gender

Why Witchcraft Appeals to Marginalized Groups

Allison Nobles and Jacqui Frost on October 31, 2018
Photo by Tom Lee, Flickr CC

Originally posted October 18. 2017

If you like Halloween, you know that witches are a popular costume choice and decoration this time of year. But the history of witches involves much more than bubbling cauldrons and flying broomsticks. Social science shows us that witchcraft has a long history of empowering marginalized groups, like women and sexual minorities, who question more traditional religious practices.

While popular images of witches often focus on magic spells, brooms, and pointed hats, witchcraft and other forms of neo-paganism have historically been used by women to push back against male-dominated religions. More traditional, hierarchical religions like Christianity and Islam often place women in a subordinate role to men, and research finds that many women are drawn to witchcraft and other alternative spiritualities because they emphasize female empowerment, embodied rituals, and sexual freedom.
People who practice witchcraft and neo-paganism typically see sexuality and gender as key sites for social transformation and personal healing, pushing back against the Christian idea that sex and bodies are sinful. Since neo-paganism values sexual freedom and sexual diversity, LGBTQ folks and people practicing polyamory often feel a sense of belonging that they don’t find in other religious spaces.
This has also been true for young adults. In general, young adults practice religion and spirituality differently than do older generations. For example, millennials are the least likely to participate in traditional religious institutions or identify with one single religious belief system, but many still desire some combination of spirituality and community. The increase in portrayals of witchcraft and other neo-pagan religions in popular media has exposed younger generations to these communities, and research finds that teens are more often drawn to these alternative spiritual practices as a means of self-discovery and community, rather than the promise of magical powers.

The Rationale and Risks of Child Migration

Lucas Lynch on October 5, 2018
Photo by Eva Cristescu, Flickr CC

Unaccompanied minors have been migrating to the United States from Central America for decades, but media coverage of this harrowing journey rarely focuses on the reasons behind migration. Though violence and economic peril tend to drive these migration patterns, the journey from Central America is dangerous itself, and the backgrounds of child migrants are not always well understood. Fortunately, sociological research on migration can provide context on the difficulty of the decisions and experiences involved in migration.

Structural conditions, like violence or poverty, do not alone predict unaccompanied child migration. Recent analysis finds that when a parent migrates, their child is more likely to follow them — especially compared to children who do not have parents that migrated. Indeed, unaccompanied migrant children are most likely to migrate the same year as their parents. Gender is also a factor — girls are less likely than boys to migrate when they had parents who migrated, and even less likely when these were unauthorized trips.
Some unaccompanied minors make this dangerous journey in order to flee life-threatening gang violence at home, which leads many children to claim asylum or special immigrant status upon arrival in the United States. Upon arrival, however, they may be placed in a detention center or be deported back to their countries of origin. Further, to cover costs for the journey to the United States, Central American families gather their money and take on debt. And this all may be for naught if their child is apprehended and deported back to their country of origin.

Policing the Behavior of Minority Girls

Amber Joy Powell on September 21, 2018
Photo by Mike Baird, Flickr CC

The recent treatment of superstar tennis player Serena Williams provides plenty for discussions of discrimination against women of color in sports and more broadly, in public. Even before this most recent incident involving her technical violations for supposedly “aggressive” behavior against the match’s umpire, Williams received a violation in the French Open for her black athletic catsuit, despite numerous instances of white players sporting similar wear at the French Open in prior years. Serena Williams’ experience is not only familiar to adult women of color, but also to girls of color. Social science research highlights how enduring patterns of policing and regulating racial minorities begins at an early age — often within educational institutions

Schools have long served as sites for social control and discipline that hinder the educational attainment of minority youth. Girls of color experience a unique set of institutional discriminatory practices that are coded in both racialized and gendered controlling images. All too often, these images depict girls of color as overly aggressive, hypersexual, and too adult-like. One two-year ethnographic study showed that while some teachers appreciated Black girls’ assertiveness in the classroom, by and large, teachers and administrators discouraged Black girls from talking in “loud” or aggressive manners, especially when such behaviors threatened teachers’ authority. They attempted to incentive Black girls into more quiet and docile behavior in order to achieve status as young “ladies” — a status shrouded in ideals of white female innocence.
Dress code enforcement serves as one of the primary ways educational institutions police girls of color. In one study, girls were told, “Don’t come in here with no hoochie-mama dress all tight up on your butt!” Similar remarks demanded that girls “Close [their] legs” and act like ladies. At times, girls resisted these policies and the racialized and gendered stereotypes that emerged alongside them. Still, girls also participated in the regulation of their female peers’ clothing by degrading those who wore “sleazy clothes.” Such policies and practices reinforce educational institutions as sites that perpetually reproduce simultaneous race, gender, sexuality, and class inequalities.

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.

Gender, Identity, and Pakistan’s “Third Gender”

Lucas Lynch on July 3, 2018
A hijra at the birth of a baby. While the mother rested, she acted as a host. Photo by Whitney Lauren, Flickr CC

The recent hire of a transgender news anchor in Pakistan garnered strong national and international support. Transgender individuals, commonly referred to as hijra or khawaja sara in South Asia, have long held a place in societies in the region, for Hindus and Muslims alike. Officially defined as a “third gender,” hijra — a non-conforming, trans, or intersex gender identity — in Pakistan now have their own category in the census, the right to vote, and the right to inherit property. Despite these advances, recent sociological findings point out that the hijra community still faces problems of legal recognition, social stigma, marginalization, discrimination, and violence.

Hijra often face familial rejection, lack of opportunities, and human rights violations in Pakistan. Most hijra are born biologically male, but many run away from home due to physical, emotional, or verbal abuse by family members who shame hijra for not performing traditional masculinity. After forming their own communities, hijra may be coerced into dancing, sex work, and begging to make a living. Hijra are also routinely discriminated against and excluded from schools, health services, and government jobs. When police sexually and physically abuse hijra, the legal system often fails to protect or support them. Even in old age, many hijra are cast out of their own communities because they can no longer support themselves.
At the same time, many hijra resist the man/woman gender binary and navigate society without the confines of traditional gender roles, allowing for some freedom under patriarchal social structures. When excluded from their families, kinship groups, and social networks, hijra create parallel social institutions, relations, and practices that make up new, distinctive communities.
Even with the implementation of a third gender category, some hijra do not legally adopt the category. Instead, some opt to combine feminine symbols with aspects of masculinity, demonstrating their goal to remain free of any singular legal definition. Given the benefits of being a man in Pakistan — and where a number of familial, religious, and economic difficulties may arise with legally choosing the third gender — hijra often opt to continue to maintain a male legal identity. But the supreme court rulings recognizing hijra indicate that the Pakistani state may in fact be moving away from gender binaries.

Though Pakistani laws have formally recognized hijra, this research suggests that social change is necessary for their inclusion in society. It also indicates that hijra communities will likely continue to be resilient and adaptive in a social structure that does not always afford them the benefits of those that identify along the male/female gender binary.

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.