masculinity

In an article for The Conversation, Jeffrey Dixon (Professor of Sociology at College of the Holy Cross) discussed how artificial intelligence may impact American workers. Dixon argues that “America’s fusion of limited labor protections and aggressive AI adoption could create the perfect storm for widespread job insecurity.”

Michel Anteby

The New York Times ran an article discussing how hormonal birth control is discussed on social media–particularly the growing number of TikTok videos where women discuss negative side effects of birth control and encourage other women to question their doctors about contraception. The article quotes Amanda Stevenson (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Boulder) on the connection between culture and law: “If we look at what happened between Roe v. Wade and Dobbs, we see a steady escalation of the stigmatization of abortions, and a steady escalation of legal restrictions on the provision of abortion care. Those two processes, stigmatization and legal restrictions are mutually reinforcing.”

Tristan Bridges

David Garland’s (Professor of Sociology and Law at New York University) new book, Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment, explores how and why policing and incarceration have become the basis of social order in the United States. Garland argues that “the theme connecting the myriad practices of the American penal state is the singular emphasis on control, not retribution, or restitution, or rehabilitation, but the imposition of restraints on offenders” and that penal control is used to compensate for a lack of political and economic systems of stabilizing communities. Garland discussed the book in an interview with Princeton University Press. 

David Garland

Building Design ran an article urging architects to engage with sociology when designing homes. The article cites work by Monique Eleb (Professor at the Ecole d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais) and Anne Marie Chatelet (University of Strasbourg) on how domestic rituals have changed across generations and work by Sonia Lavadinho (Founder of Bfluid Prospective Research) on the increasing diversity in types of households as we live longer.

Monique Eleb, Anne Marie Chatelet, & Sonia Lavadinho

Robert Putnam (Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University) and Richard Reeves (Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution) wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times about the current “boy crisis” (how “boys and young men are unwoven from the fabric of our society”) and drawing parallels to the early 20th Century. Putnam and Reeves describe Progressive-era reform efforts and the emergence of child-serving organizations (such as Big Brothers, Boy Scouts, and the Y.M.C.A.). “We have boys seeking guidance. We have men seeking purpose. We have civic institutions desperate for male volunteers,” they describe. “We need to match the outpouring of civic energy, institutional innovation and readiness to experiment with risky new ideas that marked the “boy problem” reformers a century ago.”

Robert Putnam and Richard Reeves

Knowable Magazine interviewed Patrick Bergemann (Associate Professor of Organization and Management at the University of California, Irvine) on his work examining why and when whistleblowers, crime victims, and others are likely to report or conceal wrongdoing. Bergemann also discussed how governments often encourage reporting (for instance, “See something, say something” campaigns) as a form of social control.

Patrick Bergemann

The Associated Press ran an article on the impacts of eviction on schoolchildren, citing a study from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. When children face eviction, they are more likely to have to transfer districts or schools; even when they can stay at the same school, they are more likely to be absent. Peter Hepburn (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University-Newark and Associate Director at the Eviction Lab), the study’s lead author, commented: “It’s worth reminding people that 40% of the people at risk of losing their homes through the eviction process are kids.”

Peter Hepburn

Michel Anteby (Professor of Management and Organizations at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business) wrote an article for The Conversation arguing that bureaucrats–despite getting a “bad rap” in U.S. politics–deserve more credit. Anteby describes Max Weber’s descriptions of bureaucrats and argues that they can serve as experts and equalizers, advancing public interests. “Today, bureaucrats are often framed by the administration and its supporters as the root of all problems,” Anteby writes. “Yet if Weber’s insights and my observations are any guide, bureaucrats are also the safeguards that stand between the public and dilettantism, favoritism and selfishness.”

Michel Anteby

The Washington Post ran an article discussing how tech companies may face a “second reckoning” over diversity, equity, and inclusion in their AI products. According to subpoenas sent to several large tech companies by the House Judiciary Committee, products developed to reduce biased AI outputs are now under investigation. Ellis Monk (Professor of Sociology at Harvard University), who worked with Google to make its AI product more inclusive to a range of skin tones, commented: “Google wants their products to work for everybody, in India, China, Africa, et cetera. That part is kind of DEI-immune. But could future funding for those kinds of projects be lowered? Absolutely, when the political mood shifts and when there’s a lot of pressure to get to market very quickly.”

Ellis Monk

David Yamane (Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University) wrote an article for The Conversation, describing five key observations to understanding gun culture in America: (1) guns are normalized, with 1 in 3 American adults owning guns; (2) Americans increasingly own guns for self-defense, rather than recreational hunting; (3) gun owners are diverse; (4) guns are lethal by design; criminal violence is more lethal in the U.S. because guns are frequently involved and the U.S. has a high firearm suicide rate; (5) guns are not “inherently anything”–that is, “they take on different meanings according to the various purposes to which people put them.” Yamane explores gun culture in his upcoming book, Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture.

David Yamane

The New York Times ran a story about Hasan Piker–a popular Twitch/YouTube streamer “bro” who frequently incorporates more traditionally feminine elements into his personal style and is also an avowed socialist. Tristan Bridges (Professor of Sociology at the University of California – Santa Barbara) commented that Piker benefits from “jock insurance”–a term describing how men with “a lot of masculine gender capital” are often given leeway to challenge gender norms. “The jocks are allowed to break the rules and not have consequences for it,” Bridges said.

Tristan Bridges

Tressie McMillan Cottom (Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science) appeared on The Opinions–a New York Times podcast–discussing the role of masculinity and messages about gender in the Trump administration. Following Trump blaming a recent plane crash on D.E.I. initiatives, Cottom commented: “I actually think that D.E.I. in that context, while it sort of primed some racial energies, it was really doing its most effective work as a broad dismissal of women. I think one of the reasons that works is because we worked really hard — especially in the last like 15 years — to develop and deepen the repertoire that Americans have to talk about race and racism. I will be honest with you, I’m not sure that we did as good a job of developing that capacity when it came to gender.” Cottom also commented on how strongman politics works “by giving people a scapegoat, giving men a scapegoat — is that it says not only are women the enemy, are people of color and minorities the enemy, but the government is protecting them.” Strongman politics thus facilitate delegitimization of the government.

Tressie McMillan Cottom

Yolande Strengers (Digital Sociologists and Professor of Human Centered Computing at Monash University) appeared on Switched On Australia to discuss the energy industries flawed assumptions of consumer behavior and her work on the Digital Energy Futures project. Strengers commented that the energy industry expects consumers to act like ‘mini-economists’ or ‘mini-engineers,’ thinking of their households as a market. However, Strengers examines daily household practices and motivations, finding that consumers often think of energy as a means of comfort and entertainment, or a way to care for others.

Yolande Strengers

The Credits interviewed Brazilian sociologist Ana Paula Sousa (Film Professor at the Higher School of Advertising and Marketing in São Paulo) about I’m Still Here, a film about a family living during the period of military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil. Sousa commented that the film “exposed the roots of our violence – social, institutional and physical. For a long time, we have been shrouded in the haze of the idea that we’re a country of parties, of joy, of the “way things are” and fed by the illusion that we’re the “country of the future.” I’m Still Here shows that perhaps we are still the “country of the past,” in the sense that we need to deal with our old problems, including torture and slavery.”

Ana Paula Sousa

Bonnie Zare (Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech) spoke to the Irish Star about the cultural relevance of The Substance, a modern body horror film. “I feel the movie is able to capture this feeling that we’re constantly under scrutiny, that we’re constantly trying to do the impossible, which is get rid of our imperfections, and this sort of self loathing that would accompany that that we’re not talking about,” Zare said. She described the film as a great teaching example of “how we can start to question the norms around us and the policing and disciplining of our bodies, hair and faces.”

Bonnie Zare

Matthew Desmond (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University) appeared on The Daily Show, discussing American poverty and ways to address it and build worker power in the U.S. economy. “I think a lot of us do benefit from poverty in ways we don’t realize,” Desmond commented. “We soak the poor in the labor market or the housing market. We continue to have a government that gives the most to families that need it the least, by subsiding affluence instead of fighting poverty. We continue to live in segregated lives. A lot of us are connected to that problem, but it also means we’re connected to the solution.”

Matthew Desmond

Singapore Management University ran a story on EurekaAlert! featuring Jacqueline Ho’s (Assistant Professor of Social Science at Singapore Management University) work on parents’ perceptions of inequalities in the Singaporean education system. Ho explained: “I find that what the ‘Every School a Good School’ rhetoric is doing is, not so much convincing parents that every school is worthy in its own way, but more that it’s comforting to parents who can’t compete. It’s helping parents to exit the competition with more peace of mind, and less sense of guilt about whether they’re making the right choice for their kid.”

Jacqueline Ho

On a recent episode of Normal Gossip, Kelsey McKinney (Author and Journalist) discusses her new book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me, and how she thinks about the functions of gossip. “I was reading a lot of studies by sociologists, and one thing that they talk about a lot is that we use gossip as a tool not only to understand our society, but to understand ourselves,” McKinney said. “So it’s like when I’m talking to you about something I might surprise myself by, like, and instinct that I have or someone I think is a villain in your story and realize, “Oh, this is a like, underlying bias that I have in my life.””

The recent Gillette ad questions the beliefs underlying the phrase “boys will be boys,” and challenges viewers to reconsider how young boys learn what it means to “be a man” in American society. The ad has since spurred controversy, and some observers have even claimed that masculinity is “under threat.” In a recent Vox article, Tristan Bridges describes how the ad reflects broader societal issues around masculinity, and explains why some men may view the ad as an attack on masculinity.

American masculinity tends to promote potentially harmful characteristics in men, like showing toughness instead of acknowledging emotions. Many men feel as though they must prove this masculinity to others. Bridges explains that when men feel that their masculine identity is threatened, they tend to overcompensate in aggressive ways. For example, Bridges mentions a study where men who were told they had traits categorized as more highly feminine were more likely to blame victims of sexual assault and defend perpetrators than those who did not get feedback that threatened their masculinity.

Bridges argues that the Gillette ad may be one of the only times men explicitly see beliefs about masculinity under scrutiny:

“Men are not used to having masculinity defined for them, and sometimes they don’t realize the little ways these really problematic stereotypes of masculinity can crop up in their own lives.”

According to Bridges, this traditional messaging of masculinity is harmful to boys’ emotional and mental health because they are taught to respond to threats rather than accept challenges and critically question their behaviors and mentalities around masculinity:

“We’re not very good at talking with men about how to be challenged and not feel like your gender is threatened…We now talk to boys about consent, but not how to “retain their dignity” in the face of rejection.”

This leads to boys dealing with frustrations around their masculinity by being aggressive or dominant; both are behaviors that can have serious repercussions, not just for themselves, but for the people around them. 

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.’

Even with gender-equality movements today, marriage proposals seem to be backtracking — becoming even more spontaneous, elaborate, and sensational. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Ellen Lamont and Judy Chu explain how marriage proposals often perpetuate traditional gender roles and may be a poor foundation for a stable marriage.

Lamont argues that traditional marriage proposals — where a man asks a woman to marry him — are symbolic acts that sustain particular gender norms.

“Now that we expect women to be equal to men, women [and men] are looking for ways to distinguish gender in their lives. Within heterosexual romantic relationships, there is still a strong sense that women and men want different things and, by extension, should behave in different ways. As more women assume traditionally male roles at work, the traits that distinguish men and women in relationships become harder to see. A symbolic act, like a proposal, is a way to reenact those differences.”

For men, Chu suggests that elaborate proposals may actually be a socially acceptable way for men to express profound feelings for their significant other — something that may be difficult in societies that do not value emotional expression from men.

Social media may also add to the need for elaborate proposals. During interviews, Lamont found that most women felt they “needed a story to tell their friends” about their engagement. In other words, elaborate proposals can provide the perfect proposal picture to post to Facebook or Instagram.

Regardless of why marriage proposals have failed to modernize, their consequences include tremendous social pressure and a potentially rocky foundation for a marriage. In Lamont’s study, women admitted they only said “yes” because they feared saying “no” would translate to “saying no to the relationship.” Perhaps moving away from proposals that reify traditional gender norms could be a key first step to healthy marriages.

After a mass shooting, we often seek to understand why. Sociologists are well-positioned to help us to make sense of these tragedies. In a recent article for Quartz, Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober reflect on the importance of American masculinity for understanding the prevalence of mass shootings in the United States.

While the United States does have more guns than many other nations, Bridges and Tober argue that gun access does not fully explain why the United States has more mass shootings. This explanation also does not account for why nearly all mass shootings are committed by men. Bridges and Tober use the concept of “masculinity threat” — when men’s masculinity is called into question — to explain why mass shootings follow a larger pattern. Evidence shows that men who experience masculinity threats are more likely to condone violence, male superiority, and homophobic attitudes. 

“Mass shootings follow a consistent pattern: The men who commit them have often experienced what they perceive as masculinity threats. They’re bullied by peers, gay-baited by classmates, and often perceive themselves as unable to live up to societal expectations associated with masculinity, such holding down a steady job, having sexual access to women’s bodies, or being tough or strong. This does not suggest that men are somehow unavoidably more violent than women. But it does suggest that mass shootings need to be seen, in part, as enactments of masculinity.”

Unmasking the role of masculinity in mass shootings is critical because it removes the individualized framing of mass shootings, including equating white shooters with mental health issues but not extending this discussion to persons of color. Since mass shootings are not an individual issue, they cannot be solved by individual solutions. While gun control is one part of the solution to mass shootings in the United States, Bridges and Tober argue we also must recognize the role of masculinity and invest in a new culture of masculinity that is not so deeply invested in dominance and violence. 

Trump received more support from white men than any other group in the presidential election, but this was expected, at least according to sociologist Michael Kimmel. His research is part of the new but growing field of “masculinity studies,” and in a recent interview with The Guardian, he talks about his book Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era. His research specifically looks at how people join, and leave, white-supremacist or neo-Nazi groups, and he states that masculinity is an important part of the process.

Kimmel talks at length about many parts of this picture, including the men’s rights movement on the Internet, the role of testosterone (or the lack thereof) when it comes to men being disproportionately aggressive, and why “men are naturally aggressive” is a poor argument to defend domestic abuse.

In the interview, Kimmel explains how feelings of “aggrieved entitlement,” a sense of a loss for masculine power and tradition, can stimulate feelings of humiliation. In turn, this can drive men to join local neo-Nazi groups. There, the camaraderie and sense of community can validate a neophyte’s masculinity, convincing him to stay. In essence, masculinity is very tied up in how people join and leave hate groups and extremist enclaves. As Kimmel states,

“The camaraderie of the community validates their masculinity, and – even more importantly than that – gives them a sacred mission. That is really powerful for these guys … If you ignore masculinity in understanding how these guys get into these movements, you will not be able to help them get out.”

Spoiler alert! This season the popular Netflix series “House of Cards” got a bit more radical. Main characters and power couple Claire and Frank Underwood are unapologetically, consensually non-monogamous. In fact, sociologist Mimi Schippers says the show portrays “one of the best television representations of an open/poly relationship I’ve seen.” In the fourth season, Claire, married to the President of the United States, becomes sexually involved with Thomas Yates, a writer. While many shows depict “extramarital affairs” as inherently negative, “House of Cards” Frank affirms that Tom can “give” Claire things he can’t.

In a blog post for NYU Press, Schippers argues that the Underwoods go “beyond” marriage, monogamy, and dominant gender norms. According to research she conducted for her upcoming book, men in polyamorous relationships tend to shift their understanding of masculinity because they must forgo jealousy and control over the women in their lives. The openly non-monogamous relationships on “House of Cards” thus challenge more than just ideas about what relationships should look like. It confronts gendered expectations for men to be competitive and possessive and grants women sexual autonomy, independent of men.

[T]he Underwoods distinguish themselves from society’s ideas of the “perfect couple” by being both child-free and consensually non-monogamous. They are something else–something beyond “perfect”, beyond marriage, and beyond traditional gender arrangements. Rather than representing bad character or immorality, Claire’s increasingly intimate relationship with Tom and Frank’s enthusiastic acceptance of it (the very definition of polyamory) punctuates and solidifies the strength of their marriage as one between equals.

Star Wars conventions: one place where everyone is equal (if they hate Jar-Jar Binks). Or maybe not. As it turns out, even Star Wars has become a controversial area for discussing the place of feminism and powerful women in society. Work by sociologists CJ Pascoe and Tristan Bridges sheds more light on how sexism has infiltrated nerd culture. Following their recent book release, Pascoe and Bridges were interviewed by Broadly to help explain sexism in an unlikely arena.

Pascoe explains that “nerds” are consistently emasculated in society because they don’t participate in the same types of gendered dominance displays expected of young men. That might make it seem they exist away from expected dichotomies of gender roles. Bridges adds, however, that nerdy activities have become more mainstream due to popular television and media, so now the traditional nerd versus jock relationship is more nuanced.

Bridges said,

Nerds are, as a cultural “type,” emasculated… But it’s also true that there is a lot of toxic masculine behavior in nerd cultures. Think about it: #GamerGate happened among the nerds, not the jocks.

Pascoe agreed, explaining that fandom cultures create a space for men to be dominant even if they do not follow mainstream masculine pressures. The presence of women in these spaces might constitute a threat to the men within them. Still, Pascoe concludes that feminism is still a benefit for nerd culture overall. She says hopefully,

Increasing including and visibility of women, trans folk, and LGBQ folk in fandom communities will result in less damaging gender socialization for everyone—men included—and will help to change the way in which nerds themselves are placed on the bottom rung of some masculinity hierarchy.