Course Evaluation

 Course Evaluation

Personal evaluation. 

Please fill out this anonymous course evaluation which helps me tweak the class to make improvements based on student feedback.  I really value your feedback and I want to continue to make sure that the course serves students the best it can.  Here is the SPR2024 evaluation.

 

LUC evaluation

LUC also administers a course evaluation.  This is one way that the university evaluates my class and another data point for myself to continually improve my classes.  It is anonymous.  Please complete the survey when you have a chance - I believe that it is accessible in your 

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MWF 12:30                                        MWF 1:40

Qualitative Assessment Social Inequality

Please answer all THREE of the questions below.  For each answer, be sure to BOTH explain the sociology and cite your own unique examples using specific and authentic details from your own life.  To demonstrate mastery, be sure to fully and accurately answer all parts of two of the questions below. I highly recommend that you write your responses in a separate app that will save your work. Then when you are finished, send your document to me as a word file, pdf, google doc or pasted into an email.

A) Social Class - Explain what the median American household looks like in terms of social class; choose a few of the following components to explain what the median looks like: income, wealth, education, location, power/prestige.  Exemplify how your own experience compares to the median.  What are the obstacles or the opportunities that your family’s social class has on you?

B) Race - Explain your ethnicity, nationality, heritage and why those are not "race."  Then, explain how racism affects your racial group (be sure to refer to some of the research that we covered in class) and cite specific details from your own life that either support or refute the research.  Finally, explain how racism affects one other racial outgroup (a race you are not a part of)  in the United States.

C) Gender - Explain the social construction of the gender binary in the U.S. and how that binary has pressured you to conform using a few specific examples from your own experiences in life. Then, explain some of the gender-related risks to people of your gender and how you can use your sociological knowledge about gender to have a mindful understanding of your gender socialization to reduce these risks.

3.11 Femininity

Here is the Google Form for this lesson.

For starters, without looking ahead please answer these 4 questions:

1.  What does "like a girl" mean?  If someone says you do something "like a girl" what is it implying?

2.  List all the steps YOU take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted.     

3.  Do you know someone who is affected by body image issues?  Without using any names describe their situation.

4.  What does it mean for someone to be a feminist?  Please answer honestly, based on your understanding of what a "feminist" is.

5.  Have you ever heard of the "gender pay gap"?

5b.  To the best of your knowledge, do women earn less money than men?

How the binary puts females at risk in our culture

Gender is often seen as a binary in the US which pushes males and females to opposite ends of a spectrum forcing them into narrow boxes that define what it means to be feminine and masculine.  This lesson will explore some of the ways that females are shaped and especially at risk because of the binary 

Gender Pay Gap and Work

For more info, see the Introduction to Sociology textbook (2019) from Open Stax, chapter 12.2:

• Evidence of gender stratification is especially keen within the economic realm. Despite making up nearly half (49.8 percent) of payroll employment, men vastly outnumber women in authoritative, powerful, and, therefore, high-earning jobs (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). 
• Even when a woman’s employment status is equal to a man’s, she will generally make only 77 cents for every dollar made by her male counterpart (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). 
• Women in the paid labor force also still do the majority of the unpaid work at home. On an average day, 84 percent of women (compared to 67 percent of men) spend time doing household management activities (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). This double duty keeps working women in a subordinate role in the family structure (Hochschild and Machung 1989).

For a more detailed examination of gender and work see this post.

"Like a girl"

The denigration of women and misogyny affect both women and men.  Watch the add below from Always:

Note how both the females and the males act when they are "acting like a girl."  Then, note how they act when they are told to do the action how they really would.  The commercial that is trying to help redefine femininity from Always is also available here from Time Magazine.

The promotion of masculine traits above feminine ones leads to denigrating of all things feminine.  This binary doesn't allow for individuals to be who they really are.  Instead, it pushes males and females to opposite poles with opposing traits.  And the binary's message is, if you are a male, you can't be anything considered feminine.  This means males deny their own humanity because they cannot be caring, empathetic, emotional, vulnerable or dependent - all of which are human traits.

5.  How do the people act when they are told to do something "like a girl?"  How might this affect society's view of females? 



Sexual Assault and Females - How are women at risk for sexual assault?

The objectification of women and the denigration of all things female puts women at risk physically.  Males are socialized to be aggressive and to see women as passive objects.  This puts women at risk of sexual assault and puts them on the defensive.  Men may not realize this because they do not have to think about it.  But for women, this is something that is conscious.  For number 2 at the start of this lesson, how many precautions did you list?  Usually, males have very few, if any, but women can list dozens.  Read this list from Huffington Post.  How many of the actions have you taken?

What's wrong with women protecting themselves? There's nothing wrong with all of us taking precautions to be sure that we are safe.  However, the emphasis on women protecting themselves takes the onus off males to not intimidate, harass or assault women.  Not only is this victim-blaming females, but it is also degrading to males by insinuating that males are animalistic and immoral.  Watch the video below that shows a woman walking in NYC.




CatcallsofNY is an instagram feed highlights the ways people are fighting back against street harrassment.

Here is a similar video from Inside Edition in Venice Beach, CA (2015).

Here is another video from Inside Edition in NYC (2016).

Here is an Iris video that shows dads reacting to their daughters getting harassed on the street.

And here is a video produced by Cosmopolitan in NYC that aired on GMA (2015).

The cast of GMA makes an important point of distinguishing between a compliment and harassment. But the cast also shows how difficult it is to change these cultural dysfunctions.

But sexual harassment is not just catcalls by random strangers on the street, it happens to women at work from people they know.  This 2012 research from Uggin, McLaughlin, and Blackstone concludes that much harassment at work 

...can serve as an equalizer against women in power, motivated more by control and domination than by sexual desire. Interviews point to social isolation as a mechanism linking harassment to gender nonconformity and women’s authority, particularly in male-dominated work settings.

And sexual harassment is so much a part of U.S. culture that a President of the United States could speak openly about harassing women and still be elected.  The Washington Post documents all of the instances of how Trump has demeaned women since 2015. 

For more on sexual assault and college campus see this post.

6.  What was the most disturbing part of the video for you?

7. Was there anything in the above information that was helpful/eye-opening?




Femininity and body image - How are women socialized to think about their "self"?
For number 3 at the beginning of this post, most women can name multiple people they know who have wrestled with body image issues or eating disorders. 

Watch this video called Onslaught  from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty which highlights the ways girls are socialized by media.

Read this post from the Society Pages which highlights how females are objectified in the media.  Please click the link and read the post.  From the post,

The damage caused by widespread female objectification in popular culture is not just theoretical.  We now have over ten years of research showing that living in an objectifying society is highly toxic for girls and women, as is described in Part 2 of this series.

8.  Which ad from the Society Pages link above stood out to you as being particularly degrading or objectifying?


Do you know Amy?

 
This video shows Amy not feeling like hanging out.


There are numerous studies showing that this is true for significant numbers of young women. Look at the research below and think about whether this has been true in your life. Do you know girls who struggle with self-esteem, body image and eating/dieting disorders? If you don't, can you at least see how the media is constructing a reality for girls?

Research about the effects of media socialization on females

"...after interacting with attractive peers, the women's perceptions of their own appearance changed, whereas interacting with family members did not have any bearing on their body image....Social media engagement with attractive peers increases negative state body image," explain the researchers.  2018 research — led by Jennifer Mills, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Jacqueline Hogue, a Ph.D. student in the department's Clinical Program — examined the effects of social media on the self-perceived body image of young women.  Mills and Hogue published their findings in the journal Body Image.   https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323725.php

Thin Ads + Low Body Image = Stress?
Ads Showing Skinny Models Might Hurt Self-Worth In Vulnerable Young Women Viewing ads of super-skinny models may make young women feel worse about themselves, especially if they have body image problems, according to a new study. Researcher Gayle Bessenoff, Ph.D., reports the findings in Psychology of Women Quarterly. Bessenoff is an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut's psychology department.

What Studies Show: Links Between Media and Self Esteem in Girls Many studies conclude that there is clearly a link between young women’s self esteem and the media. *The Journal of Research on Adolesence, in a study of body image and self esteem (Daniel Clay, Vivian L. Vignoles, Helga Dittmar - 2005), imparts that the the declining self esteem that girls often experience entering into adolescence is in part due to social comparison with media models. In a 2006 study of girls' body satisfaction and self esteem from the American Psychological Association (Hayley Dohnt,, Marika Tiggemann), research also illustrates that media creates a negative influence on girls' body images and self-esteem – particularly in regard to acceptable levels of thinness.

A particularly alarming media trend is the sexualization of women at younger and younger ages. Medical News Today discusses how suggestive images of young women negatively affect girls self-esteem, playing a role in onset of depression, eating disorders, and low-self-esteem.

Sexualization Of Girls Is Linked To Common Mental Health Problems In Girls And Women Science Daily (Feb. 20, 2007) — A report of the American Psychological Association (APA) released today found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls' self-image and healthy development.

Dying to Fit In- Literally! Learning to Love Our Bodies and Ourselves By Christine Hartline, MA In the United States approximately 10% of girls and women (numbering up to 10 million) are suffering from diagnosed eating disorders. Of these at least 50,000 will die as a direct result! Recent data reported by the American Psychiatric Association suggests that of all psychiatric disorders, the greatest excess of patient mortality due to natural and unnatural causes is associated with eating disorders and substance abuse.

Teen Body Image Media images have a strong effect on people's body image, particularly for women, because the ideals the media presents for women are farther from the average woman's body. The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) reports that in 1972, the ideal woman shown in the media (models, movie stars, etc.) weighed less than the average woman, yes, but only by 8%. By the late 90s, the difference had become 23%... In one study from Harvard University reported by (SIRC), it was found that by age 17, 7 out of 10 teens have been on a diet and as many as 80% of teens may have a negative body image...The onset of eating disorders for 86% of people is before they finish their teens.


Finally, watch the powerful video below about how people are made to think about themselves and how different that can be from reality.

9.  Is the research above and the video convincing evidence that females are at risk because of gendered expectations?  Any other questions? 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an author and speaker from Africa.  One of her Ted Talks became this short book below:

10.  After reading Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists, how does she define feminism?  Is this different than the way the feminism often gets defined in popular culture?  If you have a chance, ask someone who is not in sociology class how what it means to be a feminist and compare this to Adichie's ideas.

Extra:

Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 4

What can we do?

https://www.apa.org/topics/teens/raising-adolescent-daughter, American Psychology Association 2001

Staying connected: A guide for parents on raising an adolescent daughter: Puberty, Peer Groups, Self Esteem, Body Image, Sexuality, Emotions, Rebellion, Risk-taking, violence, money management, spirituality, setting limits

https://childmind.org/article/13-ways-to-boost-your-daughters-self-esteem/, Childmind Institute 

13 Ways to Boost Your Daughter's Self-Esteem:  How to help girls build confidence based on what they can do, not what they look like.

https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/how-to-raise-a-self-confident-girl, PBS 2017

How to Raise a Self-Confident Girl

Gender and Work

 Pay Gap

One of the most widely talked about disparities is the gender pay gap.   Sociologists have examined the income of females compared to males and through a number of different studies showing females are paid less (about 80%) than what males are paid.  Because of this widely studied disparity, the American Sociological Association published a 2019 public policy recommendation that concluded,

a woman working fulltime, year-round in 2017 was typically paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man working full-time, year-round.... Gender wage gaps persist in all 50 states and in nearly every occupation. Significant wage gaps also exist for mothers compared to fathers, LGBTQ women compared with men, and women with disabilities compared to men with disabilities. 

Skeptics of the wage gap contend that it is due to differences in education levels or the kinds of jobs that women choose. But studies show that at the very beginning of a woman’s career, just one year after college graduation, women working full time were paid only 82% of what their male colleagues earned and ... that wage gaps grow over time. For women overall, even when accounting for factors like unionization status, education, occupation, industry, work experience, region, and race, 38% of the wage gap remains unexplained. Data make clear that discrimination— based on conscious and unconscious stereotypes—is a major cause of this unexplained gap. A recent experiment revealed, for example, that when presented with identical resumes, one with the name John and the other with the name Jennifer, science professors offered the male applicant for a lab manager position a salary of nearly $4,000 more, additional career mentoring, and judged him to be significantly more competent and hirable. When women lose out on earnings because of discrimination, families and the economy suffer.

 

The rest of the publication may be even more enlightening and the citations may be useful, but what is important is that this report shows that there is a considerable wage gap even when controlling for factors like education, type of work, and experience.

Women earn about 80% of what men earn and women earn less compared to men of similar education at every level.  Using census data from 2014, this is true for all levels of income and education; from women in poverty to women with professional degrees.  It is also true for women working right out of college compared to their male cohorts.   It is true for single households headed by women compared with men. (Ferris and Stein)   

The National Women's Law Center published this report showing that, 

Women who work full time, year round in the United States were paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts in 2018. For many groups of women, the gaps are even larger. This document provides details about the wage gap measure that the Census Bureau and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) use, factors contributing to the wage gap, and how to close the gap.

4.  Are women paid a similar income to men when they get out of college, but the pay gap shows up after they have kids?

The Gender Pay Gap from the Washington Post does a terrific job of explaining the dynamics and nuances that lead to unequal pay for women.  (If the link doesn't work, see the graphics below)  The data is from 2017 and was compiled using microdata from IPUMS USA for the pay gap by occupation, for the historical change in earnings by share of women in the job, and for the breakdown by education and by workweek. We used decennial census and American Community Survey 5-year data because is the most comprehensive, despite not being the most up to date, and used people who had worked most of the year.  For the recent, general data points, we used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the graphic above, the purple circles represent the number of females in a particular occupation and the yellow circles represent the number of males.  The red line represents the pay gap.  

6. How is the pay gap different between jobs that are more female versus jobs that are more male? 

These charts show that from 1960-2015, jobs that were mostly female (far left) did not grow in income nearly as much as jobs that were mostly male (far right).  And jobs that became more female (2nd to left) pay declined for men.  In other words, jobs that are perceived as being female jobs are paid less.

And the more female an industry becomes, the less money that field makes.

This graph addresses the idea that women work part-time so they make less than men.  Note that part-time women actually make more than part-time males.  However, the majority of women work full time or longer but they make less than men.

The more women that work in an industry, the lower-paid those jobs are.  This link from Payscale illustrates that as does this from Payscale.   Examine the following graph from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth then answer the questions.

This graph shows the higher paid occupations are more male and the lower-paid occupations are more female.

Hiring

This research from Contexts (2019) shows that employers hire applicants by gender, based on their perception of what the gender of the job should be.  So, as jobs become more sewed toward one gender, there is less of a chance that employers will hire the other gender because of implicit bias in their own perception of what gender the job applicant should be.  It is a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts in the hiring process.  

 

And, as reported in The Pushes and Pulls of Gendered Occupations (2018), "Latonya Trotter finds that it’s not just exclusion from men’s professions, but the inclusionary policies of women’s professions that maintain distinctly gendered fields."  Her research finds that women who "want children, and appreciate the autonomy and flexibility," gravitate toward nursing jobs that allow them to, "work part-time and take a long time to finish their schooling [without] career penalties for taking time off, and seniority is not highly rewarded in the profession."

 

Structuring programs and jobs that offer flexibility will increase the number of highly qualified individuals by attracting females who want that flexibility.

 

Another way to be more inclusive in hiring may begin with being mindful of who gets selected for consideration in the first place.  Sociologist Jill Yavorsky found that the polarization in gendered traits shows up in hiring practices, especially when overlapped with social class, published in the Journal of Social Forces here. Those in charge of hiring may select applicants based on their own biases about whether the job is masculine and manual labor or not. 

 

Job flexibility and unpaid labor

One reason why females seek flexibility on their job is explained by this research from the Society Pages (2019) which shows women do a majority of the work at home.  This includes not only physical and emotional work, but also cognitive labor too.  And women have reason to worry about housework because, as NY Times Upshot (2019) found, Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House. 

[Women are] still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework.... Even in 2019, messy men are given a pass and messy women are unforgiven. Three recently published studies confirm what many women instinctively know: Housework is still considered women’s work — especially for women who are living with men. 

Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found. Even though men spend more time on domestic tasks than men of previous generations, they’re typically not doing traditionally feminine chores like cooking and cleaning, another showed. The third study pointed to a reason: Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework.

From the PEW Research Center, (2019) Among 41 countries, only U.S. lacks paid parental leave,  

the U.S. is the only country among 41 nations that does not mandate any paid leave for new parents, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and current as of April 2018. The smallest amount of paid leave required in any of the other 40 nations is about two months.

5.  Using the graphs above, out of the highest paying jobs in the U.S., which is the MOST female?

 

 

Inclusive promotion

Implicit bias can also affect women on the job. Harvard Business Review conducted a study that,

found almost no perceptible differences in the behavior of men and women. Women had the same number of contacts as men, they spent as much time with senior leadership, and they allocated their time similarly to men in the same role. We couldn’t see the types of projects they were working on, but we found that men and women had indistinguishable work patterns in the amount of time they spent online, in concentrated work, and in face-to-face conversation. And in performance evaluations men and women received statistically identical scores. This held true for women at each level of seniority. Yet women weren’t advancing and men were. 

Their conclusion was that, 

While programs aimed at strengthening women’s leadership skills are valuable, companies also need to focus on the more fundamental — and more difficult — problem of reducing bias. This means trying bias-reduction programs, but also developing policies that explicitly level the playing field. One way to do so is to make promotions and hiring more equal. Significant research suggests that mandating a diverse slate of candidates helps companies make better decisions. A study by Iris Bohnet of Harvard Kennedy School showed that thinking about candidates in groups helped managers compare individuals by performance — but when managers evaluated candidates individually, they fell back on gendered heuristics.

 

 

Salary.com has an explanation of the gender pay gap.  Their explanation includes these:

• Earnings Increase with Age, and the Gender Pay Gap Does, Too
• Education Does Not Combat the Gender Pay Gap
• Location Plays a Huge Role in the Gender Pay Gap

7.  Does this provide evidence that there is a gap in how much income females earn compared to men?  What else would you like to know or is there anything you are still dubious about?


Inequality also means different treatment for females and males on the job.

• Here is a report about the efforts to change women at Ernst and Young (2018).  

"When women speak, they shouldn’t be shrill. Clothing must flatter, but short skirts are a no-no. After all, “sexuality scrambles the mind.” Women should look healthy and fit, with a “good haircut” and “manicured nails.” 

• These were just a few pieces of advice that around 30 female executives at Ernst & Young received at a training held in the accounting giant’s gleaming new office in Hoboken, New Jersey, in June 2018.
• One example of the inequality affecting the attitudes of an engineer in the tech industry is a report by Kara Swisher about the engineer's manifesto (2017).
• Harvard Business Review conducted a study that the difference in promotion rates between men and women in this company was due not to their behavior but to how they were treated.  This indicates that...Gender inequality is due to bias, not differences in behavior. 

Besides applicants' self-selecting jobs based on gender, employers also select based on gender.  This research from Contexts (2019)  shows that employers hire applicants by gender, based on their perception of what the gender of the job should be.

8. Explain what the research in the Contexts article above says about jobs and gender.

Females and unpaid labor

This research from the Society Pages (2019) shows women do a majority of the work at home.   This includes not only physical and emotional work, but also cognitive labor too.

From NY Times Upshot (2019), 

Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House 

They’re still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show.  Even in 2019, messy men are given a pass and messy women are unforgiven. Three recently published studies confirm what many women instinctively know: Housework is still considered women’s work — especially for women who are living with men. 

Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found. Even though men spend more time on domestic tasks than men of previous generations, they’re typically not doing traditionally feminine chores like cooking and cleaning, another showed. The third study pointed to a reason: Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework.

9.  How did this lesson affect your understanding of the effect of gender on income and work?  What specifically stood out to you?

From the American Journal of Sociology, this 2020 research by Allison Daminger shows how difficult breaking gender inequality may be. Full article here.  From the abstract:

This article extends prior research on barriers to equality by closely examining how couples negotiate contradictions between their egalitarian ideals and admittedly non-egalitarian practices. Data from 64 in-depth interviews with members of 32 different-sex, college-educated couples show that respondents distinguish between labor allocation processes and outcomes. When they understand the processes as gender-neutral, they can write off gendered outcomes as the incidental result of necessary compromises made among competing values. Respondents “de-gender” their allocation process, or decouple it from gender ideology and gendered social forces, by narrowing their temporal horizon to the present moment and deploying an adaptable understanding of constraint that obscures alternative paths. This de-gendering helps prevent spousal conflict, but it may also facilitate behavioral stasis by directing attention away from the inequalities that continue to shape domestic life.

Non-binary Individuals

Besides cisgendered stereotypes, non-binary individuals face unique inequalities and obstacles.

According to an article from New England Journal of Medicine and available from the NIH, 

"As compared with the general public in other studies, gender-minority persons are more likely to live in poverty (29% vs. 12%), be unemployed (15% vs. 5%), be uninsured (14% vs. 11%), be the victim of intimate-partner violence (24% vs. 18%), have attempted suicide (40% vs. 4.6%), have experienced severe psychological stress in the past month (39% vs. 5%), and have HIV (1.4% vs. 0.3%). Thirty percent have been homeless at some time, and 9% report having been physically assaulted in the previous year because of their gender identity.  Gender-nonconforming persons are more likely than transgender persons to have experienced mistreatment in school (70% vs. 59%) or by the police (29% vs. 22%) and are less likely to be “out” in the workplace (33% vs. 44%) or with family (35% vs. 64%).

 

And the article points out that many non-binary people have received inadequate medical care or even have been refused medical care.  "These negative experiences may explain why in two studies, only 28% and 40% of gender-minority persons said that their health care provider was aware of their gender identity."

 

Inclusion and Nonbinary People

There are many ways of reinforcing the gender binary in everyday life and thus excluding non-binary individuals. Additionally, these binary practices reinforce the idea that males and females can only exist in exclusive poles rather than on a spectrum.  Some of the ways that these binary practices commonly show up are with pronouns, bathrooms and dress codes.  In all three cases, care should be taken to try to use neutral forms of each.  

·       Out and Equal provides resources and suggestions for each of these.

·       The NIH has a guide to inclusive language including saying "everyone" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" and another study from researchers at Princeton finds that using gender neutral terms at work creates less bias and more equality at the workplace.

·       Use the person's preferred pronoun and proper name as explained by Transequality.org.

 

For more info, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation has an FAQ available at their website.

 

Also, a guide to supporting the trans community is available from Transequality.org.

 

GenderSpectrum.org provides an extensive collection of resources including this list of how to make medical facilities inclusive: 

 

And the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center has a number of learning modules and resources including this Guide to Providing Care for Patients with Non-binary Gender Identities that highlights these best practices: