Marianne Cooper (Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab) and Priya Fielding-Singh (Senior Manager of Research and Education at LeanIn.org) wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review on how gender equality in the workplace has stalled and is not inevitable. Data from the 2024 Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company revealed that last year the gender wage gap widened for the first time in two decades. Cooper and Fielding-Singh describe several barriers to workplace equity for women, including getting stuck in entry level positions, sexual harassment, ageism, and housework and childcare responsibilities.
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint ran a story on the experiences of agricultural workers in California (about 75% of whom are undocumented migrants) during the election year. Manuel Ortiz Escámez (Audio-Visual Sociologist and co-founder of Peninsula 360) commented on the impact of immigration as an election issue. “People are very afraid,” he said. “Power in politics needs to invent a physically and morally repugnant enemy who wants to take what’s yours because the feeling of emergency creates unity and the need of a savior. That’s why migrants have always been the ideal enemy of some U.S. political campaigns … and the data shows that it works.”
In an interview with El País, Ruha Benjamin (Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University) discussed the hidden power structures behind technology and how imagination can challenge established systems. “Technological innovation is not the same as social progress,” Benjamin explained. “A lot of innovation can simply reinforce old ways of thinking and hierarchies. Technological advancement often hides harm and violence.”
The New York Times ran a story on the unclear expectations on caregiving for older, unmarried couples and their families. Deborah Carr (Professor of Sociology at Boston University) commented that the trend of increasing (unmarried) cohabitation among older couples reflects an attitudinal change: “The old stigma around ‘living in sin’ has pretty much disappeared.” Susan Brown (Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University) explained that cohabitation allows older couples to avoid some of the constraints and expectations of marriage. Brown described that many women “aren’t interested in the gendered bargain that marriage entails, the caregiving role,” and women who have already been a caretaker to a previous spouse often “bring a been there, done that, attitude to remarriage.”
Ireland’s Science Week 2024 focused on environmental regeneration. Silicon Republic ran a story featuring Áine Macken-Walsh (Senior Research Officer at Teagasc’s Rural Economy and Development Programme), who studies the values, knowledge, and practices of farmers and other agricultural actors. Macken-Walsh emphasized that members of the public should be seen as partners in STEM, adding value to science and translating it into real-world contexts. “Regeneration of family farming, for instance, requires the maintenance and preservation of some existing farming practices and land resources, while also innovating to meet contemporary needs, for example gender equality [and] environmental protection,” she explains.
Tressie McMillan Cottom (Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science) wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in the aftermath of the presidential election. “[T]his election was about enthusiasm and diagnoses. The long-term trajectory of our country has not changed. Millions of middle-class people feel working-class. These Americans have no way to describe what is happening to them,” Cottom described. “Nature abhors a vacuum. But political opportunists thrive in vacuums. This election was about who told a better story about the fundamentals without promising anything to fix those fundamentals. That is the sweet spot for an opportunist like Trump and his party. Sell everything, promise nothing. Keep them coming back for more.”
The Atlantic ran an article featuring Julia Sonnevend’s (Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at the New School for Social Research) new book on political charm: Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics. Sonnevend distinguishes charisma – which requires distance from an audience – from charm – which requires proximity. Charm makes political figures appear “accessible, authentic, and relatable.” Sonnevend describes that charm is becoming increasingly important in our modern media environment: “It has become increasingly possible to give almost continuous access to politicians—or that’s the illusion. Think of our phones, these totemic objects we all carry—the intimacy of sitting in bed with the screen close to your face, watching a politician record a video or a livestream of themselves with their own phone. That’s different from sitting in the living room, watching a TV set where a leader is on a stage.”
City Journal reviewed Musa Al-Gharbi’s (Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University) new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. The book explores how “symbolic capitalists”–academics, journalists, lawyers, administrators, and other elites who are committed to social justice–have never been “woke,” because they are disconnected from the marginalized communities they aim to support. Al-Gharbi was also interviewed by Contexts andReason.
Amid shifts in the film industry, horror movies have been reliable box office successes. Laura Patterson (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder and host of the Collective Nightmares podcast) explains that the genre allows people to feel “fear in a safe space,” exercise “empathy and understanding” for the characters in difficult situations, and bond with fellow movie-watchers. This story was covered by CPR News.
El Paísran an article on how young people are embracing alternative forms of work (from self-employment to dubious investments) as conventional work becomes more precarious and uncertain. Mariano Urraco Solanilla (Professor of Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid) explained that this is a response to a lack of opportunities and incentives in conventional work: “The goal is to regain control over our lives during a time when everything feels like a whirlwind of uncertainty. This is what makes people fantasize, dream, or become intensely involved in studying for exams or pursuing alternatives like moving to the countryside to embrace a neo-rural lifestyle. Fundamentally, these choices are made to feel a sense of control over one’s life, something that paid work no longer affords.”
The New York Times ran a story on the changing economic standing of white men without college degrees in the United States. In 1980, their income was 7% higher than the average income for full-time workers; however, since then, they have been surpassed in income by college-educated women and their relative economic standing has lowered. The article cites Arlie Russell Hochschild’s (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) new book,Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, which describes how this economic shift also undermines the “pride of blue-collar men that they could be of use, to their families, their communities and the country.”
The Washington Post ran an article on older adults with cognitive impairment or dementia who live alone in the United States. Elena Portacolone (Professor at the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California at San Francisco) describes that the health-care system assumes that these older adults have family caregivers. “I realized this is a largely invisible population [that is] destined to fall through the cracks,” she said.
Matthew Desmond (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University) wrote an article for the New York Reviewdescribing steps the next presidential administration can take to solve the housing crisis in the United States. Desmond argues for prioritizing programs that provide immediate relief to homeless individuals and people with precarious housing. Next, the administration can work to restore existing dilapidated housing, reform restrictive zoning laws, and build new housing.
Research from Sanné Mestrom (Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts) and Indigo Willing (Visiting Fellow in the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney) examines how public art and skateboarding culture can come together in the form of skatable structures to encourage urban play and create welcoming public spaces. “If you think about the contemporary urban sport infrastructure that exists today, what comes to mind may be something quite brutalist and intimidating in form; for example, a concrete playground with no colour, garden or areas for parents to sit,” Willing said. “Our research shows that well-designed public spaces can promote opportunity and act as a bridge between diverse cultures and perspectives.” This story was covered by Arts Hub and the University of Sydney News.
Ilana M. Horwitz (Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University) wrote an article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Jewish Americans’ varied responses to and support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Horwitz describes that Jewish Americans with different political and religious affiliations had differing views of issues of race and discrimination in the U.S., as well as different conceptions of fairness and justice.
New research from Ángel Escamilla García (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University) illuminates the difficult choices young migrants from Central America to the United States make to minimize their chances of deportation. Escamilla García found that young migrants learn about U.S. immigration law through conversations with other migrants, consultations with lawyers at migrant shelters, and through social media. “They would assess how they thought the laws would affect their cases, which led them to make decisions that were risky but aimed at enhancing their chances of gaining legal status in the United States,” Escamilla García explained. This story was covered byYale News.
Roger Southall (Professor of Sociology at the University of Witwatersrand) wrote an article for The Conversation on poverty and inequality in South Africa. According to recent polls, 60% of South Africans think that the government of national unity is working well and there has been a recent upturn in the economy. However, while the unity government’s policies may reduce poverty, Southall warns that they may not address class inequalities. “Unless its benefits become socially inclusive, it might well collapse.”
The New York Times ran a story on governmental efforts to increase fertility rates in wealthy countries around the world. Kumiko Nemoto (Professor of Business Administration at Senshu University) and Ylva Moberg (Researcher at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University) commented on gender, childcare and work in Japan and Sweden, respectively. In a study of Japanese women in executive or managerial positions, Nemoto found that the women were either childless or relied on their parents or child care services. “Almost all of these women said their husbands did not help them,” Nemoto said. In 1995, Sweden introduced paternity leave policies to encourage men to take on more childcare responsibilities. “That has created a change in cultural expectations on what it means to be a good father,” Moeberg said. However, fertility rates in both countries remain low.
Scott Scheiman (Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto) wrote an article for The Conversation, asking: will Kamala Harris’s pro-work message resonate in an age of “anti-ambition” rhetoric? Scheiman examines data from the General Social Survey (GSS) about sentiments about work. While, compared to the late 80s, fewer Americans today think ambition and hard work are essential or important for getting ahead in life, “sweeping sociological claims that we’re living in an age of anti-ambition and that most people are quiet quitting simply aren’t justified.” However, Scheiman notes that “economic pessimism remains entrenched despite objective evidence to the contrary. Harris may therefore have her work cut out for her in selling an “opportunity economy” message as election day draws closer.”
Eve Ewing (Sociologist and Professor of Race, Diaspora, and Indegeneity at the University of Chicago) moderated a discussion with Ta-Nehisi Coates (Author of The Message) and Rami Nashashibi (MacArthur Fellow and Founder of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network) at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Ewing asked the panel about how oppressed groups turn to nationalism as a response to loss and displacement. Coates stated that nationalistic attitudes “must necessarily come at the expense of another people. It’s just no way around that.” This story was covered by The TRiiBE.
Former President Barack Obama will be joining the campaign trail with Vice President Kamala Harris, and is set to visit several swing states. Liz McKenna (Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University) commented that Obama’s 2008 campaign enlisted local supporters “to do the difficult and often socially risky work of having real conversations with friends and neighbors about the election”–a “yes, we can” ethos. McKenna added Harris’s campaign has an “authentic groundswell of enthusiasm” that echoes the Obama campaign. This story was covered by Forbes.
Matthew Desmond (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University) appeared on WYPR to discuss the causes of poverty in America, how affluent individuals contribute to poverty, and what we can do to help alleviate poverty.
The Wall Street Journal reviewedBorn to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite by Aaron Reeves (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics) and Sam Freidman (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics). The book analyzes the British elite (from the Victorian era to today) and describes how and argues “that Britain is as much in the grip of a tiny sociopolitical caste today as it was in the late 19th century.”
Rima Majed (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut) was interviewed by Democracy Now, discussing Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, the history of Hezbollah, and Lebanon’s resistance movements. “Our wars never end. Our wars are only put on hold until the next round starts,” Majed emphasized. “And these wars will not stop as long as there is occupation, as long as there’s a settler-colonial entity that is expanding, as long as there is no justice, no right to return, no reparation.”
The Hindustan Times ran a story on active aging in India. Neetu Batra (Sociologist at the Giri Institute of Development Studies) commented that many older adults are embracing aging more positively. “Many live alone after their children move out,” Batra said. “Rather than seeing it as retirement, they look at it as a fresh chapter in life and work to make their 60s the new 40s. They actively participate in group activities such as morning walks, gardening, dancing, and even playing badminton. Many seniors also opt for second careers driven by a desire to remain active and contribute to society.”
Arlie Russell Hochschild (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) was interviewed in Salon, discussing how former president Donald Trump appeals to white, working class voters. “I think we live in both a material economy and a pride economy,” Hochshild explained. While Trump’s policies as president did not materially help these voters, “Trump helped those same poor and working-class white people feel proud and seen again. He talked about national pride and Making America Great Again. His voters feel that language and take it personally.”
The MacArthur Foundation announced its ‘Genius’ fellowship recipients for 2024, including several sociologists. Loka Ashwood’s (Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Kentucky) work focuses on helping communities overcome environmental injustices. Ruha Benjamin (Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University) studies how technology reproduces inequalities. Dorothy Roberts (Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania) examines racial inequalities within social service systems. This story was covered by the New York Times.
Diario de Cuba ran a story on the “migration crisis” in Cuba, as large numbers of Cuban people are emigrating out of the country, and the effects on children and families. Helen Ochoa Calvo (Sociologist from Cienfuegos, Cuba) commented that migration had become “the only solution left for those who can and want to live a dignified life through their work, the regime has left them with no other.” Ochoa Calvo described the current migration as the most distressing separation of parents and children since the Cuban Revolution: “Not only are parents leaving their younger children behind, they’re also leaving their older parents.”
Blake R. Silver’s (Associate Professor of Sociology at George Mason University) new book, Degrees of Risk: Navigating Insecurity and Inequality in Public Higher Education, examines the ways in which colleges and universities create uncertainty for students. In an interview with The Conversation, Silver describes that many universities experiencing funding cuts create flexible programming and offer a range of optional resources. “Though abundant choices and flexibility may seem broadly appealing, research shows that they can make it difficult to anticipate next steps, and it’s easy for students to get lost,” Silver explains. “This most directly impacts students whose families are less familiar with navigating college and those with few economic resources to recover from missteps.”
GW Today interviewed Elizabeth Vaquera (Associate Professor of Sociology at George Washington University) about how Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are appealing to Latino voters in the upcoming election. Vaquera explains that we very rarely see politicians considering the diversity of Latino populations and focusing solely on immigration is a poor strategy to win Latino votes. “For Latino voters, it’s not all about immigration. The majority of Latinos in the United States are not even immigrants themselves,” Vaquera notes. “They are worried about the same issues as everybody else. The economy is always at the top of their concerns. Jobs, education and health care are all very important to them. Abortion has become a singular issue for some in the Latino community.”
Brooke Harrington (Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College) appeared on C-SPAN to discuss offshore finance, a system in which countries “sell secrecy to very rich people,” allowing them to protect assets and/or hide money from tax authorities. Harrington describes how many nations that are struggling financially (especially smaller island nations that were with a history of colonization) participate in the global finance system as a way to boost their economies. However, offshore finance tends to end up “undermining democracy and ultimately hollowing out the economy of these countries.” Harrington’s recent book, Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism, explores this system in-depth.
The New York Timesran a story on the emerging support of moderate republican lawmakers from labor unions. Jake Rosenfeld (Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis) commented that recent pro-worker rhetoric from prominent Republicans (including former President Trump) “might be giving cover to more down-ballot Republicans” to adopt pro-union stances. “Ten or 15 years ago, if you staked out a real pro-union position as a G.O.P. lawmaker, you were going to be hearing from the Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturers,” Rosenfeld explained.
Parker Muzzerall (PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of British Columbia) wrote an article for The Conversation about oil and gas workers’ responses to Canada’s efforts to achieve a net-zero energy economy. Muzzerall’s work reveals that many oil and gas workers have a strong sense of regional pride for oil and gas communities and believe that “the federal government and Canadians in other parts of the country do not care about them and their feelings of being excluded from Canada’s vision for the future.”
Ryan Larson (Assistant Professor of Criminology at Hamline University) appeared on MPR to discuss new research on the mental health effects of the police murder of George Floyd on Minneapolis residents. The study found that Black residents had more negative mental health consequences than White and Latino residents. “Often in epidemiological studies, advantage, say, wealth or socioeconomic status will often serve as a buffer against health problems,” Larson explained. However, in this case, “Black residents living in the most disadvantaged as well as the most advantaged spaces in Minneapolis both saw a pretty similar increase in mental health diagnoses across the city.”
The New York Times ran a story on intensive parenting (involving “painstakingly and methodically cultivating children’s talents, academics and futures through everyday interactions and activities”) and parents’ mental health, citing Melissa Milkie (Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto) and Kei Nomaguchi (Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University). Milkie and Nomaguchi describe that pressure on parents has increased in recent years: social media enables comparison to other parents, parents feel pressure to make up for opportunities lost during the pandemic, rapid changes in technology and the nature of work make it difficult to prepare children for the future, and faith that the government can help struggling families has dwindled. “In the U.S., it’s this sense of individualism: You chose to have kids, so go raise them,” Milkie said, “Parents need the village, but people are not as available as they were.”
Following a fatal police-action shooting in Fort Wayne, IN, Amanda Miller (Professor of Sociology at the University of Indianapolis) appeared on 21 Alive News to discuss the wide-reaching effects of police-action shootings. Miller noted that violent events can cause stress and anxiety for individuals who are not directly involved. “Even if you have a very low risk of experiencing violent crime, it can make you feel as if the world is less safe as a result of some of these things happening,” Miller said. Additionally, Miller described how police-action shootings can generate suspicion and mistrust of both law enforcement officers and neighbors
The Economic Times ran a story on how women are often given less clear and candid feedback at work than their male peers, hindering their career advancement. The article cites a recent study by Laura K. Nelson (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia), Alexandra Brewer (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California) and colleagues, which found that female emergency medicine residents were more likely to receive inconsistent feedback on their work (either positive numerical scores paired with criticism or low numerical scores paired with praise). The article also cites work by Shelley Correll (Professor of Sociology and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University) and colleagues, finding that managers at a Fortune 500 company often buffered critiques of female employees with praise in performance reviews. Written or verbal feedback that is inconsistent with numerical scores can leave female employees without actionable steps to improve their performance.
The New York Times published an article on recent calls for “viewpoint diversity” in academia. Neil Gross (Professor of Sociology at Colby College) commented that viewpoint diversity “is a very ambiguous term. And that gives it a little bit more power” than ideological diversity or political diversity. However, many advocates for viewpoint diversity point to the need for more conservatives on faculties and in syllabuses. Gross’ work indicates that academia, compared to most other professions, employs a higher percentage of liberal employees. However, in a survey of undergraduates, Gross found that 60% of students felt that professors did a “very good” or “pretty good” job of facilitating discussion of political topics where students had opposing views and 90% of students reported that professors “rarely,” “never,” or “occasionally” discussed their own political views.
Julia Sonnevend (Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at the New School for Social Research) was interviewed by Public Seminar about her new book Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics. Sonnevend discussed how political charm is evaluated by (often fragmented) audiences and how the charm of a political leader affects views of their country: “We simply pay more attention to personalities than to institutions, values, or even facts. If you think about the international context, we are often talking about countries Americans know very little about. And when there is a relatable political character, or a character who we really dislike, it is easier to put the country in a box.”
Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science at New York University) wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times arguing that there is an “urgent need to make dangerous heat more recognizable.” Klinenberg discusses how, despite the fact that deaths due to heat waves typically outnumber deaths from hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined, Americans are “quick to forget” heat waves. Klinenberg argues that major heat waves should be named (like major storms are named, e.g. “Hurricane Katrina” or “Superstorm Sandy”) to help us “recognize it as an enemy and mobilize support for public projects” to avoid future climate disasters.
Pesquisa ran an article on homelessness in Brazil, which has grown about 211% from 2012 to 2022. Research from the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) indicates that the primary reasons for homelessness are financial hardship, broken family ties, and health issues (particularly related to addiction). Marco Antônio Carvalho Natalino (Sociologist at the Institute of Applied Economic Research) explains that “the reason for homelessness influences its duration,” and homelessness due to family or health issues tends to last longer. Fraya Frehse (Professor of Sociology at the University of São Paulo) commented that the spread of homelessness is a global reality.
Ahead of the U.S. presidential debate, Tressie McMillan Cottom (Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science) joined four other New York Times columnists in an online discussion on the candidates and their potential pathways to winning the election. McMillan Cottom noted that “Trump is a known entity. He does not have to “win” the debate…he has to win the media cycle. His biggest risk is being ineffectual at commanding attention.” For Harris, the “best path to winning is through historic turnout and enthusiasm.” McMillan Cottom emphasized the importance of selling a compelling story to scared, angry voters: “The big story of Trump’s win in 2016 was that voters were angry and experts missed it. … The story in this election is that voters are still angry and we may still be missing it. I spent time talking to female voters in nail salons, hair salons and waxing salons. … The women I talked to in those female spaces are angry and afraid. As one low-information voter told me, she wants someone to look like a fighter.”
David Karen (Professor of Sociology at Bryn Mawr) is featured in the recently released film Love 2020. The film is about the 2020 US Open–the first major international event held during the COVID-19 pandemic. Karen commented that it “was a delight to talk with Jacqueline Joseph, the director of the film, about so many things that I’m passionate about: tennis, New York City, the role of sports in our lives, and movements for social justice.” This story was covered by Bryn Mawr News.
And Some Bonus Clippings:
Arlie Russell Hochschild’s new book, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, was covered by WBUR and theBoston Globe.
Sherry Turkle’s interview for Body Electricdiscussing the effects of AI chatbots on relationships was re-publicized on NPR last week.
About Clippings
Sociology and sociologists in the news. Read more…
