Showing papers in "Gender & Society in 2016"
TL;DR: This paper explored the implications of women in leadership positions for the opportunities and experiences of subordinates and found that women's representation among corporate boards of directors, corporate executives, and workplace managers is associated with less workplace gender segregation.
Abstract: A growing literature examines the organizational factors that promote women’s access to positions of organizational power. Fewer studies, however, explore the implications of women in leadership positions for the opportunities and experiences of subordinates. Do women leaders serve to undo the gendered organization? In other words, is women’s greater representation in leadership positions associated with less gender segregation at lower organizational levels? We explore this question by drawing on Cohen and Huffman’s (2007) conceptual framework of women leaders as either “change agents” or “cogs in the machine” and analyze a unique multilevel data set of workplaces nested within Fortune 1000 firms. Our findings generally support the “agents of change” perspective. Women’s representation among corporate boards of directors, corporate executives, and workplace managers is associated with less workplace gender segregation. Hence, it appears that women’s access to organizational power helps to undo the gender...
150 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how the controlling image of the "thug" influences the concerns these mothers have for their sons and how they parent their sons in light of those concerns, and found that mothers were concerned with preventing their sons from being perceived as criminals, protecting their sons' physical safety, and ensuring they did not enact the thug image, a form of subordinate masculinity.
Abstract: Through 60 in-depth interviews with African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers, this article examines how the controlling image of the “thug” influences the concerns these mothers have for their sons and how they parent their sons in light of those concerns. Participants were principally concerned with preventing their sons from being perceived as criminals, protecting their sons’ physical safety, and ensuring they did not enact the “thug,” a form of subordinate masculinity. Although this image is associated with strength and toughness, participants believed it made their sons vulnerable in various social contexts. They used four strategies to navigate the challenges they and their sons confronted related to the thug image. Two of these strategies—experience and environment management—were directed at managing characteristics of their sons’ regular social interactions—and two—image and emotion management—were directed at managing their sons’ appearance. By examining parenting practices, this ...
89 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that 80 percent of women college students and 67 percent of non-college women fail to report being raped to the police (Langton and Siznocich 2014, citing National Crime Survey data).
Abstract: About two decades ago, feminist sociologists stopped focusing on rape and sexual assault even though rapes and their destructive toll on girls and women did not end. Rape did not diminish appreciably and neither did the legal justice system dramatically improve its treatment of victims. Perhaps this is why 80 percent of women college students and 67 percent of noncollege women fail to report being raped to the police (Langton and Siznocich 2014, citing National Crime Survey data). We now know that the
87 citations
[...]
TL;DR: This paper traced six life histories through three dialectical moments: engagement with hegemonic masculinity, separation focused on an individualized remaking of the self, involving an attempt to undo oedipal masculinization, and a shift toward collective politics.
Abstract: The impact of feminism on men has produced both backlash and attempts to reconstruct masculinity. The Australian environmental movement, strongly influenced by countercultural ideas, is a case in which feminist pressure has produced significant attempts at change among men. These are explored through life-history interviews founded on a practice-based theory of gender. Six life histories are traced through three dialectical moments: engagement with hegemonic masculinity; separation focused on an individualized remaking of the self, involving an attempt to undo oedipal masculinization; and a shift toward collective politics. This last and most important step remains tentative.
86 citations
TL;DR: For example, the Oregon Ducks football team defeated the Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles at the Rose Bowl in early 2015, and several Oregon players were filmed singing "No Means No!" to the tune of the "War Chant" regularly sung by FSU fans as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: When the University of Oregon Ducks football team defeated the Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles at the Rose Bowl in early 2015, the content of their post-game revelry may have surprised some viewers. In celebrating their victory, several Oregon players were filmed singing “No Means No!” to the tune of the “War Chant”1 regularly sung by FSU fans. The song was presumably directed at a particular FSU player, quarterback Jameis Winston, who had been accused of (though not charged with or convicted of) raping a female student. Some commentaries on this incident lauded it as a moment in which young men were collectively and publicly reprimanding another man accused of sexual violence by using a long-time feminist slogan: “no means no.”2 Certainly, on first read this appears to be exactly the sort of phenomenon antirape activists have been waiting for: normatively masculine men shaming other men for sexually assaulting women. It seemed to call into question assumptions about the central role of sexual assault in enforcing gender inequality. We propose an alternate interpretation of this moment, however. What if the chanting football players were using the accusations against Winston
85 citations
TL;DR: A comparative analysis of providers who specialize in intersex and trans medicine argues both sets of providers “give gender” by “giving sex,” and argues they medicalize inter sex and trans individuals in different ways.
Abstract: Although medical providers rely on similar tools to “treat” intersex and trans individuals, their enactment of medicalization practices varies. To deconstruct these complexities, we employ a comparative analysis of providers who specialize in intersex and trans medicine. While both sets of providers tend to hold essentialist ideologies about sex, gender, and sexuality, we argue they medicalize intersex and trans embodiments in different ways. Providers for intersex people are inclined to approach intersex as an emergency that necessitates medical attention, whereas providers for trans people attempt to slow down their patients’ urgent requests for transitioning services. Building on conceptualizations of “giving gender,” we contend both sets of providers “give gender” by “giving sex.” In both cases too, providers shift their own responsibility for their medicalization practices onto others: parents in the case of intersex, or adult recipients of care in the case of trans. According to the accounts of most...
74 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine how young, unmarried men's gender ideologies and perceptions of normative masculinity may moderate the effect of supportive work-family policy interventions on their preferences for structuring their future work and family life.
Abstract: Extant research suggests that supportive work–family policies promote gender equality in the workplace and in the household. Yet, evidence indicates that these policies generally have stronger effects on women’s preferences and behaviors than men’s. In this article, we draw on survey-experimental data to examine how young, unmarried men’s gender ideologies and perceptions of normative masculinity may moderate the effect of supportive work–family policy interventions on their preferences for structuring their future work and family life. Specifically, we examine whether men’s prescriptive beliefs about what work–family arrangements most people ought to prefer and whether men’s descriptive beliefs about what work–family arrangements most of their male peers actually do prefer influence their responses to supportive policies. Our analysis shows that men’s responses to supportive work–family policy interventions are highly dependent upon their beliefs about what their male peers actually want, rather than on ...
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine how women of color organizations that strive for intersectional praxis negotiate sameness and difference, and identify two different logics at work within women of colour organizations: the first relies on a presumption of "same difference" that emphasizes similar experiences of gender and race oppression; the second accords greater recognition to the "difference-in-sameness" that structures constituents' lived experiences.
Abstract: Research on the U.S. women’s movement has documented the difficulties of cross-racial work between White women and women of racial/ethnic minorities. Less understood is how racial/ethnic minorities do cross-racial work among themselves to construct a collective identity of “women of color” that encourages solidarity across race, class, and other statuses. Drawing on research from the reproductive justice movement, I examine how women of color organizations that strive for intersectional praxis negotiate sameness and difference. I identify two different logics at work within women of color organizations: the first relies on a presumption of “same difference” that emphasizes similar experiences of gender and race oppression; the second accords greater recognition to the “difference-in-sameness” that structures constituents’ lived experiences. While the former can reproduce precisely those forms of silencing and exclusion that women of color organizations seek to challenge, the second remains a (necessarily)...
56 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a two-year ethnographic study of boxing is used to argue that the notion of the male preserve is still a useful conceptual, theoretical and political device especially when considered as produced by the tyranny of gender power through the dramatic representation and reification of behaviours symbolically linked to patriarchal narrations of manhood.
Abstract: Within this paper I draw on short vignettes and quotes taken from a two-year ethnographic study of boxing to think through the continuing academic merit of the notion of the male preserve. This is an important task due to evidence of shifts in social patterns of gender that have developed since the idea was first proposed in the 1970s. In aligning theoretical contributions from Lefebvre and Butler to discussions of the male preserve, we are able to add nuance to our understanding of how such social spaces are engrained with and produced by the lingering grasp of patriarchal narratives. In particular, by situating the male preserve within shifting social processes, whereby certain men’s power is increasingly undermined, I highlight the production of space within which narratives connecting men to violence, aggression and physical power can be consumed, performed and reified in a relatively unrestricted form. This specific case study contributes to gender theory as an illustration of a way in which we might explore and understand social enclaves where certain people are able to lay claim to space and power. As such, I argue that the notion of the male preserve is still a useful conceptual, theoretical and political device especially when considered as produced by the tyranny of gender power through the dramatic representation and reification of behaviours symbolically linked to patriarchal narrations of manhood.
56 citations
TL;DR: A shifting genealogy of perspectives on rape and antirape activism, with a focus on how these shifts both constrained and enabled men's participation in ant-ape work, is discussed in this paper.
Abstract: In an influential article, Carine Mondorossian (2002, 753) lamented that a “lopsided focus” on victims in public discussions of rape tended to support a belief that victims of sexual assault suffered from a “self-defeating personality disorder.” This lopsided focus also left questions related to perpetrators—and by extension, actions aimed at preventing future assaults—out of focus. Resisting a ubiquitous blame-the-victim ideology, the feminist antirape movement since the 1960s has struggled to shine light on perpetrators, and starting in the mid-1970s leaders in the movement encouraged and mentored small numbers of men to work with boys and young men to prevent future assaults against women (Greenberg and Messner 2014). In the past decade—especially with growing awareness that sexual assault is endemic in the military, organized sports, schools, and universities—institutional efforts to prevent violence against women have blossomed (Messner, Greenberg, and Peretz 2015). For the past half-century, the question of “who is the rapist?” has continued to be fraught, contested, and ultimately consequential for how we think about and create strategies to stop rape. In this commentary, and with broad brushstrokes, I will outline a shifting genealogy of perspectives on rape and antirape activism, with a focus on how these shifts both constrained and enabled men’s participation in antirape work. I will suggest that a pre-feminist view of rape as deviant acts committed by a few
48 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effect of the division of paid labor and housework on couples' relationships, finding that egalitarianism is problematic for sexual intimacy, relationship quality, and relationship stability.
Abstract: Increasingly, both mothers and fathers are expected to play an equal role in child rearing. Nonetheless, we know little about how child care arrangements affect couples’ sexual intimacy and relationship quality. Research has focused on the effect of the division of paid labor and housework on couples’ relationships, finding that egalitarianism is problematic for sexual intimacy, relationship quality, and relationship stability. These findings, however, come almost universally from studies utilizing decades-old data that fail to examine the division of child care. In this study, we update this work by utilizing data from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Study (N = 974) to examine how the division of child care affects the relationship quality and sexual intimacy of heterosexual couples in the United States. Results indicate that men’s performance of child care is generally associated with more satisfaction with the division of child care, more satisfying sexual relationships, and higher quality relationsh...
TL;DR: The authors explored the role of sexual drama in adolescent girls' gendering processes and found that sexual drama offers girls a socially acceptable site for making claims to, and sense of, gendered sexuality in adolescence.
Abstract: Over the past decade, sexual rumor spreading, slut-shaming, and homophobic labeling have become central examples of bullying among young women. This article examines the role these practices— what adults increasingly call “bullying” and what girls often call “drama”— play in girls’ gendering processes. Through interviews with 54 class and racially diverse late adolescent girls, I explore the content and functions of “sexual drama.” All participants had experiences with this kind of conflict, and nearly a third had been the subject of other girls’ rumors about their own sexual actions and/or orientations. Their accounts indicate that sexual drama offers girls a socially acceptable site for making claims to, and sense of, gendered sexuality in adolescence. While they reproduce inequality through these practices, sexual drama is also a resource for girls—one that is made useful through the institutional constraints of their high schools, which reinforce traditional gender norms and limit sexuality information.
TL;DR: This paper used a materialist feminist discourse analysis to examine how women's movement organizations, liberal Democrats, and conservative Republican legislators shaped the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the consequences for intersectional and carceral feminism.
Abstract: This paper uses a materialist feminist discourse analysis to examine how women’s movement organizations, liberal Democrats, and conservative Republican legislators shaped the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the consequences for intersectional and carceral feminism. Drawing on qualitative analysis of Congressional hearings, published feminist and conservative discussion of VAWA, and accounts of feminist mobilization around VAWA, I first show how a multi-issue coalition led by feminists shaped VAWA. Second, I show how discourses of crime intermixed with feminism into a polysemic gendered crime frame that facilitated cross-ideological support. Third, I show how, in contrast, intersectional issues that activists understood as central to violence against women were discursively and structurally separated from gendered crime in Congress. Although a multi-issue movement coalition advocated for expansions in VAWA dealing with immigrants, unmarried partners, same-sex partners, transgender people, and Native ...
TL;DR: This article found that parents attempt to provide their children with a variety of gendered options for clothing, toys, and activities, a strategy that they call the "gender buffet" strategy.
Abstract: Many parents and child-rearing experts prefer that children exhibit gender-normative behavior, a preference that is linked to the belief that children are, or should be, heterosexual. But how do LGBTQ parents—who may not hold these preferences—approach the gender socialization of their children? Drawing on in-depth interviews with both members in 18 LGBTQ couples, I find that these parents attempt to provide their children with a variety of gendered options for clothing, toys, and activities—a strategy that I call the “gender buffet.” However, the social location of the parents influences the degree to which they feel they can pursue this strategy of resistance. Factors such as race, social class, gender of parents and children, and level of support of family and community members contribute to the degree to which LGBTQ parents feel they can allow or encourage their children to disrupt gender norms.
TL;DR: This paper used General Social Survey data to explore differences in religiosity between, as well as among, women and men by level of individual earned income, focusing on high earners with other groups included for comparison.
Abstract: Social scientists agree that women are generally more religious than men, but disagree about whether the differences are universal or contingent on social context. This study uses General Social Survey data to explore differences in religiosity between, as well as among, women and men by level of individual earned income. Extending previous research, I focus on high earners with other groups included for comparison. Predicted probabilities based upon fully interacted models provide four key findings: (1) There are no significant gender differences among high earners; (2) high-earning women are less religious than low-earning women; (3) high-earning men are more religious than low-earning men; and (4) differences among women and among men at different earnings levels are just as large as average differences between women and men. Further analyses demonstrate that the relationship between gender, earnings, and religiosity varies by race. The findings demonstrate the utility of intersectional approaches for ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how this violence emasculates men and boys through four mechanisms: homosexualization, feminization, genital harm, and sex-selective killing.
Abstract: Analyses of gender-based violence during mass conflict have typically focused on violence committed against women. Violence perpetrated against men has only recently been examined as gender-based violence in its own right. Using narratives from 1,136 Darfuri refugees, we analyze patterns of gender-based violence perpetrated against men and boys during the genocide in Darfur. We examine how this violence emasculates men and boys through four mechanisms: homosexualization, feminization, genital harm, and sex-selective killing. In line with an interactionist approach, we demonstrate how genocidal violence is gendered and argue that perpetrators committing gender-based violence perform masculinity in accordance with hegemonic gender norms in Sudan. We also show how gender-based violence enacts, reinforces, and creates meaning on multiple levels in a matrix of mutually reinforcing processes that we term the gender-genocide nexus. By extending the gender–violence link to the context of mass atrocity, this study...
TL;DR: It is suggested that the thesis itself may reproduce segregation as a cultural schema that buttresses essentialist stereotypes about appropriate fields for men and women.
Abstract: Occupational gender segregation is an obdurate feature of gender inequality in the United States The “family plans thesis”—the belief that women and men deliberately adjust their early career decisions to accommodate their anticipated family roles—is a common theoretical explanation of this segregation in the social sciences and in popular discourse. But do young men and women actually account for their family plans when making occupational choices? This article investigates the validity of this central mechanism of the family plans thesis. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 100 college students at three universities, I find that most women and men report no deliberate consideration of their family plans in their college major or post-graduation career choices. Only a quarter of men accommodate provider role plans in their choice of occupations, and only 7 of 56 women (13 percent) accommodate caregiving plans. Further, men who anticipate a provider role are not typically enrolled in more men-dominated fi...
TL;DR: It was found that men in occupations that provide the most hands-on direct care did experience lower earnings compared to men in other occupations after controlling for demographic characteristics, but men in more technical allied health occupations did not have significantly lower earnings, suggesting that these occupations may be part of the glass escalator for men in the health care sector.
Abstract: Feminized care work occupations have traditionally paid lower wages compared to non–care work occupations when controlling for human capital. However, when men enter feminized occupations, they often experience a “glass escalator,” leading to higher wages and career mobility as compared to their female counterparts. In this study, we examine whether men experience a “wage penalty” for performing care work in today’s economy, or whether the glass escalator helps to mitigate the devaluation of care work occupations. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation for the years 1996-2011, we examine the career patterns of low- and middle-skill men in health care occupations. We found that men in occupations that provide the most hands-on direct care did experience lower earnings compared to men in other occupations after controlling for demographic characteristics. However, men in more technical allied health occupations did not have significantly lower earnings, suggesting that these occupati...
TL;DR: In 2003, the landmark Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) defined prison rape as a national social problem worthy of federal intervention; it memorialized in public policy the intersection between rape and prisons, and brought historic attention to the rape of transgender people behind bars as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: When Susan Brownmiller published Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape in 1975, few anticipated that it would become a feminist classic published in more than a dozen languages. Even fewer imagined that it would foreshadow a proliferation of public discourse on sexual assault in an array of institutions, including the family, the workplace, higher education, sports, the Church, and the U.S. military. Entering the word “rape” in Ngram1 reveals that over the 20 years following the publication of Against Our Will, rape rapidly proliferated as a topic in books. In the period from 1985 to 2005, so too did the topic of prisons. And further, during the latter part of that time period, the topic “transgender” began to gain momentum. In 2003, the passage of the landmark Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) defined prison rape as a national social problem worthy of federal intervention; it memorialized in public policy the intersection between rape and prisons, and brought historic attention to the rape of transgender people behind bars.2 It is in the confluence of these seemingly disparate concerns—decades of thinking about rape as a form of gendered violence, prisons as uniquely
TL;DR: This article found that when a mother, whether married or single, is satisfied with her job and her family depends on her income, respondents overwhelmingly support the option to work, while a father is dissatisfied with his job and the family does not depend on his income.
Abstract: Drawing on findings from an original national survey experiment, we unpack Americans’ views on the employment of mothers and fathers with young children. This study provides a fuller account of contemporary attitudes than is available from surveys such as the General Social Survey. After seeing vignettes that vary the circumstances in which married mothers, single mothers, and married fathers make decisions about paid work and caregiving, the respondents’ views swing from strong support to deep skepticism about a parent’s work participation, depending on the parent’s specific job conditions and family circumstances. When a mother, whether married or single, is satisfied with her job and her family depends on her income, respondents overwhelmingly support the option to work. Conversely, when a father is dissatisfied with his job and the family does not depend on his income, respondents generally support the option to stay home. These findings provide insight regarding the “gender stall” thesis by showing t...
TL;DR: The authors argue that older generations perpetuate gendered views of female migration as licentious and risky, in opposition to a dominant paradigm of proper femininity that relegates young women to household labor.
Abstract: Many scholars of gender and migration assume that migration increases women’s household bargaining power, but this article argues that migration recreates and relies on patriarchal expectations that women return to household domestic labor. It draws on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork with migrant factory women in China’s export processing zones as well as one migrant-sending community in China. Based on this fieldwork, I argue that despite young women’s desires to continue migrating for factory jobs, older generations perpetuate gendered views of female migration as licentious and risky, in opposition to a dominant paradigm of proper femininity that relegates young women to household labor. They do this because migration creates an intergenerational dependence in migrant origin sites. Older women, unemployable in factories and deprived of state welfare support at home, rely on wage remittances from high-earning migrant sons and sons-in-law for subsistence. To ensure they receive remittances, they enco...
TL;DR: This article found that women with the lowest levels of educational attainment reported the highest lifetime prevalence of same-gender sex, and participants reject "queer" and embrace "bisexual" in the opposite pattern observed among their more privileged peers.
Abstract: Sexuality researchers have demonstrated how the progressive campuses of selective universities shape hookups, sexual fluidity, and same-gender sex among straight-identified women (“straight girls kissing”). However, this research cannot fully explain a puzzling demographic pattern: women with the lowest levels of educational attainment reported the highest lifetime prevalence of same-gender sex. To make sense of this puzzle, I draw on interviews with 35 women systematically recruited from a demographic survey. I find (1) early motherhood forecloses possibilities to develop or claim LGBTQ identities as women prioritize seemingly incompatible discourses of self-sacrifice and good motherhood; (2) sexual friendships and safety strategies provide opportunities to meaningfully explore same-gender sex and desire; and (3) participants reject “queer” and embrace “bisexual” in the opposite pattern observed among their more privileged peers. This study underscores the situated nature of sexuality knowledge by offeri...
TL;DR: Feminists have been central to virtually every era of activism around child sexual abuse, from moral reformers in the 1800s and early 1900s, to the 1980s survivors movement (Breines and Gordon 1983; Freedman 2013; Sacco 2009; Whittier 2009).
Abstract: Feminists have been central to virtually every era of activism around child sexual abuse, from moral reformers in the 1800s and early 1900s, to the 1980s survivors’ movement (Breines and Gordon 1983; Freedman 2013; Sacco 2009; Whittier 2009). Most recently, feminist analysis of child sexual abuse grew in the 1970s alongside that of rape, as participants in consciousness-raising groups discovered that many of them had been sexually assaulted as children, often by relatives. Feminist anti-rape activists included the rape of girls in their theory, activism, self-defense training, and crisis services. Rape, regardless of age, was understood as an act of power, violence, and male domination; girls were doubly vulnerable because of their relatively powerless position as minors, especially within families. Sexual abuse of boys was also attributed to patriarchal domination, which could be directed at other powerless groups besides women. Developed at the grassroots and through widely read books like Florence Rush’s the Best-Kept Secret (1980) and Sandra Butler’s conspiracy of Silence (1985), this view of child sexual abuse spread widely. But it did not persist. As the issue gained mainstream media attention and people from diverse political perspectives identified as survivors and joined self-help and activist groups, feminist analyses moved from the center to the periphery. Relatively quickly, the idea of incest and child sexual abuse as essentially different from the rape of adult women gained dominance. I traced
TL;DR: This article examined the various ways migrant women perform and negotiate meanings of hy sinh (self-sacrifice) and chịu đựng (endurance) that are core values of Vietnamese womanhood.
Abstract: Given that care duties are central to the definition of motherhood across contexts, an extended separation from the woman’s family due to migration presents a major threat to her social identity as a mother and wife. Drawing on West and Zimmerman’s notion of “doing gender” and ethnographic research on Vietnamese low-waged contract workers in Taiwan, I provide vital insights into the discursive processes and everyday practices that underlie migrant women’s negotiations of motherhood and femininity. Specifically, I examine the various ways migrant women perform and negotiate meanings of hy sinh (self-sacrifice) and chịu đựng (endurance) that are core values of Vietnamese womanhood. Combating the stigma of bad motherhood and failed femininity, I emphasize, is not just about reasserting one’s sense of gendered self but also about reassuring her access to the future support and care of the family. The study emphasizes intentionality and pragmatism in women’s social doings of gender and highlights moral dilemma...
TL;DR: The authors found that mothers and fathers spent the same amount of time on leisure activities, however, mothers had slightly less pure free time than fathers and were more likely to combine leisure with unpaid work or spend time in leisure with children.
Abstract: Previous research suggests that there are important gender disparities in the experience of leisure, but the issue of how mothers and fathers experience free time emotionally remains overlooked. The present study addressed this lacuna using the Experience Sampling Method and survey data from the 500 Family Study. Results showed that mothers and fathers spent the same amount of time on leisure activities. However, mothers had slightly less pure free time than fathers and were more likely to combine leisure with unpaid work or spend time in leisure with children. Multilevel analyses showed that pure free time was associated with increased positive affect and engagement and decreased negative affect and stress, as was the combination of free time with unpaid work and personal care. These trends did not differ by gender. Adult leisure and free time with children were also beneficial to parents’ well-being. However, the relationship between free time with children and positive affect was stronger among fathers...
TL;DR: In this paper, the importance of emotional disclosure and vulnerability in the production of hegemonic masculinities is investigated, focusing on the role that silence and invisibility play in how men talk about recent stressful life events.
Abstract: The present study investigates the importance of emotional disclosure and vulnerability in the production of hegemonic masculinities. Of particular interest is the role that silence and invisibility play in how men talk about recent stressful life events. One-on-one interviews with men who experienced a stressful life event in the past year illustrate how men often talk about these events in simultaneously visible and invisible ways. We use the term “cloudy visibility” to describe this engagement, identified both in terms of what men articulate in relation to their past stressful experiences and how they articulate these experiences within the present moment of the interview. The conversational consequences of these linguistic devices are analyzed to illustrate how men obscure their inner emotional lives, thus reproducing hegemonic masculine ideals of staying strong and stoic in the face of adversity, while they also seek to make aspects of their inner lives seen and heard to an interviewer.
TL;DR: For instance, the authors pointed out that the common thread between all wars is that rape is a product of warped (yet normalized) militarized hegemonic masculinity, which arguably is structurally embedded in preconflict gender inequality and unequal power relations.
Abstract: Throughout the history of warfare, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, women, and men have been extremely widespread and prolific.1 Despite long-standing legal and political silences, rape in war has endured as a “lasting legacy” of violent conflict in artistic, documentary, and cinematic representations throughout history, albeit almost exclusively when perpetrated against women. The last two centuries, for instance, have witnessed the rapes of women in Belgium during the First World War; the rapes and murders of Chinese women during the 1937 invasion of the city of Nanjing; the mass rapes of Filipino women in the town of Mapanique in 1944; the sexual enslavement of up to 200,000 women throughout Asia during the Asia-Pacific War; the mass rapes of German women at the end of the Second World War; as well as the mass rapes of women in modern-day armed conflicts such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Uganda, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur, Libya, Iraq, and Syria. The list of geographical locations where rape has proliferated in conflict is too extensive to comprehensively catalog here, yet the common thread between all wars is that rape is a product of warped (yet normalized) militarized hegemonic masculinity, which arguably is structurally embedded in pre-conflict gender inequality and unequal power relations. Although rape and other forms of sexual violence, including sexual enslavement, sterilization, and forced marriage, are now treated as among the most serious of violations against international humanitarian
TL;DR: This paper examined gender differences in time use within and across the college years for those in selective institutions and found that women exhibit academically-oriented time use more often, and men exhibit socially oriented timescales more often.
Abstract: Gender differences in children’s and adults’ time use are well documented, but few have examined the intervening period—young adulthood. Because many Americans navigate higher education in young adulthood, college time use provides insight into how gendered behaviors evolve during this critical life stage. Using three years of time use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen and latent transition analysis, I examine gender differences in time use within and across the college years for those in selective institutions. Among students whose time use is consistent throughout college, I find that women exhibit academically-oriented time use more often, and men exhibit socially oriented time use more often. However, many men transition from social time use at the beginning of college to academic time use toward the end—to the extent that gender gaps in academic time use converge by the third year. I argue that men and women construct distinct college pathways, and that men, in particular, must r...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that women transition into marriage is a critical period to assess how gendered social inequalities determine the future distribution of power within marital relationships, with long-terter...
Abstract: Extant sociological theories of gendered power within marriage focus on how social forces—such as gender inequality—shape women’s power within already established partnerships and subsequently affect their risk of intimate partner violence. Yet, inequitable social forces similarly shape women’s life conditions prior to and during the marital transition, with implications for women’s power in marriage. In Myanmar, gender relations between women and men historically have been touted as equitable and advantageous to women. Rare qualitative data find that structural gender inequalities permeate Myanmar society, and intersect with other social forces, to constrain women’s marital power. In particular, we argue that women’s transition into marriage is a critical period to assess how gendered social inequalities determine the future distribution of power within marital relationships. These premarital social processes result in a “preconditioning” of relationship dynamics from the onset of marriage, with long-ter...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered communication and power and reveal the limitations of what they call "interpersonal gender interventions", which obscure how gendered ideologies and inequalities are often maintained through institutionalized practices and state action.
Abstract: In 2002, the United States federal government created the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a policy that has distributed almost $1 billion in welfare money to marriage education programs. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in classes for a purposive sample of 20 government-approved marriage education programs and textual analysis of more than 3,000 pages of curricular materials, I analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered communication and power. This case reveals the limitations of what I call ‘‘interpersonal gender interventions,’’ which obscure how gendered ideologies and inequalities are often maintained through institutionalized practices and state action. Specifically, I argue that by focusing on negotiation, communication, and conflict-resolution strategies—or what marriage educators call “relationship skills”—at the interactional level, state-sponsored marriage education masks persistent institutionalized gender inequalities, namely, latent and hidden forms of marital power....