Category: Gender & Sexuality
Feminist advocates have spent years working to define rape as a social problem. These advocates have worked as claims-makers in this regard and have engaged in various framing processes along the way. Sociologists and criminologists have entered the conversation along the way offering a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations to help understand rape and sexual assault more fully. Despite these efforts, rape remains one of the most underreported crimes with an even more dismal prosecution and conviction rates....
The recent ban on same sex unions in California, known as Proposition 8 (see article below), dealt a major blow to LGBTQ movements across the country. This latest legal obstacle highlights some of the difficulties faced by identity politics movements. The goal of social movements like those embracing identity politics is often referred to as the call for recognition, be it legal, cultural, political, and/or social. Nancy Fraser’s work in critical social theory reconceptualizes calls for recognition as simultaneously calls...
by dsantore More and more, it seems, French popular culture reflects a national battle being waged about sex, gender and social norms. Even for the supposedly sexually liberated French, we are told, recent events are notable. New York Times Fashion and Style reporter Elaine Sciolino writes of a set of French films, novels and political intrigues, all of which shine light on possible changes in the country’s views on sexual propriety and gender roles. Whether it is France’s Justice...
A recent psychology study (see below) at Northwestern University reveals that one reason that we look for female political candidates to be “attractive” is due to human instincts for “mate selection.” The authors of the study assert that these judgements about the attractiveness of a female candidate occur unconsciously, therefore insinuating that a) mate selection is transhistorical and is based on modern standards of attraction, b) mate selection is heteronormatively essentialized and c) male preferences and instincts are human instincts,...
by P Threlfall The US presidential campaign has been played like Las Vegas poker tournament. Between both campaigns, the race card, gender card, class card, and fear cards are strategically played with what Boudon referred to as “perverse effects.” Most would hope that tremendous progress would be promised from a campaign that does not consist of four upper class white men, but it seems that it has only served to unveil the deep seated classism, racism, and sexism that...
by P Threlfall The questions raised from the sudden rise of Sarah Palin to political prominence has forced many, who consider themselves feminist, to re-examine the definition of feminist and construct some baseline idea of what constitutes carrying the moniker. This isn’t a new struggle, but it’s one that has primarily been confined to the halls of Women’s Studies departments and the pages of social journals for many years. Enter Palin and all bets are off. Suddenly feminists are forced...
by socanonymous Nobel-prize winner, Dr. Harald zur Hausen, who discovered the link between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer recently gave a talk to researchers and health specialists in Toronto about the dangers of non-vaccination. He discounted the view that only females need to be vaccinated and stressed the importance of female and male inclusion in HPV vaccination efforts. Even though almost all cervical cancers are caused by HPV, it also plays a large role in penile and anal...
by dsantore On Thursday, September 25, “CBS Evening News” broadcast a conversation between anchor Katie Couric and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The interview would soon become the stuff of internet and TV legend. By now most of us are familiar with Governor Palin’s musings on Alaska’s proximity to Russia, on “The Bush Doctrine,” and other topics. The broadcast, like Palin’s ABC News interview that preceded it, will be remembered most for exposing the Vice-Presidential candidate’s wet-behind-the-ears entrance into national...
by socmatters The customary “would you like rolls with your dinner?” takes on a whole new meaning when considering the various ways in which gender roles may complicate the dining experience. Traditional gender role expectations have long influenced the behaviors of servers in restaurants. Although many of the most outdated gender-based customs may have disappeared (e.g., providing menus without prices to females, insisting on separate uniforms for female servers), a recent article in the New York Times insists that they...
by PlantingSeedsFromUA In the past decade we have heard of various school shootings throughout the United States. A search on the internet using “school shootings” as the keywords produces over one million hits. The rise in school violence, or the appearance of, has contributed to the increased interest in the sociological investigation of the violence that takes place in schools. Research has supported the correlation between school violence and bullying. In recent news, a 14 year old boy...
By rbobbitt Abortion remains a hotly contested subject within society, and with the election looming high, the pro-choice/pro-life divide continues to provide a means of voting allocations. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute (see article below), a nonprofit reproductive health research organization, brings a new dynamic into the abortion debate. The Institutes comprehensive examination of abortion reveals that during the past thirty years, abortion rates have dropped among teenage whites and risen among women of color in their 20’s...
by nmccoy1 Discussions surrounding Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton have brought sexism to mainstream media attention. (see BBC article below) Beyond the superficial discussions of who women will vote for and who is a feminist, we are losing site of a fundamental and very dangerous problem. In the tradition of the Frankfurt School, in particular, Max Horkheimer, we are looking at the instrumentalization of ideas and theories for propaganda. As a system of oppression, sexism pervades social relations and the...
1540-6237/asset/SSSA_Logo-RGB.jpg?v=1&s=c337bd297fd542da89c4e342754f2e91c5d6302e){kind=logo}