Tagged: Sociology Lens

Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology

Rosie O'Donnell Reminds Us About Women's Heart Health

Last week, media sources reported that Rosie O’Donnell had a heart attack. Though Rosie explained that she did “google” her symptoms, she did not believe she was having a heart attack and never called 911. Like many women, Rosie explained that she did not know enough about female heart issues, specifically identifying the problem and getting immediate medical attention. Rosie hopes she can use her fame and platform to raise awareness about heart attacks and issues in women. While Rosie...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Stand Your Ground: A Needed Law or a Justification for Violence?

On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, FL, neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin. Before shooting the unarmed teenager, Zimmerman had called the Sanford Police Department from his car to report that Martin was acting suspiciously. While speaking to 911 dispatchers, Zimmerman left his vehicle and got into a physical altercation with Martin before shooting him in the chest from close range. In the days after the shooting, a media storm began to develop. Opponents...

Opinion

What's missing from the debate over higher education funding?

For many people, from the first-year students traipsing around campus in search of the correct lecture hall to the senior faculty preparing to teach courses for the nth time, the beginning of the academic year tends to be frantic and exciting time. This year, when back-to-school coincides with a heated Presidential race, education and politics are bound to mix. President Obama has made access to higher education – measured primarily by greater access to grants and student loans while trying...

Gender & Sexuality

A World Beyond/Without Gender?

This past weekend was a busy one for those of us who travelled to Denver, CO for the annual American Sociological Association meeting. As usual, the conference was replete with interesting and insightful research projects. But this year’s theme, “Real Utopias: Emancipatory Projects, Institutional Designs, Possible Futures,” inspired conversations far more philosophical and theoretical than social scientists might have expected. I had the pleasure of attending one such panel—“A World Beyond Gender,” with Barbara Jane Risman, Judith Lorber, and Michael...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

A Look at Domestic Violence Related Asylum Cases

  Last month,  a Guatemalan woman, N-S-, won her domestic violence based asylum case after seven years in the United States immigration court system.  Her case is similar to the story of many other women who flee their countries in order to receive protection from their abusive husbands. Until recently, courts rejected these types of claims, arguing that their issues were personal, not cultural issues (see Sinha 2001). Now, with the help of organizations like the Center for Gender and...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Questionable at Best: The Death Penalty in America

On August 7th, 2012, the state of Texas executed 54-year-old Marvin Wilson. Wilson was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering police informant Jerry Williams, 21, in 1992 in Beaumont, TX. The murder occurred several days after Wilson had been arrested for possession of cocaine. Free on bond and believing that Williams had told police about the drugs, Wilson and another man beat Williams outside of a convenience store before abducting and shooting him at close range. Williams’ body...

Opinion

On Civil Litigation, Part 2 of 2: Tort Reform

Author’s Note: This post is the second of a two-part series (read part 1 here) that looks at various narratives about civil lawsuits. Originally intended to be a longer series, it became apparent to the author that bi-weekly posts are a less than ideal way to write a series and makes it difficult for readers to follow. Mea culpa. Coincidentally, two weeks since my previous post, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a 2005 tort reform law. The law in...

Sociology of Culture

Thinking About Domestic Partnerships

I left my home state of Florida for some very personal reasons: racism and nativism, extremist right wing politicians, fiscal conservatism (and the failing school and social systems it produces) – not to mention vigilante justice (thanks to the stand your ground laws) and face-eating druggies. When people ask about where I grew up, I’m not proud to answer. But this summer, it got just a tiny bit better. Florida, ever a bastion of political, religious, and moral conservatism, a...

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

Porn in Public?

Should public spaces, like libraries, ban pornography? This past week, the San Francisco Public Library made it easier for those who want to use the library’s online services to view illicit materials by installing shields on 18 of its public computers at the Civic Center branch. In the tradition of anti-censorship, the librarians refuse to censor websites, including those containing pornographic materials. Yet, they want to address concerns from some of their patrons who were troubled that they might accidentally...

Science & Technology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Topic of Growing Importance

In recent years, debates have swirled over whether or not physicians should be allowed to hasten the death of their incurable patients. Although the Hippocratic Oath forbids medical doctors from prematurely ending the lives of their patients, questions still remain over how physicians should respond to the needs and to the wants of terminally ill individuals. Although the legality and ethics surrounding assisted suicide have been pondered since antiquity, these issues were brought to the forefront in the U.S. during...

Opinion

On Civil Litigation, Part 1: Narratives About Plaintiffs and Lawsuits

Author’s Note: This post is the first in a series that looks at the civil justice system and various narratives about lawsuits. Today’s post uses a well-known 1994 case, Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, as a starting point to discuss a few of the more common ideas surrounding tort litigation.   Poor Stella Liebeck. All she wanted was a cup of McDonald’s coffee. The 79-year old woman certainly never intended to become famous, or infamous, depending on which versions of the narrative...

Sociology of Culture

Summer TV and Critical Disability Studies

Characters with “disabilities” are being more regularly depicted in entertainment media: The lead character of House suffers from chronic pain and walks with a limp; Glee has characters with Down’s syndrome, severe OCD, and mobility restrictions requiring wheelchairs; Perception has a schizophrenic crime-solving professor. And, this coming October, Turner Classic Movies will be showcasing some 20 movies featuring disabilities and disabled characters in a series the channel is calling “The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film.” While not...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology Compass Issues / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

The State of Oklahoma vs. Female Offenders: Vengeful Equality at Work?

In January 2010, 24-year-old Patricia Spottedcrow was arrested for selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant from her home in Kingfisher County, OK. Because her children were home at the time, Spottedcrow was charged with possession of a dangerous substance in the presence of a minor in addition to being charged with distributing a controlled substance. Since she had no prior criminal record and since the amount of marijuana sold was small, Spottedcrow elected to enter into a...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Woody Guthrie Turns 100: The Folk Icon, His Music, and Social Movements

Two days ago marked what would have been the centennial birthday of iconic folk artist Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), perhaps best known today for his classic “This Land is Your Land.” His biography is a fascinating (and short) read and provides some context for the scathing social commentary in many of his 100+ songs. Much of his music is raw, simple, and emotionally charged – just a man and his guitar. But it was also forged in his own contentious politics...

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

Gender and Race Politics in the Discourse of Mothering

Mothering has been in the news lately. TIME Magazine’s cover story on breastfeeding in May caused quite a stir; so did Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece for the Atlantic, which discussed the difficulty women face when trying to balance work and family. TIME’s piece points to the increasing pressure on women to do everything right when it comes to being a mom: The rise in attachment parenting (even in a watered-down form) places great responsibility on women to do all they can,...

Sociology Compass Issues

Sexing Up the Sex Ed Classroom?

  In her Sociology Compass article, Sexuality Education in the United States: Shared Cultural Ideas Across the Political Divide, Jessica Fields maps the terrain of sexuality education in the United States. While many people believe that debates about sexuality education polarize into two approaches (one favoring an abstinence based approach and the other favoring a more comprehensive based approach), Fields shows that both “camps” want to regulate adolescent sexuality and protect teenagers from the dangers of sexual activity and desire...