Colorism, Gender, and School Suspension

By Tristan Bridges and C.J. Pascoe

Originally posted at Girl W/ Pen

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple, coined the “colorism” term to define: “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on the color of their skin” (here: 290). Colorism occurs when groups of people are discriminated against in systematic ways on the basis of skin color alone.  The differential treatment results not simply from being recognized as belonging to a specific racial category, but from the values associated with the actual color of someone’s skin.  And it is one way that social scientists have looked at inequalities within as well as between racial groups.

Some of the social scientific findings that provoked more research on colorism uncovered skin color-based disparities within the criminal justice system. Research has shown, for example, that skin color affects the length of time people are sentenced to serve in prison, the proportion of their sentences that they do serve, and the likelihood of receiving the death penalty.  This research has less often focused explicitly on intersections with gender inequality.

A recent article in Race and Social Problems by Lance Hannon, Robert DeFina, and Sarah Bruch—“The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans”—addresses these intersections centrally. They analyze the relationship between race, skin color, gender, and the school suspension.  Similar to what research on criminal sentencing has shown, Hannon, DeFina, and Bruch found that darker skin tone was significantly related to the likelihood of being suspended in school.  African American students with darker skin had a higher probability of being suspended than those with lighter skin.  But, upon closer investigation, they discovered that that finding was primarily driven by the fact that skin tone has a much larger impact on African American girls than on African American boys.

James Messerschmidt and “Masculine Resources”

Since I was first interested in masculinity, I’ve been interested in the situatedness of it.  The thing about masculinity is, it’s a moving target.  What “counts” as masculine is not something we can measure in any straightforward way.  Masculinity’s flexible, it’s adaptable.  When we say that people “have” it—that is, when we say that people are masculine—this is really best qualified by a follow-up question: Where?  Where are they masculine?  Gender is contextually contingent; it’s fluid.  What “counts” as masculine shifts—sometimes subtly, sometimes substantially—from culture to culture, generation to generation, as we age, and from context to context.  Studying the “saying and doing” of gender (as Martin puts it) sometimes disguises the fact that we often say and do gender a bit differently around different groups, in different settings, and depending on what kinds of cultural tools are around on which we can rely.

The example I most often discuss in classes is men’s locker rooms.  We often think of the locker as a space in which men perform masculinity a bit differently than they do outside of this space.  It’s often presented as a cultural “safe space” for men—a space in which they can talk and act however they want without fear of reprisal.  And though I’ve never formally studied men’s locker room experiences, I’d imagine that it’s experienced as a safe space for some boys and young men more than others.  Men’s locker rooms are also often cast as hallowed spaces—what happens in the locker room stays in the locker room.  What’s interesting about the “locker room phenomenon” to me is not only what goes on in there (though that’s interesting too), but that masculinity is understood to change shape behind those doors.

There are really two key questions when considering this issue: (1) What’s salient?—What kinds of performances, objects, knowledge, etc. “count” when considering masculinity?; and (2) Where?—Where do all of these different components of gender count?  Sometimes we construct contexts within which the masculinities we might fancy ourselves as “having” will be highly valued (like club houses, man caves, bachelor pads, and more).  But, possibly more often, we seek out social contexts within which our “gender capital” is afforded cultural status and esteem.

How people make decisions about how to “do” masculinity is best understood in context.  We do masculinities a bit differently depending on where we are, who and what is around, and possibly just as important, who and what is not around.

Masculinity, Gender (Non)Conformity, and Queer Visibility

by Tristan Bridges and CJ Pascoe

Originally posted at Girl W/ Pen

Coco Layne got a haircut.  She shaved both sides of her head, but left the top at a length that falls roughly to the bottom of her face.  As a feminist fashion, art, and lifestyle blogger, she was quick to recognize the ways that she could subtly re-style her hair and dramatically alter her presentation of gender (here).   So, in classic feminist art blogger style, she produced an art project depicting her experience.  Coco’s project—“Warpaint”—comes on the heels of several other photographic projects dealing critically with gender: JJ Levine’s series of photographs—“Alone Time”—depicting one person posing as both a man and a woman in a single photograph (digitally altered to include both images); the media frenzy over Casey Legler, a woman who garnered attention, recognition and contracts modeling as a man; the Japanese lingerie company that recently went viral by using a man’s body to sell a push-up bra, just to name a few.

Along with these other photographic projects on gender, Warpaint is critical commentary on what gender is, where it comes from, how flexible it is, what this flexibility means, and what gender (non)conformity has to do with sexuality.  Coco’s work provides important lessons about how gender is produced just below the radar of most people most of the time.  These projects all point out the extensive work that goes into doing gender in a way that is recognizable by others. Indeed, recognition by others is key to doing gender “correctly.” It is what scholar Judith Butler calls performativity or the way in which people are compelled to engage in an identifiably gendered performance. When people fail to do this, Butler argues that they are abject, not culturally decipherable and thus subject to all sorts of social sanctions. Butler points out that the performance of gender itself produces a belief that something, someone, or some authentic, inalienable gendered self lies behind the performance.  These photographic projects lay bear the fiction that there is this sort of inevitably gendered self behind the performance of gender.  This is precisely why these projects produce such discussion and, for some, discomfort.  It makes (some of) us uncomfortable by challenging our investments in and folk theories surrounding certain ways of thinking about gender and sexuality.

Much of the commentary the Warpaint project focused on Coco’s ability to get a retail job when she displayed her body in ways depicted on the bottom row.  Indeed her experience reflects research indicates that different workplaces reward particular gender appearances and practices. Kristen Schilt’s research on transmen at work, for instance, highlights the way that performances of masculinity get translated into workplace acceptance for these men. Yet doing gender in a way that calls into question its naturalness can put people (including those who do not identify as gender queer or tans) at risk. In Jespersen v Harrah, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals held that female employees can be required to wear makeup as a condition of employment (in a workplace where men are not required to wear it).  While recent decisions have been more favorable to trans identified employees, most states do not have employment law or school policies protecting gender non-conforming individuals.  Simply put, most states do not have laws addressing —to use Coco’s language—gender expression.

On the Significance of Digitally Documenting Zoo Visits

I posted a while ago about our last trip to a zoo (The Denver Zoo, actually—during our trip out for last year’s ASA conference).  Today, we visited the Buffalo Zoo, which is actually one of the oldest zoos in the country.  Zoos are fascinating places.  They still have the stink of empire and colonization to me.  But, I’ve been sociologically interested in zoos ever since seeing Marjorie DeVault present on some of her research concerning zoo visits and family life.  Zoos are an extraordinary example of how families learn to look at the world in similar ways.  Parents teach children how to position themselves to look at something, to be mindful of others (or not), what to look at, what is “important” (animals) and what should be ignored (fences, cages, and plant life), etc.  It is through small practices like this that intimate groups (like families) collectively reaffirm themselves.

For instance, most visitors passed right by a rhinoceros lying down in a pool to cool off.  The rhino was mostly concealed beneath the water.  But, rhinos are my son’s favorite animal of late.  So, while a half-hidden rhino doing nothing but shaking her ears is something many people chose to walk by, our family stopped because it’s significant to Ciaran.  And in stopping, we collaborated in producing a small family ritual—one of those insignificant moments that is part of what makes us “Us.”

A great deal about zoos has changed since I was young.  I remember being able to ride elephants and camels.  I remember exhibits constructed in such a way that animals could not hide from view.  Not today.  Habitats today are more expansive, often permitting animals the ability to put themselves “on display” or out of sight.  Perhaps our understandings of the psychological consequences of captivity on (some) animals have changed.  Or perhaps our collective beliefs about animals themselves have changed.  Either way, exhibits are dramatically different than I remember as a child.

Beyond the spaces themselves, technology has dramatically altered the ways in which people interact with the exhibits.  Witnessing the exhibit often felt secondary to digitally documenting the visit.  So, unable to turn off my inner sociologist, I started documenting the documenters.  I watched a family of four come up to a habitat, each with digital cameras of their own.  They all took pictures, glancing briefly at the pictures each person took, took a few more, and moved on to the next exhibit.  Sometimes, someone took pictures of the signs, too.  Perhaps this was to remember a few facts about the animals they were so busy photographing.  Capturing the animal in an interesting pose (like this shot of my son looking at the otters) was prized.  But, getting the shot was a must.  Groups often didn’t move on until everyone with a camera got a satisfactory shot.

So what?

Doing Gender, Buying Cars

So, we went car browsing today.  I like calling it that, because it’s really not an option.  You can’t “browse.”  If you pull in the lot, you’re “buying.”  We only visited two dealers and we knew we weren’t going to buy anything today.  We really just wanted to test-drive the cars we’re considering.  And we did.  We drove the cars.  But we knew we’d have to put up with everything else that comes with this process for the privilege of the test drive.

Car sales are really a micro-sociological gold mine in terms of interactions.  The salespersons have to keep interactions from getting awkward.  If multiple people come, as was the case with us, they have to quickly assess who’s going to be doing “the talking.”  My wife and I didn’t talk about it beforehand, but we both knew it would be her.  I know next to nothing about cars and my wife subscribed to Car & Driver when she was younger.  Her dad’s a mechanic.  In fact, the first time I met my father-in-law we were under the hood of her car.  He tells her to “pop the hood” every time he sees her.  He’s a wonderful man and I can’t even imagine him intentionally trying to intimidate me.  But I remember feeling that he wouldn’t have had to try hard that day.

Men are always “doing gender” when cars come up.  And buying a car is, I think, thought of as something men do.  This is because buying a car involves a set of interactional skills with which we assume men are better equipped.  Short-story-long, this is an assumption that does not hold for me.   I have my wife call to cancel magazine subscriptions pretending she’s me so that I won’t feel bullied into subscribing for another year.  But, I love the interactions at dealerships.

As a buyer, you try to not act overly interested.   Though of course, sellers know that few people would subject themselves to the kind of interactions you have to endure when you actually open your car door, step out onto the lot, and commit to “looking,” unless they are, in fact, interested.  And then there’s the fact that, really, everyone’s interested in a new car on some level.  Sellers are aware of the stereotypes about car salespersons.  We don’t call them “salesmen” anymore, though all of the salespersons we saw at both dealerships we visited were men.  At the second dealership, we weren’t approached immediately, but someone was called out quickly to “take care of us.”  When someone tells a car salesman to “take care of you,” it feels more like the mob’s use of the phrase than how it’s used by, say, doctors and nurses.  Sellers know this.  So, they have to be careful not to appear too polished, too eager, etc.

You Are You – Bending Gender at a Children’s Camp

Slate ran a story last week about a camp for boys who prefer to bend gender.  Photographer Lindsay Morris has created a photo-documentary of the boys at camp.  She gives the camp a pseudonym (for obvious reasons).  She calls it “You Are You.”  I like avoidance of gendered pronouns in the title she selected.  The images are wonderful.  They depict an space in which playing with gender boundaries, meanings, and more is the norm, not the exception.

Children become socialized into the world we know in various ways.  And I believe that if we want the boys, girls, and more from our children’s generation to live in a world with less gender and sexual inequality, we have to not only teach them to question and push boundaries, we have to be willing to let them teach us.  Children still ask questions about things that we might have learned to accept without thinking.  And we can learn a great deal about gender and the potential for change from examining the aspects of life they might be better positioned to question than we are.

In a recent post with D’Lane Compton, I shared a story of a young girl coming up and pointing at my son in the grocery store, asking her mother a series of questions about him that ended with, “Will he always be a boy?”  The mother assured her daughter that he would, and I couldn’t help but think, “Well, with repeated acts like that over the course of his life, he’d certainly think twice before deciding otherwise.”  I didn’t share these thoughts with her or her child, but it was an experience that left a mark (on me anyway).  At You Are You, it seems as though that’s not a question considered worthy of asking or answering—at least when they’re at camp.

The Sad Demise, Glorious Triumph, and Mysterious Disappearance of the Gayborhood?*

Cross-posted at Social (In)Queery

This post is part of a series of posts I’ve written on sexuality and space, specifically addressing issues of where LGBT populations live and why.  See “Can Living in the City Make you Gay?” and “Why More Lesbians (Might) Live in Rural Communities than Gay Men” for the first two in the series.

The gayborhood is a relatively new cultural phenomenon.  While groups of gay men and lesbians have sought living spaces organized around sexual identity for a long time, neighborhoods actively recognized as “gayborhoods” by others is something arguably more recent.  Indeed, as Amin Ghaziani writes, “It’s quixotic to think that gay neighborhoods have always been around and will never change” (here).  Sociological research on gayborhoods asks a few different kinds of questions: How and why do gay neighborhoods emerge?  What kinds of factors shape their growth and endurance?  What kinds of processes and forces threaten their existence?

A variety of social forces account for the emergence of gayborhoods.  Ghaziani discusses the pivotal role that World War II played in their emergence.  As men and women came home–some after being dishonorably discharged from service (as a result of their sexuality)–they settled in port cities like San Francisco.  But, gayborhoods were also emerging prior to WWII as well.  Yet, these early, largely urban, gay enclaves were distinguished by their unpublicized nature.  They were spaces to which people with same-sex desires could go to locate one another.  Ghaziani remarks, however, that the post-WWII U.S. was marked by a shift toward the development of increasingly formalized urban gay districts in some of the larger U.S. cities.

“Are You Man Enough to Be a Nurse?” Campaign Posters

By: Tristan Bridges and Sarah Mosseri

Cross-posted at The Fifth Floor

Beliefs about inherent differences between men and women are pervasive.  Thinking about men and women in opposition to one another is a belief system, and one in which our culture puts a great deal of stock.  Gender differences are promoted by popular culture and are subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) reproduced through our basic institutions such as the family, education, and the military. So-called “natural differences” are also called upon to justify and reinforce gendered divisions of labor by suggesting that women and men are somehow naturally suited to different kinds of work.

As with most socially constructed distinctions, the notion of “separate but equal” does not apply here.  The prototypical “feminine” work is care work (e.g., teacher, nurse, social worker, flight attendant), and professions organized around “care” account for a huge proportion of women’s paid work.  Barbara Reskin and Patricia Roos (here) report that roughly one third of the 66,000,000 women in the formal labor force in the early 2000’s could be accounted for by only 10 (of the 503) occupations listed on the U.S. Census!  Not much has changed in more recent history either.

Now recognized as “occupational ghettos”, these female-dominated care professions are associated with a great deal of work, lower levels of cultural status and prestige, and often less pay as well.  As a phenomenon, occupational segregation may well account for the majority of the gender wage gap.  According to Maria Charles and David Grusky (here), occupational segregation persists less because we think of men as better and more deserving of the higher status and higher paying jobs and more because of our collective investment in the idea that men and women are simply naturally suited to different sorts of work.

Nursing is one example of this.  An area of care work, nursing is a female-dominated occupation that has suffered from the effects of gendered devaluation—an issue that has made it difficult to recruit men into the field. As Paula England argues, “Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have little incentive to take on female activities or jobs” (here).

Intending to challenge the femininity of nursing and to directly target men for recruitment into the field, the Oregon Center for Nursing (OCN) launched the “Are You Man Enough To Be A Nurse” campaign.

Never Gender a Book by its Cover

Book covers are gendered spaces.  Not only authors names (one reason I’ve always been fond of using first initials rather than first names), but the colors, designs, scripts, and more are deeply gendered symbols.  Author Maureen Johnson tweeted about getting a lot of comments from men saying that they’d love to read her books, but require a “non-girly cover” to do so.  Johnson’s book covers have some pretty characteristic “feminine” features, from the women depicted on them, to the script used for the titles, to the colors, and more (see below for a sample).

Johnson challenged her readers to craft masculine covers for books with feminine covers and feminine covers for books with masculine covers.  She called the project “Coverflip,” and it spawned quite a bit of support (check out the #coverflip hashtag for more on the story in Huffington Post here).  Johnson wrote about it in this way:

Imagine that book was written by an author of the OPPOSITE GENDER. Or a genderqueer author. Imagine all the things you think of when you think GIRL book or BOY book or GENDERLESS book (do they EXIST?). And I’m not saying that these categorizations are RIGHT—but make no mistake, they’re there… Now, as a mental exercise, imagine [the author is a different gender]. The book has the same exact topic. Does the cover look like this? (here)

The call produced a stream of submissions.  To the right and left are two of Johnson’s books flipped.

The fact is, we do judge books by their covers.  Cover art matters.  So too does the gender of the author, the author’s name, the title, and more.  Covers are one way publishers can communicate to potential readers “what kind of book” a particular book is and who the intended audience might be.  I like to imagine people coming across #coverflip and thinking, “Well I’d never read that book… Buuuuutttttt… I’d read it with that cover.”

Anti-Anorexia PSA Ads–The Fashion Industry and the Institutionalization of Feminine Beauty and Body Ideals

–An abbreviated version of this post is cross-posted at Sociological Images

A Brazilian modeling agency, Star Models*, recently released a new series of anti-anorexia PSA advertisements that illustrate one of the ways ultra-thin body ideals characterizing women’s bodies in the fashion industry today are institutionalized. Fashion sketches anesthetize these bodies, with their exaggerated proportions, long slender limbs, and expressionless faces. The placement of real women alongside them, graphically altered to similar proportions, works to produce an understanding of eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, and beauty and body ideals as products of the cultures and industries in which they emerge.

Sociology professors are constantly asking students to analyze what they might be taking for granted. One issue we take for granted is that the images on the left are what “fashion” looks like and ought to look like. That they are culturally recognizable as fashion sketches speaks to the ways in which hyper-thin feminine bodies are institutionalized at a fundamental level in the fashion industry today.