class

Jim C. sent us this graphic designed to illustrate a proposal to reduce the lanes on Jarvis Street in Toronto from five to four (Globe and Mail, May 22, 2009, p. A12).   As Jim points out, the text of the graphic describes the proposal accurately, and even points out that the graphic misrepresents the change, but the graphic itself still gives the impression that the reduction will be to two, not four lanes.

It is a good example of how much graphics matter. Even with the text, it is potentially misleading.  Such misrepresentation can also be purposeful and political.  Jim speculates that this is the case here:

As is often the case whenever there are modest efforts to make space on city streets for pedestrians and cyclists, right-wing councillors (and affluent commuters) raised the spectre of traffic chaos and a ‘war on the car’.

If you’re interested in comparing the representation of this proposal by the Globe with its representation in the proposal itself, check out the final page of the proposal.  Thanks to Nick J. B. in the comments for the link.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Matthew Ygelsias posted a graph showing that, for those 25 and older, education-level is correlated with rates of unemployment: the more educated you are, the less likely you are to find yourself unemployed. This relationship appears to be uninterrupted by the current recession.

Red = less than a high school diploma
Purple = high school graduate, no college
Green = some college
Blue = bachelors degree or higher

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Nadya L. sent in a video, embedded below, produced by a Christian anti-pornography initiative. It uses the logic that all women involved in sex work are “somebody’s daughter” and, thus, men should not consume pornography.

Ross Rosenberg at Coilhouse points out that the video erases the possibility that participating in the production of porn does not, inherently, ruin women foreverandever (and, thus, dads and moms should not necessarily be disappointed when their daughter participates in sex work). More provocatively, he asks:

[Why is] the idea of that the object of ones lustful desires is ‘somebody’s daughter’… a functional deterrent…[?]… Really, what is this video talking about here? Is it a serenade to the sanctity of our children’s innocence; the preciousness of their safety or merely the thinking that, if someone masturbates to images of my daughter, she has embarrassed me. If this was your daughter, what shame would it bring down upon you, her father? [Why would it] …be terrible for you and your family if it was discovered that your daughter was a pornstar or a stripper?

In my Power and Sexuality course, I discuss sex work and empowerment. Instead of essentializing both femininity and sex work and arguing that all sex work is inherently oppressive to women, I suggest that social conditions (such as patriarchy) and institutional features (such as pro- versus anti-unionization measures) shape the work environment of sex workers in positive and negative ways. Instead of asking: “Is sex work oppressive to women?” I ask: “What makes sex work more and less oppressive to women?” I think the latter leads to a much more interesting conversation.

For more posts trying to think through the topic of sex work, see here, here, here, here, and here.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

The graph below reveals the percent of before-tax income given to charity by class (separated into fifths):

There is a positive correlation between income and absolute giving (the higher their income, the more money they donate), but a negative correlation between income and relative giving (as incomes go down, households donate a higher and higher percentage of their income).

From Chris Uggen’s weblog via.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

I presume, though I have never seen any evidence for this, that we don’t all get the same email forwards.  For instance, I never received this forward… but Steve W. did:

Text:

Did You Know This About Leather Dresses?

Do you know that when a woman wears a leather dress, a man’s heart bests quicker, his throat gets dry, he gets weak in the knees, and he begins to think irrationally???

Ever wonder why?

It’s because she smells like a new golf bag!

Why don’t I typically receive such forwards?  To suggest that it has something to do with my sex, which was my first guess, is probably too simple of an explanation.  I suspect it also has something to do with my class, politics, and occupation. 

What kind of forwards do you (not) get?  Do you think you might be surprised at what other people receive in their inbox? 

Do you selectively forward certain sentiments to some people and not others?  Do certain sentiments come from some people in your social network and not others?

What does the big wide world of forwarding look like?  Who forwards what to who?  Or, what part of the forwarding-whole is largely invisible to you?

Cross-posted at PolicyMic.

I recently came across two really fascinating figures.  The United States has a system of “progressive taxation.”  This means that the richer you are, the more you pay in taxes.  This first figure, found at The American Prospect, shows the percentage of total income earned by Americans (split up into quintiles) and the tax rates for each group.   The poorest quintile, then, pays 4.3 percent of their income to the government, but only makes 3.9 percent of all income dollars each year.  In contrast, the richest quintile brings home 55.7 percent of all income dollars each year, and pays 25.9 percent of that in taxes.

Ezra Klein writes:

When you look at percentage of total tax liabilities, the rich do in fact bear a heavier burden. But it’s because they have so much more money. They are not bearing a heavier burden as a percentage of their incomes. They’re bearing it in relation to everyone else’s incomes… People hear that the top 20 percent pay almost 70 percent of the country’s income taxes and nod their head. That’s unfair! But it mainly seems unfair because people don’t know the top 20 percent accounts for almost 60 percent of the national income.

This second figure (from Matthew Yglesias via Thick Culture) illustrates increasing income inequality.  It compares the average after-tax income for each  quintile, and then the top 1 percent, in 1979 and 2006.  During that time, the poorest fifth saw their incomes increase 11 percent, the middle fifth saw their income increase by 21 percent, and the richest fifth saw their income increase by 87 percent.  Check out the percent increase for the top one percent!

(For more great illustrations of income inequality in the U.S., see here, here, and here; for a comparison of income inequality in the U.S. and elsewhere, see here.)

What does fair look like?

Is this kind of income inequality fair?  Is it fair to take a higher proportion of taxes from richer people?  Should we be taking even more from the rich?  Should we be taking less from any group?

Does it matter where the money is going?  I have to admit, I was feeling a little crappy about taxes when we were spending billions of dollars on war, but now that we need to kick start the economy and deal with our debt, I feel fine about them.

Has the economic crisis affected your opinions on (progressive) taxation?  How?

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.

I recently posted about how the economic downturn isn’t affecting all of us equally.  We can say the same for the rash of home foreclosures.  Some people, of course, are losing their homes and other’s aren’t.  But, in addition to that, some people are seeing the value of their homes go down more than others due to the housing crisis.  For example, if you don’t lose your house, but lots of other people in your neighborhood do, the value of your house will fall moreso than the values of homes in neighborhoods with little to no foreclosure.  Photographer Camilo Jose Vergara draws our attention to yet another unequal casualty of the housing crisis: owners of duplexes who are, disproportionately, working class and urban. 

How are owners of duplexes uniquely affected by foreclosure?  First, if the other half of your duplex is abandoned or under foreclosure, your half is significantly devalued.  And, second, as Vergara writes:

Those living in the occupied home often have their lives made more difficult by what happens on the other side of a shared wall…  people throw trash in the front and back yards of the vacant unit, causing foul smells and attracting rats. Physical problems in the empty shell cause accelerated decay in the occupied house. Water may be left running in the unoccupied unit, causing moisture to migrate next door. In cold weather, pipes burst. Joists rot and collapse, tearing bricks out of the shared wall. And if the empty dwelling is not properly sealed, prostitutes and drug addicts may break in and start fires.

The images:

Via the Daily Dish.

Erin S. sent in this ad suggesting that the quickest way to rekindling a romance is to take an epic vacation. 

Text:

Drift together rather than apart.  Their quest led them here.

Whether it is dinner at the world’s most romantic table or strolling the cobblestone streets of the world’s oldest cities, the perfect setting begins with The Leading Hotels of the World.

According to the ad, a strong relationship is built on the expensive and exceptional moments in a marriage.  Data on marital satisfaction, however, suggests that it is the daily, mundane tasks that make or break a marriage (who does the dishes, who puts the kids to bed, whether the bills get paid on time, and so on). 

Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift is the classic book on the topic.