Category: Political & Economic Sociology

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 / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Conspicuous or Inconspicuous Consumption?

by bmckernan Over one hundred years ago, noted sociologist Thorstein Veblen introduced the concept of “conspicuous consumption” to describe the lifestyle of members of the upper class who purchase goods and services not out of necessity but instead as indicators of their wealth and status. According to a recent Newsweek article, the era of conspicuous consumption may be placed on momentary hiatus as millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet. While the article should not be treated as a...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

"Illness as Metaphor"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDsh98OxEQQ] (the video is a song by the inhabitants of Losheng Sanatorium, singing their love and attachment to the Losheng community) By linanne 10 Taiwanese students have been extremely busy for participating in social movements the past two months. After the protest against the regulation on the freedom of speech and assembly, Taiwanese students are now again bringing back the issue on the Losheng Sanatorium. The Losheng Sanatorium is a community like construction for displacing leprosy patients during the Japanese...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture

Perspective on Living in “Bad Times”

by rbobbitt Turn on the news on any given channel at any time during the day and more than likely you will hear something of the “hard times” befalling Americans as we continue to struggle through was has finally been recognized as a recession. As the holidays are upon us, pundits lament how holiday sales are down and people are modestly spending on one another. However, perhaps we Americans should be putting in perspective what we view as “tough times.”...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture

Capitalism's meltdown and the Body

by kiddingthecity My barber doesn’t bother at all: “Hair -he told me last week – will always grow on people’s head!”. The phantasmagorical numbers of the capitalist crisis do not mean anything at all to him (do they mean anything to most of us, by the way?). He carries on as he can, as he has almost always done, a coffee and a cigarette here and there, a joke quite often. He made me think that everyday’s life is a...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Child Poverty: The Breeding Ground for ‘Feral, Parasitic Yob[s]’?

by paulabowles The recent horrific death of Baby P, at the hands of family members, has raised many critical questions for Britain, not least the way in which we care for our children. Most recently, the Chief Executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, Martin Narey, has expressed his shock both at the toddler’s tragic death, and the events which led up to it. At a lecture focusing on child poverty, Mr Narey took the opportunity to make an astounding prediction that...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Hannity &…Hannity Program?

by ishein1 The ubiquity of news programs on contemporary American television is palpable.  The four major network stations all have their own sister news station.  It can be said, without many cavils, that the Fox news station, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, oscillates at varying degrees along the right side of the American political spectrum.  Fox News’ longest running and second highest rated program, only behind the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, at the end of the year...

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...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture

Joe the Plumber and Good Ol' American Reductionism

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U67Eg-3jP5k] by PThrelfall Joe the Plumber, the Johnny-come-late hero of the failing McCain-Palin presidential campaign, was a call to Americans to identify themselves, and hence the candidates, using a perspective that assumes that we are what we do.  Moreover, the subliminal message was that we are who we associate with.  In this sense, the campaign was attempting to build their social capital with a particular segment of middle American voters.  Theories of social capital include arduous debates on issues of...

Political & Economic Sociology

Ivy League Schools, Capital, and The Perpetuatuation of Class Inequalities

by PlantingSeedsFromUA Just as the Ivy League schools are concentrated in a small area of the country, the social and cultural capital required to attend and teach at these universities is concentrated in a small area of the population.  Bourdieu argues that social inequalities are due to the inequitable distribution of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital.  Conflict theorists have long emphasized how the educational system perpetuates social inequalities, including the prestige hierarchy of colleges and universities.   In a recent article posted at Businessweek.com (see below), Bianco and Rupani...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Human Rights and the United States

by delawaregrad Recently, in a television interview, President-Elect Obama noted that the United States needed to “regain America’s moral stature in the world” through closing the Guantanamo Bay complex. An additional step that President-Elect Obama could take would be to encourage the United States to ratify major United Nations human rights treaties. Most Americans may be surprised to learn that the United States, despite being a founding member of the United Nations, has not ratified any of the five major...

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...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

WhoseTube?

by ishein1 Two years ago, Google paid a copious, $1.65 billion to acquire the incipiently profitless Web site, YouTube.  This video sharing website’s meteoric rise was in part due to its software’s facileness and accessibility.  In this light, anyone with access to a computer and some gumption could post their own video.  In an effort to transform their costly addition into a revenue-producing agent, Google announced that it would begin selling space to advertisers on YouTube’s search results pages.  As...

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

The Huxtables: America's original first family

by bmckernan Since Barack Obama first announced his candidacy, social commentators have repeatedly wondered if Americans are ready to elect an African-American president. Numerous comedians responded by jokingly pointing out that America has already had a black president, in hit television shows such as 24 and Hollywood blockbusters like Deep Impact (see LA Times article). The success of Barack Obama’s campaign has sent media outlets scrambling to determine what has changed in America, when just days earlier they were interpreting...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change

To Obey or not to Obey, This is the Question

[youtube=http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3dgm95CVE] By linanne10 While most of the discussions on equality and political change occur around the presidential election in United States last week, events of civil rights movement are not limited to the US continent. A student-led protest for the freedom of speech and assembly is burning through out the island of Formosa. On November 3rd, the representative from China’s Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Chen Yunlin, came to visit Taiwan and met with the Taiwanese current...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Internet (Community) Organizer?

by socanonymous Popular media and pundits alike are praising President-Elect, Barack Obama and his campaigners for taking his message to the internet. Much of Obama’s skills and experience in community organizing have been taken online. This election has definitely been history in the making, in more than one way. The successful linkage of technology, namely the internet, and politics has been proven effective in this election. There are countless benefits to the use of the internet for political gains including...