Category: Sociology of Culture

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Orange Is the New Black: Reviewing Cultural Beliefs Surrounding Gender Shame, Gender Expectations, Gender Non-Conformity, and the Presentation of Human Sexuality

**Spoiler alert: This post includes plot points from throughout the first season of “Orange Is the New Black.” On July 11th, Netflix released its newest original video-streaming series, Orange Is the New Black. Based on Piper Kerman’s memoir chronicling the 13 months of a 15 month sentence she severed at a minimum security prison in Danbury, Connecticut for money laundering and drug trafficking, Orange has had the highest first week ratings of any Netflix original series. The overarching plotline is...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Sexing Up the Sex Ed Classroom Revisited

About a year ago, I wrote my first post for Sociology Lens about the tensions over sex education in the United States. Specifically, I commented on Jessica Field’s Sociology Compass article, “Sexuality Education in the United States: Shared Cultural Ideas Across the Political Divide,” in which she argues that, regardless of political position on sex education, most participants in debates operate from a shared assumption about the dangers of adolescent sexuality. Following Fields, I called for a truly comprehensive form...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

"Team Bublé" Part II : Critique is not criticism

[This post is a re-write and expansion on a previous post, that can be found here.] This post comes with an apology, and a part-retraction. My previous post: “Not being on “Team Bublé”: Musicians, Gender and Unspeakable Inequalities” was subjected to great criticism by a good friend of mine, who was at the concert with me. In order to rectify that I have made some edits to the original piece, but wanted to explain them more fully in a follow...

Class & Stratification / Sociology of Culture

Social and Cultural Components of Obesity

  Recent California statistics  by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation expose a contradiction plaguing weight loss initiatives in the United States. More and more Californians are exercising, but obesity rates are rising across the state. Between 2001 and 2011, all of the counties in California saw an increase in rates of exercise. The increases were particularly dramatic for women; the rates of women who completed a sufficient amount of physical activity in a week rose...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Not being on "Team Bublé": Musicians, Gender and Unspeakable Inequalities

  “My buddy here has more bitches that the Oprah Book Club”  “Now I’m not gay, but if I was I would be rubbing this guy’s bald head all night long” Last week, I (along with 2000 other screaming women) went to see Michael Bublé play at the 02 arena in London. The above statements were both made by Michael Bublé as part of his ‘band introduction’. The all-male brass section all had nicknames, funny quips and spinning portraits.The whole section of...

Sociology of Culture

Are Thrift Shops Just for Hipsters?

In an advanced capitalist society, such as the United States, individuals express their identities through the items they purchase, how they present themselves to others. For those with a lot of money, this often means conspicuous consumption, or buying items with the express purpose of being able to show them off to others (e.g. a waterfront mansion, a yacht, a Maserati). But expressing one’s personality through clothing, jewelry, make up, and other grooming practices is not just reserved to the...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Spare Rib: Life, Not Lifestyle.

  It was recently announced that the radical feminist magazine Spare Rib is to be re-launched in the UK, with an online presence as soon as next month and a print version available in the Autumn. Spare Rib first launched in 1972 out of the 1960s feminist movement and made a point of covering taboo and controversial issues such as domestic violence, lesbianism and birth control, amongst many others. This re-launch has been greeted by many (myself included) with a...

Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Why I Won't Shop at Abercrombie and Fitch (and the reason is not the loud and obnoxious music)

  The CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, is up-front about his marketing and sales strategy: appeal to “cool” and “popular” kids to make the brand distinctive and desirable. While anybody can wear other brands, only those who fit an ideal body type can have the privilege of sporting Abercrombie and Fitch tees and jeans. How does Jeffries achieve this goal? The Abercrombie and Fitch advertisements use models who are “all American” (white and skinny), the stores employ similarly small...

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Teaching & Learning Guide

Part II: The Effects of School Criminalization

A few weeks back, I contributed a post highlighting possible explanations for the rise of criminal justice based practices within schools.  Although these strategies have become popular for managing school crime, growing evidence suggests they are often overly excessive and may produce a host of unintended consequences. Serving as a sort of a Part II, this essay outlines the effects of what has been termed the “criminalization of school discipline” (Hirschfield & Celinscka 2011). As discussed below, the evidence stands...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Teaching & Learning Guide

Explanations of Contemporary School Discipline

Over the past two decades, schools across the U.S. have adopted a host of punitive practices and policies to prevent and respond to student misbehavior (Kupchik 2010). These practices include the use of security cameras, metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs, and the full-time presence of police officers. Consequentially, the distinction between school discipline and criminal justice has become highly blurred. For a host of reasons, there has been an increase in surveillance over students and a tighter link between the education...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture

Nature AND Nurture: Undermining Inequalities with Sociology and Biology

In the most recent issue of Sociology Compass, Lisa Wade contributed an article, “The New Science of Sex Difference,” about the relationship between biology and social identities and inequalities. The debate about socialization usually boils down to two seemingly opposed positions: nature versus nurture. Historically, biologists, and other fans of the life sciences, contended that natural forces in the body, like hormones, genes, and brains, determine the development of an individual. On the other hand, sociologists refute the claim that...

Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

More Musings on Evil: Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality in Media Villains

In a recent post, I discussed a longstanding trend in American (and Western) media of using racial Others to embody evil.  From adult action films to children’s animated features, we can find examples of villains whose malevolent nature is clear from the racial/ethnic stereotypes used to characterize them. But racial stereotypes are not the only stereotypes used to denote wickedness; we can also find many examples of non-normative sexualities and gender performances associated with evil. Importantly, this sexual Otherness is...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Big Data: The new frontier or a methodological nightmare?

  Big Data refers to the enormous amount of information now possessed by companies, that we offer up in our day-to-day lives. In Google searches, Facebook wall posts, or any purchase we are contributing to the vast amount of data, and allowing companies to make predictions about how we will behave. The use of patterning, statistical analysis and algorithms give these companies a perceived ability to ‘predict the future’; ranging from suggesting future purchases to tracking the flu virus through...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Color of Evil: How American Media Racializes Villains

The History Channel’s miniseries, The Bible, has been lauded by some and scrutinized by others. Recently, some have raised questions about the show’s portrayal of the Satan, specifically the striking resemblance between the character and President Barack Obama (you can read a commentary at the HuffPost). The show’s producers have called the claims “utter nonsense” and insisted that actor Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni’s long record working on religious film sets made him an obvious choice for the role. I’m no mind-reader...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Getting Tough on Juvenile Justice

Within the last thirty years the presence of adolescent offenders tried in criminal court has become increasingly commonplace. Scholars critical of this growing phenomenon have documented that the number of youth transferred to adult (criminal) court has gradually risen since the mid-1970s. Whilst the ability to transfer young offenders from the juvenile to adult court has long been an option, recent literature notes that the emergence of legislation facilitating the transfer of youth offenders to criminal court is a microcosm...