politics

Originally posted October 9, 2017

In recent years,  an increasing number of Americans are celebrating Indigenous People’s Day to honor those who suffered at the hands of explorers like Christopher Columbus. Social science research helps us understand the underlying gender and racial components of colonial settlement in the United States.

In what is now the United States, Andrea Smith argues that sexual conquest — the rape of native women — was closely tied to the conquest of land. Europeans perceived the indigenous people that inhabited the Americas as uncivilized. Ideas of white civility deemed native women as hypersexual and uncontrollable, unlike white women, whose perceived purity they could not match. These ideas of native women’s sexuality allowed for European males to rape native women without consequence.

• Andrea Smith. 2003 “Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples.” Hypatia 18(2): 70-85.
• Joane Nagel. 2003. Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ideas about native men’s and women’s  inferiority were also important for white men’s identities. In the U.S., white settlers believed themselves to be superior to indigenous peoples, bringing enlightenment to an empty wilderness. White, male identity was thus closely tied to the control of land and ownership of property.  

• Evelyn Nakano Glenn. 2015. “Settler Colonialism as Structure: A framework for Comparative Studies of US Race and Gender Formation.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1(1): 54-74.

Colonizers viewed land as a metaphor for women’s subjugation. Land – similar to women – was something to be taken and possessed by European men. For example, Europeans who colonized parts of Africa referred to the continent as “virgin land.” Just as virginity was used to describe young women who are perceived as pure and untainted by sex, referring to unconquered land as “virgin” reflects the European’s beliefs that it was also pure, untainted, and ripe for European colonization.

• Anne McClintock. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.

Originally posted November 28, 2017.

American attitudes towards transgender and gender nonconforming persons might be changing. Earlier this month, voters elected six transgender officials to public office in the United States, and poll data from earlier this year suggests the majority of Americans oppose transgender bathroom restrictions and support LGBT nondiscrimination laws. Yet, data on attitudes toward transgender folks is extremely limited, and with the Trump administration’s assault on transgender protections in the military and workplace, the future for the trans community is unclear. Despite this uncertainty, a close examination of the social science research on past shifts in attitudes towards same-sex relationships can provide us insight for what the future may hold for the LGBTQ community in the coming decades.

Attitudes about homosexuality vary globally. While gay marriage is currently legal in more than twenty countries, many nations still criminalize same-sex relationships. Differences in attitudes about homosexuality between countries can be explained by a variety of factors, including religious context, the strength of democratic institutions, and the country’s level of economic development.

• Amy Adamczyk. 2017.  Cross-National Public Opinion about Homoseuxality: Examining Attitudes Across the Globe. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

In the United States, the late 1980s witnessed little acceptance of same-sex marriage, except for small groups of people who tended to be highly educated, from urban backgrounds, or non-religious. By 2010, support for same-sex marriage increased dramatically, though older Americans, Republicans, and evangelicals were significantly more likely to remain opposed to same-sex marriage. Such a dramatic shift in a relatively short period of time indicates changing attitudes rather than generational differences.

• Dawn Michelle Baunach. 2012. “Changing Same-Sex Marriage Attitudes in America from 1988 Through 2010.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76(2): 364-378.
• Kathy Hull. 2014. “Same-Sex, Different Attitudes.” The Society Pages, White Paper.

Americans have also become more inclusive in their definition of family. In 2003, nearly half of Americans emphasized heterosexual marriage in their definition of family, while only about a quarter adopted a definition that included same-sex couples. By 2010, nearly one third of Americans ascribed to a more inclusive understanding of family structures. Evidence suggests that these shifts in attitudes were partially the result of broader societal shifts in the United States, including increased educational attainment and changing cultural norms.

• Brian Powell, Catherine Bolzendahl, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman. 2010. Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and America’s Definition of Family. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Jeni Loftus. 2001. “America’s Liberalization in Attitudes Toward Homosexuality, 1973 to 1998.” American Sociological Review, 762-782.

Despite this progress for same-sex couples, many challenges remain. Members of the LGBTQ community still experience prejudice, discrimination, and hate crimes — especially for trans women of color. Even with support for formal rights for same-sex couples from the majority of Americans, the same people are often uncomfortable with informal privileges, like showing physical affection in public. Past debates within LGBTQ communities about the importance of fighting for marriage rights indicates that the future for the LGBTQ folks in the United States is uncertain. While the future can seem harrowing, the recent victories in the United States and Australia for same-sex couples and transgender individuals would have been unheard of only a few decades ago, which offers a beacon of hope to LGBTQ communities.

• Long Doan, Annalise Loehr, and Lisa R. Miller. 2014. “Formal Rights and Informal Privileges for Same-Sex Couples: Evidence from a National Survey Experiment.” American Sociological Review 79(6): 1172-1195.
• Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor, eds. 2013. The Marrying Kind? Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Want to read more?

Check out these posts on TSP:

• Violence and Discrimination against Transgender People
• Attitudes toward Gay and Lesbian People Have Grown More Accepting around the World. Why? And What Obstacles Remain?

Review historical trends in public opinion on gay and lesbian rights (Gallup)

Check out research showing that bisexual adults are less likely to be “out” (Pew Research Center)

In 2014, Boko Haram made global headlines when militants kidnapped 276 girls from school in Nigeria. Policy makers, activists, and celebrities across the globe mobilized, calling for action to #BringBackOurGirls. But in the case of child soldiers, the moral lines are often less clear because they are simultaneously victims and perpetrators. Ex-Boko Haram fighters, including at least 8,000 children, currently face a new battle as they seek to reintegrate into civilian life despite stigma. Research on the social construction of victimhood and childhood can help us better understand child soldiers.

Ideas around morality, righteousness, and innocence of victimhood differ across time and place. In World War I, for example, soldiers who suffered from trauma were treated as weak or unpatriotic by superiors and medical professionals. In the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, humanitarian actors and mental health professionals led movements to redefine victims of violence as worthy of respectability and reverence. Characterizations of victimhood are also contrasted with perpetrators — the innocent, passive victim is defined in opposition to the active, wrong-doing perpetrator. Sociologists examine how such labels are constructed, and in practice, moral lines are rarely so clear.

• Trudy Govier. 2015. Victims and Victimhood. Peterborough: Broadview Press.
• Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman. 2009. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into theCondition of Victimhood. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Aliza Luft. 2015. “Toward a Dynamic Theory of Action at the Micro Level of Genocide: Killing, Desistance, and Saving in 1994 Rwanda” Sociological Theory 33(2): 148-172.

Media outlets often depict child soldiers as helpless victims who are abducted and indoctrinated by militia groups. This is due to media representations of children as innocent and naive.  However, many children volunteer to enlist due to survival techniques. Thus, scholars have sought to depict child soldiers as “agentic,” rather than passive victims. While the media emphasizes the binary between childhood and adulthood, child soldiers occupy an ambiguous space between these categories. This ambiguity is the result of a child soldier being capable of extraordinary violence and simultaneously symbolizing the innocence of childhood. Scholars argue that challenges to reintegration stem from how children have been socialized into militias, as well as their young ages.

• Lucille Gretry. 2011. “Child Soldiers: Our Representation Challenged by their Reality.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 31(9/10): 583-593.
• Lorraine MacMillan. 2009. “The Child Soldier in North-South Relations.” International Political Sociology 3: 36-52.

While child soldiers occupy the muddy moral grounds of victimhood, these categories remain important,  particularly for issues of restorative justice and reintegration in their communities. 

For more on victimhood across different contexts, see these TROTs:

• Peace and Conflict in Northern Ireland
• Competitive Victimhood in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

We at The Society Pages have written about the study of “white supremacy” in social science. This term can be used to describe overarching patterns of privilege and power that favor whites or a term that bigotry, prejudice, and belief that whites are a superior race. It may be easy to think that this latter meaning has become less relevant in the contemporary, “post-racial” world, but this is not the case.

In recent years, beliefs about the superiority of whites have actually re-emerged within the political mobilization of populist attitudes, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Right-wing political beliefs in Western democracies. To capture these distinctive and troubling realities, scholars, reporters, and cultural commentators have increasingly begun to use the term “white nationalism.” White nationalism is not just a remnant of outdated, obsolete prejudice; rather, it is has been reconfigured and revitalized for the new global world.

Modern white nationalist rhetoric constructs the image of a historically white country and populace under attack amidst a world of 21st-century immigration, globalization, and shifting racial landscapes. By advancing nativist rhetoric and mobilizing such sentiments in the political arena, white nationalist organizations forwarded understandings of “white” that draw on the idea that the Western world is meant for white people. This has had important political consequences in the USA and Europe; politicians and parties who advance anti-immigration platforms have been bolstered by these dynamics.

• Bart Bonikowski and Paul DiMaggio. 2016. “Varieties of American Popular Nationalism.” American Sociological Review 81(5): 949-980.
• Bart Bonikowski. 2017. “Ethno‐nationalist Populism and the Mobilization of Collective Resentment.” The British Journal of Sociology 68: S181-S213.
• Magne Flemmen and Mike Savage. 2017. “The Politics of Nationalism and White Racism in the UK.” The British Journal of Sociology 68: S233-S264.

Even though relatively few politicians and political parties have openly endorsed white nationalist statements, research shows that white nationalist rhetoric and nativist messages can impact political discourse even among moderate groups. In essence, the presence of white nationalist rhetoric can shape the contours of political discourse more generally. Research has studied such dynamics with an eye to common digital media of the 21^st century; the discursive impacts of white nationalist rhetoric are particularly visible in studies of the Internet, social media, and other such platforms. In the 21st century, prominence in the digital sphere is important to how contemporary white nationalist groups make their presence felt. 

• Christopher A. Bail. 2014. Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream. Princeton University Press.
• Tjitske Akkerman. 2015. “Immigration Policy and Electoral Competition in Western Europe: A Fine-grained Analysis of Party Positions Over the Past Two Decades.” Party Politics 21(1): 54-67.
• Roderick Graham. 2016. “Inter-ideological Mingling: White Extremist Ideology Entering the Mainstream on Twitter.” Sociological Spectrum 36(1): 24-36.
• Amelia Johns. 2017. “Flagging White Nationalism ‘After Cronulla’: From the Beach to the Net.” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38(3): 349-364.
• Reinhard Heinisch, Steven Saxonberg, Annika Werner, and Fabian Habersack. 2019. “The Effect of Radical Right Fringe Parties on Main Parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Empirical Evidence from Manifesto Data.” Party Politics 1-13

It is important to remember white nationalism and right-wing beliefs are not simply empty rhetoric without material consequence. Authors have described how white nationalist rhetoric and organization can affect electoral results — the “Brexit” vote being one of the most obvious current examples. In addition, upticks in white nationalism and nativist sentiment have been paralleled by increased hostility and violence against minority and immigrant populations, as well as the institutionalization of laws that restrict such groups’ rights by targeting their cultural and religious practices. For example, the push for “burqa bans” in several European countries reflects mobilization by nativist groups that has cast the burqa as a symbolic challenge to national identity. This and example and ones like it highlight the white nationalist belief that the nation should be defined by whiteness and designed for whites.

• Eric Kaufmann. 2019. “Can Narratives of White Identity Reduce Opposition to Immigration and Support for Hard Brexit? A Survey Experiment.” Political Studies 67(1): 31-46
• Thomas J. Scotto, David Sanders, and Jason Reifler. 2018. “The Consequential Nationalist–Globalist Policy Divide in Contemporary Britain: Some Initial Analyses.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 28(1): 38-58.
• David C. Atkinson. 2018. “Charlottesville and the Alt-right: ATturning Point?” Politics, Groups, and Identities 1(2): 309-315.
• Marian Burchardt, Zeynep Yanasmayan, and Matthias Koenig. 2019. “The Judicial Politics of Burqa Bans in Belgium and Spain—Socio-Legal Field Dynamics and the Standardization of Justificatory Repertoires.” Law & Social Inquiry 44(2): 333-358.

Recently, the Trump administration announced they would continue federal executions this coming year, despite the fact there had been no federal executions in nearly two decades. This announcement comes soon after a recent Supreme Court decision reversing Curtis Flower’s death penalty conviction for racial bias in jury selection by a Mississippi prosecutor. This is not the first case about racial bias that has made it to the Supreme Court (see: Furman v. Georgia, McCleskey v. Kemp), nor will it be the last. Social science research demonstrates racial disparities are common in death penalty cases, but racism is not the only factor.

Racial bias in jury decisions is one way black defendants are disadvantaged in capital punishment cases. Research by Mona Lynch and Craig Haney shows that white male jurors are more likely to sentence black defendants to death than women and jurors of color. These jurors often use emotion-based tactics to sway other jurors to their side — and to racially-biased outcomes.

• Mona Lynch and Craig Haney. 2011 “Mapping the Racial Bias of the White Male Capital Juror: Jury Composition and the ‘Empathic Divide’.” Law & Society Review 45(1): 69-101.
• Mona Lynch and Craig Haney. 2015. “Emotion, Authority, and Death: (Raced) Negotiations in Mock Capital Jury Deliberations.” Law & Social Inquiry 40(2): 377-405.

The race of the victim — perhaps more than the race of the defendant — plays an extremely important role in the probability a defendant will face the death penalty, and the likelihood the defendant will eventually be executed. Research finds that black and Hispanic death row inmates convicted of killing white victims face a higher likelihood they will be executed than others on death row. 

• David Jacobs, Zhenchao Qian, Jason T. Carmichael, Stephanie L. Kent. 2007. “Who Survives on Death Row? An Individual and Contextual Analysis.” American Sociological Review 72(4): 610-632.
• Michael L. Radelet. 1981. “Racial Characteristics and the Imposition of the Death Penalty.” American Sociological Review 46(6): 918-927.

Racist histories — like the presence of lynchings — as well as a higher percentage of blacks living in the area increase the number of death sentences. Beyond race, political factors, like public support for the death penalty and Republican strength, also influence yearly executions. Other factors include national level Republican strength, presidential elections that emphasize law and order, economic inequality, and higher murder rates. Further, the presence of liberal political values may explain the absence of death sentences. 

• David Jacobs and Stephanie L. Kent. 2007. “The Determinants of Executions since 1951: How Politics, Protests, Public Opinion, and Social Divisions Shape Capital Punishment.” Social Problems 54(3): 297-318.
• David Jacobs, Jason T. Carmichael, Stephanie L. Kent. 2005. “Vigilantism, Current Racial Threat, and Death Sentences.” American Sociological Review 70(4): 656-677.

The death penalty’s role in deterrence is contested, but its racial impact is not. Using research on racial bias, social scientists have helped change death penalty policy in the United States. A report by Katherine Beckett and colleagues played a key role in Washington’s decision to abolish the death penalty in 2018. The report found that prosecutors were significantly more likely to file a death notice in a county with a relatively large black population, and juries were 4.5 times more likely to sentence black defendants to death than defendants of other races. 

You may also be interested in a previous article: Racial and Regional Differences in Support for the Death Penalty.”

For more information and data on the death penalty, check out the Death Penalty Information Center.

Originally posted February 16, 2017.

The narrow confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education has served as a catalyst for renewed conflict over public education in the United States. DeVos is a strong proponent of private education and charter schools, and this concerns supporters of a strong public school system. Social science comparing the two approaches shows distinct benefits of public schools and questions whether more choice in schooling really helps everyone.

The argument for private and charter schooling is based on the benefits of competition: when public schools don’t perform well, offering parents a broader set of choices forces them to compete and improve. While people often worry about public schools “failing,” it turns out that many schools with low standardized test scores actually do fine in terms of learning outcomes and whether learning persists over the summer.

• Douglas B. Downey, Paul T. von Hippel, Melanie Hughes. 2008. “Are ‘Failing’ Schools Really Failing? Using Seasonal Comparison to Evaluate School Effectiveness.” Sociology of Education. 81(3): 242 – 270

School choice can also reinforce inequality because people in poor and minority communities rarely have a similar set of schools to choose from. Many social scientists have found that the positive outcomes for students in charter schools are often limited to more privileged or affluent children.

• Patrick Denice, Betheny Gross. 2016. “Choice, Preferences, and Constraints: Evidence from Public School Applications in Denver.” Sociology of Education. 89(4): 300 – 320
• Peter M. Rich, Jennifer L. Jennings 2015. “Choice, Information, and Constrained Options: School Transfers in a Stratified Educational System” American Sociological Review 80(5): 1069-1098
• Mark Berends. 2015. Sociology and School Choice: What We Know After Two Decades of Charter Schools.  Annual Review of Sociology 41: 159-180

Regardless of the possible benefits of competition that supporters of private schools claim, public schools simply do better when they receive more funding — funding that could be at risk if funds and focus are shifted primarily to private schools.

• Diane Ravitch. 2013. Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Vintage.
• Richard Arum. 1996. “Do Private Schools Force Public Schools to Compete?” American Sociological Review 61(1): 29–46.

For more, see a previous TROT on charter schools.

Originally posted April 26, 2017.

The Trump administration recently announced plans to cut federal public school programs designed to help students who need financial assistance. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney explained that, although programs like free and reduced lunches and after-school activities are supposed to help kids do better in school, “there’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that.” Well, social science begs to differ.

To start, research does show that programs providing low-income students with free or reduced-cost lunches have positive impacts, as proper nutrition is essential for academic achievement and educational success. And providing these lunches has been found to lead to a decrease in disruptive behavior. Importantly, research shows that cutting programs like these would mean that the poorest, most at-risk youth would bear the brunt of the blow, losing observed benefits to academic and social skills that subsidized lunches have been shown to provide.

• Godwin Ashiabi. 2005. “Household Food Insecurity and Children’s School Engagement.” Journal of Children and Poverty 11(1): 3-17.
• Christelle Roustit, Anne-Marie Hamelin, Francesca Grillo, Judith Martin, Pierre Chauvin. 2010. “Food Insecurity: Could School Food Supplementation Help Break Cycles of Intergenerational Transmission of Social Inequalities?“ Pediatrics 126(6): 1174-1181.
• Michael Vaughn, Christopher P. Salas-Wright, Sandra Naeger, Jin Huang and Alex R. Piquero. 2016. “Childhood Reports of Food Neglect and Impulse Control Problems and Violence in Adulthood.”  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13(4): 389-408

In addition to lunch programs, extracurricular and after-school activities are threatened under the proposed Trump budget. But there is research that finds these programs can be beneficial. Students involved in after-school programs have been found to experience a variety of positive effects, such as increased attendance at school, a jump in reading comprehension, and a drop in disciplinary referrals. Participating in these programs can predict lower disciplinary measures for students, even for students who are at higher-risk for delinquency. Notably, though there is often a narrative that black students in urban environments are the most “at-risk” and in need of such programs, research shows that African-American students are actually more likely to be involved in after-school activities than white students

• Kathryn Hynes and Felicia Sanders. 2011. “Diverging Experiences During Out-of-School Time: The Race Gap in Exposure to After-School Program.“ Journal of Negro Education 80(4): 464-476.
• Robert Apsler. 2009. After-school Programs for Adolescents: A Review of Evaluation Research. Adolescence 44(173).
• Igor Himelfab, Andrew Lac, and Hadar Baharav. 2014. “Examining School-Related Delinquencies, Extracurricular Activities, and Grades in Adolescents.” Educational Studies 40(1): 81-97.

However, getting at risk-youth to participate in after-school programs is not always easy. There are a wide variety of programs available, but those intended to provide non-delinquent options to at-risk youth often face the greatest uphill battle. Factors determining youth delinquency, such as issues at home, are difficult for extracurriculars to overcome. On a more individual basis, however, extracurricular programs can have meaningful, positive impacts in the long run by giving participants skills, passions, and experiences that prove useful later in life. This complicates the Trump administration’s assertion that  these programs should be cut because they “don’t work.” Rather, paying attention to how they work can lead to more positive impacts and greater availability for America’s students.

• Amanda Brown Cross, Denise C. Gottfredson, Denise M. Wilson, Melissa Rorie, and Nadine Connell. 2009. “The Impact of After-School Programs on the Routine Activities of Middle-School Students: Results from a Randomized, Controlled Trial.” Criminology & Public Policy 8(2): 391-412
• Ingrid Nelson. 2017. Why Afterschool Matters. Rutgers University Press.

The Northern Triangle region of Central America — composed of the nations of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — is considered one of the most violent regions in the world outside of a war zone. In addition to a de facto state of war against highly organized and well-armed nonstate actors, extrajudicial killings by both the police and citizens of local gang members and criminals reveal both the ineffectiveness of state action in preventing violence and the desperation of local communities for security. Research on vigilante forms of justice in the region demonstrates how weak state institutions, like inadequate police forces, inefficient judicial systems, and corruption, can contribute to citizens taking the law into their own hands to provide justice and security in their communities.

Ineffective and inaccessible criminal justice institutions create a void that fosters mob action and vigilante justice. In Latin America, linchamientos, a form of collective vigilantism, reflect communities’ dissatisfaction with state authority and the desire to have autonomy in their own affairs. In rural Guatemala, for example, linchamientos have been considered a legacy of the nation’s brutal civil war (1960-1996). Today, they still function as a form of community justice against local criminals, due to the perceived corruption, inefficiency, and illegitimacy of official police forces.

• Francis Fukuyama. 2004. “The Imperative of State-Building.” Journal of Democracy 15(2): 17-31.
• Jim Handy. 2004. “Chicken Thieves, Witches, and Judges: Vigilante Justice and Customary Law in Guatemala.” Journal of Latin American Studies 36: 533-561.
• José Miguel Cruz. 2016. “State and Criminal Violence in Latin America.” Crime, Law and Social Change 66(4): 375-396. 
• José Miguel Cruz and Gema Santamaría. 2019. “Determinants of Support for Extralegal Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Latin American Research Review 54(1): 50–68.

Widespread political problems generate conditions of ‘statelessness’ in which citizens are more likely to ignore legal avenues of conflict resolution to engage in violent “self‐help.” In Guatemala and Honduras, for instance, conflicts over land have fostered a continuous cycle of violence between peasants and elites. State ineffectiveness not only incentivises citizens to take justice into their own hands, but also enables the expansion of private security, the militarization of police forces, and even alliances between vigilante groups and the state’s armies. In Mexico, when the police have fallen short of providing adequate security in the last decade, organized vigilante groups have battled powerful drug cartels. The Mexican state has assimilated these groups as a way to both expand the fight against crime and keep vigilantes under its control. 

• Teresa Caldeira. 2012. “Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation.”  Pp. 419-427 in The Urban Sociology Reader. Routledge.
• Amy E. Nivette. 2016. “Institutional Ineffectiveness, Illegitimacy, and Public Support for Vigilantism in Latin America.” Criminology 54(1): 142-175.
• Gema Santamaría. 2015. “Drugs, Gangs and Vigilantes: How to Tackle the New Breeds of Mexican Armed Violence.” Estudios Internacionales 181: 115-134.

In a number of cases in Latin America, the inability of states to provide social order, security, and justice has led citizens to take up arms and attempt to do it themselves. Just as vigilante justice can challenge the power of the state and support for democratic governance, however, confidence in law enforcement can strengthen democracy by reducing the need for extralegal justice. 

• Daniel Zizumbo-Colunga. 2017. “Community, Authorities, and Support for Vigilantism: Experimental Evidence.” Political Behavior 39: 989-1015.

A historic inquiry into missing and murdered women in Canada has determined that the nation committed genocide against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. The violence stems from a long history of colonial and patriarchal violence, according to the report’s authors. Moreover, they suggest that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence” still today. Recent sociological research shows that the heightened risk of violence faced by Indigenous women in Canada is also deeply entwined with social stigmatization, poverty, and the lingering impacts of reservations on housing and schools.

With racism and colonization, Indigenous women in Canada have long been labelled as promiscuous, immoral, and sexually available. Today, these stereotypes contribute to victim-blaming and a lack of attention to cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. More specifically, law enforcement regularly dismisses reports of missing women and girls as runaways or partiers and, with the media, use these stereotypes to blame these women for making bad choices that contribute to their own victimization.

• Paulina Garía-Del Moral. 2018. “The Murders of Indigenous Women in Canada as Feminicides: Toward a Decolonial Intersectional Reconceptualization of Femicide.” Signs 43(4): 929–954.

Yet many women who hitchhike
do so for social and material reasons. Ever since the creation of reservations, these women face barriers to transportation and mobility. Such challenges are only exacerbated by poverty and homelessness. For Indigenous women and girls in other words, hitchhiking a logical, even necessary form of travel.

• Katherine Morton. 2016. “Hitchhiking and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Billboards on the Highway of Tears.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 41(3): 299-326.

Then, there is also the
problem of violence committed by law enforcement officers themselves. Even when publicized (as one egregious such case from 2011 was) police officers rarely face prosecution — further reinforcing the idea that Indigenous women and girls can be exploited with impunity. These abuses of power are part of systemic injustices in the criminal justice system, from denial of medical care while incarcerated to jury acquittals in murder trials. 

• Pamela Palmater. 2016. “Shining Light on the Dark Places: Addressing Police Racism and Sexualized Violence against Indigenous Women and Girls in the National Inquiry.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 31(1): i-vii.
• Julie Kayes. 2016. “Reconciliation in the Context of Settler‐Colonial Gender Violence: ‘How Do We Reconcile with an Abuser?’” Canadian Review of Sociology 53(4).
• Josephine L. Savarese. 2017. “Challenging Colonial Norms and Attending to Presencing in Stories of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 29(1): 157-181.

Prime Minister Trudeau has assured the Canadian public that his government will take action in response to this report. But with a history of abuse and broken promises, it should not be surprising that many Indigenous people are skeptical that anything will really change.

For in-depth reporting on more of these cases, listen to the CBC podcast, Missing & Murdered.

Originally published on June 29, 2018.

In the United States, tension between religious institutions and the LGBT community persists, even after the legalization of same-sex marriage. While some faith groups are becoming open and affirming, the recent Supreme Court decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and stories of LGBTQIA+ exclusion at religiously-affiliated institutions like Hope College and Wheaton College show continued conflict between religion and sexuality, even in an era when Americans have become more accepting of same-sex relationships. Social science research shows that these challenges continue, but it also demonstrates how people don’t always have to choose between faith and being faithful to who they are.

Religious institutions are clearly changing. Even churches without formal welcoming statements often accept LGBT members, sometimes in contrast to the policies of their national organizations. At the same time, queer students are both learning to navigate their identities on religious campuses, and engaging in direct activism to create more welcoming and inclusive organizations.

• Andrew L. Whitehead. 2018. “Institutionalized Norms, Practical Organizational Activity, and Loose Coupling: Inclusive Congregations’ Responses to Homosexuality.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 56(4): 820–35.
• Jonathan S. Coley. 2018. Gay on God’s Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Robbee Wedow, Landon Schnabel, Lindsey K. D. Wedow, and Mary Ellen Konieczny. 2017. “‘I’m Gay and I’m Catholic’: Negotiating Two Complex Identities at a Catholic University.” Sociology of Religion 78(3): 289–317.

Some people who are queer and religious experience tension between their identities, especially when they feel family members, faith leaders, or friends want them to choose one or the other. But other people work out all kinds of ways to be both religious and queer at the same time, from different doctrinal interpretations to forging their own communities.

• Tanya Erzen. 2006. Straight to Jesus : Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Melissa M. Wilcox. 2009. Queer Women and Religious Individualism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Dervla Sara Shannahan. 2009. “Sexual Ethics, Marriage, and Sexual Autonomy: The Landscapes for Muslimat and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Muslims.” Contemporary Islam 3(1): 59–78.