Thank You Spring 2023 Students!

 

Course Eval and Final Preview

 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 Spring 2023 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 Sakai or Locus.

Course Final

Here is the final assessment for the course.  It is due by the end of our class's scheduled exam period.

Missing Assessments

For one reason or another, a few students are still missing earlier assessments. This is the last week to turn them in.  Please know that a missing assessment will substantially lower your grade. You can see if an assessment is missing in the grade book in Sakai.  If you turn something in late or already turned it in and is not graded - please send me an email alerting me so that I can go back in and grade it.

4.12 Femininity and Inequality

 Just as males are at risk in certain ways because of the gender norms in the U.S., so too are females at risk, but in different ways.  Before we get to the details, please answer a few questions off the top of your head.

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.

How the binary puts females at risk in our culture

"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.  Here is a commercial that is trying to help redefine femininity from Always, 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.  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. 

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



Sexual Assault and College Campuses

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services provides valuable information about assault, including about consent and what that means.  This important for males and females alike to understand.  Please read the info below:

Consent is a clear “yes” to sexual activity. Not saying “no” does not mean you have given consent. Sexual contact without consent is sexual assault or rape.

• Consent is an ongoing process, not a one-time question. If you consent to sexual activity, you can change your mind and choose to stop at any time, even after sexual activity has started.

• Past consent does not mean future consent. Giving consent in the past to sexual activity does not mean your past consent applies now or in the future.

• Saying “yes” to a sexual activity is not consent for all types of sexual activity. If you consent to sexual activity, it is only for types of sexual activities that you are comfortable with at that time with that partner. For example, giving consent for kissing does not mean you are giving consent for someone to remove your clothes.

College freshmen women are especially at risk for assault.  Information about that is here:

• Studies show that students are at the highest risk of sexual assault in the first few months of their first and second semesters in college.2
• Women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or gay are more likely to experience sexual assault on college campuses than heterosexual women.1

Rainn provides important info here and also is an advocacy group if you want to get involved.

End Rape on Campus has many resources including for marginalized communities such as: 

Civic Nation is an advocacy group working to end rape on campuses.

The Center for Changing Our Campus Culture is an advocacy group started by a grant from the Obama administration in 2016.

The Brookings Institute provides an analysis of sexual assault on college campuses here.

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


And this video that went viral explaining why men don't have as much to fear.

Lisa Wade is an influential sociologist who studied "hookup culture" in college.  Her research focused on the subculture on college campuses and students being sexually active with each other outside of committed relationships.  One interesting conclusion she found was that some males engaged in sexual activity that they regretted because they felt pressured by masculinity to do it.  However, it should be noted that she found the vast majority of college students were NOT engaged in this subculture of "hooking up."

Here is a review of her book from the NY Times.

Here is a review from the NPR Show Hidden Brain with a 24-minute audio interview of Dr. Wade.

Vimeo has a video explanation here.

And a brief explanationa brief explanation from Dr. Wade:


For more info, here is an hour-long talk from Dr. Wade at Elon University.


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. 

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

This post from the Society Pages 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? 

4:10 Inequality and Gender

 Extra:  CJ Pascoe's Dude You're a F**, background info is here.

      
Before you begin, please answer this question in as many ways as you can (brainstorm):
 
Besides being different physically, how would your life be different if you were born a different sex?



Besides social class and race, another area of inequality that sociologists frequently examine is gender.  Similar to race, our society often uses the term gender erroneously.  Because of that, society makes assumptions about gender and biology that are more a social construct than biology.

Operationalizing terms:  What is gender and why is it confusing? 

Oftentimes, gender is confused and misunderstood because we are limited by our language.  We use the terms "male" and "female" to refer to both sex and gender.  Then, to add to the confusion, oftentimes sexuality is genderized.  Many people use the term "gay" or other pejoratives to mean that someone or something is not masculine.  So all three of these terms are confused with each other.  But, sex, sexuality, and gender are different terms that technically refer to different aspects of who we are as individuals. 

Professionals like doctors, psychologists, sociologists, social workers, and others who study people have written and researched about the differences of these terms extensively.  Sex is the biology that someone is born with.  Most often, a person's sex is assigned based on their reproductive parts.  People are also born with an aptitude for a sexuality.  As they get older, the sexuality becomes sexual attraction such as heterosexual or homosexual attraction.  These are part of our biological makeup, our nature. Most researchers have concluded that these can't be changed.  "Gender" however, is not biological.  It is a social construction that we learn from an early age and we often take it for granted.  Gender is how we think we should act based on our sex and sexuality.  In sum:

• Sex is the biology individuals are born with and often assigned at birth.
• Sexuality is the biological aptitude an individual is born with for attraction.
• Gender is how an individual reacts to these two.  This is not biological but instead a social construct.  Gender can be an inner identity/feeling or an outward expression

Do you understand the difference between the terms "sex", "sexuality" and "gender" and why these differences create confusion?



What does it mean that gender is a social construction?

Sex and Sexuality are determined by our nature, but gender is a social construction.   Think about how you answered that question at the top of this post.  Most of the ways your life would have been different are examples of society treating people differently based on their sex (and sexuality).  This constructs a certain way of being.  So, for example, if I am a heterosexual male, how should I act?  What colors should I like?  What clothes should I wear?  How should I talk?   What sports should I play?  Is it okay for me to cry?  To be rough?  To like violence?   To be sensitive?  And so on... These are all our gender and they are all learned reactions.

Gender reveal parties are one example of how our language uses male/female to refer to both sex and gender - do these parties really reveal a child's gender?  Will the child be masculine/feminine?  How do we know?  

"Nature has no edges.  It is not binary."

What is a binary and how does it contribute to the confusion?

Humans tend to be dualistic in their understanding of the world (and thus, their language).  So much of our understanding is oversimplified into dualism: light and dark, wet and dry, tall and short, etc...  But the reality is that there is so much in between these concepts.  The same is true in terms of "gender".  Our culture pushes people to the edges of the continuum below.  This creates a duality for sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.  This duality is often referred to as a "gender" binary.

Evidence for the continuum

• Sex - Scientific American explains the continuum here.  And they provide a useful graphic here or here.
• Sex - One example of the spectrum of sex is the IAAF's 2018 proposal of new rules that would exclude some female runners from competing in women's Olympic events.  Guardian article here.
• Gender - The Gender Spectrum website also provides resources and an explanation.
• Gender Identity - Here is a terrific program about gender from National Geographic called The Gender Revolution.  It has an in-depth explanation of transgender as well as some of the latest science about sex and gender.
• Here is a Guardian article about shattering the myth of the gendered brain.
• For more info, this is a great blog from Dr. Zevallos, an Australian sociologist from a Latin-Australian background.
• Some cultures have acknowledged a non-binary gender for centuries such as India's Hijra and two-spirit people from American Indians.
• The-Be-you-tiful-intiative started by a former student of mine.
• It's pronounced metrosexual, a free online resource for learning & teaching about gender, sexuality, & social justice created by Sam Killermann. 
• From the BBC, this article details the changes in pitch for women's voices and the dynamic effects of nature and nurture on each other.

Is gender a binary or a continuum?  What does that mean?

What is the evidence that gender changes over time?

Because gender is a social construct, it can be examined with a sociological imagination to show that it is different depending on where or when you examine it.  Click on the following post and read about how gender and cheerleading has changed:

"The Manly Origins of Cheerleading" from Soc Images shows how cheerleading has changed from being considered very masculine to feminine to something in between:

And from the Smithonian, checkout this article about pink becoming genderized:

“It’s really a story of what happened to neutral clothing,” says Paoletti, who has explored the meaning of children’s clothing for 30 years. For centuries, she says, children wore dainty white dresses up to age 6. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid. Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the two colors were not promoted as gender signifiers until just before World War I—and even then, it took time for popular culture to sort things out. For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

For a more detailed explanation of the genderization of colors, see this 9 minute video from PBS:

A third example of the changing social construct is heels for men, explained here in Teen Vogue:

How has our notion of gender changed over time?  Use your sociological imagination to explain how one of the examples above is evidence for gender being a social construction.


For more information:

Scene On Radio did an excellent 10-part series podcast is about gender from the 
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University distributed by PRX. The series attempts to answer:  What’s up with this male-dominated world? How did we get sexism, patriarchy, misogyny in the first place? How can we get better at seeing it, and what can we do about it? Co-hosts John Biewen and Celeste Headlee explore those questions and more.  This is an excellent podcast about the social construction of gender:

This 2018 episode of Hidden Brain explains how the differences between men and women are created by society.  

What does society construct for gender?

HW:  C J Pascoe's Dude You're a F**, background info is here.

Take a moment to think about where you have heard the various phrases on the handout "Socialization of Gender Roles (Click on the link and follow the directions for PART I).

Which of the messages have you heard before?
Mark all the messages that you have heard - even if the message was not directed at you.

What agents of socialization have you heard say those phrases from the link above? 
List all the categories of people where you have heard these.  Were they:  parents, siblings, friends, peers, teachers, coaches, actors/actresses, tik-tok stars, somewhere else?

List the messages that the phrases convey for males.  For example, for "Boys will be boys," you might write, "There's only one way to be a boy," You can't change boys," or,  "It's ok for boys to be rough."

List the messages that the phrases convey for females.



This activity should reveal that even though people actually exist on a continuum (lesson 1), our culture constantly promotes a binary.  We hear these binary messages from all of the agents of socialization.  The messages start even before you are born.  So the idea of a binary is very strong and we are pushed to the ends of the binary from the moment we are born.


The boxes of the binary

Before going further, let me clarify about the biology of males and females.  On average, categorically, men and women are indeed different.  On average, males are taller, have more muscle mass and more testosterone and less estrogen than females.   However, none of these are at the exclusivity of each other.  Males and females both have testosterone and estrogen, they both have muscle mass.  Females can be tall and have a lot of muscle mass.  Males can be short and have little muscle mass.  People are complex and we all exist along a continuum.  

However, our society emphasizes the polar ends of the continuum.  Males are pushed to be only masculine and females are pushed to be feminine.  Society gives the appearance that there is only one way to be masculine or feminine.  Below are some of the traditional traits that dominant US culture has pushed for each gender.  Note that these are traditional in the sense that society has generally promoted them, even if they do not apply to you.  To be clear, I am not saying that men and women should be these ways, I am saying that society has traditionally socialized men and women to be these ways:

Which of the traditional gender traits (above) are similar to the messages that you identified that are associated with he phrases above?  

PEW Research Center found similar gendered language in a 2017 study about gender expectations for men and women.  Click through the follow up analysis (2018), and look for ways that gender is constructed.

How Americans describe what society values (and doesn’t) in each gender? What traits does society value most in men and in women? What traits does society say men and women should not have?

You can click on the link above to explore their findings.  Here is a sample of their findings.  Gold is for women and green is for men.

Examples of data/evidence for the binary.
Please look at each of the links below.  Look for how the marketplace creates the binary between male and female  - especially in ways that are unnecessary.  When you are finished looking at each, answer question six.

• Gendered Products; See this post about products that are pointlessly gendered thus reifying the idea of traditional gender traits.  
• Gendered Halloween costumes.

6.  After reviewing the two links above (aren't those funny?), what product was the most pointlessly gendered?  What costume was the most ridiculously gendered?

Finally, one last bit of evidence that society pushes us to the binary is in the gendered language of teacher reviews.  This example shows how socialization shapes how American college students perceive their professors.  Sociology professor Ben Schmidt has gathered the metadata from ratemyprofessor.com at his site, Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews. The interactive chart lets you explore the words used to describe male and female teachers in about 14 million reviews from RateMyProfessor.com. You can enter any word (or two-word phrase) into the box below to see how it is split across gender and discipline: the x-axis gives how many times your term is used per million words of text (normalized against gender and field). You can also limit to just negative or positive reviews (based on the numeric ratings on the site). For some more background, see here. Not all words have gender splits, but a surprising number do.  Even things like pronouns are used quite differently by gender.   For example, the word "funny" shows up in the chart below.  Notice that orange is female and blue is male.  For every single subject (in the column on the left) funny is mentioned more in reviews of male teachers.  Every single subject!  

After you have tried your own search for words, or if the website was not working, click here to see my analysis of the RateMyProfessor data.


7.  See how many words you can find that are completely gendered.  Make a list.
Go to professor Schmidt's website, Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews.  See how many words you can find that are genderized.  What are the words?  List them in number 7.

8.  Any questions about how society constructs a gender binary?

How does society construct the gender binary?

The construction of gender and agents of socialization

All of the agents of socialization help to construct gender.  Look for the claim and evidence supporting each of these agents.  How does each agent contribute to the socialization of gender?  What evidence does sociology provide that agents of socialization influence individuals' self-concepts about gender?

Family:

This article from Newsweek explains the research by neuroscientist Lise Eliot that shows parents begin treating infants differently from the moment they are born.   Parents talk differently to babies based on sex.  Experiments reveal this is true for strangers as well.  It can even be argued that parents treat babies differently before they are born!  For example, pink and blue, decorating the nursery, "gender" reveal parties, and choosing a name.

This research published in Developmental Psychology by Fausto-Sterling, et. al. shows, "measurable sex-related differences in how mothers handle and touch their infants from age 3 months to age 12 months."

Treating six month-olds differently:

• boys are given independence and encouraged to be active
• girls are coddled and ecouraged to be dependent and passive
• by thirteen months, each gender acts differently.

Also differences in toys; boys=action figures, weapons; girls=jewelry, dolls.  

Click here to see a post from the Society Pages that examines how the  Barbie above helps to reinforce lessons learned from teachers.  The toy does not just show up in a little girl's toy box.  Toys come from family which is trying to do right by the kid based on messages in the media. 

Peers

Girls and boys learn what it means to be a man or woman from friends.
See the book from Patricia and Peter Adler on preadolescent peer pressure.

This research by Patricia and Peter Adler published in Sociology of Education shows that values for popularity develop as early as fourth grade;

• boys: athletics, coolness and toughness, grades=lower popularity (think about how this shows up in the ratemyprofessor reviews from the other lesson).
• girls: family background, physical appearance (esp. clothing and makeup) and ability to attract popular boys, grades=higher popularity.          

School

From the Society Pages, this post shows the latent lessons (hidden curriculum) that schools teach.  In this case, it starts as young as 8 years old.   (See the image below)

From the National Academy of Sciences this study shows that teacher anxiety about math affects their students. 

This research in the journal of Sociology of Education shows how high school begins to shape students' interest in majoring in STEM fields in college.

This research from Gender and Society shows that high school teachers' attitudes about females and math affect how teachers grade and teach female students.

This article from the NY Times shows that gender gap in math scores disappears in countries with a more gender-equal culture.

The Society Pages explain how cross-cultural studies provide evidence that the gendered expectations in STEM are a result of a social construction 

This 2007 study in Sociological Perspectives explains the  connection between core sports and homophobia finding that boys who participate in core sports (football, basketball, baseball, soccer) are nearly 3 times more likely to express homophobic attitudes.  Conversely, females who participated in nonathletic extracurricular activities were half as likely to express those attitudes as individuals who did not participate in those activities.

3a. After the evidence above, can you explain how the agents of socialization shape boys and girls experiences around STEM?  

3b.  If attitudes and outcomes about STEM can be shaped this way, hypothesize what else might be shaped similarly.

Concluding

To summarize, the agents of socialization play a pivotal role in helping each of develop a sense of self (remember the isolated kids, Genie and Danielle from the social structure unit?).  One of the ways that the groups influence us in thinking about gender.  And the influence is particularly strong because it happens from the time we are young (even before we are born) and then continues in a web of structure that perpetuates the construction of gender.  The web is a connection of parents, schools, peers, toys/marketers and media that all reinforce the gender binary.  

4.  Do you understand that gendered is constructed through the agents of socialization reinforcing gendered ideas?  

Sociologist Jill Yavorsky found that the polarization in gendered traits also shows up in hiring practices, especially when overlapped with social class, published in the Journal of Social Forces here. 


5.  Any questions about how gender, especially the binary, is constructed?



How does society construct the gender binary?

 

4.11 Masculinity and the Binary

How does the binary affect males (and put them at risk)?

Now that you have learned how gender is socially constructed into a binary, we will examine one pole of the binary: masculinity.    


Getting started

Before we begin, please answer the following questions.  Answer each quickly with the first words that come to mind.  Please don't worry about foul language, just write the words that come to mind:

QUICKLY, without thinking, brainstorm, the first three words that come to mind:

1. What are three words that describe what it means to be a man?

2. What are three words that describe someone who is not a real man?

CJ Pascoe's research 

CJ Pascoe, a University of Oregon sociology professor, wrote a 2007 ethnography called "Dude You're a F**."  Pascoe studied high school peer groups and how they sanction gender norms. An excerpt is here or here.

Pascoe wrote about her research in an essay in Contexts here.   And, here is a review from the Everyday Sociology blog.  

 Here is CJ Pascoe's micro lecture on bullying and masculinity.  Please watch the video below.

What does Pascoe's research show about masculinity?

Do you think Pascoe's research applies to your high school?

Oh hey, that's just me and CJ hanging out at the top of the IC.

Males are at risk because of masculinity norms

Recall the chart below from our lesson on the gender binary.  Use the chart to assess each of the three areas below in which males are at-risk.

Males and School

• In school, boys are 30% more likely to flunk, 250% more likely to be suspended and 300% more likely to be diagnosed with learning and emotional disabilities.
• From the NIH, this article explains how boys manifest ADHD differently than girls due to the expectations of masculinity.
• Males are less likely than females to: go to college and earn a bachelor's degree, earn a master's degree or earn a PhD.

What is your hypothesis about why this is so?  How can these be related to the binary?  (Use the chart above to try and explain why traditional masculine traits might  lead to these educational outcomes.)

This article examines how males choose to be less involved at school and how that affects their ability to succeed.

Males and Health Risks

Young men are much more likely to die from accidental death than women: 

Males 20-24 are 3 times more likely to to die as a result of accidents,

4 times more likely to die from suicide and

6 times more likely to be murdered than women. (Ferris and Stein pg 256)

 

What is your hypothesis about why this is so?  How can these be related to the binary?  (Again - refer to the chart above.)

Researchers Sandra Nakagawa and Chloe Hart conducted a study examining how gender identity influences eating habits.  

"...in the United States, where men have higher rates of life-threatening health conditions than women — including uncontrolled high blood pressure and heart disease — changing eating habits may be important for their health."

Why do you think males have difficulty changing their eating habits?

Hypothesize why traditional masculine traits might lead men to eat unhealthier.

After your hypothesis, read the explanation for the study here in Contexts.  From the link,

"This study shows that masculinity does matter for how men maintain their health. Importantly, it is not masculinity itself that is the problem here, but the high standards men feel they must meet (pun intended?)— and eat."

After reading the explanation above in Contexts, assess your hypothesis.  Was it correct?

Males and violence

Males are more likely to be both the perpetrator and the victim of violence.
From Statista 2022 (below) and from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2010),

• 40% of teenage girls 14-17yrs say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• 1 of 5 college females will experience some form of dating violence from their male partner.
• 1 in 3 High School students have been or will be in an abusive relationship.

These stats come from the Zacharias Foundation which is a local organization that will confidentially help individuals deal with sexual and domestic abuse.

6.  What is your hypothesis about why these stats might be connected to gender socialization?  How can these be related to the binary?


Males and work

Some jobs are genderized and males are limited by the sexist socialization messages about gender. 

It is ironic, but misogyny actually hurts males.  Below is evidence about how gender inequality is limiting the jobs that males will do and the feminizing whole industries.  Males don't want to take jobs that they label as feminine.  Because of this, males are passing on some of the fastest-growing industries, like home healthcare.

• Why Men Don’t Want the Jobs Done Mostly by Women (2017)
• Job Listings That Are Too ‘Feminine’ for Men (2017)
• Contexts, The Pushes and Pulls of Gendered Occupations (2018)

In Gender & Society, 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.

•  Here is an article in Harvard Business Review written by Janette Dill, an assistant professor in the sociology department at The University of Akron in Ohio:

The Entry-Level Health Care Jobs Men Are (and Are Not) Taking (2017)

This all signals that men, and particularly white men who are able to gain additional training, may be defining some health care occupations as more technical and masculine, preserving the conventional understandings of masculinity within the health care sector. Unfortunately, this also means that women and minority men may continue to be clustered in lower-paying direct-care occupations, where the “dirty work” remains stigmatized as “women’s work.”

And supporting professor Dill's work is this research about gendered language in job postings.

 

Washington Center for Equitable Growth provides this fact sheet (2017) about occupational segregation.

The genderization of jobs includes some of the following examples (Ferris and Stein 2018, 269-71):

Many jobs still highly genderized: nurses, early education (97%), dental hygenists, secretaries (94%), paralegals, housekeepers are highly female while pilots, carpenters, mechanics (98%), and firefighters (94%) are highly male.

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


The Australian Men's Health Forum breaks down the research on jobs and gender discrimination here.

Do you understand how the gender binary affects the jobs that males will take?

How does the binary affect males (and put them at risk)?

The Mask You Live In is a 2013 documentary about masculinity from the makers of Miss Representation.  Here is a trailer:

 

Please read Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence Random School Shootings, 1982-2001.  It is a qualitative study in American Behavioral Scientist about who randomly shoots up schools and why.  Students can access it here.  Publicly it is also available here.

If you did not get to finish the reading,  here is an annotated version of the Mahler article.  Please read it now.

After reading the article, answer question 1 below.  Here is the Google Form for answering the questions this lesson.
1.  What is Mahler (and Kimmel)'s overall claim?



After understanding Mahler and Kimmel's claim and evidence,  we will attempt to replicate and update their qualitative research.   Their qualitative analysis of existing data on school shooters examined random school shootings in major print media outlets (Time, Newsweek, US News, USA Today, NY Times, LA Times). Below are two lists of school shootings to get started.

First, choose at least one of the random school shooters after 2001.

• Wikipedia list of school shootings since 2000 
• MotherJones data set of all mass shootings (under the "location" column, see schools) 

Second, after choosing a shooter to research, use major news outlets to gather data about some of the school shooters from 2001-present.
Make a note of the shooter's:

• gender 
• race
• state (red or blue in 2001) 
• community: urban, suburban, rural
• other qualitative info about them such as music, video games, movies, parent status, mental illness, social status/teased, et al...

Here are a few other websites to help you find info:

Ballotopedia

Edvocate

Everytown K-12 database 
NRA gun law tracker might be helpful for determining the gun culture of the state.

2.  What shooter(s) did you research?

3.  What was the shooter's race?

4.  What was the shooter's gender?

5.  What community setting did the shooting occur in?

6.  Was the shooting in a red state or blue state?

7.  What other details about the shooter were revealed?

After you have entered the data above for at least one school shooter, hypothesize whether Mahler and Kimmel's research still holds up.

Do you think that since 2001, Mahler and Kimmel's claim is still true about who shoots up schools and why?


Answer any of the following questions about this lesson.

• Does your data correlate with what the rest of the class found?
• What do you think of the findings?
• Is this data interesting/insightful?  Why/why not?
• Can you see the connection between masculinity and violence?
• Do you think that the average American would have trouble understanding the connection?  Why?
• What questions do you still have?

Finally,  try to apply the research to other random shootings besides schools.  Search the websites that you used earlier.  Again, you may want to use the IC newspaper search to find info about the shooters, or Google their names.  Here are a few other websites to help you find info:

Mother Jones Mass Shootings

Gun Violence Archive or GVA

Mass Shooting Tracker
TheTrace compiles articles and data related to shootings at thetrace.org
NRA gun law tracker

Find one example of a random shooting that did not occur at a school.

Does Mahler and Kimmel's research also apply to NON-SCHOOL random shootings?