity was significantly constrained by ill-fitting role expectations based on gender. We conclude by addressing the possibility for alternative family forms to transform ...
TL;DR: This paper identified strategies global employers use to shed, demote, and marginalize professional mothers by using gendered assumptions in constructing and implementing labor practices among highly skilled professional workers in Hungary.
Abstract: Under what conditions do motherhood penalties emerge in countries undergoing transition from state socialism to capitalism? This analysis identifies the ways managers in global financial firms employ gendered assumptions in constructing and implementing labor practices among highly skilled professional workers in Hungary. Relying on 33 in-depth interviews with employers as well as interviews with headhunting firms, labor and employment lawyers, and analysis of antidiscrimination cases brought before Hungary’s Equal Treatment Authority between 2004 and 2008, we identify several strategies global employers use to shed, demote, and marginalize professional mothers. By demonstrating the salience of motherhood as a status characteristic in the postsocialist labor market, our work contributes to existing scholarship on motherhood penalties. Our work also extends this scholarship by showing how the salience of motherhood is strongly conditioned by state-level arrangements that shape the opportunity context in wh...
TL;DR: This paper explored intergenerational negotiations for support between single mothers and their adult daughters in managing paid work and domestic responsibilities and found that single mothers re-create youth privilege, finding their lives simpler with a babushka, but most grandmothers do whatever they can to help daughters, feeling more dependent than ever on them because of the uncertainties of capitalism and the state's retrenchment.
Abstract: Relative to gender, race, and class, age relations are undertheorized. Yet age, like gender, is routinely accomplished in daily life. Grandmothers and adult daughters simultaneously do age and gender as they support one another in managing paid work and domestic responsibilities. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with 90 single mothers and 30 grandmothers (babushki) in Russia, I explore intergenerational negotiations for support. Both single mothers and grandmothers are held accountable for doing gendered age, but labor and marriage markets tip the balance in favor of single mothers. Single mothers re-create youth privilege, finding their lives simpler with a babushka. Some grandmothers embrace newer discourses of femininity, challenging assumptions about age and family status that oblige them to perform care work. But most grandmothers do whatever they can to help daughters, feeling more dependent than ever on them because of the uncertainties of capitalism and the state’s retrenchment. I contr...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present views toward marital name change as a potential window into contemporary gender attitudes and most centrally as an illustration of the types of measures that hold great potential for attitudinal research.
Abstract: The need to revise scholars’ approach to the measurement of gender attitudes—long dominated by the separate-spheres paradigm—is growing increasingly timely as women’s share of the labor force approaches parity with men’s. Recent years have seen revived interest in marital name change as a gendered practice with the potential to aid in this task; however, scholars have yet to test its effectiveness as one possible indicator of gender attitudes. In this article we present views toward marital name change as a potential window into contemporary gender attitudes and most centrally as an illustration of the types of measures that hold great potential for attitudinal research. Using quantitative analyses from a national survey, we show that views on name change reflect expected sociodemographic cleavages and are more strongly linked to a wide array of other gender-related attitudes than are views regarding gendered separate spheres—even net of sociodemographic factors. We then turn to interlinked qualitative da...
TL;DR: For example, England as discussed by the authors argued that women who became physicians, lawyers, and business executives could not do both because, their mothers already had the highest-class feminine-typed mothers.
Abstract: or lack of ability to perform in those jobs. They do not put much emphasis on what those who might have been resisting women's entry?employers, male coworkers, unions?have been up to, and they feel no need to talk about remedies that might be brought to bear by government. Indeed, the implicit message is that no remedy is necessary because no harm has been done. The women got what they wanted, or rather, did not bother to get what they did not want. Paula England, judging by her recent diagnosis of the cause of continuing sex segregation in occupations that do not require college, seems to have signed up with that camp. Her explanation of the failure of women to enter blue-collar male-dominated occupations depends almost entirely on lack of motivation on the part of those women who might have entered. Her attention to any who might have opposed and prevented that entry is limited to a single sentence in a footnote (England 2010,163). England's explana tion of the difference in outcomes in the professions and the blue-collar jobs is that women have wanted two things: (1) They wanted to do better than their mothers, and (2) they wanted to work in occupations that are historically female dominated because such occupations are thought to be particularly suited to women's essential nature and women feel they can express their femininity by working in them. The women who became physicians, lawyers, and business executives could not do both because, England tells us, their mothers already had the highest-class feminine-typed
TL;DR: The authors explored gender messages in Boy Scout and Girl Scout handbooks through an analysis of how gender is infused in the context and content of Scout activities as well as in instructions about how the Scouts are to approach these activities.
Abstract: I explore gender messages in Boy Scout and Girl Scout handbooks through an analysis of how gender is infused in the context and content of Scout activities as well as in instructions about how the Scouts are to approach these activities. I find that girls are offered more activities intended to be performed in group contexts than are boys. Boys are offered proportionately more activities with scientific content and proportionately fewer artistic activities than are girls. The girls’ handbook conveys messages about approaching activities with autonomous and critical thinking, whereas the boys’ handbook facilitates intellectual passivity through a reliance on organizational scripts. Taken together, girls’ messages promote an “up-to-date traditional woman” consistent with the Girl Scouts’ organizational roots; boys’ messages promote an assertive heteronormative masculinity that is offset by facilitating boys’ intellectual passivity.
TL;DR: The gender revolution is both a social movement and a global transformation promoting gender equality in all spheres of life as mentioned in this paper, but progress in any particular domain will be uneven, and women continue to challenge gender as an organizing principle in male dominated spheres, the revolution is advancing.
Abstract: In commenting on Paula England’s (2010) essay, we address three issues: whether the gender revolution has stalled, ambiguities in England’s estimate of recent trends in occupational sex segregation, and England’s choice-based explanation for occupational segregation. The gender revolution is both a social movement and a global transformation promoting gender equality in all spheres of life. We agree that this revolution has progressed unevenly; we disagree that it has stalled. The gender system comprises many interrelated spheres. Because advancement in some spheres must await headway in others, progress in any particular domain will be uneven. As long as women continue to challenge gender as an organizing principle in male-dominated spheres, the revolution is advancing.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze how military service can be a source of women's antiwar voices, using the Israeli case of Women Breaking the Silence (WBS), a collection of testimonies from Israeli women ex-soldiers who have served in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Abstract: This paper analyzes how military service can be a source of women’s antiwar voices, using the Israeli case of “Women Breaking the Silence” (WBS). WBS is a collection of testimonies from Israeli women ex-soldiers who have served in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The WBS testimonies change the nature of women’s antiwar protest by offering a new, paradoxical source of symbolic legitimacy for women’s antiwar discourse from the gendered marginalized position of “outsiders within” the military. From this contradictory standpoint, the women soldiers offer a critical gendered voice, which focuses on criticism of the combat masculinity and gendered identification with the Palestinian “other.” While they reaffirm the republican ethos that grants political dominance to male soldiers, they also deconstruct the image of hegemonic masculinity as the emblem of the nation and undermine gendered militarized norms.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined whether funded agricultural projects have increasingly targeted women and/or gender and found that the number of agricultural aid projects and the dollar amounts targeting women/gender increased between 1978 and 2003, however, the increase was modest and, as a percentage of all agricultural development aid, has declined since the late 1990s.
Abstract: Gender-based inequalities constrain women’s ability to participate in efforts to enhance agricultural production and reduce poverty and food insecurity. To resolve this, development organizations have targeted women and more recently “mainstreamed” gender within their agricultural aid programs. Through an analysis of agricultural-related development aid, we examine whether funded agricultural projects have increasingly targeted women and/or gender. Our results show that the number of agricultural aid projects and the dollar amounts targeting women/gender increased between 1978 and 2003. However, the increase was modest and, as a percentage of all agricultural development aid, has declined since the late 1990s. Significantly, this decline occurs at a time when there are an increasing number of women engaged in agriculture. Our findings suggest that the rhetoric of gender mainstreaming outstrips efforts to develop projects aimed at women and gender inequality and that the concept may be being used to legiti...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how masculinity and gender nonconformity are viewed by 37 migrant Puerto Rican gay men who had been raised in Puerto Rico and migrated Stateside as adults.
Abstract: In this article, I explore how masculinity and gender nonconformity are viewed by 37 migrant Puerto Rican gay men who had been raised in Puerto Rico and migrated Stateside as adults. Most of these migrant men note the importance of masculinity in their development and interactions with others, particularly other men. They resist identification of themselves as effeminate and distance themselves from locas (effeminate gay men). They associate locas with overt homosexuality, disrespect, and marginality. I argue that migrant Puerto Rican gay masculinities are maintained within the precept of hegemonic masculinity through various social mechanisms, including a gendered construction of male homosexuality; the connection of social and interpersonal respect with masculinity; the socially allowable and pervasive ridicule and punishment of male femininity; and marginalization based on multiple social statuses. Through these interconnected social mechanisms, heteronormative perspectives on gender, gender binaries, ...
TL;DR: This article examined the construction of women's leadership in Morocco during the four-month period leading to the local elections of June 2009 and found that the symbolic annihilation of political women, a thesis traditionally applied to Western contexts, is disturbingly robust in Morocco.
Abstract: How the Arab media construct Middle Eastern women as political actors, frame their leadership roles, and narrate their activities to the public are important questions largely ignored in the growing scholarship on women’s political participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s reflections on the politics of recognition and distribution (2007), I examine the construction of women’s leadership in Morocco during the four-month period leading to the local elections of June 2009. Analysis of 1,738 news items from five print media sources reveals that the “symbolic annihilation” of political women, a thesis traditionally applied to Western contexts, is disturbingly robust in Morocco. The Moroccan case alerts us that institutional mechanisms supporting women’s leadership might begin to address gender biases in the distribution of political power, but they do not guarantee the recognition of gender equality in the cultural sphere of knowledge production and opinion formation....
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define implicit feminism as a strategy practiced by feminist activists within organizations that are operating in an anti-and post-feminist environment in which they conceal feminist identities and ideas while emphasizing the more socially acceptable angles of their efforts.
Abstract: Previous research demonstrates how activists who do not identify as feminist sometimes engage in “implicitly feminist practices.” In this paper, I extend this research by asking: Do self-identified feminists also employ such implicit strategies in the course of their activist efforts? If so, why would they “do” feminism implicitly? Based on participant observation and semistructured interviews at Girls Rock! Midwest—a week-long summer day camp program that aims to empower girls through rock music production—I develop the concept of implicit feminism. I define implicit feminism as a strategy practiced by feminist activists within organizations that are operating in an anti- and postfeminist environment in which they conceal feminist identities and ideas while emphasizing the more socially acceptable angles of their efforts. My research demonstrates how feminist-identified activists employ implicitly feminist practices as a strategic response to feminist dilemmas stemming from competing organizational deman...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the underlying assumptions supporting women's and girls' teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality and reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls' innate fragility and athletic inferiority.
Abstract: Feminist scholars have critically analyzed the effects of sex segregation in numerous social institutions, yet sex-segregated sport often remains unchallenged. Even critics of sex-segregated sport have tended to accept the merits of women-only teams at face value. In this article, we revisit this issue by examining the underlying assumptions supporting women’s and girls’ teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality. Specifically, we analyze the 14 U.S. court cases wherein adolescent boys have sought to play on girls’ teams in their respective high schools. The courts’ decisions reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls’ innate fragility and athletic inferiority. While the courts, policy makers, and many feminist scholars see maintaining teams for girls and women as a solution to the problem of boys’ and men’s dominance in sport, the logic supporting this form of segregation further entrenches notions of women’s inferiority.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that occupation integration occurred primarily because a typically gendered path was unavailable to women from a middle-class background, and that the class positions of all other men and women were compatible with pursuing gendered occu- fations, thus maintaining much of the gender order.
Abstract: Paula England's ambition in "The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled" (2010) is to explain why occupational sex segr gation and the gender division of familial labor are still robust despite decades of egalitarian values and policies. But because the explanations she offers "have the status of hypotheses rather than well-documented conclusions" (England 2010, p. 150), her article raises many questions for which we have few answers. Still, there is perhaps more evidence about some of these questions than England considers. In particular, England incorporates notions of class and social mobility into her explanations, grappling with how these intersect with gender identi ties and gendered jobs. The main argument to which I will respond is the one that treats men and women as gendered economic actors in pursuit of gender-typical jobs and family responsibilities. She proposes that occupa tion integration occurred primarily because a typically gendered path was unavailable to women from a middle-class background. The class positions of all other men and women were compatible with pursuing gendered occu pations, thus maintaining much of the gender order. Although England does not discuss counterfactuals, we must assume that if a typically female set of occupations sat atop the hierarchy alongside elite male occupations, no change whatsoever would have occurred since women would have entered those jobs. Similarly, had there been greater demand in men's blue-collar jobs, commensurate with the demand in upper white-collar jobs that pulled in women (an important factor England does not mention), women still would not have entered them because of their preference for female-dominated pinkand lower white-collar jobs. Without evidence to support these counterfactuals, England's framework rests on shaky ground, and other interpretations of the trajectory of occu pational segregation and gender inequality seem at least as plausible. Those
TL;DR: This article reviewed changes in the characteristics, atti tudes, and behaviors of couples that relate to their breadwinning and status arrangements, and argued that these changes have been substantial and that although this finding strengthened England's argument that change has occurred where incentives are the greatest, it also suggests a less than stalled revolution in family relationships.
Abstract: In "The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled," Paula England (2010) argues that gender dynamics ha changed little in the personal realm, particularly with respect to heterosexual romantic relationships. She contrasts this to schooling and jobs, where she argues that the incentives for change have been greater. We agree that the level and pace of gender change in educational and occupational domains have surpassed those in personal rela tionships. However, England's account does not fully appreciate how changes in women's education and work have helped reshape women's intimate rela tionships. Much recent research suggests that as women have increased their education, occupational status, and earnings, the characteristics of couples have changed, and with them the breadwinning dynamics of relationships. Rather than considering the material characteristics of couples as engines of change, England's account of the lack of change in heterosexual romantic relationships is based largely on examining the noneconomic and symbolic aspects of gender, for example, the continuing expectation that men initiate dating and marriage, that women and children generally take men's surnames, and that men and women are judged "old" and sexually undesirable at dif ferent ages. In this comment, we review changes in the characteristics, atti tudes, and behaviors of couples that relate to their breadwinning and status arrangements. We argue that these changes have been substantial and that although this finding strengthens England's argument that change has occurred where incentives are the greatest, it also suggests a less than stalled revolution in family relationships. While there may be few material rewards
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how gynecologists use their bodies to produce legitimated forms of knowledge and how workers navigate gendered meanings attached to bodies in gynecological education.
Abstract: Studies have recently begun to attend to the ways paid labor is embodied. However, the literature on embodied labor has not adequately addressed occupations for which the site of labor is the worker’s own body. One such occupation is that of gynecological educators—female-bodied instructors who teach breast and pelvic examinations to medical students using their own bodies as models. Drawing on interviews with current and former gynecological educators and professional directors, I ask how workers use their bodies to produce legitimated forms of knowledge and how workers navigate gendered meanings attached to bodies. Gynecological educators use a distancing technique I call strategic dualism, which draws on using constructions of the body as an object while simultaneously relying on subjective experiences. This technique allows them to maintain their knowledge and authority, and suggests that workers are able to selectively draw on gendered meanings about the female body to pursue their goals.