Sociology Lens

The announcement by Apple this week regarding the latest version of the IPhone excited consumers worldwide. Along with any new release comes with anticipation over what new features will be included. The latest installment of the IPhone, the 5S, comes with a fingerprint technology called TouchID that replaces the now “antiquated” password with a biometric scan of the phone user’s fingerprint. Security experts are praising this new function as a way to increase protection for consumers and deter criminals from attempting to steal the phones. The use of fingerprint technology for security is nothing new, but the application to cellphones is part of an ever evolving culture of control in the United States, and is an example of the growth in passive surveillance.  The need for improved security in cell phones plays on consumer’s fear of crime. The IPhone 5S may be the first phone to include fingerprint technology and, while as of now it remains optional, the use of biometric data for security purposes will slowly evolve into the industry standard and people will lose their choice to opt out.

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News continues to break revealing more incidents of U.S. government spying. Based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, we learn that targets of the NSA now include the phone calls, emails, and text messages of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, and the internal communications system of news broadcaster Al Jazeera. The leaks have also brought to light that the U.S. has been hacking into foreign networks in order to place them under covert control through an effort dubbed “GENIE.” (more…)

Football season is upon us, and there are plenty of reasons why this moment in big time football is very intriguing from a sociological perspective. More specifically, most of the major offseason storylines of both professional and collegiate football tell us much about the racial politics in big time football and the negotiations of race and sports in the media.

Update: Johnny Manziel makes the cover of Time Magazine.

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On September 20^th, 1973 recent Wimbledon winner, 29-year-old Billie Jean King took on a 55-year-old former tennis champ, Bobby Riggs, in an exposition match dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes.” King dominated the court, winning straight sets (6-4, 6-3, 6-3) and marking a historically significant moment for female athletes, second wave feminists, and women’s history in general.

ESPN’s recent exposé, suggesting the match was rigged has resulted in passionate responses from journalists, sports commentators, feminist scholars, and tennis fans across the globe. The ESPN feature was based on statements from Hal Shaw, a former assistant golf instructor, who claimed to have overheard mafia bosses discussing Riggs’ plan to tank the match against King to settle a $100,000 debt.

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In his 2005 song “White Privilege,” white hip-hop artist Macklemore asked, “Where’s my place in a music that’s been taken by my race?”.  In the same song he acknowledges that “white rappers’ albums really get the most spins” and that “hip-hop started off on a block [he’s] never been to, to counteract a struggle that [he’s] never been through.”  This seemingly self-aware critique of his own whiteness in the context of hip-hop dropped 7 years before Macklemore’s meteoric rise to fame and now he is far from alone in considering the impact of his white skin on the genre.  In 2005 Macklemore was nearly unheard of, but as of the writing of this post in 2013 the duo of Macklemore and his collaborator, Ryan Lewis, have 3 songs that have made the Billboard Top 20 and two of those have hit #1.  In fact, just this past weekend he was awarded Best Hip-Hop Video in what may have been the whitest MTV Video Music Award ceremony in recent memory.

As his fame has increased, so too has the discourse regarding his role in hip-hop writ large.  Willamette Week asked if Macklemore is the “new face of hip-hop,” OUT hailed him as the writer of “hip-hop’s first gay anthem,” a Racialicious article critiquing Macklemore’s politics spurred an internet feud with Gawker, and a New York Times critic questioned the “authenticity” of Macklemore’s work as hip-hop.  Nearly all of this discourse surrounding Macklemore focuses on one thing, his whiteness.  So what, sociologically, does his white skin mean in hip-hop? (more…)

Last week, NPR ran a series on American public libraries.  The series immediately filled me with a sentimental wave of nostalgia.  One of my earliest memories is packing up my teddy bear and a sack lunch and driving to the Lincoln Township Public Library for their annual Teddy Bear Picnic.  I also remember taking a writing workshop at the library in second or third grade, which lead to my first publication, “Friends of the Sea.”  As an undergraduate, I spent countless hours at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago studying or perusing the library’s extensive collection of foreign films.  And a staff member at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square helped me navigate the IRS website when income tax forms first transitioned from a paper to online format.

The NPR series was more than just interesting.  It led me to start to think about the ways the public library has been important in my life.  In addition, I started to consider what libraries teach all of us about functioning in society.  Are public libraries a hidden social institution?

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Last Spring, during a Colorado State Senate hearing on gun control, a rape survivor testified that she believed she could have prevented her victimization if she had been allowed by the state of Colorado to carry a concealed firearm.  A female state senator then rebuked her claims by citing statistics regarding defensive firearm use.  In response to the exchange in the Colorado State Senate, Fox News brought together Zerlina Maxwell, a writer and political analyst, and Gayle Trotter, senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, on The Sean Hannity Show to “debate” the issue.  In the course of the discussion, Zerlina Maxwell made the bold claim that “we can prevent rape by telling men not to commit it”.  For the remainder of the segment Sean Hannity and Gayle Trotter belittled Maxwell’s argument and scoffed at the very idea that reeducating men is an effective method for preventing sexual violence.  Indeed, her comments clearly struck a nerve.  In the aftermath of her appearance on the show, Maxwell received a slew of racially and sexually charged threats of violence.

But the reality is that there is a lot of truth to Zerlina’s claim whether we as a society are ready to hear it or not.  Organizations ranging from the local (i.e. Oregon Men Against Violence and the Mobilizing Men Task Force) to the global (i.e. Promundo and MenEngage) have invested considerable time and money into violence prevention work with men and boys.  Not only do these organizations, and many others, work to change the beliefs and behaviors of men and boys, but they do so with a strong theoretical and empirical foundation thanks to decades of work in social and behavioral science.  A continuously growing body of research indicates that the perpetration of sexual violence is far more common among men whose beliefs about masculinity and femininity are rigid (see Gallagher and Parrot 2011 and Reed et al. 2011).  When men believe that it is their role, as men, to be dominant in interpersonal relationships or that they are entitled to access to women’s bodies they are more likely to perpetrate coercive and/or violent sexual activity. (more…)

**Spoiler alert: This post includes plot points from throughout the first season of “Orange Is the New Black.”

On July 11^th, Netflix released its newest original video-streaming series, Orange Is the New Black. Based on Piper Kerman’s memoir chronicling the 13 months of a 15 month sentence she severed at a minimum security prison in Danbury, Connecticut for money laundering and drug trafficking, Orange has had the highest first week ratings of any Netflix original series.

The overarching plotline is focused on Piper’s character, a stereotypical upper-middle-class white woman adjusting to the conditions of prison life.  However, each episode also focuses on the lives of one of the diverse women living within the prison walls along with her, highlighting numerous sociological issues including race, class, gender, sexuality, power structures, mental health, and the structure of civic systems.

As more newspapers, magazine and bloggers began commenting on the series, I started to notice a pattern among reviews.  Critics regularly commented on the “graphic nature” of the series.  My initial response to this pattern was to question the ways in which we continue to hold women to a different set of standards with regard to themes of the body, sexual desire, promiscuity and violence than men in similar positions.  I figured I would investigate what graphic situations were so problematic that they warranted these “warning labels.” (more…)

[This post is a re-write and expansion on a previous post, that can be found here.]

This post comes with an apology, and a part-retraction. My previous post: “Not being on “Team Bublé”: Musicians, Gender and Unspeakable Inequalities” was subjected to great criticism by a good friend of mine, who was at the concert with me. In order to rectify that I have made some edits to the original piece, but wanted to explain them more fully in a follow up. Having been a student for the best part of my adult life most of my writing has been formal essays and papers, so this is a rare opportunity to correct mistakes and expand a little, such is the benefit of blogging.

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