Latest articles from sociology lens

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

"Nice Bag!" Discussing Race, Class, and Sexuality in Examining Street Harassment

Over the last two weeks two videos have repeated shown up on my social media pages: “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” and “3 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Homosexual.”  Both videos aim to illuminate the often unnoticed topic of street harassment.   And both videos clearly illustrate what day to day life is like for some women and gay men.  However, it is important to frame both videos within the context of location, race, class,...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

The Unachievable Body Ideal Revisited: Fitspiration and “Everyone is Beautiful” Campaigns and the Regulation of Women’s Bodies

When I really want to procrastinate doing my work, I like to visit some of my favorite websites and catch up on the latest trends and news. Recently, on one my favorite sites, I have noticed an increase in “Fitspiration Porn” right next to messages of pro-fat, pro- everybody type of images saying “Everyone is beautiful in their own way.” These also speak to the increase in celebrities with curvier bodies (e.g. Beyoncé, Iggy Azalea, Jennifer Lawrence, Nikki Minaj, and...

Opinion

“Money is Cool Now” (Part 2):

 ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ © 2013 Sumi Perera RE In my post a fortnight ago, I picked up on a topic that Johannes Lenhard had engaged with on Sociology Lens earlier this year – the apparent immateriality of new monetary forms. From paper money, now unbacked by gold and promising the bearer nothing more than an ‘identical replacement of itself,’ up to the monetary ether that circulates in the rarefied market for foreign exchange derivatives, back down to London’s increasingly cashless public...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Organizations & Work

"No one likes being reduced to their genitals!" Positive discrimination, diversity and symbolic capital

“Scarlett?” My PhD compatriot, Jens* leans over to me, a glint in his eye and a bemused smile on his face that makes it difficult to work out whether this will be a joke, a statement, or something to deliberately challenge me. Past history tells me probably a combination of all three, but lets see. “Can I ask you a question, before you go?” (I am just on my way out of the PhD office** we share, coat on, mug...

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

Happy 20th Anniversary!

Pop Quiz! What do Brandeis, UCLA, and Fayetteville Universities have in common?  Answer: They all have The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty by Jill Quadagno on their 2014 syllabi.  This book is taught in departments of history, public affairs, social work, sociology, and political science.  Professors use it to examine sociological methods, poverty, race, politics, and welfare state.  For many students this was a life changing book.  This book ignited our interests in studies of...

Opinion

We don’t talk any more

My friend hates instant messaging. I know this because he sends me instant messages about it. His main problem is that messaging, whether through SMS, facebook or whatsapp, is distracting, causes misunderstandings, and is a poor substitute for a quick old-fashioned phone call.  Whether my particularly cantankerous and contradictory friend is right or not, the way we communicate is certainly changing very rapidly indeed, in interesting and challenging ways. In the last fifteen years alone we have shifted from phone...

Sociology of Culture

No Ma'am, This Is Not New York City

  As teachers of sociology, we are constantly reminding our students of the ways in which culture and social structures shape our everyday behaviors.  We stress this point as it emerges throughout traditional theoretical frames and empirical studies.  The idea that society shapes our behaviors is a basic Introduction of Sociology concept.  However, it still catches me off guard when I realize how it works in my own daily life. I recently took a trip to Georgia.  The flight from...

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

"F" is for Feminism: FCKH8's Feminism Video isn't so Fabulous

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/109573972[/vimeo] It’s all over my newsfeed: Little girls swearing up a storm in the name of feminism. On Tuesday, October 21st, tee-shirt company FCKH8 released the newest online video sensation, “F-Bombs for Feminism: Potty Mouthed Princesses Use Bad Word for Good Cause.” The video features five six to thirteen year old girls, dressed as princesses, dropping the f-bomb left and right, interspersed with factual information about women’s inequality including the pay gap and sexual assault. Not surprisingly, the video has...

Opinion

“Money is Cool Now” (Part 1):

Writing for Sociology Lens earlier this year, Johannes Lenhard introduced ‘the homeless as the last materialists’ – past masters in the dying arts of cash, marginal to the ‘dematerialised’ and ‘virtual’ monetary circuits that are fast becoming conventional. For it is not only in the migraine-inducing markets for foreign-exchange derivatives (worth US$70 trillion at last count) that money appears dematerialised and virtual; you cannot any longer use cash to pay your bus fare in London. But for homeless people in...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Tech companies should employ more social scientists: here's why.

  I don’t want to stereotype computer scientists. I still cringe when I remember clumsily insulting a room of (mainly) computer scientists at a conference by showing the wallet inspector scene from The Simpsons. There are, however, some computer scientist communities who give all computer scientists a bad name. Witness, for example, the infamous kick-starter project to give a food substitute called Soylent to poor people (which for non-sci-fi fans took its name from the dystopian film called Soylent Green...

Gender & Sexuality / Social Identity / Social Movements / Social Change

Parenthood as Collective Identity

  Iowa is engaged in an historical race, possibly sending their first female to the U.S. Senate.  Republican candidate, Joni Ernst, while also an Army National Guard soldier, describes herself as a mother first.  Albeit a mother who also carries a gun, castrates hogs and rides a motorcycle…just like most mothers I know.  A recent NPR piece questions whether motherhood is a qualifying attribute for national office.  The female focus group interviewed for the broadcast didn’t buy it.  They all seemed to...

Sociology of Culture

Crisp Culture: a national obsession.

  In the UK, this week marks the end of British Summer Time. The clocks go back an hour, its dark by teatime, and the sky turns a uniquely depressingly shade of gunboat grey until March. Yes, The Long Dark Winter Of The Soul starts here. For millions of Britons, keeping Seasonal Affective Disorder at bay will mean spending many hours in that great British sanctuary: THE PUB. There will be beer, there will be football, there will be whingeing...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Organizations & Work / Teaching & Learning Guide

Are We All Expert Impostors?

In a previous post (which can be found here), I mentioned the ‘impostor phenomenon’ and how I and many people I know who work in academia have experienced it in some form or another during their career. The ‘imposter syndrome’ (identified by Clance & Imes, 1978, pp. 1-2), the feeling that leads the self-declared impostors to believe that they are not intelligent and that anyone who thinks otherwise has simply been fooled, is usually accompanied by a fear that one...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

A Makeover for Cosmopolitan?

  Every day I drive a half hour from my home to my office at the university and a half an hour from the university back home.  Like many of my peers, I pass time during my commutes listening to National Public Radio.  I know it is a bit of a cliché, the doctoral student in the sociology department listening to NPR every morning, but I really do feel as if my 60 minutes of NPR each day keep me...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Only “Real” Women Need Apply: Defining Womanhood and Trans Inclusion at Women’s Colleges

If you read my last post about how women’s colleges are still relevant, you know that I am a large advocate for women’s colleges. There is a plethora of evidence that women’s college students experience (and gain) significant benefits compared to their coeducational peers. That does not mean, however, that sex segregation in education is always the answer. In fact, for some single-sex colleges, the gender-focused environment is in fact too exclusionary. Women’s colleges, by definition, are for women. But...

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

Exhibit A: the Whites of the Eyes

Under what conditions might it be ethical to refuse to meet or return someone’s gaze? Is it ever acceptable for a social scientist or journalist to write ‘with their eyes shut’? The notion that visual receptiveness can be a spur to urgent ethical response is captured in that familiar category of humanitarian action, ‘bearing witness’ (so much so, in fact, that we often forget about the work that must be done in order for witnesses to be created). At the...