Category: Gender & Sexuality

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

The Struggle Continues

by rbobbitt Sitara Achikzai, a prominent women’s rights activist was assassinated in outside her home in Kandahar, Afghanistan this past week. Achikzai, who lived in Germany during the Taliban rule, had returned to Afghanistan after the ousting of the Taliban to fight for women’s rights. A member of Kandahar provincial council, she was often vocal in urging women to take jobs and join the fight to regain their rights and push for equality. This senseless murder sheds light on the...

Gender & Sexuality

Mr. Mom and the Recession

by socanonymous The current recession has been dubbed the “he-cession”, referring to the fact that it is predominantly males that are being laid off.  The female unemployment rate has been relatively stable in certain industries.  A role reversal in some domestic household activities has taken place.  The notion of female breadwinners is not a new phenomenon but it does provide for a unique opportunity to closely examine the effects of an economic downturn on changing family structures.  Power relations and...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Asian Values and Women's Rights

by christinablunt Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a move to bolster support in the upcoming presidential elections, signed a law which stipulated that, “Unless the wife is ill, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.” Human rights groups are calling foul play. To say nothing of the fact that a woman’s rights are being used as a tool of negotiation, the UN is arguing the new law essentially legalizes...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Mediated Domestic Violence: Is the New Visibility Short Lived?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mr4kXW6mOU] by NickieWild The media in the United States, especially television, re-discovers the severity of violence against women when a highly visible image or story occurs. The latest incident, involving singers Chris Brown and Rihanna, has been extensively covered on local, national, and cable news, and talk shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil. However, as academic writers on the subject have noted, the media continually “rediscover” this problem in response to a specific incident that is either particularly horrific (such...

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

Gendering HIV/AIDS Discourse

nmccoy1 Pope Benedict’s recent visit to Africa (see BBC article below) included comments on the AIDS epidemic that has disproportionately affected Africans worldwide.  While staying true to Catholic doctrine and its teachings on abstinence, his insistence that condoms are both ineffective against the spread of HIV/AIDS and can in fact increase the rate of contamination further diminish the gendered aspects of this problem.  The fact that condoms are a cheap and accessible form of birth control has been overshadowed by...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Global Justice

By rbobbitt   A recent report from the British medical journal The Lancet reports that over 100,000 women died in fires in India in a single year (see New York Times article). These fires stem from a serious domestic abuse issues in India in which women are doused in gasoline and set ablaze, their deaths blamed on “kitchen accidents.” Domestic abuse as become a major problem in the country, as women are often killed over dowry disputes, with no repercussions sought...

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

Guest Post: What Makes Barbie Bad?

  by Joel Best               Barbie, the teenage fashion doll, turns 50 this month.  The years have been kind to Barbie; she hasn’t gained weight or lost her figure.  Of course, her critics would say that’s the problem.             We’ve all heard the complaints by sociologists of gender and other intellectuals. Barbie, they say, is harmful–even dangerous–because she promotes traditional gender roles.  Her beauty teaches little girls that society will judge them primarily according to their looks, and not...

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

"Those are the GIRLS' stuff!"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRZyymYe-FQ] By linanne There is a long tradition of using gender and sexual dualism as marketing strategies in industries from technology to entertainment. Discourses in advertisements are often framed as “targeting at” whether male or female consumers. Products are also packaged in ways that are gendered according to certain sets of binary codes. Such dichotomous gender representations not only reproduce the existing social and cultural structures of gender segregation, but also inform individual and collective activities which oftentimes are responses...

Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Transphotography

by kiddingthecity Transsexual people are willing to become invisible, international acclaimed photographer and researcher Sara Davidmann maintains, in order to be accepted in the social norm, which wants a strict binary distinction between genders.  The issue of safety in public space here, I guess, is crucial – hence, the urge to comply to the visual stereotype of the male or of the female. As it is the issue of ‘medicalization’, that is, the tendency of western culture to push ‘deviance’...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Video Resources

Capitalism's meltdown and the Body (II)

by kiddingthecity Jeff Wall is famous for grand tableaux, which he shoots in sections over several months before stitching together the final image using computer montage. He has been known to spend almost two years on a single picture, with actors and crew to shoot scenes of the everyday. He teases out the myth of reality outside perception to the point that he is able to re-create in studio the ‘decisive moment’ of Cartier-Besson, in which the elements of an...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Organizations & Work

What Role Do Men Play in Feminist Leadership Goals?

by NickieWild After Hillary Clinton’s loss in the race to be the Democratic nominee and Sarah Palin’s loss as vice presidential candidate, the role of women in leadership positions is more salient than ever.  However, one question that does not always get asked is, what (if any) is the role of men in furthering feminist goals? Clearly, one such goal is the attainment of more powerful leadership positions in the United States. One way that men in leadership positions can...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

the (post-structural) new-media digital-divide

by nathan jurgenson A major study (.pdf) on the way teens use social networking sites suggests that, “…their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.” [quote is from this article’s coverage] Parents can no longer view MySpace as just a waste of time. In fact, so important are the skills...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Pretty Women, Fighting for Their Rights

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G_7CzddUR4] By linanne10 Along with the presidential election, a proposition promoting the decriminalization of sex-workers, Proposition K, was also put on the voting ballot in San Francisco, California. Proposition K is mainly concerned with sex-workers rights and citizenship. There are three main points proposed in the proposition. First, it stated that law enforcement agencies should not allocate any resources for the investigation and prosecution of sex-workers for prostitution. Second, the proposition noted that any agencies of the City and County...

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

Whose economic crisis?

nmccoy1 The media, the government, and the stock market are reporting and reflecting on the economic crisis that seems to worsening by the minute.  People are out of work, jobs are not paying enough, savings are disappearing and Congress must act now (see article below) to protect the millions affected.  But none of this is new or any less urgent today than it was five, ten and twenty years ago to a large population of marginalized peoples.  The question is,...

Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology

Unintended Consequences

by dsantore   Prostate cancer patient Dana Jennings (who also happens to be a New York Times editor) has us thinking again about just what it means to be a man.  Jennings, who was diagnosed earlier this year, is learning about the ironic, gendered side effects associated with his cancer treatment.  According to Jennings, one of the drugs prescribed to him, Lupron, is a “testosterone suppressant, designed to starve hormone-dependent cancer cells of the fuel (testosterone) that they crave in...

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

Hope, Trust, and Dreams…

by kiddingthecity Like millions of people across the world I waited to know, wanted to hear and see the materialization of Hope, the wakening of a Dream, and the unfolding of Trust. Almost by chance, the day before I finally grabbed from the Goldsmiths Library a very fine and popular book. And less for a chance I have managed to read it all during the night, while keeping an eye at the small red and blue squares on the lower...