gender

Photo of a wall of polaroid pictures representing discharged patients. Photo by midiman, Flickr CC

No, absolutely not. But married patients often receive more aggressive cancer treatment than those who are unmarried. Joan DelFattore, author of a recent article in The Washington Post, believes it might have something to do with doctors’ perceptions of unmarried people — specifically that unmarried people are less able to handle aggressive treatments than married people. DelFattore connected with sociological and medical experts to explore the potential importance of marital status in cancer treatments.

Some researchers speculate that overall unmarried patients may be starkly different than their married counterparts in terms of social support, depression, and social isolation. Sociologist Linda Waite, who co-wrote a book on the social benefits on marriage, concurs with these claims:

“In the U.S., where people have plenty of options for marriage, it’s likely to be those who are disabled or otherwise at a disadvantage who don’t marry….And so, they might indeed do worse in health care because of the underlying issues that caused them not to marry.

Others, like Susan Brown, point out that these perceptions are based on the assumption that social support comes primarily from spouses, rather than other family and friends. Instead, Brown argues that care providers should be open to patient support coming from people other than spouses or romantic partners. She says,

“Frame the discussion in terms of what the patient actually needs, rather than focusing on whether it’s provided by people in specific roles…Our whole system is built around traditional family roles, and that doesn’t work for many people.”

Good social support certainly matters for surviving cancer treatment, especially aggressive treatment. Where it comes from matters much less than the fact that it’s there.

Photo of a person with their back to the camera facing a train as it rushes past. Photo by Georgie Pauwels, Flickr CC

Despite growing research that people are having less sex in the United States, the perception that “everyone is doing it” persists, especially for young people. In a recent article, The Atlantic asked social scientists why young people aren’t having more sex.

Lisa Wade, author of the book, American Hookup Culture, says that one of the reasons for is that young people are more likely to have sex within relationships than in hookups, and always have been:

“Go back to the point in history where premarital sex became more of a thing, and the conditions that led to it…Young women, at that point — [the 1940s and 50s] — innovate ‘going steady.’ If you [go out with someone for] one night you might get up to a little bit of necking and petting, but what happens when you spend months with them? It turns out 1957 has the highest rate of teen births in American history.”

Part of the reason young people today are having sex more in relationships than in hookups — at least for women — might be that they are avoiding bad sex. According to Paula England, women report sex in hookups is less pleasurable than sex in relationships. Based on recent trends, it appears as though fewer young people are actually having relationships at all, marriage or otherwise. And the rise of online dating apps means that people meeting online are marrying more quickly, which might mean they are dating less overall, according to Michael Rosenfeld.

Despite a decline in sex overall for young people, this decline likely does not affect all young people equally. Since research shows that a good sex life appears to contribute to happiness and other health benefits, this also means that those who do not have a fulfilling sex life also do not reap those benefits. The article’s author, Kate Julian, concludes,

“Like economic recessions, the sex recession will probably play out in ways that are uneven and unfair. Those who have many things going for them already — looks, money, psychological resilience, strong social networks — continue to be well positioned to find love and have good sex and, if they so desire, become parents. But intimacy may grow more elusive to those who are on less steady footing.”

Photo by NCDOTcommunications, Flickr CC

Intersectionality is a term frequently used in many different contexts, from social movements to academic research to everyday speech. A recent article in The New York Times explores how intersectionality — defined as “the complex and cumulative way different forms of discrimination like racism, sexism and classism overlap and affect people” — influences men and women of color in the workplace.

The article draws from a recent non-profit study surveying 1,600 participants in workplaces ranging from corporations to higher education. Most respondents said they were “highly on guard at work,” which often meant they actively repressed traits others might perceive as frightening or intimidating. For example, they arrived early to meetings so they would be seated when others arrived in order to appear less threatening.

While the majority of workers in the study reported this need to be “on guard” to protect themselves against racial and gender bias, the types of stereotypes various groups face are not the same. For example, African-American women tend to face the stereotype of “the angry black woman,” while Latinas face stereotypes about being “too emotional or too wedded to their families.” Sociologist Yung-Yi Diana Pan notes that Asian-Americans are sometimes identified as “being workhorses without creativity” and “passive and acquiescent,” and this may lead to fewer promotions according to a recent report by the Ascend Foundation. 

Part of the problem, according to sociologist Lata Murti, is that women of color are constantly compared to professional white women — the “invisible norm.” So, what is the solution? Latasha Woods, brand manager at Proctor & Gamble argue it starts with leadership:

“We need leadership that truly cares about inclusion — a lot care about diversity, but how do you foster inclusion? People spend a lot of time on what they know the boss cares about. If they see the boss cares about inclusion they will too.”

Photo of two people walking through rows of large columns. Photo by Roman Boed, Flickr CC

Despite the longevity signified by the phrase, “till death do us part,” many American marriages are not so permanent. The statistic that half of marriages end in divorce has been cited for decades, but research by Philip Cohen shows that divorce rates have been falling for the last few years, even after accounting for demographic changes over that time. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Andrew Cherlin provides an unromantic explanation for the recent trend: “In order to get divorced, you have to get married first.”

In other words, declines in divorce are more driven by who is getting married than increased marital stability. Historically, divorce rates have been highest among Americans without a college degree. However, this group is now more likely to delay or forego marriage than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Victor Chen suggests that one factor responsible for marriage declines among people without a college degree is lack of jobs. Well-paying jobs for the less educated have become sparse as the American economy has transitioned away from manufacturing. Without stable employment, it is harder to maintain long-term romantic partnerships.

Another factor could be a rising acceptance of cohabitation, which has decreased the pressure for couples in their 20s to marry. Delaying marriage has benefits for marital quality. Cherlin explains:

“If you’re older, you’re more mature … you probably have a better job, and those things make it less likely that you’ll get into arguments with your spouse.”

However, declines in marriage do not necessarily mean that Americans are getting better at long-term partnership. Rather, relationship volatility is moving from the context of marriage to cohabitation, where it is harder to measure. These falling marriage rates among the less-educated parallel a growing gap between the richest Americans and everyone else. College graduates, who are more likely to marry, are better positioned to endure economic uncertainty and build wealth through their pooled incomes. This leads Cohen to conclude that marriage is “an increasingly central component of the structure of social inequality.” In other words, while declining divorce may look like a positive trend at first glance, it may speak more to growing inequality than it does enduring love.

Protestors holding up letters that spell, “liar.” Photo by Mobilus in Mobili, Flickr CC

Vox writer Zack Beauchamp, among many other cultural critics and journalists, became “obsessed” with the question of why Kavanaugh supporters appear unfazed by potentially false claims during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Beauchamp’s article on the subject relied extensively upon an American Sociological Review article (and an extensive tweet thread from one of the authors) to explain why this might be the case.

According to research from Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, and Ezra Zuckerman-Sivan, voters can recognize that a politician is lying but still consider them authentic. Their study includes analysis of President Trump’s claim during the 2016 campaign that global warming is a hoax developed by China, which most of the participants labeled as “highly false.” The authors found that,

“Trump voters were significantly more likely to justify the lie as a form of symbolic protest…[and they were] much more likely to think the statement ‘was his way of challenging the elite establishment’ than to see the statement as true.”

To test these findings further, Hahl and colleagues conducted an experiment that involved a simulated college election where the main issue was the imposition of a campus alcohol ban (which would threaten campus traditions). Participants who were assigned the traditionalist group and led to believe that the establishment was treating them unfairly supported a candidate who used clearly false data because they viewed the candidate as speaking toward a deeper truth. As demonstrated by the research, the election, and Kavanaugh’s hearings, there must be some sort of legitimacy crisis — either a corrupt establishment or unfair favoring of an upstart group — in order to set up an environment where lies resonate with a sense of truth for an aggrieved group. Beauchamp expands further,

“As with Trump, the deeper truth is that a particular group is treated unfairly by the establishment (recall Kavanaugh’s opening),” Zuckerman-Sivan wrote in a Twitter thread. “So long as the obvious lies can be framed as serving that larger truth, the liar can present himself as the group’s ‘authentic champion.’”

Importantly, Hahl and colleagues find that individuals from all across the political spectrum were susceptible to “the appeal of the lying demagogue” — making lies in search of a larger truth a more common occurrence than just in the last election.

Photo by Steve Rainwater, Flickr CC

Supreme Court nominee — now associate justice — Brett Kavanaugh gave an interview to Fox News where he claimed that he could not have assaulted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford because he did not have sex until many years after high school. In a recent op-ed for Huffington Post, sociologist Sarah Diefendorf argues that this ‘good guys’ defense perpetuates an erroneous belief that rapists are fundamentally bad people who are incapable of becoming successful and accomplished people, like Brett Kavanaugh. Diefendorf explains,

When Kavanaugh or other men respond to allegations of sexual assault by making themselves look like good guys, they’re trying to pin the blame on other “bad” men as failures of masculinity. This good guy defense is brilliant. It allows men to make the problem of sexual assault and rape about being an individual ― the work of bad men, not a bad culture ― when we know that it is actually a widespread cultural problem.

Instead of a binary where there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys, Diefendorf cites social science research about how young men learn that masculinity means exerting dominance. This can mean symbolic domination, like calling another man a ‘fag’ or bragging about sex with women, or physical domination, like sexual assault. Citing her own research, Diefendorf points out that dominance work is a show for other men. She writes,

My research suggests that masculine bonding at the expense of women might be even stronger among men who are virgins. I spoke to men ages 19 to 25 who were virgins to understand how virginity affected how they saw themselves as men. Male virginity is often stigmatized, so the men I spoke to had to find other ways to be accepted as manly. They would talk to other men about sex frequently to show how hard it was to keep themselves from doing it.

Social science can remind us that masculinity carries assumptions of domination and is a powerful cultural force in shaping behavior — a force that can affect even those who present themselves as ‘good guys.’

Photo of Yale Law School courtyard. Photo by stepnout, Flickr CC

More than 20 million people tuned in to the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing on Thursday. Many sociologists provided perspectives on the hearing, outlining everything from the myths about rape to the connections (and differences) with the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas case. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Shamus Khan provides his take on how class privilege shaped many of Brett Kavanaugh’s actions.

In his book Privilege, Khan followed students at St. Paul’s, an elite private school in New Hampshire. He describes how elite institutions, including the ones Kavanaugh attended, like Yale, foster privilege among their predominantly upper-class student bodies. This privilege includes ideas that students are “exceptional” and that the “rules don’t really apply to them.” As Khan explains in the article,

“What makes these schools elite is that so few can attend. In the mythologies they construct, only those who are truly exceptional are admitted — precisely because they are not like everyone else…Schools often quite openly affirm the idea that, because you are better, you are not governed by the same dynamics as everyone else. They celebrate their astonishingly low acceptance rates and broadcast lists of notable alumni who have earned their places within the nation’s highest institutions, such as the Supreme Court.”

These narratives of privilege among the elite can have some pretty nasty implications. Khan cites research by economist Raj Chetty demonstrating that admission to an Ivy League school is rarely the result of educational aptitude, but rather extreme family wealth. He asserts that this class privilege, masked by notions of “exceptional qualities,” is tied to beliefs about special treatment among the elite. For example, Kavanaugh’s supporters argue that he deserves the Supreme Court nomination and accountability for actions he committed years ago doesn’t really apply to him. Khan illustrates further how this privilege also shaped Kavanaugh’s actions on Thursday:

“This collective agreement that accountability doesn’t apply to Kavanaugh (and, by extension, anybody in a similar position who was a youthful delinquent) may help explain why he seems to believe he can lie with impunity — a trend he continued Thursday, when he informed senators that he hadn’t seen the testimony of his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, even though a committee aide told the Wall Street Journal he’d been watching.”

In short, Khan’s research demonstrates how class privilege has shaped Kavanaugh’s actions from the outset, and how this privilege is cemented by the institutions and social circles around him.

Two people sitting on a bench in New York City at night, and another person sitting off to the side. Photo by Guian Bolisay, Flickr CC

Few would disagree that the internet — through online dating apps and websites — has significantly changed how people meet romantic and sexual partners. Sociologists have been on the forefront of studying how online dating has changed relationships, and sometimes even working for the companies behind this change. A recent article in The Economist explores some of this research.

Using online dating apps, individuals are able to choose which commonalities they want to share with a partner, while searching through a more diverse pool of applicants than they might find at their neighborhood bar. And research by sociologists, Reuben Thomas and Michael Rosenfeld, shows that this really matters — married people who met their partners online reported significantly higher relationship quality than those who met their partners offline. Jess Carbino, the in-house sociologists at Bumble, explains why this might happen:

Offline, people meet others who are like them in various ways—who know the same people and work in the same places. Online they can meet people not like them in those ways, but like them in other ways that may matter more. You can meet people who aren’t like you and select those who are.

However, not all online daters benefit equally. Research by Elizabeth Bruch and Mark Newman shows that women are generally more desirable than men, but women’s desirability drops with age and the more degrees they have, while men’s desirability generally increases with age and education level. And certain groups — especially Asian men and Black women — get fewer responses than others.

In short, while the internet has increased the diversity of the dating pool for many — and with it, relationship quality — it still reinforces many of the same sexist and racist patterns we see in other forms of dating.

Photo by R/DV/RS, Flickr CC

Intimate depictions of human suffering often make headlines. When 12 young boys became stuck in a cave in Thailand for over two weeks, media across the globe dedicated extensive coverage to their precarious rescue. In an interview with Vox, sociologist Tim Recuber explains why so many people watch coverage of disasters. According to Recuber, the key to this puzzle is “empathetic hedonism.” Recuber explains,

“There’s a certain kind of pleasure in really feeling for someone else, even if those feeling are bad. That’s what that term is trying to name. In a culture that tries to venerate empathy, being able to say, ‘I saw that footage, it’s really horrible, I feel horrible for those kids’…it does mark you as a moral person…People get to demonstrate they have this ability.”

However, not all victims of disaster receive the same level of empathy. People generally feel more empathy towards people they can relate to:

“Empathy is really partial. We’re more inclined to be empathetic to people who we feel are like us. Identifiable victims, relatable victims. And oftentimes racial, class, and gender biases get in the way of empathetic identification. There are even studies that show that people viewing a person’s skin being pricked by a needle will have more of a [physiological] reaction when the skin is the same color as theirs.”

In his interview, Recuber also grapples with the ethics of such media consumption. What may be most important, he concludes, is to allow victims the agency to decide whether or not to be in the spotlight. Recuber finds no harm in caring about suffering kids, but cautions that privacy invasions can deepen trauma.

Photo by Britt-knee, Flickr CC

Pregnancy can be risky and expensive at any age.  But for those who can afford the costs, holding off until an older age can be advantageous. A recent article in The Atlantic describes how first-time moms over 40 tend to have greater education and financial stability. Drawing from a national fertility study, sociologist Karina Shreffler finds that half of women over 40 had to pursue expensive treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF) in order to get pregnant. Older women are also at higher risk for various medical conditions. However, more affluent women have the financial ability to bear these expenses. Shreffler discusses numerous advantages that accompany this choice:

“People who are pursuing college are more likely to create this broader life plan: when to time their education, when to form their families, when to go for the promotion…We just don’t see that to that extent with women who don’t have college degrees.”

Waiting to have children can lead to more financial success and additional career opportunities, benefiting the children of older moms. Sociologist Karen Guzzo explains,

“These women are aware that, the longer they work before having kids, the more established they’ll be when they need to take time off — and the more valuable they’ll be to their companies.”

But again, these benefits are contingent upon the economic ability to bear the added costs that come with waiting to have children. As long as affluent, educated women are better equipped to benefit from late motherhood than women without college degrees, these benefits will perpetuate inequality.