Punishing Black Masculinities in School

Ann Arnet Ferguson’s (2001) book, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, is a wonderful school ethnography. I regularly assign what is probably the most reproduced chapter in the book—“Naughty by Nature”—in courses I teach about gender. She deftly illustrates the ways that teachers, administrators, and public schools more generally participate in criminalizing young black boys and masculinities.

The book is probably best known for Ferguson’s conceptualization of what she refers to as “adultification.” “By this I mean their transgressions are made to take on a sinister, intentional, fully conscious tone that is stripped of any element of childish naïveté” (here: 83). Young black boys’ behavior is interpreted through discursive frames usually applied to adults and their bad behavior is understood to stand not only for what they are capable of, but of who they will become. Pascoe (here and here) finds something similar in her discussion of boys’ use of “fag” in school. Black boys were punished more heavily and immediately for using the term while white boys were often ignored.

Ferguson also, however, has a fantastic discussion of physical space in the school—the social sites of punishment. She highlights the significance of the spaces in which punishment occurs in wonderful ethnographic detail. The second chapter of the book—“The Punishing Room”—details two separate rooms in the school reserved for students who misbehave: the “Punishing Room” and the “Jailhouse.”

Laud Humphreys’ Discussion of Space in “Tearoom Trade”

Re-reading Laud Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade (1970), I was reminded of his wonderful analysis of sexuality and space. For those unfamiliar with the study, Humphreys studied sex between men in public park restrooms. He was interested in how these interactions occurred and who was involved. His results were astounding. He found that a large percentage of the men participating were married, many were religious (mostly Catholic), a large percentage were either in the military or veterans, and–perhaps most interestingly of all–a large majority of the men that did not identify as gay were socially and politically conservative. In fact, Humphreys found that only 14% of the men in his study could be said to be a “typical” gay man. Most of them, in fact, were not gay (meaning they did not identify as gay). Rather, these were heterosexual men who sometimes (and for many of them often) had homosexual encounters in public restrooms.

Humphreys’ work is regrettably most commonly discussed as an example of unethical research (see here and here for notable exceptions). He went undercover studying this practice, serving as a lookout (or “watch queen”) for police or anyone else who might pose a threat to the men involved. During his research, he also recorded the license plate numbers of participants’ cars and used public records to obtain names and addresses. A year following his research, he interviewed about 50 of the men under the guise of a survey study on mental health. The ethics of the research have been a hot topic in research methods courses since the 70s. Focusing solely on whether or not Humphreys’ research was “ethical” or not, however, sidesteps a conversation about what he actually found and why his research was so important.

“What Sort of Man Reads Playboy?” Ads

Playboy’s peak year of circulation was 1972. In fact, the best-selling issues was November 1972, selling over 7,000,000 copies. The New Yorker reported than roughly 25% of college men were purchasing the magazine monthly. The 70’s started out so well for Playboy that Heffner decided to become the first gentlemen’s magazine to be printed in Braille. There’s been a great deal written about the magazine, the empire that it started, and whether and how that empire is in decline today. Founded in 1953, like all magazine Heffner needed to collect advertising revenue to stay afloat. Unlike other magazine of the time, however, Heffner needed to prove two things to would-be advertisers: (1) a critical mass of men is purchasing the magazine, and (2) they were looking at more than just the pictures in the magazine. As you might imagine, Playboy struggled with the latter more than the former.

To combat this issue, Playboy ran a series of advertisements in the 60’s that I came across in my research on bachelor pads. You might be familiar with them. These are the “What sort of man reads Playboy?” ads. Formally, these advertisements were ads for advertisers (a dizzying thought). But they also played a role in normalizing the use of pornography by framing its use as commonplace, public, and undertaken by white, wealthy, successful men. Looking back on these ads now, it seems likely that the ads said more about how Heffner and Playboy saw themselves than it did about the readership.

“I’m with her!”–Devaluing Catholic Women’s Work

In April, 2008, at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF), Pope Benedict XVI approved an investigation into the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR) in the U.S. The state of women’s religious life in the U.S. was investigated in two formal ways. The first of these two investigations was a survey of nearly 400 separate institutions (the results of which have not been made public – or I was unable to find them). The second was a more in depth evaluation of the LCWR, the details of which were shared publicly (here).

According to the document, the CDF Prefect cited three reasons for the evaluation of the LCWR, among them that women in religious leadership have embraced “radical feminism,” “[taken] a position not in agreement with the Church’s teaching on human sexuality,” supported women’s leadership roles in the church, criticized the “patriarchal” structure of church life, and distorted the (gendered) structure of religious life that Jesus had intended. As a result, an American Archbishop (read: a man) has been charged with overseeing the revision of the LCWR.

Barrie Thorne, “Borderwork,” and the Social Space of Schools

If someone had told me that the way to pick a research project was to scan my bookshelf, find my absolute favorite studies, and figure out what they have in common, I’d have done a school ethnography.  It was Barrie Thorne’s Gender Play (1993) that made me want to go to graduate school.  I just learned that she retired and thought it might be a fitting time to talk about how much her work inspires me.

When sex role theory was the way to talk about gender, scholars and activists interested in discussing gender inequality focused on key socializing institutions (where “sex roles” and their associated expectations were thought to be primarily produced) like the family, education, religion, etc.  I have always thought that school ethnographies emerged out of this period – though Parsons‘ structural functionalism seems a distant memory to much of this research.  Incidentally, Barrie Thorne was among the group of feminist scholars who collectively explained why sex role theory was and is inadequate as a theory.

[SIDE NOTE: Terms like “class roles” and “race roles” were never as popular as “sex roles.”  Yet scholars dealing with race and class were certainly navigating similar concerns.  Paul Willis’ Leaning to Labor (1977) is a prime example, illustrating how working-class youth are making a choice to enter working-class jobs.  But it’s a choice that is structured by much more than their individual desires.]

Lately, I’ve gone back through a number of my favorite school ethnographies to read more about how scholars discuss the role of space in the structuring of children’s experiences of school, the perpetuation of inequality within schools, and the fostering of performances of self at school. 

The Bachelor Pad: Myths and Reality

— Cross-posted at Sociological Images

There is not actually a great deal of literature on “man caves,” “man dens,” and the like–save for some anthropological and archeological work using the term a bit differently.  There is, however, a substantial body of literature dealing with bachelor pads.  The “bachelor pad” is a term that emerged in the 1960s.  It was a style of masculinizing domestic spaces heavily influenced by “gentlemen’s” magazines like Esquire and Playboy.  Originally referred to as “bachelor apartments,” “bachelor pad” was coined in an article in the Chicago Tribune, and by 1964 it appeared in The New York Times and Playboy as well.

It’s somewhat ironic that the “bachelor pad” came into the American cultural consciousness at a time when the median age at first marriage was at a historic low (20.3 for women and 22.8 for men).  So, the term came into usage at a time when heterosexual marriage was in vogue.  Why then?  Another ironic twist is that while the term has only become more popular since it was introduced, “bachelorette pad” never took off–despite the interesting finding that women live alone in larger numbers than do men.  I think these two paradoxes substantiate a fundamental truth about the bachelor pad–it has always been more myth than reality (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Mike Messner, “Soft Essentialism,” and Ideologies that Gender Social Spaces

Mike Messner has written a few pieces that I do not teach courses on gender without.  One of them is an article about the opening ceremonies of a American Youth Soccer League in which his son participated–“Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender” (2000).*  What I love about the article is Messner’s simultaneous attention to structure, culture, and agency.  He does this in a way that is beautiful in its simplicity.

The following is the scenario Messner witnessed and wrote about.  The opening ceremony for this league asks players to come dressed in uniform and with banners (if they have them), and beyond attempting to create a community, the event seems designed to help the young boys and girls feel like athletes.  Each team walks around the track at the local high school football field behind their banner as they are announced.  The boys’ team that Messner discusses (the “Sea Monsters”) is sitting together, proudly looking at their large banner of a sea snake appearing to eat a soccer ball.  A girls’ team (the “Barbie Girls”) enters pulling a wagon with a large Barbie doll standing on a rotating platform and dancing and singing along to Barbie-themed music coming out of a boom box.   While at first the boys seem entranced, smiling (and perhaps even wanting to take part), eventually, enough of the boys notice each other noticing the Barbie parade going on and they take action.  One of the boys yells out, “NO BARBIE!” and they are on the move, jumping around, and bumping one another.  The girls do a good job of not noticing, but “NO BARBIE!” ends up serving as a chant that unites the Sea Monsters in solidarity.

One of the most interesting parts of this analysis to me is that Messner also pays careful attention to the adults in this interaction and examines how they make sense of this behavior.  It’s a great example of Thorne’s concept of “borderwork.”  The adults take this moment as an opportunity to reflect on just how different boys and girls are.  Messner illustrates how much work it is to actually think of boys and girls as completely different sorts of creatures.