discrimination

National Geographic recently made a dramatic, if unsurprising, proclamation: The publication has a racist past. For decades, National Geographic depicted “savage” and “inferior” races on its pages. But in owning this history, argues the Editor in Chief, National Geographic is part of a progressive and nuanced dialogue on race. However, in a recent article in The Washington Post, sociologist Victor Ray explains the problematic nature of this “new” conversation about race and how it overstates the progress made on issues of racism and discrimination.

Ray focuses on National Geographic’s cover story, which features biracial twins:

“The cover photo depicts 11-year-old mixed-race twin girls, with the tabloid-esque framing that one is black, the other white. And the headline makes the grand claim that the girls’ story will ‘make us rethink everything we know about race.’ The ‘we’ here is implicitly white people, and the story of these children doesn’t break new ground so much as reinforces dangerous racial views. The girls in the photo, with their differing skin tones, are depicted as rare specimens and objects of fascination.”

While sociologists have long understood race as a social construction, National Geographic paints this as a new discovery. Additionally, the publication implies that individual attitudes and interpersonal conflicts are the root cause of racism. In doing so, they overlook the effects of structural racism:

“Racism is likely to influence the lives of these girls in ways that can’t be reduced to individual, mean-spirited prejudice. For instance, whites in the United States have, on average, 10 times as much wealth as black people. This wealth gap has multiple causes, including institutional racism in lending and housing discrimination. Similarly, because of current and historical patterns of segregation, black Americans are more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods with adverse implications for their long-term health.”

In focusing on the individual actions and the “personal sin” of racism, we underestimate the impact race can have on structural factors, such as wealth, housing, and health. As Ray suggests, National Geographic can take steps to account for its racist past by avoiding frames that overstate progress.

Much of the media’s coverage of the Me Too movement focuses on high-profile cases of sexual harassment, as well as gender inequality in white-collar workplaces. Sexual Harassment and other forms of gender inequality are also problems — perhaps even more so — for male-dominated, blue-collar workplaces. A recent article in The New York Times highlights gendered discrimination in workplaces like mines, car factories, and construction sites. 

Sociologist Abigail Saguy argues that men often perceive less-feminine or lesbian women as “not fully women” and therefore as less threatening. On the other hand, men tend to harass more-feminine women more. And women who play along with sexist banter, still face negative labels, like “slut.” Saguy elaborates,

“Sexual harassment is often a way in which the men reaffirm women’s femininity, and [put them] back in their place…. At the same time, women will play up their femininity and flirt a little bit and play along with some of the stereotypes… to be accepted.”

For men in low-paying and dangerous jobs, these affirmations to their masculinity become key rewards, and challenges to their masculinity may heighten discrimination towards women.

“Even if they have to tolerate bad working conditions, the compensation is they were real men… then women were moving into these occupations, so what does that mean? If women can do the job, maybe it’s not so masculine after all.”

The recent accusations of many prominent men in media, politics, and the music industry for sexual harassment and assault have many wondering what can be done to reduce sexual harassment in the workplace. According to sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, the answer is simple: hire and promote more women. In an article published by the Harvard Business Review, Dobbin and Kalev review the working conditions that promote sexual misconduct, and emphasize the importance of a top-down approach to enact real change.

Harassment thrives in workplaces with male-dominated management where women are outnumbered among their peers. While the answer to this problem is hiring more women for these roles, the authors explain why this process is not so straightforward:

“…women tend to leave workplaces where sexual harassment is common and goes unaddressed; the fight can feel hopeless in an environment where gender bias runs rampant.”

Therefore it is necessary for organizations to take on the challenge of hiring and retaining women in leadership roles. Many grievance systems and anti-harassment trainings were first implemented in the 1970s, but appear to have been relatively ineffective — women who file complaints often face serious repercussions, including being demoted or facing continued harassment and other types of mistreatment from colleagues.  

Dobbin and Kalev argue that sexual harassment in the workplace should be handled in a way that the survivors of sexual harassment are not punished. They urge CEOs and other company leaders to speak out against sexual harassment and to rethink how they promote and retain female employees.

“[I]t’s critical that leaders start accepting some of the responsibility that the courts have allowed them to brush off for such a long time… After all, culture is shaped by behavior at the top. As long as men dominate in management, it’ll be up to them to make those changes.”

With the current presidential administration’s promises to build border walls and increase deportations, it may be surprising that Latinx immigrants report experiencing less discrimination than those born in the United States. According to a recent survey featured in NPR’s Code Switch, only 23% of Latinx immigrants report experiencing discrimination, while 44% of Latinx born in the United States report discrimination. 

Sociologist Emilio Parrado told NPR that perceptions and experiences of discrimination are related to an individual’s level of participation in and adaption into United States culture. Research suggests that Latinx born in the United States may face more direct discrimination than immigrants, because they are more likely to engage in competitive workforce and social settings. 

“Discrimination is a strategy of the dominant group to protect itself, to protect the benefits that they have, so discrimination is something that emerges not when people are culturally different, but that emerges when people compete.”

Parrado also argues that many immigrants come to the United States without knowing the contextual “rules” of interactions with others, which makes it harder to  immediately identify instances of discrimination or racism.

“For immigrants, there is a process of learning that you are being discriminated against…Immigrants tend to think that it’s their own fault, that it’s because they don’t know the rules, or they don’t know English.”

Thus, past research may not fully capture how much discrimination is occurring simply because people may not recognize it as such. In response, some children of Latinx immigrants who were born in the United States are trying to educate their families on what discrimination looks like.

Some believe Asian-Americans face a “gentler” sort of racism than other minority groups—that they are even treated with admiration as a “model minority” group. That said, the “model minority” stereotype doesn’t have negative consequences. In an Atlantic article, sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield discusses the multiple ways Asian identities are subject to subtle but impactful experiences in everyday life.

For example, consider the “model minority” stereotype, especially as it pertains to how Asians are supposed to excel at school. What this can mean, however, is that Asian-American high school students can feel deterred from seeking help when they need it, which can lead to peer isolation, among other problems, as in research by UW Madison’s Stacy Lee. Furthermore, Asian Americans are more likely to downplay racism that they face due to the implicit understanding that Asians are stereotyped in “good ways”, as descried by the Georgia State University sociologist Rosalind Chou.

That second dynamic is a part of The Racial Middle by Eileen O’Brien of Saint Leo University, a book that tackles some arguments that non-white, non-black racial identities will be subsumed into black and white, though these groups, like Latinos and Asians, are made up of sub-groups with unique histories and challenges. Consider that Asian Americans do not have a long history of organized struggle or civic action, which may reinforce the caricature of Asian groups as passive and well behaved. Collective action may raise racial consciousness in more ways than one.

To read more about Asian Americans and the Model Minority myth, see Jennifer Lee’s TSP special features “From Unassimilable to Exceptional” and “Asian American Exceptionalism and “Stereotype Promise.‘”

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.

According to British researchers, tall men and thin women are most likely to make the big bucks. Meanwhile, they found evidence to suggest overweight workers, especially women, are likely to get paid less. Still, sociologist Amy Blackstone says companies probably aren’t intentionally penalizing employees based on height and weight.  

In an interview with Broadly, Blackstone points to gender biases that extend beyond the workplace. Culturally, Americans associate thinness with beauty and self-discipline in women and tallness with authority for men. “For women, being thin means taking up less space, something that is expected of women both literally and symbolically,” Blackstone says. Thus, it’s no surprise that pay reflects societal views about gender, power, and the body. Nor is it a surprise that other gender inequalities make their way into work spaces, like limitations on contraception coverage in employer provided health care and a lack of paid maternity leave. As contributing editor Diana Tourjee points out, “paying certain men and women less in relation to the way they look is obviously disturbing, but worse is the realization that this data is part of a broader system of oppression that structures the lived experiences of us all.”

As the number of children born to racially diverse parents in the U.S. increases, the country faces the difficult task of exploring multiracial identities. Biracial children bear the brunt of the challenge, as they are often pressured to select a single racial category to which they identify. In the past, mixed ­raced persons had little say concerning their label due to such formalized policies as the “one­-drop rule,” which assigned the newborn child the racial category of the non­White parent. While such notions continue to exist, a new study reveals that “multiracial” is becoming an increasingly popular identification, especially for mixed ­raced women.

Recently on NPR’s CodeSwitch, Lauren Davenport at Stanford University provided insight from her new American Sociological Review research. Examining the racial self ­identifications of 37,000 incoming freshmen with combinations of Asian­-White, Black-­White, and Latino­-White parents, Davenport reported that in each of the three racial combinations, women self ­identified as multiracial more than their male counterparts. For example, only 64% of men with Black-­White parents self­ identified as multiracial in comparison to 76% of women. Further research indicates that both women and men with Black­-White parents were more likely to self ­identify as multiracial than those with Asian­-White and Latino­-White parents and less likely to self ­identify as White only. Additional factors included the person’s religion and socioeconomic status; as those who were less religious and those from affluent backgrounds were more likely to describe themselves as multiracial.

Davenport suggests that women may be more inclined to employ the multiracial label because they are often perceived as racially ambiguous, while men are generally viewed as minorities. According to Davenport, “It would seem that, for biracial women, looking racially ambiguous is tied to racial stereotypes surrounding femininity and beauty.” Davenport hypothesizes that biracial children from Black­-White parents in particular may describe themselves as multiracial to challenge traditional rules that place them in one category. Thus, the multiracial identity provides them the opportunity to formally recognize multiple racial lineages. Others may opt for multiracial because it allows them to disassociate with Black heritage.

This year was momentous for trans visibility in the media, with high profile celebs like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner speaking out about their experiences as trans women. Even so, trans folks still face an incredible risk of discrimination and attacks. The recent death of Keisha Jenkins marks at least 20 American trans women murdered in 2015.

But trans people are not equally likely to experience discrimination. A recent study published by Lisa R. Miller and Eric Anthony Grollman showed that trans women were more likely to experience discrimination than trans men, as are trans folks from already disadvantaged groups—like those who are multiracial or low income. In turn, those who experienced more discrimination were more likely to engage in risky health behaviors like smoking cigarettes, abusing drugs and alcohol, and attempting suicide. Miller told US News, “Rather than assuming that all members of the transgender community are equally at risk, we need to investigate the extent to which some members may face disproportionate exposure to discrimination and poor health.”Those who experienced more discrimination were more likely to engage in risky health behaviors like smoking cigarettes, abusing drugs and alcohol, and attempting suicide.

“Microaggressions” are not new, but the term has only recently entered our vocabulary as a means to describe the small, but frequent, indignities often experienced by minorities. If you have seen a white person touch an African-American person’s hair or heard questions like “What are you?” asked of a racially ambiguous person, you have witnessed a microaggression.

Sociologist Bradley Campbell, who has written about microaggressions, recently spoke with Boston’s local NPR news station, 90.9 WBUR, about his findings. He highlights cultural shifts that have produced and shaped microaggressions:

These microaggression complaints—what characterizes them is that they are appeals to third parties. They’re not something like vengeance where people just take direct action against the offender. Secondly, they’re complaints about minor things, which is what the “micro” in microaggression means. And then also that these—the complaints—are about specific kinds of things. It’s not just any minor offense, it’s things that are said to further oppression, and mainly the oppression of minority groups. So we thought about like when do these things occur? So some of the social conditions we mentioned were things like, you know, the presence of authority and also the demise of communal groups. But one of the main things is actually the increase in diversity and equality. So it’s in settings where there’s already a lot of equality and diversity that you get these kinds of complaints.

Listen to the whole interview here.