health

Not so Natural Disasters

Erik Kojola on September 19, 2018
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, Flickr CC
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, Flickr CC

Originally Posted October 19, 2016.

The rain and wind of Hurricane Matthew may have stopped, but much of North Carolina is still under water. The hard work of repairing and rebuilding has begun across the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean, particularly in Haiti where they are still reeling from the 2010 earthquake. Hurricanes – so called natural disasters –  are not simply the result of the weather but become “disasters” because of how society shapes people’s risks and how people prepare, adapt, and respond.

Extreme weather events like hurricanes often become problems because of the ways society has changed the environment, such as locating cities in areas at risk of flooding, filling in wetlands for development, and building homes on eroding coastlines. Government policies are also major factors in where, why, and when an event becomes a human disaster because development policies have contributed to creating risky areas while response plans are often inadequate.
The risks and burdens of disasters are not evenly distributed. Communities with the least economic, social, and political power often face the greatest threats from natural disasters and are also the least able to prepare, evacuate and rebuild. Socio-economic status affects where people live and the quality of their housing. Poor and working class communities also tend to bear greater physical, emotional, and psychological impacts of displacement and have fewer resources and government support to rebuild and recover after a catastrophe.
Economic inequality and race also contribute to different levels of vulnerability and resiliency between countries around the globe. Communities of color are more likely to be threatened by environmental disasters and be less prepared, while government evacuation and reconstruction programs tend be limited for these communities. Researchers who studied Hurricane Katrina point to how experiences of the storm were shaped by institutional racism and how the effects exacerbated racial and class inequalities. For example, government aid was slower to reach African American communities who also spent more time in shoddy temporary housing and had more trouble rebuilding their neighborhoods.
Women and children also bear a greater burden and risk from disasters because they tend to have fewer resources. Women typically have more responsibilities of caring for children and aging relatives, yet they have also been leaders in the recovery process after countless disasters, organizing their communities to rebuild and demanding a government response. Natural disasters have a large impact on children due to the trauma, displacement, and disruption of their lives. Research found that childrens’ ability to respond and adapt after Katrina was related to their family’s race and class, with more vulnerable children experiencing greater detrimental effects on their well-being after the storm.

Breast is Best (But Not in Public)

Allison Nobles and Jackie Austin on September 7, 2018
Lactation Room Sign. Photo by Cory Doctorow, Flickr CC

Recently, Utah and Idaho legalized public breastfeeding, finally making the practice lawful in all parts of the United States. Yet, even where public breastfeeding is legal — and has been for some time — breastfeeding mothers still face stigma. For instance, a pool patron and a staff member recently asked a breastfeeding mother in Mora, Minnesota to cover herself while at a public pool. Many have pointed out the contradictions between observers’ acceptance of women’s skin in certain public domains (like at the beach or on the cover of a magazine) and the public shaming women receive when their skin is exposed during breastfeeding.

In U.S. society especially, breasts are sexual symbols. And since motherhood is not highly sexualized, public breastfeeding presents a cultural contradiction in the United States. Because of these shared understandings of breasts as sexual, mothers must consciously negotiate spaces where they can breastfeed. For example, mothers report they engage in a variety of behaviors, like avoiding breastfeeding in certain spaces where they might face scrutiny or draping a blanket over the baby to hide their breasts, in order to not be viewed as sexual while breastfeeding.

In other words, one reason people respond to public breastfeeding with discomfort and sometimes hostility is that breasts have a particular meaning within U.S. culture and breastfeeding in public challenges that meaning.

Youth and the Development of “Rave” Culture

Lucas Lynch on August 27, 2018
Photo by Indi Samarajiva, Flickr CC
The word “rave”evokes different responses depending upon one’s generation. For many it symbolizes fun all-night dance parties with friends. While the public may be quick to associate rave culture with youth delinquency, social science explores the broader range of social, spiritual, and cultural elements of raves and electronic dance music (EDM). Raves began in 1980s Britain and quickly spread to the United States. Youth created these anti-establishment and and underground events to celebrate peace, love, unity, and respect — otherwise known as “PLUR.” However, heavy drug consumption resulted in media scrutiny and government crackdowns of these underground locations in the 1990s and early 2000s, pushing raves into more formal spaces like clubs.
Social scientists have explored raves and the electronic dance music scene from two different perspectives. The cultural perspective emphasizes a sense of community and empathy for its members as the roots of the scene. From this perspective, drug use enhances these experiences. The rave has been portrayed as a youth cultural phenomenon, characterized by belonging, self-expression, acceptance, camaraderie, escape, and solidarity, and where drugs — particularly ecstasy or “E” — are often central to the scene or tools in rebellion. From the public health perspective, excessive drug use is the defining feature of rave culture. Here raves and the electronic dance music scene are perceived as dangerous drug subcultures that increased drug-related health problems in the United States. However, some debate these claims and argue that the effects of ecstasy itself are linked to feelings of closeness and solidarity at raves.
While typically not linked to public perceptions of rave culture, some scholars connect raves and electronic dance music culture (EDMC) to religion and spirituality. In particular, scholars point to the non-Christian religiosity of rave’s dance “ritual,” likening it to the non-denominational “new church.” Further, EDM inherits its ritualistic, chanting, and percussive elements from African, Asian, and Indigenous cultures in North America, and African American, Latino, and gay communities in Chicago and New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, youth promoted raves as place of growth, sacredness, and unity, where youth were not divided through class, ethnicity, and gender.

Though the shape and form of raves and rave culture continues to change, both cultural and public health scholars agree that these events are much more than sporadic, all night dance parties.

Health Minorities and the Hispanic Paradox

Isabel Arriagada on August 20, 2018
Photo by Sara Star NS, Flickr CC
Despite the stressful experiences and the poverty that often accompany immigration, social science research shows that Hispanics as a whole fare better in health outcomes than non-Hispanic Whites. The ‘Hispanic Paradox’ refers to the fact that these good health conditions in Hispanic populations represent a curious puzzle for researchers. This is because Hispanics also exhibit low-income status, disproportionate exposure to stress factors associated with the immigration process such as learning a new language, adapting to an unfamiliar environment, and encountering persistent discrimination — factors associated with poor health outcomes.
Some studies explain the ‘Hispanic Paradox” based on Hispanic culture-specific features that act as protective factors of health and wellbeing. They include the cultural emphasis in the development of social resources, family ties, and religious affiliations. Hispanic mothers in the United States, for example, enjoy favorable birth outcomes due to their close relationships with family, friends, and community members who provide a protective network of informal prenatal care. However, new research has found that Hispanic mothers’ adaptation to the norms of U.S. society — known as acculturation — erode these healthy behaviors.
Notably, the Hispanic Paradox may not remain consistent when researchers consider the specific composition of Hispanic populations living in the United States, compared to Hispanic populations in their places of origin. For instance, Hispanics who migrate may have better health conditions than those who stay in their home countries, known as the ‘healthy migrant effect’. On the other hand, less healthy Hispanics may be more likely to return to their home countries and thus less likely to participate in research studies, what is called ‘the salmon bias’. A study of Hispanics tested both the ‘healthy migrant’ and ‘the salmon bias’ effects among Cubans (for whom returning to their home countries is not feasible), Puerto Ricans, and U.S.-born Hispanics (whose deaths are recorded in the U.S. national statistics). Findings reveal that lower mortality for Hispanics remains constant, even when controlling for these alternative hypotheses.

Alberto Palloni and Elizabeth Arias. 2004. “Paradox Lost: Explaining the Hispanic Adult Mortality Advantage.” Demography 41(3): 385-415.

Ana F. Abraido-Lanza, Bruce P. Dohrenwend, Daisy S. Ng-Mak, and J. Blake Turner. 1999. “The Latino Mortality Paradox: A Test of the” Salmon Bias” and Healthy Migrant Hypotheses.” American Journal of Public Health 89(10): 1543-1548.

Studies on the Hispanic Paradox shine a light on how ethnicity can affect health outcomes. However, concerns about health outcomes among minorities require both strengthening the benefits and preventing potential harmful consequences of being Hispanic in the United States.

Abortion Providers before Roe v. Wade

Allison Nobles on August 3, 2018
Photo by Debra Sweet, Flickr CC

With the appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice looming, Roe v. Wade — the landmark legislation that legalized abortion across the United States — faces an increasing threat of being overturned. While we often talk about the women who have or seek abortions, we tend to forget about the providers who perform them. Abortion providers today certainly face many challenges to performing this service, but before Roe v. Wade, choosing to perform abortions was usually illegal and dangerous. Despite this precarity, many providers risked their lives to ensure women had access to abortions.

Abortion didn’t always receive public concern. In fact, prior to the mid 1900s, abortion was considered a strictly medical matter. In the late 1800s, medical professionals began advocating for the criminalization of abortion, arguing that women who sought them were medically ignorant about pregnancy. And, at a time when a growing number of immigrant groups seemed to threaten the dominance of White, Anglo-Saxons, doctors vehemently opposed abortions for White, Anglo-Saxon women who defied their “natural” purpose — to reproduce. Many doctors remained opposed to abortion into the mid to late 1900s, but not all. These others doctors — known as “doctors of conscience” — performed illegal abortions, often requiring the women they served to wear blindfolds so they could not identify the doctors if they were later arrested.
It was not only trained medical professionals who performed illegal abortions. Some providers had little to no legitimate medical training. For example, members of the underground abortion service in Chicago — known as “Jane” — sought training so they would not need to rely on outsiders to perform services. Surprisingly perhaps, many clergy used their status and privilege of confidentiality with clients to provide referrals and assistance to women seeking abortions through an organization known as the Clergy Consultation Service (CCS).

The CCS alone estimates that the abortion providers they worked with were able to supply hundreds of thousands of women with abortion services before Roe v. Wade. And this was only possibly through the collaborative efforts of individuals who formed organizations and networks, and used their privileges and resources to help women who sought their assistance. Today women continue to fight for reproductive rights, and with the possibility of Roe v. Wade‘s overturning, many worry that women will once again need to rely on providers like doctors of conscience to meet their reproductive needs. 

 

This episode of the podcast, Criminal has more about the Clergy Consultation Service.

Queer in the Country

Sarah Catherine Billups on June 25, 2018
Photo by Avi, Flickr CC

From PRIDE parades to drag brunch, we tend associate queer people and queer-friendly places with cities. While some LGBTQ individuals do migrate to the metros, many also reside in rural America. Social scientists illustrate how queerness in the country functions differently than in the hustle and bustle of the city.

Distinguishing urban and rural is one way that LGBTQ people construct their identities in the context of small towns. Some feel that the popular images of gay individuals in urban spaces partying and enjoying nightlife are extreme and run contradictory to the experiences of queer folk who live quieter lives. Others feel that city gay bars are more impersonal than local small-town dive bars. Like in the show Cheers where “everyone knows your name,” a person’s character and long-term local status seems to matter more than their sexual orientation. In addition, some gay and lesbian individuals choose to return to their rural roots after trying out city life and rationalize this choice by deciding not to conform to cultural, urban-based understandings of what being gay means.
Queer visibility also differs in rural versus urban areas. Finding other LGBTQ people in rural areas  generally takes more legwork. While cities tend to have specific locations where queer communities congregate, rural communities have fewer designated queer enclaves. This means that meet ups for queer people in rural places involve circulating information and using space temporarily. One consequence of limited space is that many LGBTQ people have more trouble accessing social support, which may lead to worse health outcomes.
Residents in rural areas tend to have poorer health outcomes compared to those in cities overall, but the disparities are stronger for LGBTQ people. Not only do many queer folks face discrimination and stigma in healthcare facilities, rural healthcare is less likely to be equipped with the resources to meet the specific needs of gay, lesbian, queer, and non-binary patients.

Enforcing the Gender Binary through Sex Testing in Athletics

Jean Marie DeOrnellas on June 18, 2018
Photo by André Zehetbauer, Flickr CC

During PRIDE month Americans celebrate gender and sexuality spectrums, but many social arenas still rely on a rigid binary. Athletics is one of the spaces where gender segregation still dominates. In fact, its strict separation of sports into male and female competitions actually requires sport administrators to set and police the boundaries between the sexes and has created many controversies and conundrums in recent years. Sociological research illustrates how actors use gender verification, or sex testing, in athletics as a weapon of nationalism, sexism, and racism, thus reinforcing a medical view of the gender binary in an attempt to ensure “fair play.”

Gender verification in international athletics was part of the battlefield of the Cold War. Systematic sex testing in the Olympic Games began in 1968, largely in response to concerns about the dominant performances of the East German women and fears or rumors of men posing as women. In addition to being used as a weapon of nationalism, gender verification testing targeted athletes who did not conform to white, Western norms of femininity. Even after systematic sex testing was (briefly) eliminated by the International Olympic Committee in 2000, “suspicious” athletes such as the middle-distance runners Santhi Soundarajan and Caster Semenya were forced to undergo gender verification in 2006 and 2009.
Sport federations continue to defend gender verification of women — but not men — on the basis of “fair play,” or the idea that women competing against men face an unfair athletic disadvantage. Feminist scholars have critiqued the fair play reasoning as a smokescreen for the policing of women, especially as sex segregation and drug testing are two of the only ways that sport federations attempt to enforce a level playing field. Additionally, sex testing forces a medical definition of sex and draws sharp lines that punish individuals who are intersex, have chromosomal abnormalities, or have higher than average levels of androgens.

How sex has been defined and verified has shifted as the medical understanding and technology available has advanced, but all gender verification methods will continue to struggle with how to fit the wide spectrum of gendered individuals into only two boxes.

Bisexuality Breaks Categories, But Faces Challenges

Allison Nobles and Evan Stewart on June 8, 2018
San Francisco Pride Parade, Photo by Caitlin Childs, Flickr CC

From a favorite lighting trope to the album premiere of the season, bisexuality and pansexuality are having a major cultural moment. According to recent social surveys, the number of people who identify as bisexual is on the rise. Social science research studying bisexuality shows us how a more fluid look at sexual identity brings both benefits and challenges.

For many people, identification with a particular sexual orientation is not a clear and consistent process. Some bisexual people come out later in life, or choose different labels for it.  And how “out” you are can depend on the gender and number of partners you have. Today, more young people are embracing this fluidity as “something other than straight.”
But this fluidity can also have consequences. Bisexuals face unequal health outcomes and wage disparities, and additional social stigma in both straight identified and queer identified spaces.
But wait, there’s some good news! The way researchers study bisexual behavior — often comparing bisexual individuals with two or more partners to straight or gay individuals with only one or more partners — means that some of the differences in health may be exaggerated. Despite greater attention to bisexual individuals in popular culture, we must not forget the challenges faced by this population. In a world that likes clear labels, it is easy for people who don’t fit those categories to fall through the cracks.

Involuntary Celibacy and the Life Course

Allison Nobles on June 1, 2018
Photo by annie berge, Flickr CC

Recently we’ve been hearing more about “incels” or involuntary celibates — people who want to have sex but can’t seem to find a partner — especially in the context of mass violence. For example, Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in 2014 as part of a self-declared “war on women,” publicly blamed women for his inability to find a willing partner. Articles in the popular press have suggested that masculinity has more to do with this group’s behavior than wanting to have sex. In fact, social science research clearly demonstrates that there are plenty of adults out there who want to be having sex — but aren’t — and do not commit horrendous acts of violence.

First, many people fit into the category of “involuntary celibate.” One researcher defined it as someone who desires to have sex but has been unable to find a willing partner for at least six months. There are many reasons people don’t have sex, from religious beliefs, to physical ability, to a partner’s preferences. Depending on one’s age and relationship status, the path to involuntary celibacy can look very different. For instance, men and women with little relationship or sexual experience reported lack of experience to be the main reason for celibacy, in addition to social skills, body image, living arrangements, work arrangements, and transportation. Further, young adults tend to report feeling “off time.” In other words, they believe their peers are already having sex, a lot of sex, and they feel like they will never catch up.
Even though having sex is a key part of masculinity for most young men, some avoid feeling “off time” by pledging abstinence until marriage. These men do not feel less masculine than their peers. Instead, they reframe the choice as one that requires self-control and therefore their masculinity is dependent on not having sex until marriage.
While many people in partnered relationships — married or not — have sex at the beginning of the relationship, some report their relationship becomes “sexless” later on, often due to one partner’s sexual desires (or rather, lack thereof). While most view the lack of sex in their relationship as negative, they are often reluctant to leave a stable relationship. Many decide the benefits of staying, like strong emotional connections, outweigh the costs of leaving like financial instability and loneliness.

Opting In and Out of Motherhood

Amber Joy Powell on May 21, 2018
Photo by wilvia, Flickr CC

Images of smiling mothers and children flowed through our newsfeeds last week week as millions of Americans celebrated Mother’s Day. Yet, within the slew of digital odes to motherhood, many users posted messages of support for women who either voluntarily or involuntarily opted out of motherhood. Sociologists have long explored the meanings of motherhood and its social impacts on the women excluded from its definition.

Despite increasing support for gender equity, the traditional role of mother and the myth of ‘maternal instinct’ are still recognized as ‘natural’ rites of passage in a woman’s life. Women without children — particularly those who do not desire to have children — face stigma and criticism from friends, family and even coworkers that their childless status is abnormal and selfish. Even those who are involuntarily childless are portrayed as bereft and damaged. Childless women have resisted these depictions by expressing their reasons for opting out of motherhood. These include commitment to career aspirations, adverse childhood experiences, and idealistic perceptions of what good mothering looks like.
In the absence of children, people find alternative ways to form familial bonds. Contrary to cultural representations of  childless women as cold and selfish, Amy Blackstone illustrates how childless couples have more time to develop closeness through intimacy and sexual activity with their partners. Furthermore, some research suggests that women in childless relationships are more likely to earn higher incomes, work outside the home, and face less pressure to complete household duties traditionally relegated to women.
Women may also opt in to motherhood even after being staunchly against the idea. Some become pregnant unexpectedly, while others encounter life experiences, such as desire from one’s partner to have a child or the death of a loved one, that ultimately transform their plans from not wanting children to preparing for motherhood.