Archive: Oct 2011

Katrin sent in a link to a series of ads created by an organization called Stepping Stone Nova Scotia. Their mission is to advocate on behalf of, and offer resources and services to, prostitutes in the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

The ads, as you can see, depict quotes by friends or family members of prostitutes (“I’m proud of my tramp, raising two kids on her own”) which are intended to humanize sex workers; the bottom of each ad reads “Sex workers are brothers/daughters/mothers too.” They’re also intended to shock the reader into really thinking about prostitutes. The juxtaposition of words like “tramp” and “hooker” with the white middle-class faces of the speakers makes the viewer question our culture’s ease with using those terms, and forces us to see the person behind the prostitute.

Stepping Stone’s executive director, Rene Ross, points out that every time a prostitute is killed—sex workers have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the Canadian national average—media accounts emphasize that the victim was a prostitute, but not that she (or he) was also a mother, daughter, friend or, for example, animal lover. By thinking of sex workers only in terms of their stigmatized occupation, we don’t have to care about them as people.

In New Mexico, where I live, the remains of eleven women (and the unborn fetus of one) were found buried on a mesa outside of Albuquerque in 2009. The women had disappeared between 2003 and 2005, and most, according to police, were involved with drugs and/or prostitution. Why did it take the police so long to find the bodies of these women, and why do their murders still remain unsolved? Some observers have suggested that because the women were—or were alleged to be—prostitutes, there was less pressure to find them after they went missing, or to solve their murders once their bodies were found. As long as the victims were sex workers, then the non-sex worker public can feel safe in the knowledge that they are not at risk. We know that prostitution is dangerous, so it’s expected that some of them will die grisly deaths, and be buried like trash on a mesa outside of town.

I love the motivation behind the ads, and they do make me smile. I hope they have the effect that Stepping Stone intends—making people think of prostitutes as people, not trash. But they’re also funny, and I wonder if they won’t also have an unintended effect, of making prostitutes seem like a joke.

This week I watched the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen. During the roast, most of the jokes dealt with his well-known history with drug use and prostitution, and “prostitute,” “hooker” and “whore” were used as punch lines in the majority of the jokes, and each “whore” reference incited additional laughter. Sure, many of the women that Sheen paid to have sex were doubtless “high class” call girls, paid well, and not living on the street. But we also know that at least some of these women, as well as the non-prostitute females in his life, were subject to violence and threats of violence. He is alleged to have beaten, shot, shoved, and thrown to the floor a number of women over the years, but because many of these women were sex workers (or porn stars, which is the next best thing), the women were “asking for it.”

Let’s hope that Stepping Stone’s campaign does some good, making us think about sex workers as people, rather than punch lines and faceless victims.

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Margo DeMello has a PhD in cultural anthropology and teaches anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology at Central New Mexico Community College. Her research areas include body modification and adornment and human-animal studies.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Shamus Khan posted a link to a great slideshow put together by the Business Insider that summarizes the current state of our economy. It’s a one-stop illustration of, in their words, “What the Wall Street protestors are so angry about,” and definitely worthy of clicking over to see the whole thing. I’m posting just a few of the images here.

The median length of unemployment for those who lose their jobs is now over 20 weeks:

About 45% of the currently unemployed have been without a job for at least 27 weeks — six to seven months without a job:

CEO pay is now roughly 350 times higher than the average worker’s:

And CEO pay has grown dramatically since the early ’90s, though production workers’ pay has barely budged and the minimum wage has actually dropped if you adjust for inflation:

We often hear that the extremely wealthy pay a very disproportionate amount of U.S. taxes. It is true that they pay a large share. But it’s not so imbalanced compared to how much of all income they earn. For instance, the richest 20% of earners receive 59.1% of all U.S. income but pay 64.3% of taxes:

There’s much, much more in the full slideshow; go check it out.

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Amanda Knox, an American exchange student, was convicted in 2009 of murdering her flatmate, Meredith Kercher.  In 2011, on appeal, her conviction was overturned.

At The Guardian this month, Ian Leslie discusses the way that Knox’s body language and facial expressions were used in arguments as to her guilt.  He quotes jury members, police officers, court watchers, and others making such arguments.  The lead investigator, Edgardo Giobbi, for example, was quoted saying:

We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspect’s psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation. We don’t need to rely on other kinds of investigation.

A bystander speculated: “Her eyes didn’t seem to show any sadness, and I remember wondering if she could have been involved.”  The head of the murder squad, Monica Napoleoni, discussed the video below, arguing that kissing wasn’t the kind of behavior an innocent person would engage in:

Leslie argues that the tendency to think we can read “someone else’s state of mind simply by looking at them” is a common social psychological tendency.  Describing the work of Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton University, he explains:

…there is a fundamental asymmetry about the way two human beings relate to one another in person. When you meet someone, there are at least two things more prominent in your mind than in theirs – your thoughts, and their face. As a result we tend to judge others on what we see, and ourselves by what we feel. Pronin calls this “the illusion of asymmetric insight.”

Unfounded belief into the insight into others’ minds has been shown to hold experimentally.  Certainty that Knox was guilty, then, may very well have been born of an overconfidence in our ability to read the mental states of others.

Thanks to Matt Vidal for sending the link!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Andrew Francis D. sent in this 1970s commercial for Faygo soda that appropriates elements of Native American culture, presenting them as part of a ridiculous caricature (“Running Pudgy”?):

For other examples, see our posts on the stoic Indian in marketing, advertising with Eskimos, a parody of Native Americans in ads, confusing the Sioux with Robin Hood, Sambazon’s Warrior Up campaign, Levi’s brochure of “American Indian lore,” and appropriating Native cultures in fashion.

An April 2011 Gallup poll found that 29% of Americans thought that the U.S. economy was in a depression.  Another 26% thought it was only a recession.   This is scary since, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, we have been in an economic expansion since June 2009.

Why would so many Americans feel this way you might ask.  Here is one reason.  According to recent Census Bureau data, during the recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, inflation-adjusted median household income fell by 3.2%.  Between June 2009 and June 2011, a period of economic expansion, inflation-adjusted median household income fell by 6.7%.   This decline is illustrated in the New York Times chart below.

I recently appeared on the Alliance for Democracy’s “Populist Dialogue” TV show to talk about our economic crisis and possible responses to it.  You can watch the show here or below.

In this 21-minute talk, Bruce Schneier does a great job of explaining the difference between feeling secure and being secure.  The difference between risk and the perception of risk is one of the things that sociologists in the “social problems” sub-area study.  Whether problems are seen as problems at all, whether non-problems are believed to be problems, and whether they are seen as social (versus individual, for example, or natural)… all of these things must be established by people who have the power to put issues on the agenda and frame them in particular ways.

Schneier’s discussion of security is a great illustration of this phenomenon, and his talk is full of concrete examples and psychological mechanisms that nicely balance the sociological import:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Sociology in Focus.

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, died this week. I didn’t know him and yet his death moved me deeply. It shook me awake. When I woke up sad the next morning I did the only thing I know how to do, I thought about Steve Jobs and his passing sociologically.

Of all the things you could say about Steve Jobs, without a doubt, one of them was that he was a great charismatic leader. During his presentations his words, energy, and style could create a “reality distortion field” that would make mundane aspects of his products sound revolutionary. His spirit worked almost like a Jedi mind trick telling reporters what they were to write in their reviews. His charisma seemed superhuman.

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A charismatic authority figure is one of three styles of authority that Max Weber talked about. Authority can be thought of as the use of power that is perceived as legitimate. Some statuses have power simply because of tradition (e.g. parents have power over children). Other statuses have power because they have been “routinized” or built in the structure of social institutions. Weber calls this type of authority rational-legal authority and the president of the United States is a good example of this type.

Charismatic authority can be thought of as the the use of power that is legitimized by the exemplary characteristics of a person or by their accomplishments that inspire others to follow or be loyal to them. Steve Jobs accomplishments have gained him a rabid fan base; to the point that Apple fans are oft referred to as members of the “Cult of Mac”. It was because of who Jobs is (or at least how he was perceived) that many people admired, respected, and followed his work.

The problem for Apple is that any organization that gains its authority because they have a charismatic leader must eventually deal with the loss of that leader. How can you hold on to your authority and legitimacy with the charismatic figure gone? You have to build the revolutionary ideas and practices of the figure into the bureaucracy or formal structure of the organization. Weber called this process of transferring authority from a charismatic person to a bureaucratic organization the “Routinization of Charisma”. In the corporate world they call this process a “succession plan.”

When Jobs resigned on August 24th Tim Cook succeeded him and became the CEO. A few weeks later on October 4 Cook took the stage for the first time to lead Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4S. The announcement was nearly identical in form to the announcements led by Jobs. During the announcement Cook said multiple times, “There is a lot of momentum here at Apple” which could be interpreted sociologically as, “nothing has changed; we still deserve the authority our previous leader gained through his charisma.” The entire announcement was almost identical to the announcements except many viewers noted that Tim Cook did not have the charisma of Steve Jobs.

Jobs was a master at getting the media to write the headlines he wanted, but after this weeks talk ABC’s headline read “Apple Unveils Anti-Climatic iPhone 4S.” Anti-climatic!?!  Comedians ripped Cook for his poor stage presence in a video. Traders showed their disapproval as Apple’s stock price dropped a half percent after the announcement. I’m not trying to pile on here, I’m just pointing out that transitioning from a charismatic authority figure to less charismatic figure is hard; or as Weber would say it, the “routinization of charisma” is difficult if not impossible.

Now that he is gone, I’m sad because I enjoyed so much listening to him speak about his work. He was an artist in so many ways and I’m sad I won’t get to see anymore of his work. Rest in peace Mr. Jobs.

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Nathan Palmer is a visiting lecturer at Georgia Southern University. He is a passionate educator, the founder of Sociology Source, and the editor of Sociology in Focus.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Children are our most important resource.  Everyone says it, but we don’t really mean it.

Exhibit one: the percentage of children under the age of 18 that live in poverty. In 2007, at the peak of our previous economic expansion, the child poverty rate was 18%.  In 2009, it hit 20%.  The figure below provides a look at child poverty rates in each state.  New Hampshire had the lowest rate: 11%.  Mississippi the highest rate: 31%. According to a recently released Census Bureau study, the 2010 national child poverty rate was 22%.

How Do We Measure Poverty?

Children under the age of 18 are counted as poor if they live in families with income below U.S. poverty thresholds.  There are a range of poverty thresholds which are based on family size and number of children.  These poverty thresholds are far from generous.  The 2009 poverty threshold for a family of two adults and two children was$21,756.

Sadly our poverty rates understate the seriousness of our poverty problem, for children and adults.  The history of how we developed and calculate our official poverty thresholds provides perhaps the clearest proof of the inadequacy of current statistics.  First introduced in 1965, the thresholds were based on previous work by the Department of Agriculture (DOA).  The DOA created an “economy” food plan in the 1950s that was designed for “temporary or emergency use when funds are low.”  DOA surveys had also established that families of three or more persons spent approximately one-third of their after tax income on food.  Our initial thresholds were set by multiplying the cost of the economy food plan (adjusted for family size) by three.

From 1966 to 1969, these poverty thresholds were revised annually by the yearly change in the cost of the items contained in the economy food plan.  After 1969, and still today, the poverty thresholds were adjusted by the rise in the consumer price index.

Our poverty rates are calculated by comparing pre-tax family incomes to these thresholds.

Why the Poverty Threshold is Deficient

This methodology has produced a poverty standard and estimates of poverty that are deficient for several important reasons:

First, our knowledge of nutrition has significantly changed since the 1950s.

Second, families now spend approximately one-fifth of their after-tax income on food, not one-third.  That correction alone would mean that the food budget should be multiplied by 5 rather than 3, thereby producing higher thresholds and poverty rates.

Third, poverty is best thought of as a relative condition, which means that it should not be measured by comparing incomes to an unchanging standard based on the cost of a 1950’s economy food plan.

Fourth, poverty rates should be calculated using after-tax family income adjusted to include the value of government support programs like food stamps (which are also fluctuating and often cut in hard times), not unadjusted pre-tax family income.

A Better Measure

Researchers, drawing on the work of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance Economists, have developed an alternative experimental approach to measuring poverty.  They start with a reference family, two adults and two children.  Then, using Consumer Expenditure Surveys, they calculate the dollar amount of spending on food, clothing, shelter, utilities and medical care by all reference families in a given year.

The poverty threshold for the reference family is set at the midpoint between the 30^th and 35^th percentile of the spending distribution for all families with two adults and two children.  Small multipliers are then used to add spending estimates for other needs, such as transportation and personal care, slightly raising the poverty threshold.   This threshold is adjusted for families of other compositions.

The chart below shows national poverty rates for the years 1996 to 2005.  We see that the rates produced by this experimental methodology are significantly higher than the official rates.

Strikingly, while the official poverty rate is lower in 2005 than in 1996, the 2005 experimental poverty rate is the highest in the period.  The difference is largely explained by the fact that the experimental measure incorporates changes in the availability of social programs and the relative importance of non-food goods and services in family spending.

Returning to the issue of child poverty, the table below highlights the difference between the two measures for specific demographic groups.  Notice that the child poverty rate calculated using the experimental measure is always higher than the official rate.  As previously stated, the official 2010 child poverty rate is 22 percent.  The experimental rate would no doubt be several percentage points higher, closing in on 25 percent.

What can one say about a situation where between one-fifth and one-fourth of all children in the United States live in poverty?  Language like “outrageous,” “unacceptable,” and “indicator of a flawed economic system” comes to mind.  What also comes to mind is the fact that these poverty statistics rarely get the attention they deserve, as does the question of why that is so.