Tagged: Gender

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

When the private becomes so very public: The case of Caster Semenya

By Rachael Liberman As the controversy surrounding 18-year-old  Caster Semenya’s gender (note the incorrect usage of “gender” as opposed to “sex”) verification test continues to raise questions about racism and sexism, issues of humiliation and trauma have surfaced as well. London’s The Guardian quoted Leonard Chuene, head of Athletics South Africa, as saying, “If gender tests have to take place, they should have been done quietly. It is a taboo subject. How can a girl live with this stigma? By...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Economic Remedies for Discrimination?

hOne of the most popular (and frankly, easiest) methods of confronting issues of violence and discrimination among women and children has been financial assistance.  In the recent special article in the New York Times, “women” are categorically viewed as the great moral challenge of the 21st century (see article below).  Apart from the inherently problematic nature of presenting women as a monolithic and undifferentiated category, there is a more fundamental issue at stake.  Attention to issues of discrimination, physical and...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture

Veiled Beauty: Saudi Arabia and Plastic Surgery

by NickieWild As Westerners, it is difficult for us to imagine a situation where women are regarded as the mysterious “Other” more than in Saudi Arabia, where wearing the hijab is required and what we consider basic rights, such as full employment and driving privileges, are not universal. There, Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of a gendered hierarchy is unusually present. Thus, it might seem strange to learn that plastic surgery procedures in that country are on the rise for women....

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

Mainstream media outlets prove once again that they're not interested in cultural analysis

By Rachael Liberman When high-end retailer Barneys New York decided to remove their controversial window display on July 22nd, media outlets were literally handed a story that involved high fashion, violence against women, corporate marketing, and artistic integrity. Instead, many outlets, including the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, abandoned a cultural critique and ran what the AP wire distributed. As a consequence, what could have been a discussion and inquiry into the social condition of gender and violence was...

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

Courting Women

by christinablunt Yesterday, President Obama announced that Judge Sonia Sotomayor would be his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. It seemed evident from the time that Justice Souter announced his retirement that the next nominee would be a woman. The Court is historically unbalanced in terms of gender as well as race. If her nomination is confirmed Sotomayor will only be the third woman to ever serve the court. Last year was a tough one for women in politics. Both...

Gender & Sexuality / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

Rethinking Sex Education

by theoryforthemasses Public debate about the content of sex education in U.S. schools has been raging for decades.  On one side of the fence are proponents of programs that teach abstinence-only sex education; on the other side are those who advocate for a more comprehensive program that teaches students how to engage in sexual activity more safely.  The educational system has long been the site of this debate.  However, a recent New York Times article explores a program in North...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Contentious Data: Hate Crimes and Resistance to the Matthew Sheperd Act

by NickieWild Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. Named after a college student who was robbed, tortured, and killed in Wyoming in 1998, it is believed that he was targeted because he was gay. The legislation will enhance Justice Department powers to investigate violent crimes where the victim may have been chosen due to actual or perceived race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion,...

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

Gender Wage Gap

by smteixeirapoit A recent news article discusses the findings of three surveys used by the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. The results suggest that the gender wage gap does not necessarily exist when examining comparable occupations. The findings state that, if the gender wage gap does exist, it is because of motherhood rather than womanhood. The news article concludes that females would like to be employed because of their merits instead of being patronized by “quota feminists”....

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

Toilets: The New Model of Social Parity?

nmccoy1 Forty years after second wave women’s movements took to the streets demanding equal pay and legal protections we are finally seeing a move in the direction of parity and it is taking place in the bathroom.  The recent decision by Yankee Stadium (see article below) to take gender into consideration in its architecture is both an historic and sobering moment.  Gender, race, class, and sexual discrimination is not simply a matter of laws and codes, it is also culturally...

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...

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 / 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 / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Dame(sel) in Distress?

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....