The Board Race: Gender and Cooperation

My wife shared this video with me from Facebook:



Her analysis was spot-on sociologically so I wanted to share that as well. The women are much more successful at this game than the men are, but it might not be immediately obvious why. My wife pointed out that, while the men and women seem to be equally coordinated in their steps, the women start with their hands on each other's shoulders, giving them superior stability. The men refuse to touch each other at all. My first guess was that it was about homophobia, in that men are more reluctant to make physical contact with other men for fear that they will be judged as gay (and, per heteronormative/hegemonic/toxic masculinity, weak). My wife suggested that it might be broader. Women are allowed and even taught to make physical contact with each other. Part of this probably relates to the emotion work we demand of women (but not men). Traditional definitions of femininity allow for behavior that is otherwise socially sanctioned by traditional definitions of masculinity.

It's important to remember that even as we recognize (correctly) that men are generally given a structural advantage over women (see the pay gap), men are in some ways hamstrung by the very culture that otherwise privileges them. Just imagine all of the other, more consequential ways that gender stifles cooperation.

Raising a Boy

My wife and I welcomed our second child into the world last week. My oldest is a girl, and now, we have a boy. Since we learned his sex from an early blood test, I've found myself quite nervous about raising a boy. I have heard repeatedly from many, many parents that boys are easier than girls, and I have heard the endless intimations that it is my duty as a father to protect my daughter from future male would-be suitors. These kinds of comments infuriate me because they get it precisely backward. By downplaying our responsibilities in raising boys and insisting on defending girls' virtue, we perpetuate the very problems we rightly identify, namely that men are disproportionately predatory and that women are the recipients of deleterious attention. The correct approach is not for parents to fret over their daughters as a reaction to the ugly behavior of men but instead to work actively to raise sons who will respect the autonomy of women and men. This is the only just and effective way to parent. This also raises the level of responsibility for parents. My job is no longer to react passively to those I might imagine hurting my daughter; it is to work actively to raise a young man who will not hurt other's daughters (or sons).

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See here for a related post.

Robots, Men, Women, and Nursing

This is good and worth watching:



However, I still think it leaves out a few important sociological findings:

• Glass Ceiling
• Even as women aspire to promotions and pay increases and those benefits appear accessible, there are structural barriers that hinder most women's ability to reach them.
• Think about the different way we treat parents. Women are often not promoted because it is assumed that they will take maternity leave at some time. Even if it is assumed most men will have children during their career, it is not assumed that they will take leave, or at least not more than a few days.
• Glass Escalator
• Men who do work in traditionally feminine fields are often promoted out of the day-to-day work of those fields. 
• Think about male kindergarten teachers. Many parents are uncomfortable with men teaching their kids at such a young age. Administrators can't fire these men. Instead, they promote them out of the classroom, making them principles. Of course, such promotions come with better pay, which could have gone to a woman but now is more likely to go to a man.
• If nurses were paid better, men would be more likely to enter the field, and as men enter fields, those fields tend to offer better pay.

Teaching Gender with Sport

When I teach gender, there is one exercise that I've developed that I really, really enjoy. I ask the students to help me make two lists, one of the most stereotypically masculine sports and one of the most feminine. It's remarkable how consistent these lists are between sections and over semesters. For masculine, the students almost always include football, baseball, rugby, wrestling, and hockey. For feminine, it's almost always cheerleading, volleyball, dance/ballet, softball, and ice/figure skating. I ask the students if they can identify some commonalities within each category. They usually notice that the masculine sports are aggressive, involve contact, and are team oriented and that the feminine sports are more about performance, display, and are more individually oriented. One thing I typically have to draw their attention to is that the masculine sports have relatively objective measures for victory (instant replay aside); in other words, men win by getting the ball or person to some line or place more times than their opponents. Feminine sports, on the other hand, generally involve much more subjective measures for victory; in other words, women win by allowing others to judge them (albeit within a fairly well-defined set of criteria). This parallels very nicely with a discussion of objectification from a previous class, where we've noted that women tend to be stripped of their agency and valued based on how others (i.e. straight men) appreciate them for meeting shared definitions of physical attractiveness and sexual desirability; women aren't so much doing things as they are expected to allow men to do things to them, even if just gaze.

At this point, I can circle back to volleyball as a good example of how this extends even to traditionally feminine sports that have objective rules. I pull up a web browser and do an image search for "men's volleyball":

I point out that most of the images are action shots, either of competition or celebration within competition. Then, I do a search for "women's volleyball":

I ask the students what differences jump out at them. Without fail, they notice that fewer of the images are action shots and that most are posed and, of course, that the women are wearing far less clothing and the clothing they are wearing is quite tight and revealing. I ask them why this would be since the men and women are playing the same sport with the same rules on the same courts. It's not as if having more or less clothing is somehow offering a competitive advantage. If that were the case, it would be universally adopted. Instead, we see a prime example of gendered expectations; even in an objectively defined sport, we insist that women perform gender in a way that allows them to be objectified. 

TED Talks: 'Our Story of Rape and Reconciliation'

This video popped up in my YouTube subscriptions today:



I'm honestly not sure how to process this. I have such ambivalent feelings toward it. I'm not even sure how to articulate all of my competing emotions. I think the best I can do is to say that this is worth watching and then thinking about and then talking about. I feel like it is good--but I'm hesitant.

Wonder Woman Would Kick Supergirl's A$$!

Lisa Wade reminds us today that:

The practice of pairing the word “men” (which refers to adults) with “girls” (which does not) reinforces a gender hierarchy by mapping it onto age.... This type of language often goes unnoticed, but it sends a ubiquitous gender message about how seriously we should take men and women.

Case in point: Superman vs. Supergirl






That's why I'm super-stoked that we're dressing my daughter up as Wonder Woman this year for Halloween!

Zombies, Families, and the Patriarch

I wrote a review recently of World War Z in which I noted an odd paternalistic theme. I'm currently catching up with The Walking Dead on Netflix and am noticing a similar theme. Both protagonists are very reminiscent of Odysseus, being "unwillingly" drawn away from home and family in order to "protect" home and family, an ironic and hypocritical trope that has spanned the ages. Both have this odd homosociality about them, where they go out in the woods, cities, fields, and other wildernesses to do masculinity in very close proximity with other men. It's only Andrea, in The Walking Dead, who really challenges these boundaries at all, and she is regularly confronted about her deviance--typically by other woman and not the men.

I'm wondering why these patriarchal themes are popular now. Is this the persistence of feelings that have never really gone away or is this a reactionary resurfacing amid increasing acceptance of non-"traditional" family structures. I'd tend toward the latter theory. I'm hesitant, however, to read the reaction as angry; it seems more angsty.

Friday Music: "Where Do You Think You're Going?" - Dire Straits

I give you Dire Straits' "Where Do You Think You're Going?":



This haunting song, sung from the point of view of an abusive man, is about domestic violence and could be also used to prime discussions of family, masculinity, and patriarchy.

GenderedZone

Just a quick story I'd like to impart. Yesterday afternoon, I accompanied my wife to AutoZone, where she was hoping to buy a set of those cheep wheel covers (a/k/a hub caps) for her car. We weren't sure what size wheels she had so we waited in line for help. I was standing behind her, obviously removing myself from the situation. She asked the associate if he could look to see what size wheels she had to which he responded, looking at me, "Did you ask him?" I responded quickly, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing!" The man ushered us out to the parking lot to inspect her tires, where he quickly surmised that they were 15" wheels. My wife asked him how he knew that so he pointed out a series of numbers on the tire, none of which intuitively stated the wheel size; it included information about the wheel width and thickness among other things. After we left the store--without purchasing anything--my wife and I both noted how offensive the associate had been. Just because I have short hair, a penis, and a Y chromosome does not mean that I know anything about cars, and just because my wife has long hair, a vagina, and two X chromosomes does not mean that she should rely on the man accompanying her to the store for assistance. Unfortunately, we still have a gift card to spend there.

Watch That First Step; It's a Lulu!

I learned from several of my students last night that I am on Lulu. It was a bit of an old-man moment because I had never heard of it. The company describes it as "the first ever app for private reviews of guys," where "[w]hen you meet a new dude, [you can] check his Lulu profile, and find out everything you want to know!" It integrates Facebook profile information, and the company goes to great lengths to keep men from surreptitiously infiltrating the service by changing their gender or creating a fake account on Facebook. My students tell me that many men are not so happy with the app, claiming that it is reverse sexism or libelous. Sociologically, men's negative reactions should not be surprising. Men have been engaging in the same kind of systematic objectification in locker rooms and bars for generations. To be subjected to the same practices challenges the status that men enjoy over women.

Does that mean that Lulu is good for women? I think there are two perspectives here. Within the current social system, Lulu does indeed open social space for women that was once the sole purview of men. While men have been able to control physical spaces, restricting women formally and informally from places like locker rooms and bars, virtual spaces like a web-based app are much more difficult to control; technology is an equalizer in this way. From a broader perspective, however, Lulu only expands the dehumanizing practice of objectification. It arguably and unwittingly buttresses men's claims to women's bodies. ("Women do it, too!"  or "Women are just as bad as men.") Even if it does level the playing field, it does so by lowering the playing field. A more lofty goal would be to elevate both women and men's behavior, improving interpersonal relationships all around.

Oh, and all of this is incredibly heteronormative if I haven't mentioned that, yet.

A Girl and Her Atom?

If you haven't seen it yet, IBM has just released the world's smallest movie--using atoms:



I find it truly amazing! No really, this is a big deal, and it's very cool.

Why is it a boy, though? Presumably, they could have just as easily titled it "A Girl and Her Atom." (And, no, that doesn't mean that they would have needed to include more atoms to make a dress. Read here.) As one can see in the making-of movie, several women, after all, were part of the very team that made the movie happen.

It's fairly well known now that the so-called STEM fields are having trouble recruiting girls and women.* This seems like it would have been a simple place to combat some of that.

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* - For more on gender and STEM, check out these great posts from Sociological Images:
Gender Gap in Science and Tech Jobs
The Truth about Gender and Math
Transnational Data on Gender and Science Aptitude
Gender and Biased Perceptions: Scientists Rate Job Applicants

Friday Music: "Karate" - Brad Paisley

I give you Brad Paisley's "Karate":



The song is a revenge fantasy about a woman who is abused by her husband. I learned of in this review from Fresh Air. (I find the review completely misguided, BTW.) The music is oddly playful and upbeat given the grave nature of the lyrics, running the risk of trivializing the topic. This song, off the same album as the controversial "Accidental Racist," tackles yet another social problem. This song could help facilitate a discussion on domestic violence, retribution, and gender as well as a discussion about the larger public debate about the role of musicians in facilitating the amelioration of social problems.

"Beer Babies" (definitely NSfW)

This showed up on my Facebook news feed a while back:

(It reminds me of this post of men in women's poses from SocImages.) The image above playfully--if not disturbingly--highlights the interesting and gendered phenomenon of pregnancy photo sessions in which expecting mothers pose in varying states of undress, exposing their bare, pregnant abdomens. Here is a screencap of a Google image search for "pregnancy photo session":

I'm not entirely sure what to make of all of it, but it feels sociologically relevant.

Friday Music: "King for a Day" - Green Day

I give you Green Day's "King for a Day":



In this song, Billie Joe sings about challenging gendered expectations by dressing in girls clothes and his fictional father's reaction (i.e. treating the gender-bending as a sign of mental illness). It would be appropriate in the classroom for discussions of gender, masculinity, and medicalization.

Oscar Has No Genitals

In the wake of last night's Golden Globe Awards, I'm thinking ahead to that other extravaganza, the Academy Awards, the Oscars. A while back, it occurred to me that there is an archaically gendered practice in all the awards shows, starting back in 1928: one award for actors who are men and one award for actors who are women. Inasmuch as acting is an artistic reflection of a culture, acting is of course as gendered a thing as any other part of life. In other words, some characters are men and some are women. We don't, however, grant the awards for the roles. Imagine if Dustin Hoffman has been nominated in 1982 for Best Actress in a Leading Role instead of Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character Tootsie! (If you'd rather, imagine The King's Men bestowing separate accolades on the guys who played male roles and the guys who played female roles.) Instead, we clearly draw a distinction between actors based on their genders and not the genders that they inhabit. It's a telling cultural fact in and of itself that we Americans have insisted on making the artistic competitive,* but beyond that, it's telling that we see fit to gender the competition.

Of course, gendered awards means increasing the chances of winning for the actors, something I'd guess those vain thespians appreciate.


* - Yes, I do know that the Ancient Greek agonos included creative contests. Not the same.

To What Risk Are We Averse?

Just a quick note at the end of a busy day. One of the students in my 3000-level sociology of religion course made an interesting suggestion today. I presented the findings of Miller and Hoffman's "Risk and Religion: An Explanation of Gender Differences in Religiosity," and the student noted that it might make more sense to think about the social risk of non-religiosity to which women are averse as opposed to the authors' hypothesis that it's about the theological/existential risk of non-religiosity. In other words, women might be more religious than men because of a fear of social reprimand rather than a fear of hellfire. Sorry, Pascal; I think she might be on to something.

Women, Coding, and Coding

I'm making my way through the archives of the Office Hours podcast, and I was recently intrigued by a "discovery" that the hosts presenting. At the beginning of this episode, they share research that shows that women's participation in open-source coding is disproportionately low. The researchers attribute this effect to implicit bias, gendered and otherwise coded language in the subculture, as well as some structural constraints to computer access and training. I'm guessing that there might be something a little simpler going on. I'd speculate that since I assume there is higher (any?) pay and benefits in the proprietary coding world that women, who are already more likely to receive lower pay than their male counterparts regardless of the field, are predisposed to work in the proprietary realm over the open-coding realm. We see this going on in higher education as well. Women are increasingly outnumbering men in colleges and university as students in part because they are well aware that unlike men who are still better able to get a job with reasonable pay absent a college degree, women need a college degree if they hope to have a job that offers livable (albeit inequitable) pay and benefits. Perhaps the same social forces are at work in the software industry that are at work in high ed.

Understanding How We Understand Throwing like a Girl

I caught this intriguing piece last month on gender/sex differences in throwing. The article is framed, sadly, as a "nature vs. nurture" debate. It reports on both bio-kinetical explanations (actually quite speculative) and cultural comparative research. Here is the graphic that helps tell the story:

The competing explanations could work well in a classroom discussion on their own, but an analysis of the author's framing of the explanations would work even better. It's not just that there are divergent explanations for gendered outcomes; what's really interesting is that we talk about those divergences in illuminating ways.

More Manly by Being Less Man

Weight Watchers is joining the gendering craze with Weight Watchers Online for Men:



Catchphrase: "Lose like a man!"

I was also told in a testimonial that "I can eat burgers and drink beer and still lose weight!" We've known for quite some time that conceptions of the body and beauty are highly gendered. I have memories of being told by female family members as a teenager that I looked thin and should eat more, even as I approached a BMI of 35, while my actually-thin teenage sister was encouraged to exercise and diet.

There is a great irony in what marketers are attempting to do with campaigns like that of Weight Watchers above. In trying to open markets for their products and services, companies need to overcome our gendered beliefs (e.g. weight loss is feminine), but instead of challenging this gendering, they reinforce it by marketing gender-specific versions of the same service/product. The big question, then, is whether redefining gendered expectations is more efficient than challenging them. My guess is that challenging would be far more economical in the long run.

Gendered Bibles

Rachel Held Evans posted this picture of gendered Bibles:

Sociological Images has countless posts on the topic of gendered products. SocImages also has several Boards of these kinds of images over at Pinterest (specially here and here). I'll leave the analysis to them--and you.