Sociology Lens

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The CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, is up-front about his marketing and sales strategy: appeal to “cool” and “popular” kids to make the brand distinctive and desirable. While anybody can wear other brands, only those who fit an ideal body type can have the privilege of sporting Abercrombie and Fitch tees and jeans. How does Jeffries achieve this goal? The Abercrombie and Fitch advertisements use models who are “all American” (white and skinny), the stores employ similarly small and fit workers, and the largest size available for women is a size 10. Jeffries does have all of his bases covered: no one will mistake Abercrombie and Fitch as a brand that markets to the masses. (more…)

In Julia Serano’s (2007) Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, the author writes about transsexuality. In particular, she writes about living as a trans woman in today’s society, the immense challenges faced by those in the trans community, and the inability of femininity to rise above the inferior status placed upon it by masculinity. Beyond explaining transsexuality to the reader and detailing the fallacious stereotypes that are often used against trans people, Serano separates herself from others in the field by carefully and smartly noting how the negative perceptions afforded to trans women illustrate the wide-range of misogynistic and pro-masculine attitudes that are still held in American culture. She explains that the preference for trans men over trans women is but one example of our society’s preference for masculinity over femininity. From her unique perspective, however, Serano sees trans women as being in a distinctively powerful position because of their experiences with living as a male and as a female. Using her life story to vividly elucidate this and other ideas, the author is able to advocate for the strengths of transsexuality. Considering such an argument, I will use this this post to analyze Serano’s book by critically evaluating its strong and weak points. (more…)

King Leonidas, left, and Xerxes, right (source: http://screenrant.com/330-prequel-movie-xerxes-sandy-109614/)

In a recent post, I discussed a longstanding trend in American (and Western) media of using racial Others to embody evil.  From adult action films to children’s animated features, we can find examples of villains whose malevolent nature is clear from the racial/ethnic stereotypes used to characterize them. But racial stereotypes are not the only stereotypes used to denote wickedness; we can also find many examples of non-normative sexualities and gender performances associated with evil. Importantly, this sexual Otherness is often developed alongside and in relation to racial/ethnic Otherness. (more…)

Source: LA Times

In the wake of the U.S. Superbowl on Sunday, news sources and social media outlets are reporting on the notorious commercials that accompanied the big game. With every year, the Superbowl commercials seem to become a bigger spectacle. Anticipation and expectations are always high. Viewers tune in to see commercials that are greater, funnier, and more elaborate. Perhaps not coincidentally, the commercials seem to become more controversial and even more offensive. Viewers, commentators, and journalists now are quick to note the sexist, racist, and generally problematic nature of these commercials.

For example, the Audi commercial has created controversy for its presentation of masculinity and its reference to sexual assault. In this commercial, a teenage boy is getting ready for his prom. It seems as though he is not a popular guy in his school and so he sets out for the prom on his own. Luckily, his parents lend him their Audi for the occasion. Once in the Audi, the teenager is transformed. Girls look at him differently. He feels powerful and self-assured. He arrives at the school, parks in the principal’s designated spot, and walks confidently into the prom. At this point, he finds a beautiful teenage girl, grabs her, and kisses her without her permission. Though she is surprised at first, she eventually appears to give in. The girl’s boyfriend, on the other hand, is not impressed. The final scene of the commercial is the teenage boy driving away with a black eye, probably given to him by the enraged boyfriend. Though he has a black eye, he seems triumphant with his conquest for the night.

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Source: Media Education Foundation

After the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, many people have asked, “how do we prevent this from happening again?” We have heard propositions for increased gun control and for better mental health care in the United States. These are both important goals, but neither of these policy initiatives completely addresses the problems around the cultural construction of violent masculinity, problems which are central to understanding mass shootings in the United States.

Two weeks before the Newtown tragedy, my sociology of gender class watched the Media Education Foundation film, Tough Guise. At the time, I did not realize that I was arming them with a framework through which to understand a very current event. After the events in Newtown, students started emailing me and referencing this film, reminding me how important it is to talk about the violence that characterizes masculinity in the United States.

In the film, the narrator, Jackson Katz, explains the link between masculinity and violence, positing that as women gain more power in public and social spheres, men’s bodies and their guns get bigger and more dangerous. Boys and men need to prove their masculinity, policing themselves and others with homophobic epithets (an observation also made by C.J. Pascoe in Dude, You’re a Fag) and through violence (or at least the threat of violence). Katz reminds us that the school shootings in the 90s were not gender or race neutral; the perpetrators are mostly white young men. If we want to prevent mass shootings, we need to start addressing the violence that seems to be central to the cultural construction of masculinity and, in particular, white masculinity.

How do we do this? The idea of changing a cultural construction does not easily lend itself to clear policy initiatives. Katz suggests that we need better role models that allow more room for emotional expression and disavow violent tendencies. In particular, he points to Mohammad Ali and Mark McGuire, sports figures that are strong and tough, but also are sensitive and caring. In the year 2012, who would fill the public role of this alternative model of masculinity?

I would like to open up a dialogue about how to go about transforming our notions and definitions of masculinity. In addition to having better role models, what else can be done? Are there policy initiatives that can help redefine what it means to be a man? What can parents do to raise boys who refrain from violence? What should be the role of schools? And, though I am not an advocate of censorship, should the media be held to higher standards when it comes to marketing and displaying violence targeted at young men?

Changing a cultural idea is a hard task, but one that we should be committed to undertaking. Now is the time to address the tough issues and questions that do not have easy answers.

Suggested readings:

Katz, Jackson and Sut Jhally. 1999. “The National Conversation in the Wake of Littleton is Missing the Mark” The Boston Globe, Focus Section, E1.

Waldron, Linda M. 2009. “Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence.” Sociology Compass 3(4): 595-619.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this year, many retired football players and their families filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL. The complaint states that the NFL hid evidence of the dangers of the game, dangers like brain damage from repeat concussions and sub-concussive trauma. New research indicates that the repetitive beatings that football players experience over the course of their career causes irreparable damage to their brains, leading to cognitive, emotional, and functional problems similar to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Several players committed suicide after repeat concussions left them with depression and mood swings, and many others continue to suffer memory loss, cognitive impairment, and balance problems.

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Source: American Sociological Association

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 Kimmel as presider (Jessica Holden Sherwood contributed to the paper but wasn’t in attendance). Beginning from a simple but radical premise—that “only a world beyond gender will be a just world” (p4)—the authors attempted to envision how we might achieve an equal world, where gender no longer structures individual experiences, interactions, or social institutions.

A lofty and laudable goal, and one which even the authors admitted is a long way off. The authors noted a number of trends, however, that seem to indicate that change is possible. Changes in the socialization of girls that promote their athleticism, leadership, participation in science and math are heartening, though they have not been accompanied by similar changes in the socialization of boys; that is, while girls may be encouraged to enter traditionally “masculine” spheres, boys are not taught to value what is typically viewed as “feminine.” Rising challenges to the norm of heterosexual marriage, both from those who choose to remain single rather than enter into unequal relationships and from the LGBT community demanding legal access to the institution of marriage, suggest a dissatisfaction with the current gender regime. The authors also pointed to genderqueer and trans movements, which defy binary conceptions of sex/gender. There is room for change if only we’d seize it.

They even provided some strategies. We must resist pressures to socialize our children into gender and refuse to conform to the roles into which we have been socialized. We must create and enforce gender-neutral institutional policies and place equal value on both economic and care work. We need to stop expecting proper gender performances and encourage – rather than stigmatize – non-normative ways of being. We must reconceive the meaning of motherhood. Easy, right? Not at all, but the most worthwhile endeavors are often the most difficult.

Michael Kimmel’s response to the paper was equally provocative. Drawing on his own participation in the men’s anti-violence movement, he asked if we need to do away with gender entirely. Ideas about gender can be mobilized effectively for social change. One of the best ways he found to get men to take a stand against IPV and sexual violence was to draw on seemingly “masculine” values of honor and valor. The paper authors had suggested that men who don’t participate equally in caregiving ought to be shamed for their moral failure, but Kimmel argued that he has never found men (or people, really) to respond positively to shaming. Instead, perhaps, we should turn to positive, not negative, reinforcement, and mobilize some aspects of gender for good. (I should note that Kimmel was trying to incite debate and clearly shares the authors’ goal of a more just world.)

All of this got me thinking—how do we balance short-term activist strategies with long-term emancipatory projects? If one of our most effective tools for combatting men’s violence against women is to draw men in through appeals to virtuous manhood, is it possible to stop violence and work toward a degendered society? Another example. The current reality is that women still make less money, have fewer educational and occupational resources, and have less mobility than men. But policies that encourage companies to hire women do so on the basis of gender, thus reinforcing, to some extent, our current gender system. So can we raise women’s educational/occupational status and still advance toward our ultimate goal? Can we improve this lifetime without limiting our possible futures?

Further Reading

Kimmel, Michael. 2005. Why Men Should Support Gender Equity. Women’s Studies Review.

Risman, Barbara J., Judith Lorber and Jessica Holden Sherwood. 2012. Toward a World Beyond Gender: A Utopian Vision.

As is often the case with graduate students, I just spent several months in a dissertation-induced haze and only recently had a chance to go through the latest issues of Gender & Society. Among these was the February 2011 issue that included a symposium on Paula England’s 2010 article on the “uneven/stalled gender revolution.” England’s over-reliance on the structural and institutional aspects of gender was underscored by several savvy pieces of Sociology, including a response by Sara Crawley that emphasizes the cultural and micro-level pieces of the puzzle. Crawley takes England and other scholars to task for the assumption that institutionally-derived identity frames (such as mother, principal, or senator) are more specific and organized than those identities not bound directly to a single institution (i.e. race, class, gender, sexuality, subculture—or, “cultural identities”). The latter identity projects may be more diffuse but are arguably omni-relevant: their meaning is embedded in all social action.

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Chatroulette has swept the the nation.  I say “swept” because, like many things on the Internet, the novelty and hype surrounding chatroulette is proving ephemeral.  That’s not to say that chatroulette is going away any time soon.  In fact, we should expect Internet culture to continue to produce new opportunities for the random interactions at the heart of the chatroulette experience.  Fellow Sociology Lens commentator Nathan Jurgenson not unfairly described chatroulette as a “downright capricious and aleatory experience.”

Perhaps the most contentious and reported aspect of chatroulette is the regular frequency with which one encounters people engaged in sexually explicit activities, particularly men masturbating.  Clearly somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Casey Neistat, producer of the video embedded here, divides chatroulette users into three categories: “boys,” “girls,” and “perverts.”  While I don’t want to directly criticize this wonderfully made mini-documentary, I think it is good launching point for a discussion about the ways in which the norms and values of Internet culture may be transforming human sexuality. (more…)