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From Sport to Voting Rights

This week The Society Pages checked out gender stereotyping and toys, how we communicate our tone online (but really don’t want to talk on the phone), a whole collection of photoshop in the media, fatherhood and race, and we learned a thing or two from our Nordic friends. Enjoy!

Reading List:

“Cancer and the Corner Office: The Fading Correlation Between Breast Cancer and Women’s Workplace Authority,” by Anne Kaduk. New research shows being the boss is a little less risky than it used to be.

Citings & Sightings:

“What We Can Learn about Equality from Sweden,” by Molly Goin. Hint: a lot.

Scholars’ Strategy Network:

“Why 2014 Will Be a Pivotal Year for Judicial Protection of Voting Rights,” by Richard L. Hansen.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Girl w/ Pen! The toy talk continues with “Girls, Boys, Feminism, Toys” and “Thoughts on Toys, Kids, and Gender Stereotypes.”
• Cyborgology. When healthcare-dot-gov took on a life of its own, why we don’t like talking on the phone, the complexity of tone in digital communication, and how resilience is work enough.
• Sociological Images. Time to play “spot the whittled thighs and/or obscured protuding ribs!” with the SocImages Re-touching/Photoshop Collection, return to the evolution of the flight attendant (first male, then mommy, then sex worker, now stone cold bad ass), and check out whether sport might actually influence young people’s decisions to get into politics.

Last Week’s Roundup

This week saw outrage over personal loans offered to Nevada teachers just to buy classroom supplies (for their public school rooms!), a flurry of suggested “great books in sociology” reading lists, 40 years of the War on Poverty, another fight in the toy aisle, and, of course, Canada’s gift to the U.S., the Polar Vortex (we’re particularly sorry for the South… at least we Minnesota types have some snowpants we can dig out of the basement). Enjoy!

The Editors’ Desk:

“Bute’s Big Ten,” by Monte Bute. Doug Hartmann shares a comprehensive list of “great books” chosen by a fellow sociologist, the author of TSP’s Community Page A Backstage Sociologist.

There’s Research on That!

“‘Nature Does Not Negotiate’ at the UN Climate Summit,” by Rahsaan Mahadeo. Research on the organization of environmental advocacy groups and effectiveness, as well as which countries’ evidence and arguments are taken seriously.

“Polar Vortex Leaving Some Out In The Cold?” by Evan Stewart. In natural disasters, people are affected differently, and the patterns mimic larger-scale social disadvantage. Oh, and when it’s really cold? Homelessness has a whole new dimension of precarity.

Reading List:

“Concerted Cultivation Can’t Undo Institutional Barriers in Education,” by Amy August. Cultivate all you want, but low parental education levels, race, and class continue to shape kids’ school experiences. Disadvantage: so sticky!

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Girl w/ Pen! A kerfuffle! A brouhaha! Might it be a donnybrook? Thoughtful work on why we should abandon the war on pink, as well as why we should take it to a two-front toy aisle assault, setting our sights on pink and camo. And speaking of wars, how’s that War on Poverty going? A 40-year retrospective from Virginia Rutter.
• Sociological Images. Ladies, enjoy your debt! Parents, you’re teaching the bullies to bully! Americans, you really have no grasp on racial diversity! And, oh good lord, Nevada. Teachers, you TOO can go into debt!
• Sociology Lens. Goffman on the Internet and male-identified instructors skillfully teaching feminism and gender.
• Cyborgology. On death and happiness (no word on taxes) in the quantified life and the proliferation of eyes, welcoming drone viewpoints to the accumulation of individual perspectives. Finally, what’s up with the outdated tech in storytelling? Good question.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Why Grassroots Protestors Fight to Cut Taxes for the Rich,” by Isaac William Martin.

Happy New Year!

Most of our authors and students have been taking much-deserved breaks this week, but here’s a little taste of what we, along with our bloggers, have cooked up since the last Roundup.

The Editors’ Desk:

“What’s On Your List?” by Doug Hartmann. The follow-up to…

“Great Books in Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. Doug dreams of a class based around the classics and commenters chime in with their own must-read soc books.

Office Hours:

“Jennifer Rutherford on Zombies and the Cultural Obsession that Just Won’t Die,” with Kyle Green. Building on her recent Contexts article, Rutherford gives us the low-down on the undead (and least the ones running amok in pop culture).

Citings & Sightings:

“Affluenza: A Cute Name for the S.O.S.,” by Andrew Wiebe. When never having been punished becomes an argument for never being punished.

The Community Pages:

• Girl w/ Pen! In the second installment of manly musings, C.J. Pascoe and Tristan Bridges take another controversial stance: suspend the war on pink, it’s time to reform boys’ toys. Can ALL the toys get better?
• Sexuality & Society returns to life with the Top 10 Sexual Stories of 2013. What would you add?
• Sociological Images rounds up the year’s most popular posts with “This Year in Sociological Images.”
• Cyborgology. Sarah Wananchak adds her own to the growing list of Techno-Biographies.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Can Development Impact Fees Reduce Urban Sprawl?”

“How America Can Build an Innovative New Energy System.”

“Do Cuts in State Income Taxes Boost Economic Growth?“

Before we get to the heart of the matter, let’s just put it out there: SocImages’ annual Christmas Roundup is ready and ripe for the readin’! Get it!

Now, rather than our usual Roundup, it’s time to announce this year’s fully unscientific, but fully entertaining TSP Awards! Hopefully these excellent pieces from our original content, our blogs, and beyond will keep you in reading material in the days of travel and food comas ahead. We wish you a wonderful New Year full of health, productivity, and ridiculousness, because every good year is a little ridiculous.

MVB: Most Valuable Blogger

Lisa Wade! Who else but the proprietor of the most influential, mind-bending, argument-starting, intrigue-raising, and hell-raising look at society you can find on the web? The indefatigable Dr. Wade is a powerhouse, bringing the sociological imagination to the public with humor and gusto while also managing to teach, publish, comment, and dance.

Rookies of the Year:

Girl W/ Pen. A veteran team, Girl W/ Pen joined our Community Pages this year and immediately started hitting ’em out of the park. They’ve added a fresh, diverse set of voices to our Pages and we couldn’t be happier.

Comeback Kid:

Graphic Sociology’s “Who Is the Millennial Generation?” The post that can’t be kept down, Laura Noren’s piece is a go-to resource that hovers in our sitewide Top 20 posts at nearly any given time. Informative, succinct, and, of course, with a great graphic, this post is a perennial winner.

Best of…

Some favorites from across the site as chosen by our graduate editorial board:

• ThickCulture. “Understanding the Conservative Movement,” by Andrew Lindner.
• Sociological Images. “The Balancing Act of Being Female; Or, Why We Have So Many Clothes,” by Lisa Wade.
• Girl W/ Pen. “Bro-Porn: Heterosexualizing Straight Men’s Anti-Homophobia,” by Tristan Bridges and C.J. Pascoe.
• Cyborgology. “The Coolest Thing about Online Dating Sites,” by Jenny Davis.
• Public Criminology. “We Are the 1 in 100… Fall 2013,” by Michelle Inderbitzen.
• Dispatches from a New Dean. “The Social Sciences Kaleidoscope,” by Walt Jacobs.
• The Color Line. “The Homogenization of Asian ‘Beauty,‘” by C.N. Le.
• Sociology Lens. “Holiday Giving: The Role of Charity in Capitalism,” by Brian Schaefer.
• Graphic Sociology. “Can an Outer Space Graphic Inform Small Group Network Graphs?” by Laura Noren.
• Backstage Sociologist. “You Can Go Home Again… But Sometimes It’s a Long Odyssey,” by Monte Bute.

Best Online by a Sociologist (Non-TSP!)

1. Kieran Healy, “Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere,” KieranHealy.org, cross-posted elsewhere.
2. Phillip Cohen, “Continuing the Fight Against the ‘Pay Gap’,” MSNBC appearance.
3. Dalton Conley, “A Girl Named North?” Vogue.

Best Online Using Sociology:

1. “What’s Killing Poor White Women?” by Monica Potts, The American Prospect. (See also our “Why Are Poor White Women Dying Younger than Their Moms?“)
2. “The Sippy Cup 1%,” by Adam Davidson, NYTimes Magazine. (See also our “Economics, Sentimentality, and the Safe Baby.”)
3. “Pot and Jackpots,” by Ross Douthat, NYTimes op-ed. (See also our “Slots, Pot, and the Culture Wars.”)

And now… DRUMROLL! The hottest of the hot on The Society Pages this year!

White Papers:

“Creating a “Latino” Race,” by Wendy Roth.

Special Features:

“White Trash: The Social Origins of a Stigmatype,” by Matt Wray.

Roundtable:

“International Criminal Justice, with Susanne Karstedt, Wenona Reymond-Richmond, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, and Kathryn Sikkink,” by Shannon Golden and Hollie Nyseth Brehm.

Office Hours:

“Gabriella Coleman on Anonymous,” with Kyle Green.

Citings & Sightings:

“Why Are Poor White Women Dying Before Their Moms?” by Erin Hoekstra.

There’s Research on That!

“Oprah Wonders about Atheism,” by Evan Stewart.

Reading List:

“The Whiteness of Warcraft,” by Jacqui Frost.

This week we played around with #socgreetings, got excited to see movers and shakers talking about the We Are All Criminals project, and mourned rabble-rousing change-maker Nelson Mandela while hoping those he inspired would continue bending the arc of history… and society. Here’s what else we got up to.

Office Hours:

“Emily Baxter on We Are All Criminals,” with Kyle Green. A photo project highlights what criminals and non-criminals share (hint: it’s often “having committed crimes”).

Roundtables:

“Mass Violence and the Media, with Michael Kimmel, Melissa Thompson, and Victor M. Rios,” by Jacqui Frost and Stephen Suh. Framing and blaming, what a combo!

Citings & Sightings:

“4.0 in School Violence,” by Kat Albrecht and Andrew Wiebe. Fights in the halls? Watch the standardized test scores drop. Don’t worry, GPAs are safe.

Reading List:

“Love and (non)Marriage,” by Rahsaan Mahadeo. The late Tim Ortyl’s latest research on long-term cohabitating couples.

There’s Research on That!:

“Sport and Masculinity,” by Suzy McElrath.

“Muslim American Superheroes,” by Stephen Suh.

“A Shift in Jewish Identity,” by Jacqui Frost.

“Olympic Flame Relay Goes Lunar,” by Amy August.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Sociological Images. Mimi Schippers on “Compulsory Monogamy in the Hunger Games,” Kat Albrecht on “The Difference Between Criminals and NonCriminals,” Martin Hart-Landsburg on whether rising inequality threatens the entire U.S. economy, and Lisa Wade with the images of Rosa Parks’ arrest.
• Cyborgology. Data from an app shows at least one dating site’s users are nowhere near the post-racial society, why PrimeAir is transformative even if it never happens, and the relationships among femininity, technology, and employment.
• Girl W/ Pen!: Good mothers, queer visibility, and “doing it all.”

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Fifty Years After the War on Poverty, the Safety Net for America’s Families With Children is Frayed.”

“Convincing Evidence That States Aim to Suppress Minority Voting.”

“Albert Hirschman — A Life of Courage and Creativity in the Service of Progressive Possibility.”

“Understanding Human Trafficking in the Hawaiian Islands.”

This week on TSP!

The Editors’ Desk:

“Sociology in Retired Football Player’s Past,” by Doug Hartmann. He makes it sound so sordid!

There’s Research on That!

“Olympic Flame Relay Goes Lunar,” by Amy August. Transnational ritual lifts off.

“Texas Abortion Restrictions Take Effect,” by Jacqui Frost. New laws change the mechanics, but not the incidence, of abortion.

Citings & Sightings:

“Redesigning Work to Find Balance,” by Erin Hoekstra. U of M sociologists tell the Huffington Post that flexibility increases productivity—they’ve got the research to prove it.

“Angry White Men and Aggrieved Entitlement,” by John Ziegler. Michael Kimmel on the defenses that go up when unrecognized privilege is challenged. The Real World: White Male America.

“Libraries, Coffee Shops, and Natural Disasters,” by Molly Goin. Eric Klinenberg on civic spaces and disaster response.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Football! Sociological Images: Cliff Leek on hazing and masculinity in pro football and ThickCulture: “Gender Socialization and the NFL” and “Turning away from Football.”
• Feminism! Miley et al. with Girl w/ Pen!
• Cyborgs! WWIS, you don’t know me! Post-LOLcat lingo! Currency, privacy, and competing values!

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Are Job Training Programs a Good Way to Fight Poverty?” by Harry Holzer.

“The Value of Providing Continued Healthcare to People Leaving America’s Prisons,” by Emily Wang.

The Care and Feeding of Co-Authors:

As Chris Uggen pointed out on the Twitters, it’s easy to disappoint your coworkers. Whether it’s producing actual Swedish Fish when a candy-mergency arises in a late-night writing session or dropping the ball when it’s your turn to write the lit review, there are just so many opportunities to co-write badly. Here’s my very quick editorial advice should you decide to undertake a co-authored project:

1. Be sure everyone really has the time and inclination.
2. Set intentions about who will do what—particularly who will take care of the final read and smoothing of the paper. One author needs to take charge of smoothing over the seams and making it an easy read that doesn’t feel like three separate papers fighting for control. Ask an RA to take over getting the bibliography right and consistent to avoid tedium and scrappy references.
3. Stop worrying about author order.
4. Have skype, phone, or in-person meetings regularly and write up a quick summary to share with the group right afterward. Be sure that you’re all on the same page (and in the same journal).
5. Enjoy the MadLibs fun times that will occur when you let others bring in their own tangents, their own random inspirations, and their own misfit sentences that can be plugged into the article at will. Helping form ideas into real through-lines is fun work and a productive process, whether it ever results in an article or project at all.

Now, on to the fun here at TSP this week!

In Case You Missed It:

“Is Sociology Ruining Your Fun?” by Alex Casey. Reviving an old but still relevant essay from a former TSP undergraduate assistant.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Tenure, Time Use, and a Quick Laugh,” by Doug Hartmann. How professors want to spend their time and how their departments hope they’ll spend their time: a mismatch of mathematical impossibility.

There’s Research on That!

“ENDA Ending Discrimination?” by Andrew Wiebe. Adding sexuality to the definition of workplace discrimination.

“Shop and Frisk?” by Rahsaan Mahadeo. The author says it best: Shopping while black is not a crime, but what happens when a store assumes the customer is always white?

Citings & Sightings:

“Squeaky Clean?” by Kat Albrecht. It’s not that 75% of Minnesotans aren’t criminals, they just haven’t been charged.

“Slots, Pot, and the Culture Wars,” by Erin Hoekstra. Making choices about vice crimes.

Reading List:

“The Precarity of the Glass Elevator,” by Erin Hoekstra. New research reexamines the “glass escalator” to see how men are faring in “feminine” professions in a recession.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Sociological Images. Kids today: less sex and less interest in politics. Wonder what they’re up to…
• Cyborgology. A lively comment-discussion on XKCD, David Banks, and social critiques.
• Sociology Lens. A posting frenzy! Stadium economies, consumer culture and surveillance costs, adult bullying and masculinity, and plain old fear.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Why Minorities and Low Income Americans Have a Big Stake in a Free and Open Internet,” by Roderick Graham.

“Can Marriage Promotion Help Children Growing Up with Single Mothers?” by Angela Bruns.

Missing the Point

I was so struck last night to hear a little piece about the sociologist Clifford Nass on NPR (in a fun side note, I’d like to point out that Nass was also a computer scientist and professional magician… which is pertinent to the next sentence). Yes, he was known for his warning that multitasking was dangerous to real thought and real learning, but what caught my ear was how his colleagues spoke of his relationship with expanding technologies. Nass didn’t seem to have any antipathy for the tech—he saw its utility, of course—but he realized that all those blinky things were going to be attention sucks. Multiple distractions tend to be bad when you aren’t a good multitasker (to be fair, he didn’t think anyone was a good multitasker), but worse, he seemed to believe, the divided attention meant that his students paid attention to too much noise. Over time, he felt his students were getting worse and worse at understanding an argument and repeating it clearly. They weren’t good at finding the point or pulling out a specific nugget of information from a whole article. They had trained themselves (or been trained by their technologies) to see the forest, not the trees. I’m not wholly convinced, but I am intrigued—and I’m sad that the world has lost another great sociologist in the meantime.

In Case You Missed It:

The Social Side of Politics. “Off-year” elections tend to get a little less national attention, but all those hokey local ads add up to a socio-political experience. And sometimes Michelle Bachmann.

The Editors’ Desk:

“The Personal is Sociological,” by Doug Hartmann. In which Hartmann explores a few recent examples of the sociological memoir, reminding sociologists that they’re part of society, too.

Features:

“Like Father, Like Son,” by Darren Wheelock. A former student of Hartmann’s shares his own sociological memoir about adoption, race, culture, and social justice.

“How Sociology Failed My Family,” by Robert L. Reece. A Duke PhD candidate on the power of understanding what little power his understanding holds.

Citings & Sightings:

“Walking the Big Apple,” by John Ziegler. And he would walk 6,000 miles, and he would walk 6,000 more, just to be the sociologist who walked 120,000 city blocks and fell down at your door.

“Neighborhoods and Social Cohesion,” by John Ziegler. Call your realtor. Depending on your priorities, you should know, cul-de-sacs increase safety and neighborliness, but they also probably make you fat. Sometimes sociology isn’t that helpful.

Teaching TSP:

“Whiteness as a Visa,” by Rahsaan Mahadeo. Whiteness as a currency, in many senses.

There’s Research on That!

“Spies Like Us,” by Amy August. Privacy and government spying? TROT!

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Graphic Sociology returns with “Race and ethnicity in America.”
• Girl w/ Pen! brings on new ink from C.J. Pascoe and Tristan Bridges and gets the Internet asking whether you can, essentially, ever be an effective “ally.” Are straight white men allowed to advocate for marriage equality while pointing out that they’re not gay? If not, why?
• Public Criminology on lesser-recognized holidays and incarcerated fathers.
• Sociology Lens argues that stopping stop-and-frisk (among other things) could help close the education gap.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“How International Election Observers Can Help Fledgling Democracies,” by Leslie E. Anderson.

“Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State,” by Cybelle Fox.

At a Loss

The Society Pages is housed, as many of you know, at the University of Minnesota, and stems from a vision Doug Hartmann and Chris Uggen formulated in their term as the editors of the ASA’s journal Contexts. That vision was also shaped by the young sociologists who made up the graduate editorial board of Contexts for each of its four years at the U of M, and later when it came to creating and sustaining The Society Pages. It’s now been a week since we lost one of those bright young minds: Tim Ortyl. I still don’t know what to say, other than that Tim did everything in his life whole-heartedly, and so I’m pleased that you can read some of his work here on our site, as well as a Contexts article that SAGE publications and the ASA are offering as a free download. I believe Tim had contributed immensely to the discipline already, and I hope that having known him as a friend, teacher, colleague, or student will continue to inspire sociological imaginations long after our quiet time of mourning fades. Right now, that time seems impossible.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Online and Doing Fine,” by Doug Hartmann.

“Tim,” by Chris Uggen.

Citings & Sightings:

“Small Towns Staying Alive,” by Molly Goin.

“Troublemakers,” by Kat Albrecht.

“Pink Ribbons for Africa,” by Kat Albrecht.

There’s Research on That!

“Myths of Maximizing the Minimum Wage,” by Stephen Suh.

“Malala Takes the Royal Road to Learning,” by Amy August.

Teaching TSP:

“Guest Post: Extra Credit on the Sociology of Halloween,” by Marisol Clark-Ibáñez.

“Films and Documentaries,” by Kyle Green.

“Sport and Society—Films and Documentaries!” by Kyle Green.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• ThickCulture. “Epilepsy, Personally and Sociologically,” by Andrew M. Lindner.
• Sociological Images. “Halloween Costumes: Then and Now,” “This Month in Sociological Images,” and “Mocking the Sexy Halloween Trend.”
• Public Criminology. “Labeling Matters.”
• Sociology Lens. “Using Monopoly to Teach Class Inequality.”

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Who Are the Most Effective Lawmakers in Congress?” by Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman.

“How States Can Modernize Voter Registration and Boost Election Turnout,” by Avi Green.

“Politicians Think American Voters Are More Conservative than They Really Are,” by David Brockman and Christopher Skovron.

Becoming Aware

Root canal: that’s what I’ll be doing with my morning. In fact, I’m in the chair awaiting my fate right now. You are welcome to send mocking notes of semi-pity via the comments below. It’s a combination of a routine-emergency thing, and hopefully by noon or so I’ll be nice and numb, by Monday I’ll have a bruised face, and by this time next week I’ll be right as rain, happily eating and breathing and whatnot. But it’s super weird to suddenly become aware of one tooth. 

And then there’s the reverse: the grad school search for one topic no one has ever worked on before. All you can focus on is finding the “one tooth.” You’re looking for the little, eensie weensie granular thing that you (or very few others) haven’t spotted before so that you can present original insights or take a new angle.

So where’s the midpoint? Seeing the whole while realizing the individual. It’s very much what Doug talked about in last week’s “Of Foxes, Hedgehogs, and Spiders” combined with this week’s “Society’s Super Egos.” Being mindful, when it comes to your body or your body of research, requires a telescope and a microscope. Never forget your full set of tools.

In Case You Missed It:

“People Like Health Care When They Learn What It Does,” by Theda Skocpol. Originally a “One Thing I Know” piece from Contexts Magazine, this big picture piece (in a compact 700 words or so) came before everyone was mad about user interfaces and computers crashing. It’s about the big fact: healthcare reform is important, it’s well-liked when people know the facts, and it’s a huge shift for the U.S.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Sketch 6: Society’s Super Egos,” by Doug Hartmann. “Thinking of ourselves as society’s super egos provides a neat framework for taking the sociologist’s role in and relationship to society seriously, but not so seriously that we flip from being bearers of information and insight to experts who cannot be questioned…”

Citings & Sightings:

“Locking Up the Ladies,” by Andrew Weibe. OK? Oh heck no! Oklahoma is super duper good at putting women behind bars. It can’t just be to recruit a good rodeo team…

“Why Are Poor White Women Dying Younger than Their Moms?” by Erin Hoekstra. Can four years of high school can get low-wage white women an extra five years of life expectancy?

Office Hours:

“Lucia Trimbur on the Boxing Gym,” with Kyle Green. Talking about the political economy of the gym, where women fit in, and the rise of the white collar fighter.

There’s Research on That!

“Oprah Wonders about Atheism,” by Evan Stewart. And when Oprah wonders, opinions shift. Bad news for the already untrusted unbelievers.

“Kilpatrick’s Conviction,” by Amy August. Will a stiff sentence for the former mayor raise the rep of his embattled town?

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Sociological Images provides their annual Halloween roundup and uses a great image to think about Native American mascots. For more on mascots, check out Jen Guiliano’s TSP feature.
• Cyborgology looks at the technology Gravity (from a different vantage point from that presented on Girl W/ Pen! last week), can’t peel their eyes off the ceremony of the Apple Product Launch, and considers the pressure of tech.
• Girl w/ Pen! More terrifying than Gravity, there’s a new PBS Frontline documentary on superviruses and if I watch it I’ll spend a week paralyzed, wondering if I should clean something or roll around in the dirt trying to build an immune system.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“As People Learn about Affordable Care, Support Increases,” by Amy Fried. Implementation lessons from Massachusetts and beyond.