gender

To Thine Own Self Be True: Identity and Authenticity

Mallory Harrington and Francesca Bernardino on September 11, 2025

Studio Setting by Brett Sayles is licensed under CC BY 2.0 in pexels.

What does it mean to be authentic? Authenticity is frequently used to describe people or things that are believed to be genuine, sincere, consistent, or original. We evaluate both things (like music, television, or food) and people (ourselves and others) on their authenticity, often assuming that some are inherently real or beyond artifice, while others are more artificial or contrived. However, sociologists and social scientists recognize the notion of authenticity itself as a powerful social construct: we collectively decide that people and things are (or are not) authentic. We evaluate people in terms of their personal and social authenticity.

Personal Authenticity

Personal authenticity involves being “true” to one’s self. But…what is the true self? Sociologists and scholars have challenged the idea that we have a true self, arguing that we all play a variety of social roles (student, friend, employee, etc.) in different situations. As we take on these roles, some individuals believe their actions are real and genuine and others feel that they are just putting on an act. It is this subjective understanding of the true self that matters for personal authenticity, even if it is socially constructed or conditioned. When people feel that they are being true to themselves, they experience authenticity as an emotional response.

A desire to feel authenticity is a powerful motive for behavior. Sometimes we act with the specific goal of expressing our true self.  For example, some get tattoos and body art to express their authentic selves.

However, societal pressures, from social norms to economic needs, may influence us to embrace behaviors that feel inauthentic. In the context of economic exchange, many roles require emotional labor (or, the management of feelings to create a certain emotional display). For example, flight attendants are expected to be friendly and helpful to the travelers–even if the travelers are rude or unruly. For workers, engaging in emotional labor can feel like acting or maintaining an illusion, leading to feelings of inauthenticity and a sense of emotional numbness.

Social Authenticity

Individuals are a part of many different groups (unions, trivia teams, fandoms, religious groups, etc.) and social categories (age, race, class, and gender/sexuality) and social authenticity is the idea of truly belonging to that group or category. Group members define certain characteristics as authentic and evaluate the authenticity of others based on those criteria. Authenticity can serve as a way to draw boundaries around groups, establishing who is in and who is out. For example, members of local punk scenes may display their authenticity through personal appearance, knowledge of punk music, and extensive vinyl collections—setting them apart from “posers.” Outsiders–or, individuals who fail to meet the authenticity criteria established by a group–may be viewed as appropriating the culture of a group to which they don’t belong.

Of course, group members may disagree on what it means to be an authentic member. When the authenticity of a group member is questioned, they may respond by challenging the validity of the authenticity standards used to judge them.

The Role of Race, Class, and Gender

Being perceived as an authentic member of a social group can yield rewards, from the tangible reward of admission to a university to simply achieving group belonging. However, marginalized groups often face bias or unattainable expectations of what an authentic member of their group should be like. These expectations can be produced within groups or perpetuated externally, through institutions like schools or the media. For instance, socially constructed notions of an authentic Asian American student or Black woman can exclude those who may not conform to these expectations, while also reaffirming sweeping generalizations about these groups.

The relationship between perceived authenticity and social acceptance is especially vital in professional life. For instance, people of color in White-dominated professions face unique pressure to prove themselves as “authentic” because whiteness is an implicit expectation of a good leader. Similarly, evaluations of people’s merit based on class and gender are embedded with assumptions about who can be authentic in their position. People with marginalized identities in certain professions or organizations are not only expected to fulfill their duties- but must also juggle personal and social authenticity based on ambiguous standards. 

Not Your Feminism, Not Your TERF

Jordyn Wald on July 30, 2025

Woman In Black Shirt Holding Red Lipstick by cottonbro studio is licensed under CC BY 2.0 in pexels.

There have long been debates around transgender inclusion within feminist movements. Although anti-transgender sentiments within feminism date back to the 1970s, these views were not prominent for much of feminist history. However, since the 2010s, anti-trans sentiment within feminism has received much greater attention in public discourse, often in ways that negatively impact transgender persons.

A small but vocal faction, often described as “TERFs” (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) or gender-critical feminists, argue that feminism should focus on “sex-based rights”—the idea that legal protections and spaces should be reserved for those assigned female at birth. Many argue that this position excludes transgender women and reinforces a narrow, often white and middle-class definition of womanhood. While most feminists generally support transgender rights, TERFs have received significant attention through media coverage, political alliances, and legal battles, making their views seem more prominent than they likely are within the larger feminist movement.

Built on Biology?

TERFs emphasize the importance of sex in determining identity, often denying or minimizing the  influence of culture, history, and personal experience. However, much research shows that sex and gender are more complex than a rigid binary. That is, what it means to be a man or a woman (even within the fixed binary) changes dramatically over time and across cultures, as the definitions and boundaries of what a “man,” “woman,” or “non-binary person” is shift over time.

Historically, the idea that biological sex is deterministic has been used to uphold rigid gender norms, for example, by limiting women’s access to political and professional spaces and by defining trans women as “biologically male” regardless of their identities. TERF arguments rely on static definitions of sex to draw boundaries around womanhood, maintaining that trans women can never truly be women because they were not assigned female at birth. This approach ultimately reinforces the same gendered structures that earlier 1st and 2nd wave feminist movements have long challenged.

Exaggerated Threats to Safety and Fairness

The question of transgender women in sports and bathrooms has garnered great public attention and debate. Both TERFs and more traditional political conservatives often argue that transgender women in these spaces compromise safety and fairness for cisgender women. However, research has found no evidence that transgender women pose any greater danger than cisgender men and women.

The same arguments used to exclude transgender women from women’s spaces are often used against cisgender women who do not conform to Western ideas of femininity. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, for example, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was falsely accused of being transgender, even though there was no evidence to support the claim. Similarly, South African runner Caster Semenya has faced gender tests and competition bans because of her naturally high testosterone levels, despite being assigned female at birth. These cases reveal a contradiction—if some cisgender women don’t fit traditional gender norms, it raises the question of whether strict definitions of womanhood should decide who belongs in women’s spaces. Critics argue that these accusations are less  about fairness than about reinforcing racial and gender biases, using moral panics and misinformation to exclude marginalized groups.

The Grand Paradox

In contrast to other feminists, TERFs maintain strong political alliances with right-wing groups. Organizations like the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) have collaborated with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that also opposes issues related to women’s reproduction, family structures, and LGBTQ+ protections. This paradox has led scholars to question whether a movement aligned with groups seeking to dismantle fundamental feminist principles can truly be considered feminist.

Such tensions are not new. Feminism has changed over time, with each generation debating what the movement should focus on. For example, disagreements between older feminists, who focused on issues like workplace equality, reproductive rights, and protections against sexual violence, and newer feminists, who advocate for including transgender rights, racial justice, and broader LGBTQ+ issues, show how divisions emerge. Some older feminists feel that prioritizing gender identity and racial justice shifts attention away from core feminist issues like sexism and women’s rights, making women’s struggles less visible and less prioritized. The current conflict involving TERFs is another generational divide, where some feminists reject new ideas about gender and race that move beyond cisgender and white women, while others push for a more inclusive approach.    

The American Journal of Unfinished Sociology

AJUS Editorial Team on April 1, 2025

About Us

AJUS is dedicated to the proposition that every idea deserves a platform. We welcome dissertation chapters, voice memos, vague thoughts, lecture notes, and data analysis that speaks for itself. Use your sociological imagination.

Manuscript Types

  1. Theoretical Speculations – Wildly ambitious frameworks with no empirical evidence.
  2. Data? – Raw numbers in an Excel file, preferably unformatted.
  3. Ethnographic Musings – 1-2 notes jotted down on a used napkin.
  4. Methodological Hot Takes – No actual study, just vibes.
  5. Unfinished Dissertations – Someone, someday might just read it.

Submission Guidelines

  1. Proposing sociological questions?
  2. Fully conceptualized, partially completed work is acceptable.
  3. Include 1+ cite(s) you “meant to look up later.”Placeholders and “TBD” acceptable.
  4. Feature tables and figures that may or may not be related to the topic.
  5. Write the conclusion at 2 AM, ideally over- or under-caffeinated.
  6. ORCHID ID required.

Formatting Requirements

  1. Length: We encourage all manuscripts to be between 500 words and wherever your heart tells you to stop.
  2. Proofreeding optional.
  3. Font: Something not so basic, expand your horizons.
  4. Citations: Surprise us. APA, MLA, CFG, SSD, GHD, DGD, NFL, NHL, KCF… 
  5. Abstract: Don’t be too, somewhat vague.
  6. References: Don’t forget anyone, because we will send it to whomever you forget to cite…

References: Don’t forget anyone, because we will look through and will send it to whomever you forgot to cite…

Peer Review Process

All submissions will undergo our patented Mega-Triple-Blind Peer Review System™, where:

  1. The authors forget what they wrote.
  2. The reviewers skim the abstract and pick 1 or 2 arbitrary things to call out.
  3. The editors decide based on their breakfast.

We guarantee comprehensive feedback (e.g., “Interesting…” and “?”).

If your paper is rejected, you may submit an appeal by:

  1. Resending the same manuscript in a different font.
  2. Signing an affidavit attesting that “Foucault would have accepted this.”
  3. Threatening to start your own journal.

How to Submit:

Send your completed-ish manuscript via:

  1. A blurry PDF screenshot in an email attachment labeled “Final_Draft_3_(Actually_Final).doc”
  2. A Google Doc with unresolved comments.
  3. Mail.
  4. AJUS Signal Editors Only Group Chat.
  5. Give us a call and read it aloud: ‪(715) 600-2187‬ (after 10:33 PM only)

2025 Issue | Outside the Box Thinkers

Zodiac Sign Predicts Happiness

War on Women on the Web

Caroline Garland and S Ericson on April 17, 2024

Two women sitting side-by-side with laptops in front of them, glancing at each other after reading something shocking. Photo by Resume Genius from Upsplash.

Intro and History

Several subcultures exist online dedicated to hating women, collectively known as the “manosphere.” These communities hold different perspectives on how they should operate in society based on their shared belief in the Red Pill, the belief that we live in a “Gynocracy” (a society dominated by women that discriminates against men).

Some of these subcultures focus on trying to “prove” their negative views of women by presenting themselves as scientifically knowledgeable. Others focus on more explicitly bigoted and violent language. “Incels” believe that they are involuntarily celibate thanks to societal injustice. Another manosphere group, “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW), takes a different approach to women and tries to avoid women and female institutions altogether.

Politics and Culture

While many online misogynists solely focus on hating women, others have become more broadly political. For example, many members of the manosphere backed Donald Trump for the US presidency. However, at times, members of the manosphere have come into conflict with other right-wing extremists. Some white nationalists, for instance, believe they should “protect” white women, while manosphere members are often more explicitly hateful towards white women.

Some Black History Month Sociology

jake on February 28, 2024

A Black woman walking on a sidewalk. Photo by Ono Kosuki under Pexels license.

Black History Month was expanded in 1976 upon the historical precedence of “Negro History Week” in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, the second Black American to receive a Ph.D. from Havard (with the first Black American being W.E.B. Du Bois). In honor of Black History Month, here are a few pieces from The Society Pages and our partners over the last year:

Contexts

Council on Contemporary Families

The Society Pages

Some Valentine’s Day Sociology

jake on February 14, 2024

Two people wearing jeans and white T-shirts holding hands. Photo by cottonbro studios from Pexels under Pexels license.

Here are some recent pieces on love, relationships, dating expectations, and more on Valentine’s Day from us and our partners.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all our new and old readers from TSP!

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Sociology of the Cultic and Paranormal

Mallory Harrington & Nicole Schmitgen on October 30, 2023

A sheet with two holes cut in for eye holes to resemble a ghost, sitting (or floating?) on a bed. Photo by Ryan Miguel Capili under Pexels license.

It’s a dark and stormy night, and the wind is howling as the trees tap, tap, tap along your window. Out of the night comes an unearthly noise, and an eerie feeling takes over you as the room becomes cold. Your mind begins to race as you feel a presence close by. It must be all in your head…mustn’t it?

Whether you believe in ghosts or the things that go bump in the night, the supernatural has proved to be a prevailing source of intrigue for the world and sociologists. We may not be able to prove the existence of the supernatural, but we can certainly look into the factors that shape and guide our experiences. 

Cultic Milieu

Cultic or paranormal beliefs and experiences are both wide-ranging (including unorthodox science, magic, witchcraft, astrology, mysticism, healing practices, the occult, and more) and persistent across time. 

These beliefs are unified by the fact that they are typically viewed as deviant to the dominant culture, particularly traditional religion and mainstream science. This stimulates a tolerance for other belief systems and a sense of support, as believers in the cultic or paranormal share an experience of having to justify their beliefs to mainstream society. 

Colin Campbell argues that this cultic milieu is, “an underground region where true seekers test hidden, forgotten, and forbidden knowledge.”

Supernatural Skepticism

Some scholars have also explored the process of how people come to develop cultic or paranormal beliefs. When patterns of strange and uncanny events occur, people often experience layers of doubt before concluding they have experienced a ghostly encounter. The will to believe battles against a desire to remain skeptical, especially in a highly rationalized, materialistic world. 

“Because a ghost seemingly defies rationality, the person who believes risks his or her credibility and stigmatization.”

Studying practitioners of ritual magic in London in 1983, Tanya Marie Luhrmann questioned why users practiced magic when – to the eye of the outside observer – it did not work. Luhrmann found that individuals engaged in unintentional interpretive drift (a slow shift in how someone interprets events, what events they find significant, and what patterns they notice). Over time, they began to interpret events as a result of their magical practice. For Lurhman, such beliefs and practices are not so much exceptions to the modern quest for instrumental, scientific knowledge but a direct reaction to its limitations and shortcomings. 

Hauntings

Some scholars focus on the social functions of ghostly hauntings. Hauntings may draw attention to loss (either of life or of opportunity) or reveal repressed or unresolved memories of individuals or communities (particularly memories of social violence). Ghosts can represent our empowered hopes, fears, and values. Experiences with ghosts may spur action, and–whether they truly exist or not–have real effects on those who believe in them. 

Gender and Race Belief Differences

Sociology has also found that social factors like race, education, and gender can influence someone’s perspective on the paranormal and supernatural, as one survey of American fears found. Women have been found to have a higher belief in things like ghosts, zombies, and supernatural powers while men are more likely to believe in things like bigfoot or extraterrestrials. The results suggest a difference in the material quality of the creature and its relation to scientific inquiry. 

Black people were found to have higher beliefs in alien life and ghost encounters while Asian Americans had the largest fear of zombies. White people were more likely to believe in UFOs and psychic healing. The cultural significance of religion or spirituality for race may be an influencing factor in the findings. The level of education also impacts someone’s beliefs. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were less likely to believe in aliens, bigfoot, ghost encounters/hauntings, and Atlantis. However, other supernatural beliefs – such as supernatural human abilities and zombies – were not impacted by education. 

The supernatural and paranormal have managed to intrigue the public for centuries and sociologists are no different. Why and how people engage with the spooky aspects of life can often tell us more about the social world than we’d first think. “To study social life one must confront the ghostly aspects of it.” – Avery Gordon

Visual Soc: The Joys and Challenges of Motherhood

Jacob Otis on May 15, 2023

From the #TSPClassics Collection: The Challenges of Motherhood

Mahala Miller on May 5, 2022

Mother’s day is a good opportunity to surprise your mom with breakfast in bed, flowers, or a gift. It’s also a good opportunity to reflect on the challenges of motherhood, particularly in the United States, and consider how both individual and social change can help all mothers continue to thrive. We’ve rounded up some TSP classics, and some great scholarship on motherhood we haven’t covered, that puts contemporary motherhood in context.

Moms do More at Home

Although gender norms in the United States have changed considerably over the past half century, moms are still primarily responsible for raising children. Most moms are expected to figure out how to balance full-time work and motherhood. Moms must make it work when these responsibilities conflict, like when the covid-19 pandemic shut down public schools, leaving millions of children without daytime care. 

Although ostensibly gender norms are changing in heterosexual couples, mothers spend more time caring for children and doing housework than their male partners, even when both partners work outside of the home. The “second shift” of work that moms do at home includes the “cognitive labor” of managing and scheduling family members’ time. For instance, scheduling vacations, or doctors appointments for family members. 

Mothering Intensively and Alone

In the absence of public support for parenthood, It is particularly challenging for low-income moms to handle the responsibility of motherhood. The problem is not only that welfare support and childcare provisions are extremely limited in the United States; making matters worse, American culture tends to blame low income moms for their poverty and heavily scrutinizes the parenting decisions of poor moms put in tough positions and struggling to make ends meet for their families.

Another factor that makes parenting challenging for all moms are beliefs “ideal motherhood.”  Mothers are expected to mother “intensively,” devoting considerable time, energy, money, and emotion to their children. Although some parents wax nostalgic about their own childhoods, when they played independently with neighborhood children until the streetlights came on, or were “latch-key” kids free to play video games or watch television until their parents returned from work, they are now investing considerable amounts of time and energy in packed schedules of activities for their children and discipline through negotiation.

Diverse Moms, Different Experiences

Sociological research has also shown that “intensive mothering” and a focus on nuclear two-parent households may not accurately reflect the experiences of all mothers. For instance, Patricia Hill Collins talks about “collective mothering,” or how Black women rely on communities of caregivers and the work of “other moms” to help raise their children in a hostile society. Dawn Marie Dow also emphasizes that black motherhood is not necessarily incompatible with professional responsibilities, and black mothers have long had to balance work outside of their own home with the responsibilities of motherhood.

Sociological research also shows that for some moms, the expectations that the institutions of social life have for “good motherhood” don’t fit with their reality. They experience challenging situations that require them to, for instance, prioritize the safety of their children or make tough decisions about what expenses they can cover for their child. Some moms use “inventive mothering” to figure out how to meet their children’s basic needs for, for instance, diapers. Disabled moms and black moms are particularly vulnerable to being seen as “risky” for failing to live up to the ideals of motherhood, experiencing increased surveillance and punishment from doctors’ offices, schools, and child welfare workers. 

Black mothers, in particular, worry about the safety of their children in a world that often views black children as a threat, particularly black boys. Black mothers’ worry about their children experiencing racism can negatively impact their health. Cynthia G. Colen and colleagues found that children’s experiences of discrimination harmed black mother’s health. 

Gendered expectations of women also create challenges for women who cannot or do not want to become mothers. Women that experience infertility experience stigma, or the sense that there is something marked or discrediting about them that contributes to others’ negative perception of them. Women who are “childfree by choice” also experience stigma. 

Political and Personal Solutions?

Policy changes could ease some of the challenges mothers face. For instance, research shows that there is a smaller “happiness gap” between parents and non-parents in countries with more generous public support for raising children. Mothers also feel less guilt in countries with better social and economic support for parenthood. More generous welfare provisions could help working-class moms better meet their children’s basic needs. 

Within families, couples can work towards greater equality of responsibilities. However, studies show that most young people still expect mothers to do the majority of housework and childcare. Even when young women anticipate having more gender equality in household labor, actually implementing more egalitarian schedules proves difficult, particularly for working-class women. 

Mothering Without a (Social) Safety Net

Hannah Schwendeman on January 24, 2022
A mother holds an infant in front of a set of curtains. The room is dark but there is light and the shadows of trees beyond the curtains. Image via pixabay, Pixabay License.

The new Netflix show, Maid, based on the best-selling memoir by Stephanie Land, chronicles a mother’s journey out of domestic violence and towards safety. The story offers an intimate portrait of the many barriers facing impoverished mothers, including the never-ending obstacles in securing government assistance.

Sociological research has consistently found that the welfare system inadequately serves the poor. From red tape to contradictory policies, accessing government assistance is notoriously difficult to navigate. Further, welfare is highly stigmatized in the United States with shame and coercion baked into its process. 

Due to gendered expectations of parenting, mothers face increased scrutiny about their children’s well being. In particular, mothers of low socioeconomic status are often harshly judged for their parenting without consideration of the structural inequities they face. Mothers seeking assistance from the welfare system are often judged because of cultural stereotypes about motherhood, poverty, and government assistance.  

The U.S. welfare system has been a contentious subject for decades with public perceptions of poverty influencing the social safety net. The derogatory infamous image of the “welfare queen” – an allegedly lazy or irresponsible woman who exploits government programs – demonstrates how racist images of poverty and motherhood directly impacted policy making. This body of work takes a historical perspective on welfare and motherhood to consider how gender and racial stereotypes influence public policies. 

Much research directly contradicts the welfare queen trope, showing instead how impoverished families have fallen through the cracks of the welfare system. This work  highlights the astounding income inequality in the contemporary United States and the resourcefulness and resiliency of impoverished families and individuals and their struggle to survive on little-to-no resources.