AirBnb’s Anti-Black Problem

Aisha Upton on January 15, 2016
From the AirBnb website's section for prospective hosts.
From the AirBnb website’s section for prospective hosts.

A recent working paper from Harvard found that hosts of the room/house renting service Airbnb discriminate against renters with Black-sounding names. The study revealed that “requests from guests with distinctly African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively White names.”

Unfortunately, racial discrimination based on names is nothing new.
Racialized housing discrimination also has a long history. Once overt, such as in the outright denial of mortgages, housing discrimination has shifted toward micro-aggressions that are harder to spot, such as the private decision not to offer an Airbnb to people of color.

The State of Queerness in the Middle East and North Africa

Miray Phillips on January 4, 2016
Mashrou' Leila performs in Paris. Photo by Hinda Zahra via femmesdetunisia.com.
Mashrou’ Leila performs in Paris. Photo by Hinda Zahra via femmesdetunisia.com. Click to read an interview with the band.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a contested space for queer folks. Persecution is common in Egypt, where gay men are continuously subjected to mass arrests, and queer Palestinians are often blackmailed. In contrast, Lebanon has led the LGBT*Q movement with a recent court ruling that homosexuality is not “unnatural or a crime. Celebrities like Hamed Sinno, the gay lead singer of Mashrou’ Leila, can even use music to address gender expression and gay love there. Research on the origins of queerness and homophobia in the region and why governments repress queer communities can help us understand such conflicting trends.

Contrary to beliefs that queerness is un-MENA, un-Islamic, or un-African, Abu Nawas (756-814) wrote uninhibited erotic poetry about men and, in the 18th and 19th centuries in Egypt, homosexual and homosocial relations were quite common. Lesbianism is documented in the 9th century throughout the region.
Contemporary state repression often involves torture, surveillance, and harassment of gays and lesbians by state actors. After the Arab Spring revolutions, social science sheds light on how such politically unstable governments attempt to maintain and enforce social stability and societal moral. This larger sense of a need for control could fuel queer community repression.

For more on sexuality in the MENA, see lectures from the ““Sexualities and Queer Imaginaries in the Middle East/North Africa’ conference at Brown University.

Best of 2015: Is #MasculinitySoFragile?

Allison Nobles and Aisha Upton on December 23, 2015

In September 2015, the hashtag #masculinitysofragile first swept across the greater twitter community—even gaining its own twitter account. Tweeters use the hashtag to point out how masculinity and expectations for men to be “manly” are not only unattainable, but also harmful to both men and women. Some posts called out the gendered marketing of men’s products like man-sized soap bars, and others the need to qualify affection between two men with “no homo” and the way boys are taught to reserve, rather than express, emotions.

So, is #masculinitysofragile? Luckily for all of us, there’s research on that!

Scholars define masculinity as more than just an individual trait. It involves social practices that privilege men over women and some men over other men. Traits associated with the “ideal” man—what scholars refer to as “hegemonic masculinity”—include sexual aggression, violent behavior, and lack of outward emotion, as well as whiteness, middle-class status, and heterosexual desire for women. Men actively work to maintain a spot in the dominant gender group. Sometimes this involves demonstrating masculinity through behaviors like fighting discrediting women at work.
Masculinity faces crises when the dominant status of manhood is threatened. For instance, during periods when women’s rights and freedoms expand—like during the three waves of American feminism—men felt their advantages as the more powerful group were threatened. Men also police other men by calling out their lack of toughness using homophobic language. In this case, one man is deemed feminine or weak, while the other’s straightness and dominance is affirmed. Finally, parents may participate in constructing their sons’ masculinity by limiting access to feminine toys and clothing. Men with privilege—those who are white, straight, and/or middle- or upper-class—can afford to be more flexible with their masculinity.

Corporate Denial of Climate Change Risks

Erik Kojola on December 9, 2015
ExxonSecrets.org uses data visualizations to trace the company's influence on legislation and scientific research groups.
ExxonSecrets.org uses data visualizations to trace the company’s influence on legislation and scientific research groups.

New York’s State Attorney has opened an investigation into whether ExxonMobil lied to the public and investors about the risks of climate change and funded outside groups to question climate science, even as the company’s own expert researchers found that fossil fuel emissions do, indeed, contribute to rising temperatures.

The Exxon investigation reflects the broader politicization of climate change and the role of corporations in shaping public perceptions. Surveys have found that the U.S. public is poorly informed about the science of climate change. A climate change countermovement flush with funds from business and conservative organizations works to create skepticism and distort public understanding. These efforts mirror other controversies over science and risk, and past corporate campaigns to create doubt about the harmful impacts of chemicals such as tobacco, DDT, or holes in the ozone layer.
Climate change denial is not simply the result of well funded public relations campaigns, however. It also reflects collective and individual anxieties and the difficulties of coming to terms with abstract and long-term risks. Everyday experiences, cultural norms, political beliefs, and religion shape how people come to terms with problems like climate change.

For more on echo chambers and how climate change denial narratives gain credibility, check out this new piece over at Contexts!

#MedicatedAndMighty: The Social Construction of Stigmatized Illness

Sarah Catherine Billups on November 26, 2015
Vicodin tablets photographed by frankieleon, Flickr CC.
Vicodin tablets photographed by frankieleon, Flickr CC.

In September, blogger Erin Jones posted a photo on Facebook that would spark a fight against the stigma of mental health and medication for it. Her hashtag #medicatedandmighty has inspired others who take prescription medication for depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental health needs to share their own photos and “come out.”

What makes it possible for the #MedicatedAndMighty to fight back against stigma in mental illness? Since doctors and researchers do not have complete monopoly over medical knowledge, the lay person (non-medical person) plays a role in constructing the meaning of mental illness. Patients’ lived experiences with an illness confirm or challenge expert knowledge, contributing to the continual shaping of the biomedical and cultural understandings of the condition.
Cultural meanings of illness shapes responses to them, making all mental illnesses socially constructed experiences . Claims-makers and interested parties, not just doctors and scientists, create medical knowledge—what makes an illness “real,” and what constitutes its symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. Often, negative understandings of specific illnesses come from elite moral entrepreneurs whose elite socioeconomic status and moral legitimacy give them framing power.

Why Hazing Happens

Neeraj Rajasekar on November 24, 2015
Hazing at the University of Michigan in 1907. Photo via VasenkaPhotography, Flickr CC.
Hazing at the University of Michigan in 1907. Photo via VasenkaPhotography, Flickr CC.

Hazing has been in the news a lot recently. It exists across a variety of settings, including sports and the military.

Why does hazing occur? Some research discusses the function of hazing as rites of passage or as an expression of group solidarity. Hazing can bring members together, validate one another in the group’s eyes, symbolize transition into group membership, bolster group cohesion, and create group conformity within particular hierarchies.
Research on insider’s attitudes towards hazing highlights interesting dynamics within organizations. Individual members often have negative thoughts about hazing, but individuals are unlikely to protest the practice in-group settings. Power dynamics within those groups normalize hazing and silence opposition to it.
The research suggests that hazing takes on a particular character within Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs). In fraternities, for example, where membership and group identity are constructed around ideas of the “all-male” group, hazing can serve as a validation of masculinity and a suppression of femininity. In addition, in GLOs that have been historically raced, hazing can express racial identities, in-group unity, and belonging.

Dunce Caps and Jump Suits: Discipline and Policing in Schools

Amber Powell and Ryan Larson on November 19, 2015
School Resource Officers are a common site on today's public and private campuses. Photo: Donald Lee Pardue, Flickr.
School Resource Officers are a common site on today’s public and private campuses. Photo: Donald Lee Pardue, Flickr.

The recent physical altercation between a police officer and a young black female student at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina raised questions about the role of disciplinary sanctions and law enforcement in schools. Since the 1990s, schools, particularly inner-city schools, have become increasingly criminalized, as school officials view students as suspects.

The criminalization of students includes the formalization of punishment through “zero tolerance” policies, the transfer of disciplinary discretion among teachers and school officials to disciplinary codes, and the integration of criminal justice technologies and personnel. Schools often replace traditional modes of school punishment with arrests and court referrals, and control students through security measures like metal detectors and on-campus police officers.
School Resource Officers (SROs), law enforcement officers stationed in a particular school or school district, are a central part of this trend. The number of SROs has increased over the past 12 years, but systematic studies offer no evidence that schools with SROs have better safety records. On the contrary, long-term studies show that more crimes involving drugs and weapons are recorded after schools add SROs. SROs are also associated with higher levels of student arrests for lower-level delinquent acts (e.g., disorderly conduct), suggesting that SROs may bring behavior that was once dealt with by the school (“in house”) into the criminal justice system. This “SRO effect” is exacerbated in schools characterized by higher levels of economic disadvantage.
African Americans and other minority students are affected disproportionately, both because SROs and other criminal justice tools are concentrated in urban schools and because minority students, even when controlling for differential behavior, are punished at higher rates than their white peers. Current research suggests that schools’ rising criminal justice apparatus does little to quell violence, but may unintentionally result in more black students experiencing the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Prescription Drug Use on the Rise

Caty Taborda on November 11, 2015
Taki Steve, Flickr CC.
Taki Steve, Flickr CC.

A study published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that over half of adults in the United States use prescription drugs, and as many as 15% of adults report using more than five prescription drugs each month. Recent coverage of these findings at NPR explores how increases in obesity and obesity-related illnesses may contribute to the increase in prescription drug use. Several sociological studies provide other potential explanations, including the increasing influence that pharmaceutical companies have over the doctor-patient relationship.

Though physicians are the ultimate gatekeepers for prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry drastically shapes prescription drug use. Through internal research studies and trials, pharmaceutical companies produce new knowledge about illnesses and treatment options. Pharmaceutical companies can even play an increasing role in medicalization—the process of constructing issues as specifically medical problems. By promoting the idea that something is a medical problem, pharmaceutical companies then offer a solution. Pharmaceutical salespeople aggressively promote their wares to clinicians, even promoting the off-label use of drugs to increase distribution.
Direct-to-consumer advertising may also lead to increase prescription drug use. Patients who see such ads may be more likely to self-diagnose and directly request drugs, and patients who request medication (whether a specific drug or just drug treatment in general) are more likely to be prescribed medication. Despite the potential for over-prescribing, direct-to-consumer advertising also encourages positive interactions between patients and physicians by providing patients with more information about current and undiagnosed conditions.

Fantasy Sports and the Culture of Fandom

Evan Stewart and Alex Snidarich on October 29, 2015
Fantasy sports have gained coverage as a sport of their own.
Fantasy sports have gained coverage as a sport of their own.

You’ve probably seen more than an ad or two this fall for DraftKings or FanDuel, two massive online fantasy sports websites valued at over $1 billion each. Since 2009, the number of fantasy sports players has doubled, and, as of August, 56.8 million participated in the United States and Canada (according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association). It’s not all fun and games, though. The New York Attorney general launched an investigation into these sites, and a recent feature in The New York Times highlights how deep the rabbit hole goes for illegal online gambling on fantasy sports. It is easy to focus on scandalous stories of crime rings, big winnings, and crushing losses, but these sites are not just about gaming the system. Sociologists emphasize that they are also powerful social communities driven by cultures of masculinity and fandom.

Eric Leifer argues that the history of sports fandom in the U.S. is place- and team-based—fans supported the team in their town or region as a marker of community membership. Fantasy leagues and social media challenged this by shifting the focus from entire teams to individual athletes’ performance.
Sociologists, especially, focus on the racialized and gendered nature of sport-based communities. Members often forge strong social ties in male-dominated spaces that emphasize knowledge and expertise, and the groups can privilege racial stereotypes and racialized assumptions about athletic performance.
Fantasy sites (and the betting that ensues on them) are in line with other case studies that show how online socialization is not “less real” or consequential than offline social interaction—both teach everything from harmless play to deviant behavior. We see the power of online interaction in everything from hackers developing their own open-source political theory to online peers teaching others how to download music for free and sport message boards reinforcing racial stereotypes.
Of course, gambling is tied up in these social structures. While American society has “medicalized” compulsive gambling, treating it as an individual and treatable problem, more recent work shows how social environments create what gamblers want most: a chance to be in the “zone” and play for long periods of time. The strong communal aspect of fantasy sports websites makes them a perfect space for sustained play.

#ShoutYourAbortion Shouts Back at Stigma

Amber Powell and Jacqui Frost on October 26, 2015
Twitter screenshot.
Twitter screenshot.

In the ongoing battles around whether to defund Planned Parenthood, Lindy West and Amelia Bonow created the Twitter hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion to encourage women to share their abortion stories, express their experiences, and recognize the stigma that often silences women who have an abortion. Consequently, many have criticized the hashtag and attacked the women involved. Supporters of #ShoutYourAbortion argue that sharing real women’s stories on social media produces cultural change around an issue surrounded by legal rhetoric. Sociological research details why women have generally felt compelled to stay silent about having abortions and the potential benefits of speaking up.

Many women believe that disclosing their abortion experiences will lead to negative responses from relatives and friends, due to widely held norms of femininity and motherhood that assert women are “natural nurturers” and the idea that having an abortion negates those qualities. In a classic study of pro-life and pro-choice activists, Kristin Luker notes that abortion is often seen as a “referendum on the place and meaning of motherhood.” For pro-life activists, terminating a pregnancy may be the ultimate example of being a “bad mother.” Rather than face anticipated judgment and condemnation around moral codes of appropriate feminine behavior, women then choose to conceal their procedures.
A major source of stress and frustration women experience centers on the gendered imbalance of responsibility for contraception and abortion decisions. Research finds that women are often expected be responsible for providing or taking contraception, but are heavily criticized when they take responsibility by choosing to have an abortion. Thus, Sally Brown argues, where women are held responsible for reproductive decisions, “decision making, if ‘decisions’ happen at all, is bound up with notions of hegemonic masculine and feminine roles.”
Stigma, however, does not reduce the likelihood that a woman will have an abortion. Cockrill and Nack write that even women who “believe abortion is morally wrong and that women who have abortions are careless and irresponsible will still have abortions.” Instead, the primary consequences of abortion stigma are decreased mental and physical health, strained relationships, and loss of social status. Spaces of affirmation and support like the #ShoutYourAbortion campaign allow women to engage in “collective stigma management,” offering a supportive network where their public presence can work to change social attitudes and shatter the silence surrounding abortion experiences.