inequality

Barack Obama issued 78 pardons and 153 commutations before leaving office, including commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning. While commutations shorten the sentences of incarcerated individuals, but do not alter their criminal record, pardons remove the conviction from the individual’s record. Obama’s latest string of clemency decisions brings his administration’s total to 1,324, the majority of which were commutations.

Research on federal executive clemency shows that rates of clemency are highest when Democratic presidents are in power, when crime rates are lower, and during periods of war. Legal research also highlights variation between states, with certain governors utilizing clemency measures more than others, though not necessarily along party lines. While executive clemency was once a practice commonly employed by U.S. presidents, its use has declined in recent decades. This decreased use of executive clemency has coincided with a sharp increase in arrests, both of which have contributed to the substantial rise in incarcerated individuals across the U.S. 

• Bruce Western. 2006. “Punishment and Inequality in America.” Russell Sage Foundation.
• Margaret Colgate Love. 2010. “The Twilight of Pardon Power.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 100(3): 1169–1212.
• William M.Landes and Richard A. Posner. 2009. “The Economics of Presidential Pardons and Commutations.” The Journal of Legal Studies 38(1): 61–88.
• Rachel E. Barkow . 2009. “The Politics of Forgiveness: Reconceptualizing Clemency.” Federal Sentencing Reporter 21(3): 153–59.

Scholarship also hints at who is likely to receive a commutation or pardon. Analyses of death sentences shows that women, youth, the elderly, and those who have spent a significant amount of time on death row are more likely to have their death sentences commuted. Additionally, death penalty commutations are more common among governors who are not returning to office (lame duck) and when the death row population is particularly old. However, even though female prisoners are more likely to receive clemency, recent qualitative investigations of commutation hearings suggest that women encounter a systemic gender bias when applying for a pardon or commutation.

• Laura M. Argys and H. Naci Mocan. 2004. “Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? An Analysis of Prisoners on Death Row in the United States.” The Journal of Legal Studies 33(2): 255–82.
• Carol Jacobsen and Lora Bex Lempert 2013. “Institutional Disparities: Considerations of Gender in the Commutation Process for Incarcerated Women.” Signs 39(1): 265–89.

The New York Times recently faced criticism after publishing a factually incorrect op-ed about how much money people receiving SNAP benefits (food stamps) spend on soda and other sweetened beverages. In a piece challenging the findings, Professor of Public Policy Joe Soss revisits the numbers and finds no substantial difference in spending between people who receive these benefits and people who don’t. Non-SNAP households spend about four cents on soft drinks for every dollar on groceries, and SNAP households spend about five cents per dollar. Soss points out that this error perpetuates stereotypical moral judgments about the poor. Research finds time and time again that these moral judgments often miss the facts, but they nevertheless have a big impact on our social safety net policies.

Historical work finds that aid to the poor in the United States developed to be highly conditional — political leaders often justified policies by focusing on certain “deserving” categories of people like soldiers and mothers. As a result, moral narratives about who deserves aid became central to the policymaking process and continue to shape attitudes about helping the poor.

• Theda Skocpol. 1996. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
• Brian Steensland. 2006. “Cultural Categories and the American Welfare State: The Case of Guaranteed Income Policy.” American Journal of Sociology 111(5):1273–1326.
• Linda J. Skitka and Philip E. Tetlock. 1993. “Providing Public Assistance: Cognitive and Motivational Processes Underlying Liberal and Conservative Policy Preferences.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65(6):1205–23.

These moral narratives bias our thinking about people who are poor and hide the fact that they are often no different from people who aren’t. For example, despite efforts to drug test welfare recipients, substance use rates are not much higher among the poor. And single motherhood in poor communities does not come from different sexual behavior — it happens because poor mothers value family just as much as everyone else. By treating poor people as morally deviant, our public policy can do more harm than good.

• Bridget F. Grant and Deborah A. Dawson. 1996 “Alcohol and drug use, abuse, and dependence among welfare recipients.” American Journal of Public Health 86(10): 1450-1454.
• Kathyrn Edin and Maria Kefalas. 2005. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

In one of the largest days of protest in recent history, the Women’s March on Washington and its sister marches drew millions of people out into the streets of major American cities to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump and to call for protecting the rights of women, immigrants, and other groups that are likely to be further marginalized by the Trump administration. A look at research on past women’s movements sheds light on the ways that gender shapes when and how women protest, and the important roles they have played in social movement history.

While some argue that women are too diverse to constitute an “issue group,” women’s social mobilization around issues of reproductive, labor, and voting rights has had an important impact on movement culture in the United States. In fact, women’s groups were some of the first to work outside of the existing political system by relying on changing public opinion, rather than voting, as a movement strategy.

• Heather Mckee Hurwitz and Verta Taylor. 2012. “Women’s Cultures and Social Movements in Global Contexts.” Sociology Compass 6(10): 808-822.
• Holly McCammon, Ellen Granberg, Karen Campbell, and Christine Mowery. 2001. “How Movements Win: Gendered Opportunity Structures and U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movements, 1866 to 1919.” American Sociological Review 66(1): 49-70.
• Elisabeth S. Clemens. 1993. “Organizational Repertoires and Institutional Change: Women’s Groups and the Transformation of U.S. Politics, 1890-1920.” American Journal of Sociology 98(4): 755-798.

But women have to contend with a social movement culture that is structured around already pervasive gender norms, which means that the strategies used by women’s movements, and women’s roles in social movements more generally, are in many ways reflective of existing gender norms. For example, women’s movements are more likely to rely on nonviolent strategies, like marches, and women are more likely to be recruited into movement groups to perform nonviolent, gendered tasks, such as canvassing or managing the movement’s social networks.

• Selina Gallo-Cruz. 2016. “More Powerful Forces? Women, Nonviolence, and Mobilization.” Sociology Compass 10(9): 823- 835.
• Karen Beckwith. 2002. “Women, Gender, and Nonviolence in Political Movements.” PS: Political Science & Politics 35(1): 75-81.

Though women are often relegated to the subordinate roles and more menial tasks of political organizing, research finds that these roles have been a key ingredient to social movement success. A historical analysis of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. reveals that African American women acted as “bridge leaders,” making the necessary connections between movement leaders and constituents that helped grow the movement. Women have also played a vital role in the U.S. environmental justice movement and drawn on their grievances and experiences as mothers to challenge pollution and toxic waste.

• Belinda Robnett. 1996. “African-American Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965: Gender, Leadership, and Micromobilization.” American Journal of Sociology 101(6): 1661-1693.
• Celene Krauss. 1993. “Women and Toxic Waste Protests: Race, Class and Gender as Resources of Resistance.” Qualitative Sociology 16(3):247–62.
• Shannon Elizabeth Bell. 2013. Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice. University of Illinois Press.

The success of the recent Women’s March is further evidence that when women mobilize, they can be a powerful force for change. 

President Trump has made several high-profile picks for his cabinet, but he has one of the least diverse cabinets in recent history; there are no Latinos and very few other minorities or women. This has drawn criticism, but why is diversity a good thing for governments and other organizations? Social science research shows how diversity helps, but also how organizations often limit diversity by warping what it means to their members.  

Diversity can be quite beneficial for organizations. For example, schools with a more diverse student body experience superior educational outcomes. Similarly, in business, employee racial or gender diversity predicts higher sales revenue and market share.   

• Nida Denson and Mitchell J. Chang. 2009. “Racial Diversity Matters: The Impact of Diversity-Related Student Engagement and Institutional Context.” American Educational Research Journal 46(2): 322-353.
• Cedric Herring. 2009. “Does Diversity Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity.” American Sociological Review 74(2): 208-224.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to questions regarding the lack of diversity by stating that this cabinet is diverse; it has a “diversity of thinking…diversity of ideology.”  This is an example of how diversity acts as “Happy Talk,” a way people can show off their affections for modern equality without any attention to existing inequality. In short, many people talk about “diversity” in abstract ways, but avoid any real discussion of race, gender, and the like.

• Joyce Bell and Douglas Hartmann. 2007. “Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ‘Happy Talk’“ American Sociological Review 72(6): 895-914.

This inattention toward issues of race, gender, sexuality, and other axes of oppression can take the “oomph” out of claims to diversity and misses its original intent: increasing access for marginalized groups. Ellen Berrey succinctly describes the effects of watered down, amorphous diversity as “taming demands for racial justice.” As the remaining 5,000 cabinet sub-positions are filled, pay attention to whether these selections are diverse and what kind of “diversity” they really represent.

• David Embrick. 2011. “The Diversity Ideology in the Business World: A New Oppression for a New Age.” Critical Sociology 37(5): 541-556.
• Ellen Berrey. 2015. The Enigma of Diversity. University of Chicago Press; Chicago, IL.  

One of the most popular new movies in the past month was Hidden Figures, a film that highlights the forgotten story of three Black female NASA employees who were integral to the success of several U.S. space missions in the early 1960s. The film allows audiences to observe both the subtle and blatant instances of sexism and racism that plagued women in STEM, despite the prestige of the field. Over 50 years later, women’s employment in science, technology, engineering, and math remains low compared to that of their male peers, especially among minority women. Social science allows us to piece together where and how these gender differences develop, and how women within STEM careers successfully navigate their environments.

Despite growing numbers of women receiving college degrees, they remain underrepresented within STEM fields. While some research attempts to find biological explanations for gender and racial disparities, a myriad of social science scholars note that cultural stereotypes equate science and math studies with men’s work. As such, young women frequently experience lower self-confidence in their science and mathematical skills. Women of color, in particular, are less likely to attend elite schools with quality STEM programs and are more likely to experience family unemployment. These barriers limit access to the resources necessary to cultivate engagement with STEM studies.

• Yu Xie, Michael Fang, and Kimberlee Shauman. 2015. “STEM Education.” Annual Review of Sociology 41: 331-357.

High school environments account for much of the dearth of women in STEM careers. Research finds that 12th grade girls who attend high schools that fail to foster support for girls in science and mathematics, and that encourage gender segregation within extracurricular activities, are less likely to list a STEM career as a potential field of study.

• Joscha Legewie and Thomas A. DiPrete. 2014. “The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering.” Sociology of Education 87(4): 259-280.

When women enter STEM work spaces, they often experience microaggressions from their male peers, despite receiving the same degrees and having the same skills. Interviews with women working in technology firms revealed that those who identified as heterosexual and traditionally feminine recalled having a harder time in their workplaces because male peers avoided eye contact, questioned their work more than other male peers, and critiqued their clothing choices. Gender-fluid and LGBTQ women, on the other hand, reported an easier time navigating their predominantly male workplace because their styles conformed to the masculine subculture of the workplace.

• Lauren Alfrey and France Winddance Twine. 2016. “Gender-Fluid Geek Girls: Negotiating Inequality Regimes in the Tech Industry.” Gender & Society 31(1): 28-50.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments for Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, a case concerning allegations of racial bias in jury deliberations. Many states prohibit hearing juror testimony following the conclusion of a trial; however, following the deliberations of Peña-Rodriguez’s case, two jurors signed affidavits attesting to racial bias by a fellow juror. They allege that the juror referred to an alibi witness as discreditable because he was “an illegal,” and asserted that the defendant was guilty “because he’s Mexican.” After initially being struck down by both the trial judge and the Colorado Supreme Court, Peña-Rodriguez is now making his case to the highest court, a task which research suggests may prove extremely challenging.

In her book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander illustrates why challenging racial bias in juries is so difficult. Despite the passage of laws such as Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits prosecutors from discriminating on the basis of race when selecting juries, both prosecutors and defense attorneys are allowed peremptory strikes, or the ability to strike potential jurors for just about any reason they choose. Challenging instances of racial bias is even more difficult following the Supreme Court decision in Purkett v. Elm, which ruled that even if there is a pattern of striking a particular racial group by a prosecutor, providing any race-neutral reason (the prosecutor in this case used hair length) is enough to justify that the decision is not based on race.

• Nijole V. Benokaritis. 1982. Racial Exclusion in Juries. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18(1), 29-47.
• Hiroshi Fukurai. Edgar W. Butler, & Richard Krooth. 1991. Where Did Black Jurors Go? A Theoretical Synthesis of Racial Disenfranchisement in the Jury System and Jury Selection. Journal of Black Studies, 22(2), 196-215.

Moreover, it is not just legal precedents that solidify racial bias, but also the initial selection process itself that is discriminatory. Potential jurors are drawn from registered voters or Department of Motor Vehicle lists, which contain fewer minorities. Forty-seven states also restrict the rights of felons to serve on juries, which disproportionately limits the presence people of color. Most states and the federal government place a lifetime exclusion for felonies, which automatically bans nearly 30 percent of adult black men from jury service.

• Brian C. Kalt. 2003. Exclusion of Felons from Jury Service. American University Law Review, 53, 1-149.
• Darren Wheelock. 2005. Collateral Consequences and Racial Inequality: Felon Status Restrictions as a System of Disadvantage. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 21(1), 82-90.

In short, jury selection is not only inherently racially biased, but many Supreme Court decisions appear to support a system of racial discrimination rather than dismantle it. As a result, legal precedents such as the rules of evidence may bolster, or at the very least shield, racial bias within jury deliberations.

The ways that non-Western victims of violence and poverty are portrayed in the news is problematic. For example, on the 6th of October this year, The New York Times had an above-the-fold image of migrants on its front page. The image was of several dead and dying African migrants on a boat and, troubling as this may be, the image was not an anomaly. Consider the images we have recently seen from Syria — from the drowned child on the beach to the dazed child covered in dust pulled out of a bombed building. Social scientists explains how the choice to use these kinds of images is neither an objective nor an accidental process.

News images are rarely meant to teach us something new, rather, they are meant to reaffirm what we already know while tugging at our heartstrings. Nowhere is this more evident than during instances of instability and violence in the Global South. Even in death and suffering, non-Western victims are denied their privacy; their pain is meant to be consumed by the audience while reaffirming real and symbolic differences.

• Barbara Rosenblum. 1978. “Style as Social Process.” American Sociological Review 43:422–38.
• Keith Greenwood and C. Zoe Smith. 2007. “How the World looks to Us: International News in Award-winning Photographs from the Pictures of the Year, 1943-2003.” Journalism Practice 1(1): 82-101.
• Marta Zarzycka and Martijn Kleppe. 2013. “Awards, Archives, and Affects: Tropes in the World Press Photo Contest, 2009-11.” Media Culture and Society 35(8): 977-995.

Images of pain and suffering are less about an increase in “bad” things happening and more about how  we understand the consumption of pain, suffering, and death of victims that are “Other.” They allow us to consume the pain of others from the comfort of our living rooms while reminding us of how “good” we have it.

• Kari Andén-Papadopoulos. 2008. “The Abu Ghraib torture photographs: News frames, visual culture, and the power of images.” Journalism 9(1): 5-30.
• Alexander Nikolaev. 2009. “Images of War: Content Analysis of the Photo Coverage of the War in Kosovo.“ Critical Sociology 35(1):105-130.

In the case of Africa and Africans especially, the use of images has a long and troubled history. Research continually shows that images of Africans are often steeped in stereotypes of Africans as simplistic, tribal, “noble savages,” and primitive.

• Guy Berger. 2010. “Image Revisions: South Africa, Africa, and the 2010 World Cup.“ Equid Novi: African Journalism Studies 31(2):174-190.
• Melinda Robins. 2003. “‘Lost Boys’ and the Promised Land: US Newspaper Coverage of Sudanese Refugees.“ Journalism 4(1): 29-49

The defining images of 1960s Africa are of starving Biafran children. The image of the 1990s is that of a vulture stalking an emaciated Sudanese child near the village of Ayod in South Sudan by Kevin Carter. Such images often reaffirm stereotypes of the continent and its peoples as ‘starving’, ‘chaotic’, or ‘sick’. This history makes it possible to plaster images of dead and dying migrants on a boat across the front page of an American newspaper with little to no discussion of the structural factors leading to their deaths.

• Jo Ellen Fair and Lisa Parks. 2001. “Africa on Camera: Television News Coverage and Aerial Imaging of Rwandan Refugees.” Africa Today 48(2): 35-57.
• Minabere Ibelema. 2014. “Africa’s Otherness: Changes and Resilience in News Coverage.“ Journalism & Communication Monographs 16(2): 162-217.
• Austin Okigbo and Bellarmine Ezumah. 2015. “Media Health Images of Africa and the Politics of Representation: A South African AIDS Choir Counter-Narrative.” Journal of Asian and African Studies.

Marvel’s new series focusing on superhero Luke Cage debuted on Netflix in late September to critical acclaim. The show boasts a 95% rating on RottenTomatoes and was called “one of the most socially relevant and smartest shows on the small screen you will see this year,” by Deadline.com’s Dominic Patten. Aside from its artistic merits, commentaries also praise the prominence of Luke Cage as a “bulletproof black man in a hoodie,” with the show’s star Michael Colter telling The Huffington Post: “It’s a nod to Trayvon, no question … Trayvon Martin and people like him. People like Jordan Davis, a kid who was shot because of the perception that he was a danger. When you’re a black man in a hoodie all of a sudden you’re a criminal.”

Comic books and comic book culture have slowly become more diverse as companies like Marvel have begun prioritizing the inclusion of racial minorities in their stories. Kamala Khan, a Muslim teen, has replaced the white hero Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel. The hero replacing Iron Man is a black teen named Riri Williams. And Miles Morales, a black Hispanic teen, replaced the white Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Yet despite its recent progressive slant, Marvel and other comic companies have had issues with racial stereotyping, particularly with their black heroes. Marc Singer describes how the medium of comics relies on racialized representations, with appearance being a major way to distinguish characters from one another. 

• Marc Singer. 2002. “Black Skins” and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review 36(1), 107-119.
• Adilifu Nama. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Super Heroes. University of Texas Press.
• Herman Gray. 2013. “Subject(ed) to Recognition.” American Quarterly (65:4), 771-798.

This is also heavily tied up in the portrayal of superheroes as super-masculine. When the racial aspect of this dynamic is uncovered, we see a complicated history. Rob Lendrum traces these heroes to the “blaxploitation” era of film/media in the 1970s, arguing that many superheroes were influenced by this culture, including Luke Cage. Jeffrey A. Brown sees these images as one-note and compares them to the black-owned works of Milestone Media Inc. comics.

• Jeffrey A. Brown. 1999. “Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero.” African American Review 33(1), 25-42.
• Rob Lendrum. 2005. “The Super Black Macho, One Baaad Mutha: Black Superhero Masculinity in 1970s Mainstream Comic Books.” Extrapolation 46(3), 360-372.

Scientific and technological innovations have given humans a number of new methods to manage fertility and create families. One of the more recent advances in this area is the controversial birth of a child with genetic material from three parents, rather than two. Social scientists find that while these new technologies have helped countless individuals grow their families, their use and availability often reproduce class and gender inequalities. 

Families have always come in forms other than that of the Cleaver’s. Many parents have children from more than one partner. Other families have same-sex parents, single parents, or are childless, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Invitrofertilization (IVF) and surrogacy are options for some women who have trouble conceiving, but the procedures are very expensive and not as easily available for people across socioeconomic lines. As a result, research finds that the framing of infertility as an individual issue rather than one related to structural constraints places stigma on childless women.

• Mary Lyndon Shanley and Adrienne Asch. 2009. “Involuntary Childlessness, Reproductive Technology, and Social Justice: The Medical Mask on Social Illness.” Signs 34(4): 851-874

These conditions have created an exploding market for new reproductive technologies. The science of freezing eggs and sperm has resulted in egg and sperm banks where people can donate sex cells for compensation. Although both an egg and a sperm are required to create an embryo, the recruitment and marketing for these services is different for men than women. Women are more likely to be recruited to provide an “altruistic service” and donate their eggs to infertile women; the staff at egg banks have been found to capitalize on cultural norms of motherhood to construct egg donation as a gift exchange. As a result, there are far more women than men participating in this kind of service, even though it is much less physically invasive for men.

Katherine M. Johnson and Richard M. Simon. 2012. “Women’s Attitudes Toward Biomedical Technology for Infertility: The Case for Technological Salience.” Gender and Society 26(2): 261-289.

Lauren Jade Martin. 2010. “Anticipating Infertility: Egg Freezing, Genetic Preservation, and Risk.“ Gender and Society 24(4): 526-545.

Rene Almeling. 2007. “Selling Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks, and the Medical Market in Genetic Material.” American Sociological Review 72(3) 319-340.

It’s no secret that the U.S. lags behind many other countries in terms of the number of women in politics. In Congress and state legislatures, women occupy less than a quarter of available positions. Hillary Clinton enters this arena, hoping to be the first female president in the US (but not first in the world: see Mindy Fried’s “Global Women at the Top”). Sexist critiques of Clinton range from criticizing her voice for being too loud, too shrill, and too naggy, to anti-Clinton merchandise that reads, “Don’t be a pussy. Vote for Trump,” or “Hillary sucks but not as hard as Monica.”

While there is some incentive for women to enter male-dominated fields–the pay and status is often greater–there are also negative consequences. Sexual harassment may function as a form of backlash against powerful women who challenge gender norms by entering male-dominated fields or positions. Many women report sexual harassment at work and female supervisors report especially high levels. These consequences occur on a much broader scale, as well. For instance, when women enter occupational fields traditionally dominated by men in large numbers, the average pay for those jobs decreases over time. To explain this phenomenon, scholars point to society’s devaluing of women’s work more generally.

• Youngjoo Chaa and Kim A. Weeden. 2014. “Overwork and the Slow Convergence in the Gender Gap in Wages.”  American Sociological Review 79(3): 457-484.
• Asaf Levanon, Paula England, and Paul Allison. 2009. “Occupational Feminization and Pay: Assessing Causal Dynamics Using 1950-2000 U.S. Census Data.” Social Forces  88(2):865-892.
• Christopher Uggen and Amy Blackstone. 2004. “Sexual Harassment as a Gendered Expression of Power.” American Sociological Review 6(1):64-92.

So, what happens when men enter fields traditionally dominated by women? In workplaces where women often outnumber men, such as nursing, men actually advance much faster and to higher positions than their female counterparts. This mechanism is known as “the glass escalator.” Moreover, when men are outnumbered by women in a workplace, they perceive more support from coworkers and supervisors than women who work in male-dominated jobs.

• Christine L. Williams. 1992. “The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the ‘Female’ Professions.” Social Problems 39(3):53-267.
• Catherine Taylor. 2010. “Occupational Sex Composition and the Gendered Availability of Workplace Support.” Gender & Society 24(2):189-212.

Overall men benefit from working in female-dominated fields, while women face greater burdens when they work in male-dominated fields. It is no surprise that Hillary Clinton is experiencing her fair share of harassment and critique: Not only is she pursuing a position dominated by men, but one that has only been occupied by men.

For more on this, check out our TROTs on female leaders and sexual harassment in law professions, as well as this Soc Images post, “Why Aren’t There More Women in Politics?”