Virginia Rutter
Author of the column, Nice Work, appearing the last Monday of every month.
Virginia Rutter is Professor of Sociology at Framingham State University (MA) and member of the Board of the Council on Contemporary Families. Her books, articles, columns, and engagement of public sociology through CCF and Sociologists for Women in Society aim to do what she does as an award-winning teacher at FSU: to make accessible and clear the best available social science research on families, sexuality, and inequality. She is co-author or co-editor of Families as They Really Are 2nd edition, The Gender of Sexuality, and The Love Test, and writes and researches topics related to sexuality in more- and less-committed relationships; divorce; family policy; infidelity; inequality; and scholar activism. Her university honored her with Distinguished Faculty for Research and Scholarship award in 2016. She is Vice-President and Director of her local union chapter of the Mass State College Association (MTA/NEA). You can read her Girl w/ Pen columns at The Society Pages where she also edits Families as They Really Are and CCF@TSP.
Follow Virginia on Twitter: @virginiarutter
Past Posts
- NICE WORK: Gender & Society asks/answers: Midwest or Lesbian? – December 11, 2012
- NICE WORK: Essential(ist) reading from n+1 on The Atlantic – November 30, 2012
- NICE WORK: The end of …pay inequity? Not so much – October 29, 2012
- NICE WORK: Going all Wollstonecraft? Not really – September 30, 2012
- NICE WORK: Will the real BDSM please stand up (by Rademacher and Walters) – August 27, 2012
- NICE WORK: Yo, is this ageist? Ashton Applewhite tells us – July 30, 2012
- NICE WORK: Who knew? Dudes in traditional marriages are traditional at work too – June 29, 2012
- NICE WORK: Research Taking Men for Granted – May 29, 2012
- NICE WORK: New conventions from Council on Contemporary Families – April 30, 2012
- NICE WORK: Gender Revolution? Or Not So Much? – March 26, 2012
- NICE WORK: still with the double standard? nu? – February 29, 2012
- NICE WORK: Exploring Sexual Possibilities in The Gender of Sexuality – February 6, 2012
- NICE WORK: For the Family? – September 26, 2011
- NICE WORK: Hello VZN? Union Busting Is Disgusting – August 22, 2011
- NICE WORK: This is what heteronormativity looks like – July 25, 2011
- NICE WORK: Sex Scandals and TMI – June 15, 2011
- NICE WORK: unions matter to women – June 1, 2011
- NICE WORK: Everything old is new again, including sex – April 30, 2011
- NICE WORK: Remembering Peggy – April 24, 2011
- NICE WORK: Waiting for Superwoman – March 28, 2011
- NICE WORK: Women/One Woman in the Public Sector – March7, 2011
- NICE WORK: Review of ‘Stirring Reviews – February 5, 2011
- NICE WORK: A Strange Stirring by Stephanie Coontz – January 31, 2011
- NICE WORK: Gender inequality that doesn’t put you to sleep – January 24, 2011
- NICE WORK in cali: family leave works! – January 11, 2011
- NICE WORK: who gets the daddy bonus? – January 7, 2011
- NICE WORK: Doing Time = Doing Gender – November 15, 2010
- NICE WORK: dirty sex and the double standard – October 24, 2010
- NICE WORK: something you already know about gender & wages – August 23, 2010
- NICE WORK: more sneaky gender inequality – July 28, 2010
- NICE WORK: a totally excellent change for the work place – July 1, 2010
Older Posts
Quick Takes: Sarah Palin, American Idol?
More Research on Ladies Who Boss
Comments 35
Girl with Pen » Blog Archive » The 411 on Child Poverty — October 15, 2008
[...] Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Are Men and Women Equally Unemployed? | Girl with Pen — January 27, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Testosterone, Greed, and the Man Box | Girl with Pen — February 23, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Peggy Schmitt | Girl with Pen — June 2, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Reason #87 out of 46 Million for National Health Care - Small Business | Girl with Pen — August 3, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
Support Fair Labor Standards for Domestic Workers | Girl with Pen — October 12, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Working Nation from Center for American Progress | Girl with Pen — October 15, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: WTF?! Rape, Defense Contractors, and the Senate | Girl with Pen — October 27, 2009
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Narrowing the Gap in Marriage | Girl with Pen — January 20, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: workfamily conflict sucks | Girl with Pen — January 25, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: A Graphic Reminder | Girl with Pen — March 22, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Married with too many hours another source of (sneaky) gender inequality? | Girl with Pen — May 1, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
Read Meika Loe on “female viagra” over at Ms. | Girl with Pen — June 14, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
WTF? Ridiculous. | Girl with Pen — July 27, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: more sneaky gender inequality | Girl with Pen — July 28, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: dirty sex and the double standard | Girl with Pen — October 24, 2010
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: A Strange Stirring by Stephanie Coontz | Girl with Pen — January 31, 2011
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Women/One Woman in the Public Sector | Girl with Pen — February 28, 2011
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Sex Scandals and TMI | Girl with Pen — June 15, 2011
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
In the modern sex scandal, boys will be idiots | World Tribune News — June 15, 2011
[...] note: Virginia Rutter is associate professor of sociology at Framingham State University and a senior fellow at the [...]
NICE WORK: This is what heteronormativity looks like | Girl with Pen — July 25, 2011
[...] The title of the IASSCS conference was the Naming and Framing: The Making of Sexual (In)Equality. Concern with framing and theory sometimes seems removed from battles for social and sexual justice. But labeling heteronormativity helps us to name and re-frame paradigms of the powerful. It means we can call out “high theory”—like that from these economists–when it uses poetical rhetorical flourishes to engage and endorse essentialism. That’s why we’re raising awareness about heteronormativity. [...]
NICE WORK: Hello VZN? Union Busting Is Disgusting | Girl with Pen — August 22, 2011
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
Hey, XY Files: Masculinity…or something else? | Girl with Pen — February 26, 2012
[...] Maybe with the rise of Obama (and other leaders like him?!?!?) we will have the opportunity to sharpen our ability to notice how the plot unfolds when we are observing a candidate who contains and is directly influenced by multiple statuses all at once. And that goes for race as well as gender. One way that I think about Obama’s successful gender expression comes from social psychology. Research on masculinity and femininity shows that children who are androgynous–that is they use skills that are typically associated with being a boy and those associated with being a girl–have greater social intelligence. They are more effective socially, better liked, more accomplished, and more appealing as partners. When you think about the gender (or race) puzzles unfolding in front of us, remember that what you are seeing is not triumph of masculinity or femininity so much as the triumph of something new, something that works.  -Virginia Rutter [...]
| Girl with Pen — March 26, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: New conventions from Council on Contemporary Families | MyEmpoweredWorld.com | — May 7, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter Facebook CommentsPowered by Facebook Comments Tags: cohabitation, divorce, family, professional gapi.plusone.go(); Tweet [...]
NICE WORK: Research Taking Men for Granted | Girl with Pen — May 29, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Who knew? Dudes in traditional marriages have traditional views at work too | Girl with Pen — June 29, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
Would marriages last if we stopped romanticising them? « OMG Chronicles — October 2, 2012
[...] the experts Richtel spoke with was Virginia Rutter, an associate professor of sociology at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, who suggested [...]
NICE WORK: The end of … pay inequity? Not so much | Girl with Pen — October 29, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Gender & Society asks/answers: Midwest or Lesbian? | Girl with Pen — December 11, 2012
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Policing Pregnant Women | Girl with Pen — January 15, 2013
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: What is Winning Women Talk More Like a Girl (on “Jeopardy!”)? | Girl with Pen — February 8, 2013
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
A great week to talk about Coontz and Friedan | Girl with Pen — February 18, 2013
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]
NICE WORK: Myths about Friedan, New Mystiques on Sex, Beauty, and more | Girl with Pen — February 19, 2013
[...] Mystiques: Do we still like it old school?” by Virginia Rutter points out that when it comes to sexual fantasies, people continue to be more old-fashioned than [...]
NICE WORK: education, social class and the heteronormative dream | Girl with Pen — April 9, 2013
[...] -Virginia Rutter [...]