Table of Contents

The Topics

1. Introduction.  What do we mean by gender inequality?

To analyze the causes of gender inequality, we need to know what we mean by gender inequality. How can we conceive of and talk about gender inequality in ways that are general enough to apply across the range of relevant phenomena, consistent enough to minimize conceptual ambiguities, and precise enough to be analytically effective?  Gender inequality has been extraordinarily diverse and wide spread.  Women and men are unequal in every conceivable way in endless circumstances, both immediate and enduring, by both objective criteria and subjective experience.  So, what counts as gender inequality? Can we characterize it in ways that let us confidently and impartially assess when there is more or less of it?  Can we systematically and consistently capture the ways that systems or instances of gender inequality differ in content or character?  We need tools, both theoretical and empirical, to qualify and quantify gender inequality if we hope to understand and explain it.

• Analytical Task
  • How can we make gender inequality both conceptually meaningful and empirically well specified?
  • Conceptual problem:
    • Make a list of every way that women and men can be socially unequal as a consequence of their membership in a gender category. 
    • Consider opportunities, resources, experiences, culture, and ideology among other things. 
    • Once the list is made, try to explain how we might meaningfully conceive (not measure) overall gender inequality as a composite of all these facets.  Can we give theoretical substance to the idea of gender inequality as something that has a meaning greater than being the supposed empirical sum of many more specific inequalities?
  • Empirical problem:
    • For each aspect of gender inequality listed as a conceptual component, try to provide some method by which we can measure it.  This may be precise as in a gini coefficient for occupational segregation or it may be an effort at cruder but important distinctions between low, medium, and high inequality for forms of inequality that elude clear, numerical assessment.
    • Once the varied possible measures have been suggested, consider how one might meaningfully combine them to achieve a means of assessing the relative amount of gender inequality in a society.
• Common Readings
  • Chafetz, Janet Saltzman. Feminist Theory and Sociology: Underutilized Contributions for Mainstream Theory. Annual Review of Sociology 23, no. 1 (1997): 97-120. [doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.97] [This provides a good summary of competing feminist strategies within sociology near the end of the 20th century, the backdrop against which work on gender has proceeded over the past two decades.  Look for the assumptions and arguments that distinguish the perspectives.] AbstractFeminist theories in sociology reflect the rich diversity of general theoretical orientations in our discipline; there is no one form of feminist theory. The development of these theories over the last 25 years has only recently begun to influence the mainstream theory canon, which has much to learn from their insights. This chapter demonstrates why feminist versions of the following theory types should be more fully integrated into mainstream sociological theory: neo-Marxist, macro-structural, exchange, rational choice, network, status expectations, symbolic interactionist, ethnomethodological, neo-Freudian, and social role. Feminist standpoint theory, an epistemological critique of mainstream sociology, is discussed at the beginning, and the chapter concludes with a brief account of the newly developing effort to theorize the intersection of race, class, and gender.
  • Down So Long:  Why Is It So Hard to Explain Gender Inequality?  [Read for some orienting ideas about the project of explaining gender inequality.]
  • Underwood, Carol R. , Anna M. Leddy, and Miranda Morgan. Gender-Equity or Gender-Equality Scales and Indices for Potential Use in Aquatic Agricultural Systems.. CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems, 2014. [Read quickly to get a sense of alternate ways researchers have devised "scales" that try to measure gender inequality.]  AbstractThis report summarizes existing gender equality/equity scales or indices found in a review of the literature ... This review identified 12 scales/indices related to gender-equality or equity ... The scales/indices measured gender equality from various levels of the socio-ecological framework (i.e. individual, interpersonal, community and structural). Six scales/indices measured gender equality or equity at the individual level. Five of the six scales measured individual attitudes to gender norms related to sexual relationships and gender roles. One scale (the empowerment scale) measured individual mobility, economic security and economic autonomy.
  • Muñoz-Boudet, Ana María, Patti Petesch, Carolyn Turk, and Angélica Thumala. On Norms and Agency: Conversations About Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries. Directions in Development: Human Development (2013). [Read "Final Thoughts," pp. 148-151 for a sense of what they see as the common norms across many countries and their sense of what is and what is not changing. The remainder is optional - scan or read the remainder as seems useful.]   AbstractSocial norms, gender roles, beliefs about one’s own capacity, and assets, as well as communities and countries, determine the opportunities available to women and men—and their ability to take advantage of them. World Development Report 2012 shows significant progress in many areas, but gender disparities still persist.
    Our study covered 20 countries in all world regions, where over 4,000 women and men, in remote and traditional villages and dense urban neighborhoods, in more than 500 focus groups, discussed the effects of gender differences and inequalities on their lives. Despite diverse social and cultural settings, traits and expectations of the ideal “good” woman and “good” man were remarkably similar across all sample urban and rural communities. Participants acknowledged that women are actively seeking equal power and freedom, but must constantly negotiate and resist traditional expectations about what they are to do and who they are to be. When women achieve the freedom to work for pay or get more education, they must still accommodate their gains to these expectations, especially on household responsibilities.
    Girls’ desire for education, which nurtures their aspirations for greater agency, exceeded that of boys in rural and urban communities. Both young women and men wished for more education and better jobs than are common in their communities and strikingly wanted to marry later, bear children later, and have more autonomy in choosing their partners than traditional community norms dictated.
    The main pathways for women to gain agency are education, employment, and decreased risk of domestic violence. A safer space encourages women to negotiate for more participation and equality in household discussions and decisions. Women’s ability to contribute to family finances and control (even partially) major or minor assets helps them gain more voice at home and in public spheres. Women’s aspirations and empowerment to break gender barriers occur regardless of dynamic or poor economies, while men’s perceived gain in agency— and their identity as breadwinner—largely depends on economic conditions.
    When only a few women manage to break with established norms—without a critical mass—traditional norms are not contested and may be reinforced. The process of gender norm change thus appears to be uneven and challenging, lagging behind topical conditions. The easy co-existence of new and old norms means that households in the same community can vary markedly in how much agency women can exercise, and women feel less empowered when opinions and values of families and communities stay with traditional norms.
• Recommended Readings
  • Destined for Equality: Egalitarian Impulse
  • van Staveren, Irene. To Measure Is to Know? A Comparative Analysis of Gender Indices. Review of Social Economy 71, no. 3 (2013): 339-72. [doi:10.1080/00346764.2012.707398] AbstractIn this paper, I present a comparative analysis of five cross-country composite gender indices. Although there is a relatively high correlation between the indices, the overlap of underlying indicators is low. Country rankings both at the top and at the bottom have parallels but are quite distinct. The differences are explained in two ways: methodologically and theoretically. The methodological differences concern in particular weights, capping, and aggregation. The Capability Approach helps to explain the different focus of each index by distinguishing between four stages of human development, which include distinct types of indicators. The substantial differences that exist between the gender indices require a cautious selection between these for research and policy analysis. This is shown in a few examples with policy variables. Finally, I present a set of three decision trees, which enables an informed choice between the indices.
  • Chafetz, Janet Saltzman. The Varieties of Gender Theory in Sociology. In Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, edited by Janet Saltzman Chafetz, 3-23. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2006. [doi:10.1007/0-387-36218-5_1] AbstractIn this chapter, I review the major gender/feminist theories in sociology, beginning with a review of what classical, nineteenth and early twentieth century theorists said about gender, but focusing most attention on theories developed since 1970, when the impact of second wave feminist activism began to be felt in our discipline. I generally confine my discussion to theories developed by sociologists, although the full corpus of feminist theory is far broader in its origins, both activist and academic. Omitted from this chapter are discussions of relatively narrow, substantive theories, which appear in subject-appropriate chapters. Also omitted is Standpoint Theory, the topic of an entire chapter (2), an approach sometimes considered virtually synonymous with the term "feminist theory." The current chapter demonstrates the many other types of contemporary feminist theory that emanate from, reflect, and significantly revise the rich variety of theoretical traditions in sociology.
  • Rosenfeld, Rachel A. What Do We Learn About Difference from the Scholarship on Gender?. Social Forces 81, no. 1 (2002): 1-24. [doi:10.1353/sof.2002.0057] AbstractWhat can the scholarship on gender teach us about studying difference and dealing with diversity in our professional and personal lives? Here, I first describe the expansion of research on gender over the last 30 years. This research has grown not only in its representation in our journals, but also in the types of differences it considers — between women and men, among women (and among men), and across national boundaries. Next, I discuss some of the lessons we learn from this research: to study difference in its own context, make real comparisons, look for similarities as well as differences, examine variation within as well as between groups, investigate exceptions, note failure to find effects, allow for equifinality, and move up a level in abstraction to go beyond gender as a category per se. These lessons about moving between the specific and the general can help us understand processes creating inequality. Finally, I illustrate how we can apply these lessons in our teaching and service.
  • World Economic Forum. The Global Gender Gap Report 2021. Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2021. AbstractThe Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the evolution of gender-based gaps among four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment) and tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time. [See Appendix B: The Global Gender Gap Index Methodology and Technical Notes and Chapter 1 Benchmarking Gender Gaps: Findings from the Global Gender Gap Index 2021]
  • United Nations. Developing Gender Statistics: A Practical Tool. New York: United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe, 2010. Abstract"Gender statistics is not a discrete or isolated field. It cuts across traditional fields of statistics, such as economics, agriculture, health and employment, to explore the differences that exist between women and men in society. Such information is vital to inform policy and decision-makers and to make advances towards achieving gender equality. The manual Developing Gender Statistics: A Practical Tool aims to guide statistical organizations in the production and use of gender statistics, building upon the seminal work Engendering Statistics: A Tool for Change by Statistics Sweden (Hedman et al., 1996)."
  • Beneria, Lourdes, and Iñaki Permanyer. The Measurement of Socio-Economic Gender Inequality Revisited. Development and Change 41, no. 3 (2010): 375-99. [doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2010.01648.x] AbstractThe measurement of socio-economic gender inequality has not received much attention from the development literature despite its great relevance and important policy implications. In this article we present two new indices to measure gender inequalities that overcome some of the limitations inherent in theUNDPgender-related indices and other indices presented in the literature. The proposed new indices are conducive to exploring the extent to which gender gaps favour women and/or men, and to showing the contribution of the different subcomponents to the overall levels of gender inequality.Using UNDP data, our calculations suggest that the levels of gender inequality are mostly explained by differences in the earned-income subcomponent and that the average difference between women’s and men’s achievement levels has been reduced by 12 per cent during the period 1995–2005..
  • Permanyer, Iñaki. The Measurement of Multidimensional Gender Inequality: Continuing the Debate. Social Indicators Research 95, no. 2 (2009): 181-98. [doi:10.1007/s11205-009-9463-4] AbstractThe measurement of multidimensional gender inequality is an increasingly important topic that has very relevant policy applications and implications but which has not received much attention from the academic literature. In this paper I make a comprehensive and critical review of the indices proposed in recent years in order to systematise the different underlying ideas. I also present new gender inequality indices that overcome some limitations of the preceding ones. Using United Nations data, empirical results for the new indicators are provided, suggesting that the choice of one indicator or another can make an important difference for the ranking of those countries that have achieved high levels of gender equality.
  • ...
• Related Readings
  • World Bank.  " World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development." 2011.
  • Klugman, Jeni; Hanmer, Lucia; Twigg, Sarah; Hasan, Tazeen; McCleary-Sills, Jennifer; Santamaria, Julieth (World Bank).  " Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity." 2012.
  • Klasen, Stephan and Schüler, Dana. "Reforming the Gender-Related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure: Implementing Some Specific Proposals." Feminist Economics, 2011, 17:1, 1-30 [doi: 10.1080/13545701.2010.541860]
  • Dijkstra, A. G. "Revisiting UNDP's GDI and GEM: Towards an alternative." Social Indicators Research, 2002, 57, 301–338. [doi: 10.1023/A:1014726207604]
  • Dijkstra, A. Geske and Hanmer, Lucia C.  "Measuring Socio-Economic GENDER Inequality: Toward an Alternative to the UNDP Gender-Related Development Index." Feminist Economics, 2000, 6:2, 41-75. [doi: 10.1080/13545700050076106]
  • Francisco Javier Blancas Peral, Mónica Domínguez Serrano, and Flor Ma Guerrero Casas. "An alternative approach to measuring gender inequality." Journal of Gender Studies, 2008, 17:4, 369-374. [doi: 10.1080/09589230802420102]

2. How is gender inequality symbolized and reproduced in everyday life?

Gender inequality is expressed and reinforced (or challenged) in every interaction between women and men (and in many interactions among those of the same sex).  This pattern is true for all forms of social inequality and social distinction, but is more striking to gender theorists because kinship and sexuality make male-female interactions so frequent.  We want to consider how people experience and act out gender in their day-to-day lives.  We want to think about the most basic questions.  Why and when do women and men act differently?  Why and when do people respond differently to women than men?  How do all these private individual actions when taken together over time influence the understanding of gender in a culture and gender inequality?

• Analytical Tasks ...
  Analytical Task 1

  Analytical Task 1

  • The general analytical problem.  When organizations like the military or a large corporation gradually assimilate women over time, we expect them to display shifting patterns of gender influencing interactions.   Building on personal experience, observations, and theoretical arguments, let us try to assess how we think gender will influence interactions initially and then how they might change over time
  • Assume a pattern of increasing assimilation of women occurs in (typical) stages:
    • Start with hierarchical organization, mostly male
    • Women enter initially in relatively low-level and well-defined positions.  In a corporation, this might, for example, be as typists and secretaries within the administrative apparatus or possibly as line workers in select parts of the "production" process (e.g., assembly line workers for repetitious tasks deemed physically undemanding).  In the military, it might be in analogous support positions.
    •  If an organization brings in a sufficient number of women working in similar positions in a shared location (e.g. secretaries or staff in a department store), it may create a limited authority hierarchy of women supervising women (e.g., a head secretary or clerk) that is one or two deep, although underneath a male manager.
    • The organization begins to hire women into previously all male positions in the managerial hierarchy or professional staff.  This could result from a shortage of men for the positions (most common during wars), but usually reflects changing laws and government policies.
    • The women in higher-status positions are initially so few as to be tokens, but their numbers increase with time.
  • How would we expect gender to influence interactions within such an organization?
    • Obviously, organizations and circumstances vary greatly, and so would the influence of gender.  Let us ignore that here, and just think about "typical" organizations and conditions.
    • Organizations have a positional hierarchy.  So, interactions can be between people at a similar level, between people at different levels who do not have a direct authority relationship, or between people in a direct authority-subordinate relationship.  These positional inequalities intersect with gender, so that authority status and gender status are simultaneous influences.  Taking the authority hierarchy and gender together gives us a wider range of interaction types to consider.
    • The sketch above of women entering an organization in stages helps us consider how the influence of gender on interactions within the organization can shift over time.  Three aspects of the changing circumstances over time stand out:
      • The numbers of women increase from just a few to many.
      • The positions held by women change from a restricted set of occupations - mainly low-status and without opportunities for promotion - to a range of positions increasingly similar to those held by men
      • With the passage of time, what was peculiar in an organization becomes familiar. Also, the newer patterns are reinforced by similar changes in other organizations and the larger culture.
  • The goal of this task is to talk through what we know about the influence of gender on interactions within organizations and consider how much scholarly ideas, particularly those of Ridgeway, help us make sense of this.
  • So, to prepare for discussion, choose a couple types of organizations familiar to you, try to think through how gender influences interactions in ways that change over the sequence of shifting involvement by women as described above.  Try to take some notes for yourself (and the class) so you are prepared to present your assessments when we meet.

  
  Analytical Task 2 (Ignore this task)

  Analytical Task 2

  • The general analytical problem.  Using typical settings where women and men meet, assess how Ridgeway's framing approach helps explain the role of gender in these interactions and where it might fall short.
    • For this task, choose two familiar (to you) settings or types of interactions where women and men typically engage each other.  For example, these could be a workplace, a bar, interactions between buyers and sellers, or parties.  We use these as our source of empirical data and focus our argument on explaining gender interactions there. Selecting two divergent examples will help separate the impact of gender from the influences of context.
    • After reading and distilling Ridgeway's argument, try to apply it to the chosen settings.  The aim is to assess how much people's actions appear to fit the expectations we can derive from Ridgeway's argument and when they might not.  As we work on our analyses, we are evaluating Ridgeway's approach as a tool. The right tool allows us to construct a better edifice with less effort; the wrong tool does not.
    • To be systematic, initially analyze each of the two examples separately. Then compare the two analyses to decide which of Ridgeway's ideas apply across the examples and which do not.
  • Thinking tools. The remaining notes for this analytical task look at some analytical steps that allow us to think through this problem effectively.
    • Research Design.  This task relies on a simplistic but logical research design. We are comparing the characteristics of interactions in two examples to find the similarities and differences. And we examine how well these follow the expectations of a theoretical argument.
    • Systematic steps in the analysis.  Doing this kind of thought experiment, we want our thinking to be as systematic as possible.  For all systematic causal analyses, we want first to consider how the phenomenon being examined varies in regular or predictable ways across conditions, settings, types of people, places, or the like. We explain differences, so we must first identify differences. Then, we ask what conditions or events typically precede or occur along with the outcomes that could plausibly influence those outcomes. 
      • For example, first, we might simply consider possible differences between men's and women's actions. 
      • Then we could consider how their actions might differ between opposite-sex and same-sex encounters. 
      • We can broaden the range of the examples we use to think about these differences by considering other characteristics that might affect interactions, such as the age or race of the people, whether the interaction is cordial or unfriendly, how well the people know each other, and so on. 
      • We want to ask ourselves if the gender aspect of the interaction will be influenced by these other circumstances that seem relevant to interactions. For example, does gender influence cordial interactions differently from the ways it influences confrontations in our setting? If we believe the answer is yes, then we consider how and why. 
      • Analogously, we want to think about the ways that people's goals in gendered interactions vary in these kinds of circumstances, and how these goals influence their actions.  For example, in the same setting, a person seeking sex will commonly act differently than someone trying to curry favor or sell a product.
      • When we apply a systematic logic to the analysis, we usually do not want to write about all the possibilities we think about.  Instead, we use the ones that we find telling.  But we will not identify those telling possibilities unless we systematically work through all the relevant possible influences.
    • Gender context. We can also take the analysis of interactions another step by considering how the influence of gender on these interactions is potentially affected by contextual conditions like:
      • the presence or absence of onlookers (i.e., the relative privacy of the interaction) or
      • the gender distribution of other people present (i.e., mostly male, mostly female, or mixed)
    • Conformity.  Whenever we try to explain patterns like this, we want to consider the exceptions.  When will people violate the implications of gender expectations and what follows when they do?  Are there circumstances that make it more likely people will depart from conventional behavior?  Violations of norms or common expectations are valuable for causal analyses because cracks in the veneer of social order can reveal its structure and dynamics.
  • Bring it together.  By working through the steps above, we are trying to assess when Ridgeway's approach does a good job explaining how gender influences behavior in our chosen settings, and when her approach seems to fall short.   Do we see ways that her approach neglects or misunderstands important causes influencing the gender character of behavior in the context we examine?  Our central goal here is to explain how and why gender organizes interactions in our chosen example. We are not attempting a general evaluation of Ridgeway's ideas, but a focused assessment of their effectiveness in the settings we have selected to try them out.
• Common Readings:
  • Ridgeway, Cecilia L. "The Puzzle of Persistence." Chap. 1 In Framed by Gender, 3-31, 2011. AbstractThis chapter poses the problem of the persistence of gender inequality in the face of leveling forces in the contemporary United States. It proposes the use of gender as a primary cultural frame for social relations as a general mechanism by which gender inequality is re-created in the face of transformations in the social and economic arrangements upon which that inequality seems, at any given point, to depend. It develops tools for thinking about contemporary changes in gender inequality. These conceptualize gender inequality as rooted in widely shared gender status beliefs whose persistence depends on inequalities between men and women in positions of power and resources. The relation of the proposed argument to questions about biological determinism is briefly considered.
  • Ridgeway, Cecilia L. "A Primary Frame for Organizing Social Relations." Chap. 2 In Framed by Gender, 32-55, 2011. AbstractThis chapter explains the argument that gender is a primary frame for organizing social relations and examines empirical evidence for it. Social relations pose a coordination problem that is solved with “common knowledge” cultural systems for categorizing “who” people are and, therefore, how they are likely to behave. Cognition research shows that a few “primary” categories like sex/gender provide simplified cultural frames for initiating the definition of self and other. The chapter examines how sex categorization as difference becomes cultural beliefs about gender status inequality, drawing on evidence from status construction theory, and discusses the interests the gender frame creates for both sexes.
  • West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. Doing Gender. Gender & Society 1, no. 2 (1987): 125-51. [doi:10.1177/0891243287001002002] AbstractThe purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation.
  • Hyde, Janet Shibley. The Gender Similarities Hypothesis. Am Psychol 60, no. 6 (2005): 581-92. [doi:10.1037/0003-066X.60.6.581] AbstractThe differences model, which argues that males and females are vastly different psychologically, dominates the popular media. Here, the author advances a very different view, the gender similarities hypothesis, which holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. Results from a review of 46 meta-analyses support the gender similarities hypothesis. Gender differences can vary substantially in magnitude at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs. Overinflated claims of gender differences carry substantial costs in areas such as the workplace and relationships.
  • Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women. American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 5 (1977): 965-90. [doi:10.1086/226425] AbstractProportions, that is, relative numbers of socially and culturally different people in a group, are seen as critical in shaping interaction dynamics, and four group types are identified in the basis of varying proportional compositions. "Skewed" groups contain a large preponderance of one type (the numerical "dominants") over another (the rare "tokens"). A framework is developed for conceptualizing the processes that occur between dominants and tokens. Three perceptual phenomena are associated with tokens: visibility (tokens capture a disproportionate awareness share), polarization (differences between tokens and dominants are exaggerated), and assimilation (tokens' attributes are distorted to fit preexisting generalizations about their social type). Visibility generates performance pressures; polarization leads dominants to heighten their group boundaries; and assimilation leads to the tokens' role entrapment. Illustrations are drawn from a field study in a large industrial corporation. Concepts are extended to tokens of all kinds, and research issues are identified.
  • Yancey, George, and Michael O. Emerson. Does Height Matter? An Examination of Height Preferences in Romantic Coupling. Journal of Family Issues 37, no. 1 (2014): 53-73. [Skim for main points.] [doi:10.1177/0192513x13519256] AbstractAmidst increasingly equality in belief and in practice between the sexes, we ask if height preferences still matter, and if so, why people say they matter. First, we collected data from Yahoo! dating personal advertisements. Second, we used answers to open-ended questions in an online survey. The Yahoo! data document that height is still important in decisions to date but that it is more important to females than to males. Results from the online survey indicate that women wanted tall men for a variety of reasons, but most of the explanations of our respondents were connected to societal expectations or gender stereotypes. Gender-based legitimation of height preferences seem to be more central than evolutionary-based legitimation, but future work may discover a more nuanced interpretation.
• Recommended Readings
  • Erving Goffman's approach to interaction analysis, performance, and the presentation of self lay the foundations for the framing analysis of Ridgeway and the efforts of performance analysis (such as those of Judith Butler).  His famous book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is generally considered the best starting point for his ideas; unfortunately it is available only by purchase, not online. Some of his early articles that are available online convey many of his core ideas:
    • Goffman, Erving. "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor." American Anthropologist 58, no. 3 (1956): 473-502.
    • Goffman, Erving. "The Neglected Situation." American Anthropologist66, no. 6 (1964): 133-36.
    • Goffman, Erving. "The Arrangement between the Sexes." Theory and Society 4, no. 3 (1977): 301-31.
    • Goffman, Erving. "Symbols of Class Status." The British Journal of Sociology 2, no. 4 (1951): 294-304.
  • Ridgeway, Cecilia L. Framed before We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations. Gender & Society 23, no. 2 (2008): 145-60. [doi:10.1177/0891243208330313] [This article was a preview of the arguments developed in Ridgeway's subsequent book. Use it to help fill in the gaps.] AbstractIn this article, I argue that gender is a primary cultural frame for coordinating behavior and organizing social relations. I describe the implications for understanding how gender shapes social behavior and organizational structures. By my analysis, gender typically acts as a background identity that biases, in gendered directions, the performance of behaviors undertaken in the name of organizational roles and identities. I develop an account of how the background effects of the gender frame on behavior vary by the context that different organizational and institutional structures set but can also infuse gendered meanings into organizational practices. Next, I apply this account to two empirical illustrations to demonstrate that we cannot understand the shape that the structure of gender inequality and gender difference takes in particular institutional or societal contexts without taking into account the background effects of the gender frame on behavior in these contexts.
  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. Bargaining with Patriarchy. Gender & Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274-90. [doi:10.1177/089124388002003004] AbstractThis article argues that systematic comparative analyses of women's strategies and coping mechanisms lead to a more culturally and temporally grounded understanding of patriarchal systems than the unqualified, abstract notion of patriarchy encountered in contemporary feminist theory. Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression. Two systems of male dominance are contrasted: the sub-Saharan African pattern, in which the insecurities of polygyny are matched with areas of relative autonomy for women, and classic patriarchy, which is characteristic of South and East Asia as well as the Muslim Middle East. The article ends with an analysis of the conditions leading to the breakdown and transformation of patriarchal bargains and their implications for women's consciousness and struggles.
• Related Readings
  • Cecilia Ridgeway.  Framed by Gender.  Oxford: 2011. [doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755776.001.0001]
  • ...

3. How can gender inequality be nearly universal but biological differences not decisive?

Although scholars disagree if women have ever been fully equal or had higher status in any society, all agree that men have been dominant in most societies, although the degree of dominance varies greatly.  This strong pattern raises difficult questions concerning how we explain the prevalence of male dominance, questions for which no answers have yet gained a consensus.  The "origins" problem asks how we can explain the apparently independent rise of gender inequality in societies all over the world.  The universality problem asks why have women apparently occupied a subordinate position in all societies.  Together, these inescapably lead to asking how biological differences influence gender inequality, particularly how they have an influence under some conditions and not under others.  They also force us to ask how explaining the "origins" of gender inequality relates to explaining the "persistence" of gender inequality.  How theories handle these issues is decisive for their form and effectiveness.  Theories sometimes try to sidestep these questions, but avoidance is an unrealistic strategy because sooner or later efforts to apply the theories or contend with challenges bring these issues to the surface.

• Analytical Task
  • The general analytical problem.  Using real world empirical observations, juxtapose the evidence available to you for and against the proposition "women's reproductive biology is an unavoidable barrier to gender inequality."  Try to produce a causal argument that can account for, and disentangle, the evidence on both sides.
  • For evidence, consider what you have seen, directly and indirectly, in the world.  Consider the ways you have seen women and men cope with their reproductive differences - in anticipation (as when young), in the circumstances of having children, while children are growing up, in their perceptions and expectations of others, and so forth.  Consider what you know about people's understanding and responses to reproductive differences in culture, in history, and so forth.  Feel free to search for any data or material you like, but recognize that you already have a storehouse of relevant empirical knowledge from the experiences and observations of normal life.
  • Consider all the ways you have seen others link reproductive differences to larger gender differences either in arguments they offer or in the way they conducted their lives.  Try to synthesize this range into a workable set of propositions relating reproductive capacity to the differential outcomes for women and men or to the social organization of gender differences.
  • Similarly, consider analogous evidence from people's arguments and experiences that discount the impact of reproductive biology on gender inequality. 
  • Try to adjudicate between the opposing arguments.  The goal is not to judge the relative merits (although you may do that).  Instead, the goal is provide an account that makes sense of the relationships between the biological reality of reproductive differences, the conditions of gender inequality, and the reasons that some people believe reproductive differences lead to that inequality and others do not. 
• Common Readings
  • Huber, Joan N. Reproductive Biology, Technology, and Gender Inequality: An Autobiographical Essay. Annual Review of Sociology 34, no. 1 (2008): 1-13. [doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134654] [Perhaps overstated, but offers a strong portrait how reproductive differences could have influenced gender positions.]  AbstractIgnorance of biodata is costly in sociology. Gender theorists remain unaware that until the demographic transition, infants were suckled every 15 minutes for two years, less often another two. A nearly continuous cycle of pregnancy and lactation barred women from the activities that brought the most prestige and power until the advent of modern sanitation after 1880. Women entered the public arena in large number only after technology altered the social consequences of human physiology. Yet wives still spend twice as much time in housework and child care as husbands. Data about the effects of both biology and culture on social interaction would enhance studies of ethnocentrism within the household.
  • Eagly, Alice H., and Wendy Wood. Feminism and the Evolution of Sex Differences and Similarities. Sex Roles 64, no. 9-10 (2011): 758-67. [doi:10.1007/s11199-011-9949-9] AbstractDistrust between most evolutionary psychologists and most feminist psychologists is evident in the majority of the articles contained in this Special Issue. The debates between proponents of these perspectives reflect different views of the potential for transforming gender relations from patriarchal to gender-equal. Yet, with respect to the overall prevalence of sex differences or similarities, the articles in the Special Issue show that neither feminist psychologists nor evolutionary psychologists have uniform positions. Questions about how and if women and men differ are still under negotiation in the articles in this Special Issue as well as in other research related to evolutionary and feminist psychology. Clearer conclusions would be fostered by standardized metrics for representing male–female comparisons, more varied research methods for assessing both psychological and biological processes, greater diversity in populations sampled, and more researcher openness to taking into account findings that challenge their theories. Theoretical growth also is needed, especially to develop and integrate the many individual feminism-influenced theories represented in this Special Issue. To this end, we propose an integrative evolutionary framework that recognizes human culture in both ultimate and proximal causes of female and male behavior.
  • Collins, Randall, Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Rae Lesser Blumberg, Scott Coltrane, and Jonathan H. Turner. Toward an Integrated Theory of Gender Stratification. Sociological Perspectives 36, no. 3 (1993): 185-216. [doi:10.2307/1389242] [Read lightly for a sense of the argument - perhaps the peak of the variables perspective on gender inequality.]  AbstractOutlines an integrated theory of gender segregation that charts the connections & feedbacks among three main blocks of causal factors - gender organization of production, gender organization of reproduction, & sexual politics - & two blocks of outcomes - gender resource mobilization & gender conflicts. Despite rises in women's gender resources in recent decades, it is likely that gender conflicts will continue in new forms. An integrated theory makes it possible to examine alternative scenarios & policies of change in gender stratification of the future
  • Sapolsky, Robert M. Testosterone’s Bum Rap. In Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, 99-106. New York, New York: Penguin Press, 2017 [Exceptional biologist explains clearly what is really known about testosterone and male violence.  Note that many scholars still do not seem to grasp this.] AbstractTestosterone has far less to do with aggression than most assume. Within the normal range, individual differences in testosterone levels don’t predict who will be aggressive. Moreover, the more an organism has been aggressive, the less testosterone is needed for future aggression. When testosterone does play a role, it’s facilitatory—testosterone does not “invent” aggression. It makes us more sensitive to triggers of aggression, particularly in those most prone to aggression. Also, rising testosterone levels foster aggression only during challenges to status. Finally, crucially, the rise in testosterone during a status challenge does not necessarily increase aggression; it increases whatever is needed to maintain status. In a world in which status is awarded for the best of our behaviors, testosterone would be the most prosocial hormone in existence.
  • Down So Long:  Analyzing the Persistence of Gender Inequality: How to Think about the Origins [Clear thinking about causality is critical.]
  • Smith, Sharon. Engels and the Origin of Women's Oppression. International Socialist Review, no. 2 (1997). AbstractWhy are women oppressed? Unless we determine the source of women’s oppression, we don’t know who or what needs changing. This, the “woman question,” has been a source of controversy for well over a century. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels located the origin of women’s oppression in the rise of class society. Marx and Engels developed a theory of women’s oppression over a lifetime, culminating in the publication of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in 1884. Engels wrote The Origin after Marx’s death, but it was a joint collaboration, as he used Marx’s detailed notes along with his own.
  • Murdock, George P., and Caterina Provost. Factors in the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Ethnology 12, no. 2 (1973): 203-25. [doi:10.2307/3773347] [Classic on sex division of labor.  Focus on Table 1, p. 207 (codes on first two pages) - read text only as seems useful to you.] Abstract"A division of labor between the sexes has long been recognized by economists, sociologists, and other behavioral scientists as (1) the original and most basic form of economic specialization and exchange, and as (2) the most fundamental basis of marriage and the family and hence the ultimate source of all forms of kinship organization. On the whole, however, scholars have focused their major attention on the consequences rather than the causes of the division of labor by sex, seeking, for example, to ascertain its bearing on such matters as the status of women and the forms of social organization. In the present paper the emphasis shifts to an inquiry into the factors governing the assignment of particular tasks to men or to women in the cultures of the world."
• Recommended Readings
  
  • Chudek, Maciej, Michael Muthukrishna, and Joe Henrich. Cultural Evolution.. Chap. 30 In The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by David M. Buss, 749-69. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015. [doi:10.1002/9781119125563.evpsych230] AbstractHumans are a highly successful species who colonized most of the planet's major ecosystems long before agriculture, cities, and modern industrial technologies. Our success was certainly not due to our physical prowess, but perhaps surprisingly, also not due to our intelligence. In this chapter, we explain that what makes our species unique is not our raw brainpower per se, but what's in them. We are an evolved cultural species, completely reliant on a body of knowledge that has accumulated over generations. We explain how genetic evolution led us to become a cultural species and outline the evolved psychology that underlies our second line of inheritance—culture. We then discuss how that body of knowledge itself evolves as these psychological mechanisms play out in our societies and social networks. Cultural evolution builds adaptations, shapes our preferences and thinking, and sometimes leads to maladaptive practices. Our technology, practices, and know-how also shape our genes, which in turn shape culture; genes and culture coevolve. Finally, we discuss how intergroup competition shapes cultural evolution, and how the processes of cultural group selection can help resolve evolutionary puzzles, such as the emergence of modern religions.
  • Collins, Randall. A Conflict Theory of Sexual Stratification. Social Problems 19, no. 1 (1971): 3-21. [doi:10.2307/799936] AbstractEmployment discrimination against women is explained as the result of a distinctive system of stratification by sex. The fundamental bases of sexual stratification are human sexual drives in conjunction with male physical dominance. Variations in the social organization of violence and of economic markets determine the resources available to men and women in the struggle for control, and condition prevailing ideologies about sexuality. Historical changes in sexual roles are explained as results of shifts in these resources.
  • Blumberg, Rae Lesser. A General Theory of Gender Stratification. Sociological Theory 2 (1984): 23. [doi:10.2307/223343] AbstractThis chapter sets forth a general theory of gender stratification. While both biological and ideological variables are taken into account, the emphasis is structural: It is proposed that the major independent variable affecting sexual inequality is each sex's economic power, understood as relative control over the means of production and allocation of surplus. For women, relative economic power is seen as varying-and not always in the same direction-at a variety of micro- and macrolevels, ranging from the household to the state. A series of propositions links the antecedents of women's relative economic power, the interrelationship between economic and other forms of power, and the forms of privilege and opportunity into which each gender can translate its relative power.
  • Hyde, Janet Shibley. Gender Similarities and Differences. Annual Review of Psychology 65, no. 1 (2014): 373-98. [doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115057] AbstractWhether men and women are fundamentally different or similar has been debated for more than a century. This review summarizes major theories designed to explain gender differences: evolutionary theories, cognitive social learning theory, sociocultural theory, and expectancy-value theory. The gender similarities hypothesis raises the possibility of theorizing gender similarities. Statistical methods for the analysis of gender differences and similarities are reviewed, including effect sizes, meta-analysis, taxometric analysis, and equivalence testing. Then, relying mainly on evidence from meta-analyses, gender differences are reviewed in cognitive performance (e.g., math performance), personality and social behaviors (e.g., temperament, emotions, aggression, and leadership), and psychological well-being. The evidence on gender differences in variance is summarized. The final sections explore applications of intersectionality and directions for future research.
  • Hyde, Janet Shibley, Rebecca S. Bigler, Daphna Joel, Charlotte Chucky Tate, and Sari M. van Anders. The Future of Sex and Gender in Psychology: Five Challenges to the Gender Binary. American Psychologist 74, no. 2 (2019): 171-93. [doi:10.1037/amp0000307] AbstractThe view that humans comprise only two types of beings, women and men, a framework that is sometimes referred to as the “gender binary,” played a profound role in shaping the history of psychological science. In recent years, serious challenges to the gender binary have arisen from both academic research and social activism. This review describes 5 sets of empirical findings, spanning multiple disciplines, that fundamentally undermine the gender binary. These sources of evidence include neuroscience findings that refute sexual dimorphism of the human brain; behavioral neuroendocrinology findings that challenge the notion of genetically fixed, nonoverlapping, sexually dimorphic hormonal systems; psychological findings that highlight the similarities between men and women; psychological research on transgender and nonbinary individuals’ identities and experiences; and developmental research suggesting that the tendency to view gender/sex as a meaningful, binary category is culturally determined and malleable. Costs associated with reliance on the gender binary and recommendations for future research, as well as clinical practice, are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
  • Maney, Donna L. Perils and Pitfalls of Reporting Sex Differences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371, no. 1688 (2016): 20150119. [doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0119] AbstractThe idea of sex differences in the brain both fascinates and inflames the public. As a result, the communication and public discussion of new findings is particularly vulnerable to logical leaps and pseudoscience. A new US National Institutes of Health policy to consider both sexes in almost all preclinical research will increase the number of reported sex differences and thus the risk that research in this important area will be misinterpreted and misrepresented. In this article, I consider ways in which we might reduce that risk, for example, by (i) employing statistical tests that reveal the extent to which sex explains variation, rather than whether or not the sexes ‘differ’, (ii) properly characterizing the frequency distributions of scores or dependent measures, which nearly always overlap, and (iii) avoiding speculative functional or evolutionary explanations for sex-based variation, which usually invoke logical fallacies and perpetuate sex stereotypes. Ultimately, the factor of sex should be viewed as an imperfect, temporary proxy for yet-unknown factors, such as hormones or sex-linked genes, that explain variation better than sex. As scientists, we should be interested in discovering and understanding the true sources of variation, which will be more informative in the development of clinical treatments.
  • Nelson, Julie A. Are Women Really More Risk-Averse Than Men? A Re-Analysis of the Literature Using Expanded Methods. Journal of Economic Surveys 29, no. 3 (2015): 566-85. [doi:10.1111/joes.12069] AbstractAbstract While a substantial literature in economics and finance has concluded that ‘women are more risk averse than men’, this conclusion merits investigation. After briefly clarifying the difference between making generalizations about groups, on the one hand, and making valid inferences from samples, on the other, this essay suggests improvements to how economists communicate our research results. Supplementing findings of statistical significance with quantitative measures of both substantive difference (Cohen's d, a measure in common use in non-Economics literatures) and of substantive overlap (the Index of Similarity, newly proposed here) adds important nuance to the discussion of sex differences. These measures are computed from the data on men, women and risk used in 35 scholarly works from economics, finance and decision science. The results are considerably more mixed and overlapping than would commonly be inferred from the broad claims made in the literature, with standardized differences in means mostly amounting to considerably less than one standard deviation, and the degree of overlap between male and female distributions generally exceeding 80%. In addition, studies that look at contextual influences suggest that these contribute importantly to observations of differences both between and within the sexes.
  • McIntyre, Matthew H., and Carolyn Pope Edwards. The Early Development of Gender Differences. Annual Review of Anthropology 38, no. 1 (2009): 83-97. [doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164338] AbstractThis article reviews findings from anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines about the role of biological factors in the development of sex differences in human behavior, including biological theories, the developmental course of sex differences, and the interaction of biological and cultural gendering processes at different ages. Current evidence suggests that major biological influences on individual differences in human gender, to the extent that they exist, operate primarily in early development, during and especially prior to puberty. Biological effects are likely to be mediated by relatively simple processes, like temperament, which are then elaborated through social interactions (as with mother and peers) into more complex gendered features of adult personality. Biological anthropologists and psychologists interested in gender should direct more attention to understanding how social processes influence the development and function of the reproductive endocrine system.
  • Stoet, Gijsbert, and David C. Geary. The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. Psychological Science 29, no. 4 (2018): 581-93. [doi:10.1177/0956797617741719] AbstractThe underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a continual concern for social scientists and policymakers. Using an international database on adolescent achievement in science, mathematics, and reading (N = 472,242), we showed that girls performed similarly to or better than boys in science in two of every three countries, and in nearly all countries, more girls appeared capable of college-level STEM study than had enrolled. Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. The gap between boys? science achievement and girls? reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls? and women?s engagement with STEM subjects.
  • Sapolsky, Robert. Testosterone Rules. Discover 18, no. 3 (Mar 1997): 45-50. [Sapolsky's earlier than above, well-known assessment of Testosterone.] Abstract "Testosterone equals aggression" is inadequate for those who would offer a simple biological solution to the violent male. And "testosterone equals aggression" is certainly inadequate for those who would offer the simple excuse that boys will be boys. Violence is more complex than a single hormone, and it is supremely rare that any of our behaviors can be reduced to genetic destiny. This is science for the bleeding-heart liberal: the genetics of behavior is usually meaningless outside the context of the social factors and environment in which it occurs.
• Related Readings
  • Blumberg, Rae Lesser. Extending Lenski's Schema to Hold up Both Halves of the Sky-a Theory-Guided Way of Conceptualizing Agrarian Societies That Illuminates a Puzzle About Gender Stratification. Sociological Theory 22, no. 2 (2004): 278-91. [doi:10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00218.x] AbstractThis paper suggests that Lenski's classification of agrarian societies into simple versus advanced, based on the use of iron in the latter, obscures important variations in the gender division of labor and the level of gender stratification. In particular, his categories lump the gender egalitarian irrigated rice societies of Southeast Asia with the great majority of agrarian societies, which are strongly patriarchal. Based on my general theory of gender stratification and experience coding and analyzing gender stratification in the ethnographic databases and fieldwork in 39 countries worldwide, I propose a three-category alternative. First, agrarian societies are divided according to the technological criterion of irrigation into dry (rain-fed) and wet (irrigated rice) categories. This distinguishes two gender divisions of labor: a male farming system in dry agrarian and an “everybody works” system in labor-intensive rice cultivation, in which women are important in production. Second, irrigated rice societies are divided into patri-oriented-male advantage and those neutral to positive for women, based on the nature of the kinship system. This distinguishes the gender egalitarian Southeast Asian wet rice societies from the highly gender stratified majority of irrigated rice societies. Furthermore, these distinctions in gender equality are predicted by my gender stratification theory.
  • Chafetz, Janet Saltzman. Gendered Power and Privilege: Taking Lenski One Step Further. Sociological Theory 22, no. 2 (2004): 269-77. [doi:10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00217.x] AbstractIn Power and Privilege, Gerhard Lenski's theory of the evolution of systems of inequality, he showed some recognition of gender inequality but, as universally accepted in sociology at the time, “social” stratification was conceptualized implicitly as inequality between male household heads. To move from this to explaining gender inequality requires consideration of constructs in addition to those developed by Lenski, but in terms of his typology of societies based on technology and size of economic surplus, the level of gender stratification tracks that of “social” stratification and the basic variables he delineates remain centrally important.
  • Huber, Joan. Lenski Effects on Sex Stratification Theory. Sociological Theory 22, no. 2 (2004): 258-68. [doi:10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00216.x] AbstractThis paper tries to explain why the Lenski (1970) theory of stratification based on ecology and subsistence technology had relatively little effect on theories of sex inequality. In cultural anthropology, generalization was held to be impossible. Feminist explanation in sociology was social-psychological. Moreover, by the 1980s, the bias against biology in feminist theory came to include all of science. Exceptions to these trends include the work of Blumberg, Chafetz, Collins, Coltrane, and Turner. Whether feminist sociologists will follow their lead remains to be seen.
  • Divale, William Tulio, and Marvin Harris. Population, Warfare, and the Male Supremacist Complex. American Anthropologist 78, no. 3 (1976): 521-38. [doi:10.1525/aa.1976.78.3.02a00020] AbstractWe present cross-cultural data on the existence of a pervasive institutional and ideological complex of male supremacy in band and village sociocultural systems, and we identify warfare as the most important cause of this complex. We explain the perpetuation of warfare in band and village society and its interaction with selective female infanticide as a response to the need to regulate population growth in the absence of effective or less costly alternatives. Our hypothesis is supported by a demographic analysis of 561 local band and village populations from 112 societies.
  • Hann, Chris. Reproduction and Inheritance: Goody Revisited. Annual Review of Anthropology 37, no. 1 (2008): 145-58. [doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085222] AbstractAccording to Jack Goody, in a body of work that dates back to the 1950s, differences in the mode of inheritance between Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa have multiple connections to domestic groups, kin terminology, politics and stratification, and above all, productive systems. Goody's theory is built on evolutionist assumptions and draws in part on statistical analysis of the Ethnographic Atlas. Theoretically and methodologically unfashionable among sociocultural anthropologists, his work has been largely ignored in recent decades. This article considers the standard criticisms and reviews pertinent recent work on kinship and property in rural Europe and in legal anthropology. Inheritance was supposed to lose its fundamental social significance in socialist societies, and it also came to play a smaller role in the social reproduction of advanced capitalist societies. However, this eclipse may prove to be temporary, and a reengagement with the topic on the part of anthropologists is overdue.
  • Mukhopadhyay, C. C., and P. J. Higgins. Anthropological Studies of Women's Status Revisited: 1977-1987. Annu Rev Anthropol 17, no. 1 (1988): 461-95. [doi:10.1146/annurev.an.17.100188.002333] AbstractPIP: This review focuses on studies of selected themes and theoretical issues relating to women's status published by anthropologists within the subdiscipline of cultural anthropology/ethnology from 1977 to 1987. The first section of the review seeks to determine what advances have been made in understanding the universality of gender asymmetry by looking at women's status in a cross-cultural manner. The next major section highlights major areas of concern in the ethnographic literature of the decade 1977-87, including economics, studies of sexuality, women's family roles, women's political activities, women's rituals, and women's culture. The third section reviews the development of the concept of women's "status" and looks at universal determinants of women's status such as differences from men in aggressive behavior, in strength, and in reproductive and economic roles. The next section reviews developing gender theory that moves beyond reproductive determinism to "deconstruct" gender concepts. A number of common themes that run through the various approaches to this research are identified. These include the fact that gender must be examined in its historical, economic, social, and conceptual framework. Ultimately, these themes require that the old and simple determinants of status, along with the concept itself, be viewed as complex, multidimensional processes.
  • Quinn, Naomi. Anthropological Studies on Women's Status. Annual Review of Anthropology 6, no. 1 (1977): 181-225. [doi:10.1146/annurev.an.06.100177.001145] AbstractA first, and obvious, purpose of this review is to catalog the various explanations which have been proposed to account for observed similarities and differences in women's status from society to society. The second aim of this review will be an attempted evaluation of the logic of different hypotheses, evidence bearing on them, the points at which they are mutually reinforcing or conflicting, and any common themes which underly them.
  • Wermuth, Laurie Ann, and Miriam Ma'at-Ka-Re Monges. Gender Stratification: A Structural Model for Examining Case Examples of Women in Less-Developed Countries. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 23, no. 1 (2002): 1-22. [doi:10.1353/fro.2002.0014] Abstract"A structural theory of gender stratification based on the work of Rae Lesser Blumberg and Randall Collins offers tools for the systematic and comparative study of women across societies and periods of history. ... Relatively greater female control over sexuality and fertility, the timing of marriage, and partner choice reflect more equality. Increasing gender equality is also indicated by women’s ability to divorce abusive husbands, share household authority, and exert local political influence."
  • Godelier, Maurice. The Origins of Male Domination. New Left Review I/127 (May-June 1981). AbstractIt is crucial to pinpoint the real importance, or specific weight, of each social inequality within the hierarchy of causes that shape the functioning and evolution of our society. This requires, first of all, that we should not take one inequality for another, and still less reduce one to another. In each case, therefore, we must establish the specific nature, duration, origin and mode of evolution of the social inequality in question, so that we may uncover its mode of articulation with other inequalities and its real impact on the functioning of our class society. Inequality between the sexes does not exist only in capitalist society: it exists elsewhere and is older than capitalism. In order to analyse it, we must therefore have recourse to the comparative data of anthropology and history.

4.   What determines men's and women's roles and positions within families?

Family and kinship institutions are everywhere crucial to the status of women and men and to their cultural identities. Women and men have strong and lasting relationships as spouses, as parents and children, and as brothers and sisters.  Kinship rules define relationships at birth while marriage creates bonds between adults (and often kinship groups).  Family structures vary considerably, but commonly involve living together, pooling of resources, and interests bonded through a shared fate.  That such links between women and men can coexist with severe gender inequality is analytically challenging.  Not surprisingly, a lot of theoretical and empirical work has sought to disentangle and explain these relationships.  Probably the two general issues in the modern world that have received the most attention concern the ways that women and men are unequal within families and the interdependence between inequality within families and the gender inequality that exists outside families, particularly within economic and political processes. 

• Analytical Task 1
  • The analytical problem.  A issue surrounding analyses of gender and families concerns a distinction between two kinds of causes.  The first kind are the limitations of the larger social environment, in terms of the opportunities, responsibilities, and obstructions facing women and men.  The second are the ways that women and men make choices.  We want to consider how these two kinds of causes might interact.
  • One way to think through the implications of such potentially complex causal interactions is to to examine the possibilities using very simple models.  To do this, we will focus on critical moving parts and limit the possible variation in them.  In this case, we can identify three primary social characteristics.
  • A simplified model for analysis.  So, for our simplified model, let us consider some basic assumptions:
    • The actors and conditions
      • We focus the model on married couples, with unmarried women and men appearing mainly as pools of potential spouses or the results of missing, avoiding, or leaving marriages (and possibly as competitors for jobs).
      • Assume that all men have opportunities for decent jobs and wish to have them.  We are leaving out variations in men's relationship to the economy by holding it constant.
      • Assume there are two possible conditions concerning the economic opportunities for women: either decent jobs are available for one-third of women or for two-thirds.
      • Assume that the distribution of women's preferences could be at either of two levels: either two-thirds prefer to hold a decent, full time job (the other third preferring to remain at home) or one-third prefer a decent full time job (the other two-thirds preferring to remain at home).
      • Assume that the preferences of men regarding the employment of their wives are distributed at one of two levels: either two-thirds prefer wives who work full time (the other third preferring stay-at-home wives) or one-third prefer wives who work full time (and two-thirds prefer wives staying at home).
      • Finally, assume that both women's and men's preferences about women (wives in particular) working influence both what kind of people they try to marry and how they individually and jointly respond to the economic opportunities available to women after marrying.  
      • To summarize: we have three characteristics that vary between two states of low and high in our model: the job openings available for women, the proportion of women preferring jobs over a housewife's lot, and the proportion of men preferring their wives hold jobs.  Note that these are characteristics of the population in the model, not of individuals.  Taken together, these define eight possible combinations of the three characteristics (some of which are empirically unlikely). 
    • Now, consider the actions possible within the simplified model.  
      • People can marry or divorce, with most presumably being married, and with employment preferences and experience influencing mate choice.
      • Women can take or leave jobs, with those actions influenced by all three varying conditions (job availability, women's employment preferences, men's preferences about women's employment).
      • People can have children, although the model makes no assumptions about fertility.
      • Men's are employed at decent jobs by default, so the model does not include changes in male employment as actions, although one could add this.
    • Finally, consider some of the consequences we might examine or anticipate:
      • varying proportion of marriages involving working wives,
      • varying proportions of couples who are well matched with each other and their economic environment, producing happy or unhappy marriages (and possibly divorces),
      • varying pressures to sustain or change the existing conditions, with resulting effects on the expected pattern of change.
    • In short, we now have a simple model with clearly defined types of people, three varying conditions of the social environment, a limited set of actions people may take that are influenced by their predispositions and circumstances, and a limited set of consequences.
  • Using the model for analysis.  Given the possibilities for different starting points in the model, consider what the social outcomes might be under the varied possibilities defined by the distribution of women's opportunities, the distribution of women's preferences, and the distribution of men's preferences. 
    • The idea is to think through the various plausible combinations of the starting conditions to see where we think they might lead. 
    • We want to consider what would be the expected distribution of actions under each set of conditions, what immediate consequences that might have, and then were might it lead over time.
    • Some of the consequences to consider would be: what are the types of marriages that can result, what proportion of families will be of each type, what proportion will have a working wife, what proportion will have two people content with their circumstances, and so forth?
  • To extend the analysis, we can add other possible variations.  As think through the possibilities using the simple model, we must expect to find ourselves asking things such as: what about education, won't it differ for the poor compared with the affluent, or how does culture come into play.  Thus, we might decide we need to elaborate the model to include variations in the distribution of men's work preferences, to consider the cross-cutting influence of class, to question a widening of the range of possible conditions (e.g. what if no women or all women wanted to hold jobs), or the like. 
• Analytical Task 2
  • The general analytical problem.  We want to provide an integrated analytical overview of the principal causal arguments about gender inequality and family organization that appear in the common readings.
  • Each of the readings has various causal arguments about family organization, some directly about gender inequality, some relevant to gender inequality but not directly exploring it.  Some of the causal questions may receive different causal analyses by these authors.  Sometimes two or more authors may use a similar causal approach to explain different causal problems.  Our goal is to sort this out. 
  • Our overviews should be organized around the causal arguments, not a series of summaries of what each author wrote (see Thinking Tools).
  • Thinking tools.
    • We want to use one of the following two possible ways to organize the causal assessment (unless one of us has a better way).  The first organizes around what is to be explained, the second around the causes.
      • First approach.  We start by identifying the principal causal problems addressed by the group of papers.  That is, we figure out what they suggest needs to be explained.  Then, we organize these causal problems in a sensible order (including consideration of some problems potentially being secondary or sub-problems of others).  Under each causal problem, we summarize and assess all the relevant explanations found in the readings.
      • Second approach.  We start by identifying the principal causal frameworks used in the papers.  That is, we figure out what they suggest are the conditions or processes that have the most important influence over the outcomes.  Then, we organize these causal frameworks in a sensible order, taking into account which are entirely different and which might be variations of a similar theme, and which are competing versus complementary.  For each of these, after summarizing the causal logic of the framework, we show how it has been used by these authors, describing the range of outcomes the framework is supposed to determine and how it has such effects.
      • Note that regardless which way we organize our analysis of competing causal arguments, it can be valuable to think about not only what is considered by the authors being examine, but also which theoretical questions and which causal frameworks seem relevant but absent.
    • Please reread the "Basics of Causal Descriptions" on the starting point for describing a causal analysis.
  • Bringing it together.  In short, our aim is to produce a critical overview of the principal causal arguments concerning the family and gender inequality, starting with the ideas present in the common readings for this week.  To do this effectively, we need to identify all the relevant causal arguments, deduce the logical structure of each causal argument and determine how to present that clearly (even if the original source is inconsistent or ambiguous), detect how the causal arguments (from different sources) relate to each other and present them in a way that makes those relations clear, and, where possible, summarize the important analytical strengths and weaknesses of each argument (or facet to an argument).

    (We should start with the understanding that this kind of analytical overview is rather easy to do poorly and very demanding to do well and thoroughly.  At this stage we are not aspiring to a professional job but hoping to achieve a reasonable, if basic, analysis.)

• Common Readings
  • Kinship, marriage, and descent: the universal organization of societies around families
    • Cummings, Vicki. "Complex Issues: Society and Social Organization." Chap. 4 In The Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers: Key Themes for Archaeologists, 55-93. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. AbstractThis chapter considers the range of hunter-gatherer societies, focusing on the diversity of social organization found among groups across the globe. The chapter begins by considering how hunter-gatherer societies are organized, covering notions of ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ societies and egalitarian and ranked groups. The chapter also considers violence and warfare in hunter-gatherer groups. The chapter then goes on to address the different roles assigned to men and women in hunter-gatherer societies. Finally, there is a brief summary of issues surrounding the study of kinship, and the chapter ends with an assessment of how useful these ideas are for the study of hunter-gatherers in the archaeological record.
    • Kelly, Robert L. Men, Women, and Foraging.. Chap. 8 In The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum, 214-40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. [doi:10.1017/CBO9781139176132.009] AbstractAnthropologists in the 1970s created a new model of hunter-gatherer social organization. This included bilateral (or sometimes patrilineal) kinship, bilocal postmarital residence, a sexual division of labor, egalitarian political organization, and male-female equality. Foraging society was early on defined in social terms, those of descent and residence. Although the stereotype shifted from patrilineal to bilateral descent, patrilocal to bilocal residence, male dominance to male-female equality, variability was ignored. In this chapter, we consider that variability, in the division of labor, postmarital residence, descent, and marriage. Our focus is on social organization as it entails relationships between men and women.
    • Hendry, Joy. "Family, Kinship and Marriage." In An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Other People’s Worlds, 181-206. London: Macmillan Education UK, 1999. [Optional: this is an introductory text overview of kinship - read it if you want a more basic starting point.] AbstractWithin the subject of social anthropology, kinship and marriage are among the oldest and most debated topics. It is within a family group of some sort that most of us are reared, and therefore where most of us learn about social relationships. As we discussed briefly in Chapter 1, it is here that we learn to classify other human beings, and how we should behave towards them. Because these distinctions are learned so early, they are hard to dislodge, and, as we shall see, they tend to colour our views of other peoples, and their relations. We may or may not see much of our close relatives, but it is with these that we celebrate important life crises such as birth, marriage and death, and it is to these people that we may well turn in times of need.
    • for more also see Peters, Hahn, Cronk and Goode in Recommended and Related Readings
  • Family organization adapting to economic and political modernization
    • Jackson, Robert Max.  Institutional Individualism: "Individualistic Family." In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status, pages 157-169. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. AbstractModern economic and political organization fostered individualism, which stressed what people know and do over birth and status. Grades in schools, standardized entrance exams, rules governing promotions, no-fault divorce laws, and a belief that jobs should go to the most qualified applicants are all signs of individualism. Individualism applied impartial standards to people's performance, skills, and effort. As it permeated other social institutions, such as the educational system and the family, individualism subverted gender inequality, contributing to its decline, even as the institutions continued to discriminate against women. Institutional individualism reflects two fundamental principles of modern social organizations: they have no integral interest in gender inequality, and they do have inherent tendencies to produce interests that ignore sex-role distinctions. Organizations might exploit opportunities stemming from existing gender inequality, as when employers hired cheap female labor. Organizations might adapt to gender inequality, as when schools created specialized courses to fit women's and men's distinctive roles in society. The men running organizations might generally prefer to honor and support gender inequality because they share the prejudiced ideals and perceptions of their sex. Nonetheless, modern organizations have no inherent interest in preserving gender distinctions. Instead, they generate interests in treating all people by criteria related to the functional activities of the organization. People are increasingly recognized and responded to in terms of their role in relation to the institution, as workers, managers, consumers, voters, criminals, students. Institutional individualism may not have been a primary cause of gender inequality's decline, but it reinforced the movement toward greater equality and made it easier to attain.
    • Coontz, Stephanie. The World Historical Transformation of Marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family 66, no. 4 (2004): 974-79. [doi:10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00067.x] Abstract"when we look at the larger picture, it is clear that the social role and mutual relationship of marriage, divorce, and singlehood in the contemporary world is qualitatively different from anything to be found in the past. Almost any separate way of organizing caregiving, childrearing, residential arrangements, sexual interactions, or interpersonal redistribution of resources has been tried by some society at some point in time. But the coexistence in one society of so many alternative ways of doing all of these different things—and the comparative legitimacy accorded to many of them—has never been seen before."
    • for more also see Cherlin, Ruggles, Guinnane, Soares, Oppenheimer in Recommended and Related Readings
  • Domestic labor in modern households
    • Coltrane, Scott. Household Labor and the Routine Production of Gender. Social Problems 36, no. 5 (1989): 473-90. [doi:10.1525/sp.1989.36.5.03x0006f] AbstractThis paper explores how twenty dual-earner couples with school-aged children talk about sharing child care and housework. In about half of the families, fathers are described as performing many tasks traditionally performed by mothers, but remaining in a helper role. In the other families, fathers are described as assuming equal responsibility for domestic chores. With reference to the parents' accounts of the planning, allocation, and performance of household labor, I investigate the social conditions and interactional processes that facilitate equal sharing. I describe how the routine practice of sharing child care and an ongoing marital conversation socialize the parents and help them to construct an image of the father as a competent care giver. Drawing on West and Zimmerman's (1987) formulation of "doing gender, "I suggest that household labor provides the opportunity for expressing, confirming and sometimes transforming the meaning of gender.
    • Medved, Caryn E., and William K. Rawlins. At-Home Fathers and Breadwinning Mothers: Variations in Constructing Work and Family Lives. Women & Language 34, no. 2 (2011): 9-39. [read 9-25 (quickly); ignore the category names the authors use for the families, such as "reversing", as they are misleading]  AbstractThis interpretive study investigates the experiences of couples in which mothers are the primary wage earners and fathers are main childcare providers. We take up social constructionist and feminist perspectives on 'doing' and 'undoing' gender as well as the co-construction of multiple masculinities and femininities in relation to work and family. Research on dual-earner couples' marital negotiations, 'opting' out of the workforce, and stay-at-home fathers inform our in-depth interview-based work. We present our findings in the form of five homemaking and moneymaking stances: (a) reversing, (b) conflicting, (c) collaborating, (d) improvising, and (e) sharing. These stances embody the couples' diverse orientations toward identity construction, role eligibility, and task responsibility. We discuss implications of this study along with research directions and limitations.
    • for more also see Intimate Combat (in Down So Long), Davis, Vanek, Becker in Recommended and Related Readings
  • The economy and the family
    • Van Bavel, Jan, Christine R. Schwartz, and Albert Esteve. The Reversal of the Gender Gap in Education and Its Consequences for Family Life. Annual Review of Sociology 44, no. 1 (2018): 341-60. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041215] [Read introduction and conclusion; scan remainder as seems valuable.]  AbstractAlthough men tended to receive more education than women in the past, the gender gap in education has reversed in recent decades in most Western and many non-Western countries. We review the literature about the implications for union formation, assortative mating, the division of paid and unpaid work, and union stability in Western countries. The bulk of the evidence points to a narrowing of gender differences in mate preferences and declining aversion to female status-dominant relationships. Couples in which wives have more education than their husbands now outnumber those in which husbands have more. Although such marriages were more unstable in the past, existing studies indicate that this is no longer true. In addition, recent studies show less evidence of gender display in housework when wives have higher status than their husbands. Despite these shifts, other research documents the continuing influence of the breadwinner-homemaker model of marriage.
    • Gerson, Kathleen. Changing Lives, Resistant Institutions: A New Generation Negotiates Gender, Work, and Family Change. Sociological Forum 24, no. 4 (2009): 735-53. [doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01134.x] AbstractSociology’s enduring concern with explaining the links between individual and social change has never been more relevant. We are poised at a moment when changing lives are colliding with resistant institutions. These tensions have created social conflicts and personal dilemmas for women and men alike. To explain the interplay between lives and institutions and to develop effective strategies for transcending the impasse between public demands and private needs, we need a deeper understanding of how these structural and cultural conflicts play out in the lives of young women and men. This article proposes a framework for such an inquiry.
    • for more also see Musick, Raley, Tichenor in Recommended and Related Readings
• Recommended Readings
  • Down So Long:  Intimate Combat: The Responsibility for Child Rearing
  • Andrew J. Cherlin,  American Marriage in the Early Twenty-First Century The Future of Children Volume 15, Number 2, Fall 2005
  • Ruggles, Steven. "Marriage, Family Systems, and Economic Opportunity in the USA since 1850." In Gender and Couple Relationships, edited by Susan M. McHale, Valarie King, Jennifer Van Hook and Alan Booth, 3-41. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016. [doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21635-5_1]
  • Guinnane, Timothy W. The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists. Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 3 (2011): 589-614. [doi:10.1257/jel.49.3.589]
  • Yavorsky, Jill E., Lisa A. Keister, Yue Qian, and Michael Nau. Women in the One Percent: Gender Dynamics in Top Income Positions. American Sociological Review 84, no. 1 (2019/02/01 2019): 54-81. [doi:10.1177/0003122418820702]
  • Musick, Kelly, Megan Doherty Bea, and Pilar Gonalons-Pons. His and Her Earnings Following Parenthood in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. American Sociological Review 85, no. 4 (2020/08/01 2020): 639-74. [doi:10.1177/0003122420934430]
  • Brines, Julie. 1994. "Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home."  American Journal of Sociology 100(3): 652-689.  [jstor: 2782401]
  • Beth Anne Shelton, Daphne John.  "The Division of Household Labor." Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 22, (1996), pp. 299-322 [doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.299]
  • Kathleen Gerson.  "Moral Dilemmas, Moral Strategies, and the Transformation of Gender: Lessons from Two Generations of Work and Family Change" Gender & Society. Vol. 16 No. 1, February 2002 8-28 [doi: 10.1177/0891243202016001002]
  • Andrew J. Cherlin, "The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage"  Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 66, Issue 4 (p 848-861)   November 2004. [doi: 10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00058.x]
  • Peters, Pauline E. "Revisiting the Social Bedrock of Kinship and Descent in the Anthropology of Africa." In A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa, edited by Roy Richard Grinker, Stephen C. Lubkemann, Christopher B. Steiner and Euclides Gonçalves. Wiley Online Books, 33-62, 2019. [doi:10.1002/9781119251521.ch2]
  • Hann, Chris. Reproduction and Inheritance: Goody Revisited. Annual Review of Anthropology 37, no. 1 (2008): 145-58. [doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085222]
  • Cronk, Lee, and Drew Gerkey. "Kinship and Descent." In Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by Barrett Louise and Dunbar Robin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. [doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0031]
  • William J. Goode. "The Theoretical Importance of Love"  American Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1959), pp. 38-47  [jstor: 2089581]
  • Sara B. Raley, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Suzanne M. Bianchi. "How Dual Are Dual-Income Couples? Documenting Change From 1970 to 2001. Journal of Marriage and Family 68:1 (2006), 11-28 [doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00230.x]
  • Veronica Tichenor. "Maintaining Men's Dominance: Negotiating Identity and Power When She Earns More." Sex Roles 53:3-4, (2005): 191-205 [doi: 10.1007/s11199-005-5678-2]
• Related Readings
  • Davis, S. N., T. Greenstein and J. G. Marks, "Effects of Union Type and Division of Household Labor," Journal of Family Issues 28 (2007):1247–72. [doi: 10.1177/0192513X07300968]
  • Scott Coltrane. Father-Child Relationships and the Status of Women: A Cross-Cultural Study. American Journal of Sociology, 93 (1988): 1060-1095. [jstor: 2780365]
  • Joann Vanek. "Time Spent in Housework." Scientific American 231 (Nov 1974):116-120.  [doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican1174-116]
  • Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincade. Demographic Influence on Female Employment and the Status of Women. American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 4 (1973): 946. [doi:10.1086/225412]
  • Kathleen Gerson.  (2004) 'Understanding work and family through a gender lens', Community, Work & Family, 7: 2, 163 — 178 [doi: 10.1080/1366880042000245452]
  • Rodrigo R. Soares, Bruno L. S. Falcão. "The Demographic Transition and the Sexual Division of Labor." The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 116, No. 6 (Dec., 2008), pp. 1058-1104  [doi: pdf/10.1086/596102]
  • Pennington, Suzanne(2009) 'Bisexuals "Doing Gender" in Romantic Relationships', Journal of Bisexuality, 9:1, 33-69 [doi: 10.1080/15299710802660029]
  • Becker, G. S., "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics 3(1) (1985):33–58.  [jstor: 2534997]

5. What is the role of sex differences in the functioning and perpetuation of gender inequality?

Attempts to explain gender inequality at all levels are haunted by essentialism.  Even as they expressly reject the possibility of consequential inherent differences between women and men, theoretical analyses of gender inequality habitually build on gender differences.  For some, essentialism always means a difference based in biology or genetics; for others it includes cultural differences that are embodied in women and men.

• Analytical Task
  • The general analytical problem.   To investigate how essentialist arguments work, we will examine how different kinds of essentialist arguments might be applied to explain some aspect of gender inequality, in contrast to a non-essentialist argument.  We aim to see both the attraction of essentialist arguments and the possibilities for alternatives.
    • We will use two aspects of gender inequality as the focus for our discussion
      • Women are victims of both domestic and sexual violence far more than men.
      • Men are far more likely than women to occupy leadership positions for both political and economic activity.
      • (Note that many other forms or facets of gender inequality could be used for this task.  Good choices will be instances or aspects of gender inequality sufficiently important, widespread, and enduring or recurring to merit thoughtful theory and explanation.  They should also be narrow or specific enough that the goal of explaining them is plausible.  For example, a facet might be that wives commonly defer to husbands. It is worthwhile to apply this exercise to other examples)
    • For the selected types or aspects of gender inequality, you will suggest five alternative explanations, each one representing a different approach to explaining such social phenomena.  The explanations should be succinct but clear.  They should also be plausible to the extent that a reasonable person might make such an argument. Plausible does not mean true, of course.  Rather, we are trying to imagine an argument that would seem plausible to people who are advocates for each of the perspectives.
  • The five types of explanation.   For each facet of gender inequality being considered, try to devise the best explanations you can from each of the following perspectives.  Explanations may be categorized in many ways.  The five perspectives defined here are meant to engage different responses to the problem of essentialism. (Note, in this task we are aiming to produce explanations that those advocating for each of the above types of explanation would think are reasonable.  It is often hardest to conceive good explanations from the points of view we find unconvincing or unappealing, but the capacity to do this is a valuable skill.)
    • Direct biological - Devise an explanation claiming that some biological difference between the sexes produces the relevant aspect of inequality by making women and men act differently.  For example, an argument might be that men are stronger than women so men dominate women as a simple result of superior strength.  (More complex biological explanations might be derived from evolutionary psychology.)  This type of explanation is usually purely essentialist.  Note that this type of explanation can be divided further into those relying on real biological differences and those imputing fictional biological differences.  Let us stress biological differences that are at least potentially real here, leaving the fictitious ones for below.
    • Indirect biological - Formulate an explanation claiming some biological difference does not directly produce the inequality, but the biological difference has important effects or implications of some sort, and those effects that make likely or unavoidable the emergence or persistence of the selected aspect of gender inequality.  For example, someone might argue that women's child bearing makes them anxious about the welfare of their children, and that anxiety makes them feel weak and in want of a protector, leading them to defer to husbands.  Or, others might suggest that women's biologically induced child rearing orientation encourages both women and men to make men responsible for warfare, and that men's resulting skill at combat, their possession of weapons, and men's organization around mutual defense leaves wives typically in their husbands' control.  The key for this type of explanation is that the relevant biological differences do not directly cause the gender inequality being explained, but have effects on social behavior and social organization that lead to gender inequality.  These types of explanations have essentialist origins in a biological difference, but the explanation as a whole may invoke mediating causal influences that reduce the essentialist quality, sometimes greatly.
    •  Non-biological sex difference - Suggest how some socially constructed difference between women and men – one that is neither biological nor a direct result of biological differences – initiates or preserves the aspect of gender inequality being explained.  This will usually be an enduring individual characteristic (a difference that people carry with them, not a difference in their circumstances).  For example, one might claim that women are fearful and dependent because of socialization processes (that have no biological basis), and this psychological condition induces wives to defer to their husbands.  Or, one might argue that childhood sports available only to boys result in a higher competitive drive that accounts for adult men's greater success in business.  This type of explanation claims a real difference exists between women and men (in the society or social context where the inequality being explained occurs; the relevant sex difference need not exist in all or any other society or social context), but this difference is a social construction.  This type of explanation can become redundantly circular: each aspect of inequality exists as a result of inequality, and that overall inequality is constituted by the various aspects.
    • Fictitious sex difference - An imputed sex difference that does not really exist is claimed to play a significant role in producing the selected facet of gender inequality.  For example, someone might suggest that although women have no better capacity for child rearing, people commonly assume they do because women bear children, and that this false expectation produces a division of labor and power favoring men.  This type of explanation focuses on the consequences of beliefs, relying on the observation that beliefs can organize behavior even if they are false beliefs.  While such fictitious differences are commonly assumed to be biological, they need not be.
    • Causes independent of sex differentiation - A causal process that does not involve any difference between the sexes is argued to produce the inequality being considered.  For example, some might argue that for families to fulfill their social functions effectively, they need one spouse/parent to perform the critical emotional actions needed and the other spouse/parent to perform the practical and leadership actions (this is essentially a well-know idea of Talcott Parsons).  This role differentiation can then result in spouse inequality, as an indirect and unintended consequence.  Explanations of this sort can take any form but must follow the one critical rule: they do not rely on a sex difference in their central causal argument.  It may be worth noting that formulating a plausible analysis of any aspect of gender inequality that avoids sex differences is often a hard task. This is one reason so many explanations do rely on sex differences (including all the preceding perspectives).
  • Bringing it together. 
    • Once we have developed examples of the different kinds of explanations, a good next step involves figuring out how empirical research could provide decisive evidence about which of the suggested forms of explanation is most valid or important.  Thus, after defining the five possible explanations, seriously consider how we could try to show which one(s) is better.  Better not in the sense that we would prefer it to be true, but rather that evidence and theoretical assessment show it better regardless how we feel about it.
    • The point of this exercise is to examine how it is possible to devise a range of alternative causal explanations of gender inequality stressing some mechanism of sex differences, while developing alternative theories that do not rely on sex differences is rather hard.  The difference arguments run the full range from being directly and fully biological to relying on non-biological or fictitious differences in indirect ways.  The arguments that exclude not only biology but all dependence on sex differences commonly derive from another theoretical approach, such as functionalism or conflict theories.  The challenge with these approaches is not only to make the immediate (or proximate) causal process avoid sex differences, but also to avoid relying on sex differences one or two steps earlier in the causal chain. 
• Common Readings
  • How and why do women and men differ in their moral thinking (and actions)?
    • Gilligan, Carol. Hearing the Difference: Theorizing Connection. Hypatia 10, no. 2 (1995): 120-27. [doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1995.tb01373.x] AbstractHearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human life leads to a new psychology, which shifts the grounds for philosophy and political theory. A crucial distinction is made between a feminine ethic of care and a feminist ethic of care. Voice, relationship, resistance, and women become central rather than peripheral in this reframing of the human world.
    • Gilligan, Carol. Reply by Carol Gilligan. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 11, no. 2 (1986): 324. [doi:10.1086/494226] AbstractDefends "In A Different Voice" against criticism.
    • Jaffee, Sara, and Janet Shibley Hyde. Gender Differences in Moral Orientation: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin 126, no. 5 (2000): 703-26. [doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.703] AbstractC. Gilligan's critique of L. Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and her assertion that two modes of moral reasoning (justice and care) exist have been the subject of debate within the field of psychology for more than 15 years. This meta-analysis was conducted to review quantitatively the work on gender differences in moral orientation. The meta-analysis revealed small differences in the care orientation favoring females (d=–.28) and small differences in the justice orientation favoring males (d=.19). Together, the moderator variables accounted for 16% of the variance in the effect sizes for care reasoning and 17% of the variance in the effect sizes for justice reasoning. These findings do not offer strong support for the claim that the care orientation is used predominantly by women and that the justice orientation is used predominantly by men.
  • How do women and men differ in their brains or behavioral dispositions?
    • Fine, Cordelia, Daphna Joel, and Gina Rippon. Eight Things You Need to Know About Sex, Gender, Brains, and Behavior: A Guide for Academics, Journalists, Parents, Gender Diversity Advocates, Social Justice Warriors, Tweeters, Facebookers, and Everyone Else. S&F Online 15, no. 2 (2019). AbstractBiological explanations of differences in behavior between women and men or girls and boys are everywhere, from scientific articles to bestselling self-help books to parenting guides to diversity and inclusion workshops to Hollywood movies. Often, the basic structure of such explanations is along the following lines: A study reports a difference between females and males in some neural measure (such as the size of a specific brain structure). The difference is often described as if it were binary – females are like this and males are like that – and a natural and inevitable consequence of being female or male, assumed implicitly or otherwise to be inscribed in our genes. Then, the biological difference is suggested to underlie a behavioral or psychological difference between females and males. This pattern of description and explanation can give rise to an “ah ha” feeling – now we finally understand why women and men are the way they are. But researching, understanding, and interpreting sex differences in brain and behavior is surprisingly complicated, and particularly so when humans are involved.
      To help everyone parse the next hot new biological explanation of female/male behavior differences, here are eight things to know, look out for, and ask, from the nitty-gritty of whether there even is a difference to the grand sweep of evolutionary explanations. When it comes to this area of research, critiques are sometimes dismissed as “political correctness” and as interference with the scientific process. However, the point of critical inquiry is not to deny differences between the sexes, but to ensure a full understanding of the findings and meaning of any particular research report.
    • Del Giudice, Marco, David A. Puts, David C. Geary, and David P. Schmitt. Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints. (2019). AbstractA new, attention-worthy article by Cordelia Fine, Daphna Joel, and Gina Rippon suggests that sex differences are often portrayed as all-or-none binaries (“females are like this and males are like that”) and people tend to unthinkingly ascribe these differences to immutable biological factors. Over the years, we have studied many aspects of sex differences and their evolution, and we find several things to like in the article by Fine and colleagues. At the same time, their arguments seem based on an underlying assumption that most sex differences are small, inconsistent, highly malleable, and for the most part socially constructed. As a result, their prompts for critical thinking tend to be somewhat one-sided; if applied automatically, they lead to a biased assessment of research in this area.
      In the interest of a balanced approach,  we propose eight “Counterpoints” to Fine and colleagues’ original “things you need to know” about sex differences. In each, we note where we agree with the authors, point out any disagreements, and suggest other important things to know that were not mentioned in the original article. To keep our eight Counterpoints brief and readable, we do not develop our arguments at length but provide links to examples, key studies, and in-depth discussions.
    • Fine, Cordelia, Daphna Joel, and Gina Rippon. Responding to Ideas on Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Agreements, Ghost Disagreements, and Points for Continued Debate. (2019). AbstractEarlier this year, we published an article in which we set out “eight things you need to know about sex, gender, brains, and behavior”. We were pleased to see Del Giudice et al.’s response, “Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior: Eight Counterpoints”, engaging with this article, and to note so many points of agreement. There were, however, also several points where Del Giudice et al. argued against views that we did not express and do not hold. Our primary aim here is to highlight the points of agreement between us, including those framed by Del Giudice et al. as disagreements, and identify and discuss helpful criticisms, observations, and tensions that arise out of their counterpoints.
    • For a recent, emphatic argument that the weight of research shows clear and significant psychological differences between women and men, see the Archer article in Recommended Readings.
  • Why have women not gained success at the same rate as men?
    • Valian, Virginia. Sex, Schemas, and Success: What's Keeping Women Back?. Academe 84, no. 5 (1998): 50-55. [doi:10.2307/40251338] [Read 52 (Gender Schemas) - 54 (Accumulation of Advantage)]  Abstract"Women rise too slowly through the professions, and their credentials appear to be worth less than men's. To understand why that is so, I developed an explanation that relies on two key concepts: gender schemas and the accumulation of advantage. Our unarticulated beliefs about men and women - gender schemas - make it harder for women (and easier for men) to accumulate advantage and rise to the top. Schemas are hypotheses that we use to interpret social events. A schema resembles a stereotype, but is more inclusive and neutral. Gender schemas are hypotheses that we all share, men and women alike, about what it means to be male or female."
    • Gneezy, Uri, Kenneth L. Leonard, and John A. List. Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society. Econometrica 77, no. 5 (Sep 2009): 1637-64. [doi:10.3982/Ecta6690] [Read 1637-41, 1653-59 for the background and argument; look at remainder as desired.]  AbstractWe use a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society, whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed among the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men. These results provide insights into the underpinnings of the factors hypothesized to be determinants of the observed gender differences in selecting into competitive
    • Carli, Linda L., and Alice H. Eagly. Women Face a Labyrinth: An Examination of Metaphors for Women Leaders. Gender in Management: An International Journal 31, no. 8 (2016): 514-27. [doi:10.1108/GM-02-2015-0007] [Note: original labyrinth article list below in Recommended Readings.] AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to explore the most common general metaphors for women’s leadership: the glass ceiling, sticky floor and the labyrinth. The authors conclude that the labyrinth is the most useful metaphor for women leaders, because although there has been slow steady improvement in women’s access to leadership, women continue to face challenges that men do not face: gender stereotypes that depict women as unsuited to leadership, discrimination in pay and promotion, lack of access to powerful mentors and networks and greater responsibility for childcare and other domestic responsibilities. The labyrinth metaphor not only acknowledges these challenges but also suggests that women can advance to very high levels of leadership.
  • The intersectionalist idea in gender analysis - analytical tool or rhetorical device?
    • Davis, Kathy. Intersectionality as Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes a Feminist Theory Successful. Feminist Theory 9, no. 1 (2008): 67-85. [doi:10.1177/1464700108086364] AbstractSince its inception, the concept of `intersectionality' — the interaction of multiple identities and experiences of exclusion and subordination — has been heralded as one of the most important contributions to feminist scholarship. Despite its popularity, there has been considerable confusion concerning what the concept actually means and how it can or should be applied in feminist inquiry. In this article, I look at the phenomenon of intersectionality's spectacular success within contemporary feminist scholarship, as well as the uncertainties and confusion which it has generated. Drawing upon insights from the sociology of science, I shall show how and why intersectionality could become a feminist success story. I shall argue that, paradoxically, it is precisely the concept's alleged weaknesses — its ambiguity and open-endedness — that were the secrets to its success and, more generally, make it a good feminist theory.
    • Optionally, to go a bit deeper on the intersectionality question, look at these:
      • Lykke, Nina. "Intersectional Analysis: Black Box or Useful Critical Feminist Thinking Technology?." Chap. 12 In Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, edited by Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar and Linda Supik. The Feminist Imagination: Europe and Beyond, 207-20. Farnham ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. AbstractThe concept of intersectionality has become popular among feminists. In recent years, an increasing number of special issues of journals, books, conferences, PhD courses and programmes have been devoted to intersectionality. The conference ‘Celebrating Intersectionality?’ which gave rise to this book was one of these events. The large number of participants and intensive discussions at the conference testified to the attractiveness of the concept. But different kinds of ambivalence and scepticism vis-à-vis the concept are also in circulation. The question mark, which was included in the conference title, was obviously inserted to indicate this.
      • Davis, Kathy. Who Owns Intersectionality? Some Reflections on Feminist Debates on How Theories Travel. European Journal of Women's Studies 27, no. 2 (2020/05/01 2019): 113-27. AbstractFeminist scholars have increasingly expressed their worries about the depoliticization of intersectionality since it has travelled from its point of origin in US Black feminist theory to the shores of Europe. They have argued that the subject for which the theory was intended has been displaced, that Black feminists have been excluded from the discussion, and that white European feminists have usurped all the credit for intersectionality as theory. Intersectionality has been transformed into a product of the neoliberal academy rather than the helpmeet for social justice it was meant to be. This article explores three of the bones of contention in these debates about intersectionality and its travels. The author argues that they rest on notions of ownership that, while understandable, are untenable and, ultimately, counterproductive. A case will be made for taking a less proprietary stance toward critical theories and instead treating the travels of intersectionality as an occasion for dialogue rather than a contest over ownership.
  • Review: Topic 2 Common Readings above.
• Recommended Readings
  • DeLamater, John D., and Janet Shibley Hyde. Essentialism Vs. Social Constructionism in the Study of Human Sexuality. Journal of Sex Research 35, no. 1 (1998): 10-18. [doi:10.1080/00224499809551913] Abstract According to classical essentialism, there are underlying true forms or essences, there is discontinuity between different forms rather than continuous variation, and these true forms are constant over time. Modern essentialism consists of a belief that certain phenomena are natural, inevitable, and biologically determined. We consider sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, genetic research, brain research, and endocrine research as examples of essentialist approaches, focusing particularly on how these research approaches treat sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Social constructionism, in contrast, rests on the belief that reality is socially constructed and emphasizes language as an important means by which we interpret experience. We briefly review social constructionist research on sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Finally, we review examples of conjoint or interactionist research, uniting biological and social influences. We conclude that, although there may be theories and research that conjoin biological and social influences, there can be no true conjoining of essentialism and social constructionism.
  • Dunsworth, Holly M. Expanding the Evolutionary Explanations for Sex Differences in the Human Skeleton. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 29, no. 3 (2020): 108-16. [doi:10.1002/evan.21834] AbstractAbstract While the anatomy and physiology of human reproduction differ between the sexes, the effects of hormones on skeletal growth do not. Human bone growth depends on estrogen. Greater estrogen produced by ovaries causes bones in female bodies to fuse before males' resulting in sex differences in adult height and mass. Female pelves expand more than males' due to estrogen and relaxin produced and employed by the tissues of the pelvic region and potentially also due to greater internal space occupied by female gonads and genitals. Evolutionary explanations for skeletal sex differences (aka sexual dimorphism) that focus too narrowly on big competitive men and broad birthing women must account for the adaptive biology of skeletal growth and its dependence on the developmental physiology of reproduction. In this case, dichotomizing evolution into proximate-ultimate categories may be impeding the progress of human evolutionary science, as well as enabling the popular misunderstanding and abuse of it.
  • Lewens, Tim. "Introduction: The Faces of Human Nature." In Why We Disagree About Human Nature, edited by Elizabeth Hannon and Tim Lewens, 1-16. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. [doi:10.1093/oso/9780198823650.003.0001]
  • Wood, Wendy, and Alice H. Eagly. A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences. Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 5 (2002): 699-727. [doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699] AbstractThis article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and their situated activity in society.
  • Wood, Wendy, and Alice H. Eagly. "Biosocial Construction of Sex Differences and Similarities in Behavior." In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by James M. Olson and Mark P. Zanna, 55-123, 2012. [doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-394281-4.00002-7] AbstractThe behavior of women and men varies greatly depending on situations, cultures, and historical periods. This flexibility emerges as men and women tailor their division of labor to local ecological and socioeconomic demands. The resulting division is supported by childhood socialization practices that, in interaction with sex differences in child temperament, help boys and girls to develop psychologies suited to their likely adult activities. Although responsive to local conditions, the division of labor is constrained by women's childbearing and nursing of infants and men's size and strength. Because these biological characteristics influence the efficient performance of many activities in society, they underlie central tendencies in the division of labor as well as its variability across situations, cultures, and history. Gender roles—that is, shared beliefs about the traits of women and men—track the division of labor because people infer these traits from their observations of the sexes’ behaviors. Social perceivers often essentialize these traits by regarding them as inherent in the biology or social experience of women and men. Gender role expectations, which tend to be consensual within cultures, influence behavior through proximal social psychological and biological processes, whereby (a) other people encourage gender-typical behavior and individuals conform to their own gender identities and (b) hormonal, reward, and cardiovascular mechanisms enable masculine and feminine behaviors.
  • Eagly, Alice H., and Linda L. Carli. Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 9 (2007): 62-71+146. AbstractWhen you put all the pieces together, a new picture emerges for why women don’t make it into the C-suite. It’s not the glass ceiling, but the sum of many obstacles along the way.
  • Archer, John. The Reality and Evolutionary Significance of Human Psychological Sex Differences. Biological Reviews 94, no. 4 (2019): 1381-415. [doi:10.1111/brv.12507] AbstractThe aims of this article are: (i) to provide a quantitative overview of sex differences in human psychological attributes; and (ii) to consider evidence for their possible evolutionary origins. Sex differences were identified from a systematic literature search of meta-analyses and large-sample studies. These were organized in terms of evolutionary significance as follows: (i) characteristics arising from inter-male competition (within-sex aggression; impulsiveness and sensation-seeking; fearfulness; visuospatial and object-location memory; object-centred orientations); (ii) those concerning social relations that are likely to have arisen from women's adaptations for small-group interactions and men's for larger co-operative groups (person-centred orientation and social skills; language; depression and anxiety); (iii) those arising from female choice (sexuality; mate choice; sexual conflict). There were sex differences in all categories, whose magnitudes ranged from (i) small (object location memory; negative emotions), to (ii) medium (mental rotation; anxiety disorders; impulsivity; sex drive; interest in casual sex), to (iii) large (social interests and abilities; sociosexuality); and (iv) very large (escalated aggression; systemizing; sexual violence). Evolutionary explanations were evaluated according to whether: (i) similar differences occur in other mammals; (ii) there is cross-cultural consistency; (iii) the origin was early in life or at puberty; (iv) there was evidence for hormonal influences; and (v), where possible, whether there was evidence for evolutionarily derived design features. The evidence was positive for most features in most categories, suggesting evolutionary origins for a broad range of sex differences. Attributes for which there was no sex difference are also noted. Within-sex variations are discussed as limitations to the emphasis on sex differences.
  • Cooper, Brittney. "Intersectionality." In The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth: Oxford University Press, 2016. [doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.20] AbstractCoined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, the term intersectionality has become the key analytic framework through which feminist scholars in various fields talk about the structural identities of race, class, gender, and sexuality. This chapter situates intersectionality within a long history of black feminist theorizing about interlocking systems of power and oppression, arguing that intersectionality is not an account of personal identity but one of power. It challenges feminist theorists, including Robyn Wiegman, Jennifer Nash, and Jasbir Puar, who have attempted to move past intersectionality because of its limitations in fully attending to the contours of identity. The chapter also maps conversations within the social sciences about intersectionality as a research methodology. Finally, it considers what it means for black women to retain paradigmatic status within intersectionality studies, whether doing so is essentialist, and therefore problematic, or whether attempts to move “beyond” black women constitute attempts at erasure and displacement.
  • Nelson, Julie A. The Power of Stereotyping and Confirmation Bias to Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case of Economics, Gender, and Risk Aversion. Journal of Economic Methodology 21, no. 3 (2014/07/03 2014): 211-31. AbstractBehavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly ?robust? claim that ?women are more risk averse than men? is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.
  • Sent, Esther-Mirjam, and Irene van Staveren. A Feminist Review of Behavioral Economic Research on Gender Differences. Feminist Economics (2018): 1-35. [doi:10.1080/13545701.2018.1532595] AbstractThis study provides a critical review of the behavioral economics literature on gender differences using key feminist concepts, including roles, stereotypes, identities, beliefs, context factors, and the interaction of men?s and women?s behaviors in mixed-gender settings. It assesses both statistical significance and economic significance of the reported behavioral differences. The analysis focuses on agentic behavioral attitudes (risk appetite and overconfidence; often stereotyped as masculine) and communal behavioral attitudes (altruism and trust; commonly stereotyped as feminine). The study shows that the empirical results of size effects are mixed and that in addition to gender differences, large intra-gender differences (differences among men and differences among women) exist. The paper finds that few studies report statistically significant as well as sizeable differences ? often, but not always, with gender differences in the expected direction. Many studies have not sufficiently taken account of various social, cultural, and ideological drivers behind gender differences in behavior.
  • Schrock, Douglas, and Michael Schwalbe. Men, Masculinity, and Manhood Acts. Annual Review of Sociology 35, no. 1 (2009): 277-95. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-115933] AbstractIn the 1980s research on men shifted from studying the “male sex role” and masculinity as a singular trait to studying how men enact diverse masculinities. This research has examined men's behavior as gendered beings in many contexts, from intimate relationships to the workplace to global politics. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of the multiple masculinities approach, proposing that further insights into the social construction of gender and the dynamics of male domination can be gained by focusing analytic attention on manhood acts and how they elicit deference from others. We interpret the literature in terms of what it tells us about how males learn to perform manhood acts, about how and why such acts vary, and about how manhood acts reproduce gender inequality. We end with suggestions for further research on the practices and processes through which males construct the category “men” and themselves as its members.
  • Bohan, Janis S. Essentialism, Constructionism, and Feminist Psychology. Psychology of Women Quarterly 17, no. 1 (1993): 5-21. [doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1993.tb00673.x] AbstractThis article attempts to clarify two alternative understandings of gender—the essentialist and the constructionist—and to discuss the implications of each for feminist psychology. Essentialist construals of gender, represented by recent “cultural feminist” positions, are critiqued for the theoretical, empirical, and political concerns they raise. A constructionist position is offered as ameliorative, and lingering questions raised by this analysis are discussed.
  • Hopcroft, Rosemary L. Gender Inequality in Interaction -- an Evolutionary Account. Social Forces 87, no. 4 (2009): 1845-71. [doi:10.1353/sof.0.0185] AbstractIn this article I argue that evolutionary theorizing can help sociologists and feminists better understand gender inequality. Evolutionary theory explains why control of the sexuality of young women is a priority across most human societies both past and present. Evolutionary psychology has extended our understanding of male violence against women. Here I add to these theories and present a sexual selection argument to postulate possible evolved predispositions that promote young female deference to adult males in interaction and the converse, lack of male deference to young females. According to this argument, the pattern of greater female deference disappears when the women involved are past menopause. Put together, these ideas form an evolutionary account of gender inequality that complements and extends traditional sociological and
  • McIntyre, Matthew H., and Carolyn Pope Edwards. The Early Development of Gender Differences. Annual Review of Anthropology 38, no. 1 (2009): 83-97. [doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164338] AbstractThis article reviews findings from anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines about the role of biological factors in the development of sex differences in human behavior, including biological theories, the developmental course of sex differences, and the interaction of biological and cultural gendering processes at different ages. Current evidence suggests that major biological influences on individual differences in human gender, to the extent that they exist, operate primarily in early development, during and especially prior to puberty. Biological effects are likely to be mediated by relatively simple processes, like temperament, which are then elaborated through social interactions (as with mother and peers) into more complex gendered features of adult personality. Biological anthropologists and psychologists interested in gender should direct more attention to understanding how social processes influence the development and function of the reproductive endocrine system.
  • Chodorow, Nancy. Oedipal Asymmetries and Heterosexual Knots. Social Problems 23, no. 4 (1976): 454-68. [doi:10.2307/799855] AbstractOne of our most common everyday perceptions is that heterosexual couple relationships are difficult. This article argues that these difficulties are not accidental but systematically created as part of the reproduction of the family. The psychoanalytic account of feminine and masculine oedipal development shows that a family structure in which women mother produces women and men with asymmetrical relational needs and wants. These lead people to form heterosexual relationships containing contradictions, which tend to undermine them.
• Related Readings
  • Rippon, Gina. Gender and Our Brains: How New Neuroscience Explodes the Myths of the Male and Female Minds. New York: Pantheon Books, 2019.
  • Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (1999). The Origins Of Sex Differences In Human Behavior: Evolved Dispositions Versus Social Roles. American Psychologist, 54, 408-423.  [doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.54.6.408]
  • Valian, V. (1999). The Cognitive Bases Of Gender Bias. Brooklyn Law Review, 65, 1037-1061.
  • Clopton, Nancy A.; Sorell, Gwendolyn T.  "Gender differences in moral reasoning." . Psychology of Women Quarterly, Mar93, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p85 [doi: 10.1111/j.1471-6402.1993.tb00678.x]
  • Pamela L. Geller. "Identity and Difference: Complicating Gender in Archaeology."   Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 38: 65-81 (October 2009) [doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164414]
  • Barbara J. Risman, "Intimate Relationships from a Microstructural Perspective: Mothering Men." Gender and Society 1:1 (March 1987).  [jstor: 190084]
  • Nancy Chodorow. "Mothering, Object-Relations, and the Female Oedipal Configuration." Feminist Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1978), pp. 137-158 [jstor: 3177630]
  • Timothy J. Biblarz & Judith Stacey. "How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?" Journal of Marriage and Family 72:1 (2010):3-22  [doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00678.x]
  • Adrienne Rich. 1980. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (4): 631-660 [jstor: 3173834]
  • Judith Butler. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-531.  [jstor: 3207893]
  • Nussbaum, M. C. The Professor Of Parody [J. Butler]. The New Republic v. 220 no. 8 (February 22 1999) p. 37-45.  {Also, Nussbaum, M. C. Martha C. Nussbaum And Her Critics: An Exchange [discussion of February 22, 1999 article, The Professor Of Parody]. The New Republic v. 220 no. 16 (April 19 1999) p. 43-5}
  • Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn. "Fashionable Subjects: On Judith Butler and the Causal Idioms of Postmodern Feminist Theory."  Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 649-674
  • Veronica Vasterling. "Butler's Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment."  Hypatia, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer, 1999), pp. 17-38
  • Barbara F. Reskin. "Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality." American Sociological Review, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Feb., 2003), pp. 1-21 [jstor: 3088900]

6.  What is the role of sexuality?

Sexuality has been evoked in multiple ways in the study of gender inequality.  It may be considered as a possible motivating cause for inequality, examined for the ways it reflects or is affected by gender inequality, or incorporated as a peculiar tension between women and men that mediates both the causes and effects of gender inequality.  Essentially everyone recognizes sexuality as critically important to gender inequality, but it eludes comprehensive analysis.

• Analytical Task
  • Select two distinctive social contexts in which gender inequality has a consequential presence (e.g., American Appalachian families, bowling leagues, investment banks); try to use one context that is relatively formal and another that is relative informal
  • For each social context, try to describe how female and male participants express and experience sexuality differently,
  • for each context, consider any ways that sexual rules and standards appear to differ by gender
  • Try to identify the principle causes that would appear to explain the sexual rules and standards of conduct in each setting.  Consider why there are any rules or standards about sexuality.  Consider why how the rules and practices might reflect gender inequality and how they might reinforce it.
• Common Readings
  • Female and male sexuality: differences and similarities
    • Impett, Emily A., and Letitia Anne Peplau. “His” and “Her” Relationships? A Review of the Empirical Evidence. In The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships, edited by Anita L Vangelisti and Daniel Perlman, 273-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. {read pp. 273-280, although remainder is useful} [doi:10.1017/cbo9780511606632.016] AbstractIn this chapter, we take stock of the extensive empirical research comparing men’s and women’s experiences in intimate relationships. Of practical necessity, this review concentrates on six major domains: what men and women want in relationships, relationship orientation, sexuality, family work, power and influence, and health. We have selected areas in which there is sufficient empirical research to identify reliable patterns. In addition, this review is limited to adult romantic relationships and focuses on describing gendered patterns rather than tracing their origins. We hope that our review will spur relationship scholars to develop more integrative theoretical accounts of men’s and women’s experiences in close relationships.; for a fuller account on sexuality, see Peplau, Letitia Anne. Human Sexuality: How Do Men and Women Differ?. Current Directions in Psychological Science 12, no. 2 (2003): 37-40. [doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01221] AbstractA large body of scientific research documents four important gender differences in sexuality. First, on a wide variety of measures, men show greater sexual desire than do women. Second, compared with men, women place greater emphasis on committed relationships as a context for sexuality. Third, aggression is more strongly linked to sexuality for men than for women. Fourth, women's sexuality tends to be more malleable and capable of change over time. These male-female differences are pervasive, affecting thoughts and feelings as well as behaviour, and they characterize not only heterosexuals but lesbians and gay men as well. Implications of these patterns are considered. ; for a fuller analysis of research on differences, see Petersen, Jennifer L., and Janet Shibley Hyde. A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on Gender Differences in Sexuality, 1993–2007. Psychological Bulletin 136, no. 1 (2010): 21-38. {Get the main ideas.}[doi:10.1037/a0017504] AbstractIn 1993 Oliver and Hyde conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in sexuality. The current study updated that analysis with current research and methods. Evolutionary psychology, cognitive social learning theory, social structural theory, and the gender similarities hypothesis provided predictions about gender differences in sexuality. We analyzed gender differences in 30 reported sexual behaviors and attitudes for 834 individual samples uncovered in literature searches and 7 large national data sets. In support of evolutionary psychology, results from both the individual studies and the large data sets indicated that men reported slightly more sexual experience and more permissive attitudes than women for most of the variables. However, as predicted by the gender similarities hypothesis, most gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors were small. Exceptions were masturbation incidence, pornography use, casual sex, and attitudes toward casual sex, which all yielded medium effect sizes in which male participants reported more sexual behavior or permissive attitudes than female participants. Most effect sizes reported in the current study were comparable to those reported in Oliver and Hyde’s study. In support of cognitive social learning theory, year of publication moderated the magnitude of effect sizes, with gender differences for some aspects of sexuality increasing over time and others decreasing. As predicted by social structural theory, nations and ethnic groups with greater gender equity had smaller gender differences for some reported sexual behaviors than nations and ethnic groups with less gender equity. Gender differences decreased with age of the sample for some sexual behaviors and attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
    • Ford, Jessie, and Paula England. Hookups, Sex, and Relationships at College. Contexts (2014). AbstractWhat is going on in today’s heterosexual college scene, which features both casual “hookups” and exclusive relationships? How does gender structure students’ experiences? We’ll give you an overview, using data from the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) led by Paula England. This survey was taken online by more than 20,000 students from 21 four-year colleges and universities between 2005 and 2011. Since we’re looking at heterosexual sex and relationships, we limit our analysis to those who said they are heterosexual.
  • Evolutionary arguments and clashing politics - where do they leave us? {Can you figure out where these accounts agree and where they disagree?}
    • Buss, David M. Sexual Strategies Theory: Historical Origins and Current Status. Journal of Sex Research. 35, no. 1 (1998): 19-31.  {Start with the key ideas on pp. 23-25, then read the remainder as needed to get the basic argument.  This article reviews a foundational argument in evolutionary psychology about how and why women and men have fundamental inherent behavioral differences.} [doi:10.1080/00224499809551914] AbstractIn sexually reproducing organisms, no domain is more closely linked with the engine of the evolutionary process than sexuality. Men and women over human evolutionary history have confronted different adaptive problems in the sexual domain. Sexual Strategies Theory offers an account of these adaptive problems and presents a view of human sexual psychology as a rich repertoire of mechanisms that have evolved as adaptive solutions. A host of specific predictions about human sexuality follows from this analysis, including an account of sex differences in the desire for sexual variety, the qualities preferred in short‐term and long‐term mates, context‐dependent shifts in mate preferences, the nature of sexual jealousy, the tactics that are effective for attracting and retaining a mate, and the causes of sexual conflict between men and women. After reviewing the theory's historical origins, I summarize a portion of the extensive empirical research designed to test its tenets. An evaluation of the theory notes its strengths as well as its weaknesses, with a special focus on the issues of prediction and falsification. It ends with a challenge for other theories of human sexuality to reach an equivalent level of specific predictions, a comparable empirical foundation, an equally parsimonious account of sex differences, a compelling ultimate account of causal origins, and a comparable level of multi‐level conceptual integration.
    • Smuts, Barbara. The Evolutionary Origins of Patriarchy. Human Nature 6, no. 1 (1995): 1-32. {Read pp. 12-20 for the principal argument.}  [doi:10.1007/BF02734133] AbstractThis article argues that feminist analyses of patriarchy should be expanded to address the evolutionary basis of male motivation to control female sexuality. Evidence from other primates of male sexual coercion and female resistance to it indicates that the sexual conflicts of interest that underlie patriarchy predate the emergence of the human species. Humans, however, exhibit more extensive male dominance and male control of female sexuality than is shown by most other primates. Six hypotheses are proposed to explain how, over the course of human evolution, this unusual degree of gender inequality came about. This approach emphasizes behavioral flexibility, cross-cultural variability in the degree of patriarchy, and possibilities for future change.; A classic statement that male seeking control of female sexuality is the key to all gender inequality is found in MacKinnon, Catharine A. Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7, no. 3 (1982): 515. [doi:10.1086/493898] AbstractThe molding, direction, and expression of sexuality organizes society into two sexes - women and men - which division underlies the totality of social relations. Sexuality is that social process which creates, organizes, expresses, and directs desire, creating the social beings we know as women and men, as their relations create society. As work is to marxism, sexuality to feminism is socially constructed yet constructing, universal as activity yet historically specific, jointly comprised of matter and mind. As the organized expropriation of the work of some for the benefit of others defines a class - workers - the organized expropriation of the sexuality of some for the use of others defines the sex, woman. Heterosexuality is its structure, gender and family its congealed forms, sex roles its qualities generalized to social persona, reproduction a consequence, and control its issue.  
  •  Sexual orientation and identity
    • Bailey, J. Michael, Paul L. Vasey, Lisa M. Diamond, S. Marc Breedlove, Eric Vilain, and Marc Epprecht. Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 17, no. 2 (2016): 45-101. {Read pp. 45-62, scan the rest as well as time allows.  This is long and dense, so digesting it all is difficult.  This aimed to be a definitive statement of scientific knowledge and is widely cited as such.  A good challenge is to discover its analytical weaknesses.}  [doi:10.1177/1529100616637616] AbstractOngoing political controversies around the world exemplify a long-standing and widespread preoccupation with the acceptability of homosexuality. Nonheterosexual people have seen dramatic surges both in their rights and in positive public opinion in many Western countries. In contrast, in much of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Oceania, and parts of Asia, homosexual behavior remains illegal and severely punishable, with some countries retaining the death penalty for it. Political controversies about sexual orientation have often overlapped with scientific controversies. That is, participants on both sides of the sociopolitical debates have tended to believe that scientific findings—and scientific truths—about sexual orientation matter a great deal in making political decisions. The most contentious scientific issues have concerned the causes of sexual orientation—that is, why are some people heterosexual, others bisexual, and others homosexual? The actual relevance of these issues to social, political, and ethical decisions is often poorly justified, however.
    • Bem, Daryl J. Exotic Becomes Erotic: Interpreting the Biological Correlates of Sexual Orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior 29, no. 6 (2000): 531-48. {Try to figure out the logic of this theory.  Scholars on all sides largely reject it seemingly more because they dislike it than because of its analytical weaknesses.  For example, Bailey et al. above do not even cite it, although it has twice as many citations as their article.}  {[doi:10.1023/a:1002050303320] AbstractAlthough biological findings currently dominate the research literature on the determinants of sexual orientation, biological theorizing has not yet spelled out a developmental path by which any of the various biological correlates so far identified might lead to a particular sexual orientation. The Exotic-Becomes-Erotic (EBE) theory of sexual orientation (Bem, 1996) attempts to do just that, by suggesting how biological variables might interact with experiential and sociocultural factors to influence an individual's sexual orientation. Evidence for the theory is reviewed, and a path analysis of data from a large sample of twins is presented which yields preliminary support for the theory's claim that correlations between genetic variables and sexual orientation are mediated by childhood gender non-conformity.; for the best known critique, see  Peplau, Letitia Anne, Linda D. Garnets, Leah R. Spalding, Terri D. Conley, and Rosemary C. Veniegas. A Critique of Bem's "Exotic Becomes Erotic" Theory of Sexual Orientation. Psychological Review 105, no. 2 (1998): 387-94. [doi:10.1037/0033-295X.105.2.387] AbstractTwo critiques of D. J. Bem's (see record 1996-01742-006) "Exotic Becomes Erotic" (EBE) theory of sexual orientation are presented. First, the core proposition of EBE theory is considered; that is, the idea that adults are erotically attracted to the gender-based class of peers (males or females) who were dissimilar or unfamiliar to them in childhood. Studies cited by Bem and additional research show that EBE theory is not supported by scientific evidence. Second, Bem's claim that his theory applies equally to both sexes is questioned; instead the argument that it neglects and misrepresents women's experiences is made. Bem's conceptualization of erotic desire and his analysis of gender nonconformity illustrate this problem. It is suggested that different theories may be needed to explain the development of men's and women's sexual orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
    • Diamond, Lisa M. Wanting Women: Sex, Gender, and the Specificity of Sexual Arousal. Archives of Sexual Behavior 46, no. 5 (2017): 1181-85. [doi:10.1007/s10508-017-0967-8]
    • Zaylía, Jessica Leigh. Toward a Newer Theory of Sexuality: Terms, Titles, and the Bitter Taste of Bisexuality. Journal of Bisexuality 9, no. 2 (2009): 109-23. {Read pp. 116-20 to get the basic argument.  A challenge to all sides, this is another provocative argument largely ignored by all.} [doi:10.1080/15299710902881467] AbstractBeginning with a casual narrative, this work becomes a more complex theoretical journey of sexuality and politics, using personal experience, scrutiny, and analogy as vehicles of social critique. I argue that understanding sexuality as taste might fill in certain gaps that exist in current mainstream political debates over gay rights and that these gaps are created and unexpectedly resolved by the same ‘bisexual problematic.’ Furthermore, I note that sexuality as taste is a theory that provides a basis from which to demand equal rights without straying into dangerous realms of biological determinist absolutism.
    • Additional pieces related to this issue worth a look:
      • Carpenter, Christopher Scott. The Prevalence of Gay Men and Lesbians. In International Handbook on the Demography of Sexuality, edited by K. Amanda Baumle, 217-28. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013. {Look over for the basic data.} [doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5512-3_11] AbstractThis chapter presents new estimates of the prevalence of self-identified gay men and lesbians (and bisexuals) from recent, population-representative datasets in the United States. The data presented in this chapter provide context for a series of chapters in this Handbook covering sociodemographic outcomes of sexual minorities, including residential location, labor market, and family/partnership outcomes. Many prevalence estimates have been reported elsewhere in the literature, but are based on sexual behavior as opposed to sexual orientation identity (e.g., Kinsey et al. 1948, Binson et al. 1995), use older data (e.g., Laumann et al. 1994; Black et al. 2000), and/or focus on just one or two individual datasets (e.g., Dilley et al. 2005; Keyes et al. 2007, and others). My goal in this chapter is to present a series of prevalence estimates in a standardized way across several recent, independently drawn datasets to document consistent patterns. I also examine whether estimates of the prevalence of gay men and lesbians differ systematically by demographic characteristics such as sex, age, race, and education.
      • Diamond, Lisa M. What Does Sexual Orientation Orient? A Biobehavioral Model Distinguishing Romantic Love and Sexual Desire. Psychological Review 110, no. 1 (2003): 173-92. [doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.173] AbstractAlthough it is typically presumed that heterosexual individuals only fall in love with other-gender partners and gay-lesbian individuals only fall in love with same-gender partners, this is not always so. The author develops a biobehavioral model of love and desire to explain why. The model specifies that (a) the evolved processes underlying sexual desire and affectional bonding are functionally independent; (b) the processes underlying affectional bonding are not intrinsically oriented toward other-gender or same-gender partners; (c) the biobehavioral links between love and desire are bidirectional, particularly among women. These claims are supported by social-psychological, historical, and cross-cultural research on human love and sexuality as well as by evidence regarding the evolved biobehavioral mechanisms underlying mammalian mating and social bonding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
      • Diamond, Lisa M., Janna A. Dickenson, and Karen L. Blair. Stability of Sexual Attractions across Different Timescales: The Roles of Bisexuality and Gender. Archives of Sexual Behavior 46, no. 1 (2017): 193-204. [doi:10.1007/s10508-016-0860-x] AbstractWe examined the stability of same-sex and other-sex attractions among 294 heterosexual, lesbian, gay, and bisexual men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 years. Participants used online daily diaries to report the intensity of each day’s strongest same-sex and other-sex attraction, and they also reported on changes they recalled experiencing in their attractions since adolescence. We used multilevel dynamical systems models to examine individual differences in the stability of daily attractions (stability, in these models, denotes the tendency for attractions to “self-correct” toward a person-specific setpoint over time). Women’s attractions showed less day-to-day stability than men’s, consistent with the notion of female sexual fluidity (i.e., heightened erotic sensitivity to situational and contextual influences). Yet, women did not recollect larger post-adolescent changes in sexual attractions than did men, and larger recollected post-adolescent changes did not predict lower day-to-day stability in the sample as a whole. Bisexually attracted individuals recollected larger post-adolescent changes in their attractions, and they showed lower day-to-day stability in attractions to their “less-preferred” gender, compared to individuals with exclusive same-sex or exclusive other-sex attractions. Our results suggest that both gender and bisexuality have independent influences on sexual fluidity, but these influences vary across short versus long timescales, and they also differ for attractions to one’s “more-preferred” versus “less-preferred” gender.
      • Zucker, Kenneth J., Anne A. Lawrence, and Baudewijntje P.C. Kreukels. Gender Dysphoria in Adults. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 12, no. 1 (2016): 217-47. [doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-093034] AbstractGender dysphoria (GD), a term that denotes persistent discomfort with one's biologic sex or assigned gender, replaced the diagnosis of gender identity disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2013. Subtypes of GD in adults, defined by sexual orientation and age of onset, have been described; these display different developmental trajectories and prognoses. Prevalence studies conclude that fewer than 1 in 10,000 adult natal males and 1 in 30,000 adult natal females experience GD, but such estimates vary widely. GD in adults is associated with an elevated prevalence of comorbid psychopathology, especially mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and suicidality. Causal mechanisms in GD are incompletely understood, but genetic, neurodevelopmental, and psychosocial factors probably all contribute. Treatment of GD in adults, although largely standardized, is likely to evolve in response to the increasing diversity of persons seeking treatment, demands for greater client autonomy, and improved understanding of the benefits and limitations of current treatment modalities.
  • Sexuality, competition, and power.
    • Baumeister, R. F., and K. D. Vohs. Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, no. 4 (2004): 339-63. {Read 339-40, 359-60 for the key points and the rest as possible.} [doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_2] AbstractA heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex. Societies will endow female sexuality, but not male sexuality, with value (as in virginity, fidelity, chastity). The sexual activities of different couples are loosely interrelated by a marketplace, instead of being fully separate or private, and each couple's decisions may be influenced by market conditions. Economic principles suggest that the price of sex will depend on supply and demand, competition among sellers, variations in product, collusion among sellers, and other factors. Research findings show gender asymmetries (reflecting the complementary economic roles) in prostitution, courtship, infidelity and divorce, female competition, the sexual revolution and changing norms, unequal status between partners, cultural suppression of female sexuality, abusive relationships, rape, and sexual attitudes.; For a critique (possibly more passionate than insightful), see Rudman, Laurie A., and Janell C. Fetterolf. Gender and Sexual Economics: Do Women View Sex as a Female Commodity?. Psychological Science 25, no. 7 (2014): 1438-47. AbstractIn the study reported here, data from implicit and behavioral choice measures did not support sexual economics theory’s (SET’s) central tenet that women view female sexuality as a commodity. Instead, men endorsed sexual exchange more than women did, which supports the idea that SET is a vestige of patriarchy. Further, men’s sexual advice, more than women’s, enforced the sexual double standard (i.e., men encouraged men more than women to have casual sex)—a gender difference that was mediated by hostile sexism, but also by men’s greater implicit investment in sexual economics. That is, men were more likely to suppress female sexuality because they resisted female empowerment and automatically associated sex with money more than women did. It appears that women are not invested in sexual economics, but rather, men are invested in patriarchy, even when it means raising the price of sexual relations. 
    • Lammers, Joris, and Janka I. Stoker. Power Affects Sexual Assertiveness and Sexual Esteem Equally in Women and Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior 48, no. 2 (2019): 645-52. {Read 1191-92, 1195 for the key points and remainder as convenient. } [doi:10.1007/s10508-018-1285-5] AbstractCommon stereotypes hold that men and women differ strongly in their attitudes toward sex and that such differences are amplified by social power. In contrast, an emerging literature suggests that social power affects both sexes similarly, thus potentially attenuating differences between the sexes. Four samples obtained in the Netherlands, the U.S., Britain, and South-East Asia (total N = 1985) test the effect of social power (operationalized as self-reported amount of power over others at the work place) on validated self-report measures of sexual assertiveness and sexual esteem. Across all samples, power was associated with greater sexual assertiveness and sexual esteem—equally for men and women. Furthermore, effects of power were larger and more consistent than differences between men and women. These findings add to an emerging literature, suggesting that often-observed differences between male and female sexuality actually reflect power differences. This suggests that such differences decrease with greater social equality.; for the research leading up to this, see Lammers, Joris, Janka I. Stoker, Jennifer Jordan, Monique Pollmann, and Diederik A. Stapel. Power Increases Infidelity among Men and Women. Psychological Science 22, no. 9 (2011): 1191-97. [doi:10.1177/0956797611416252] AbstractData from a large survey of 1,561 professionals were used to examine the relationship between power and infidelity and the process underlying this relationship. Results showed that elevated power is positively associated with infidelity because power increases confidence in the ability to attract partners. This association was found for both actual infidelity and intentions to engage in infidelity in the future. Gender did not moderate these results: The relationship between power and infidelity was the same for women as for men, and for the same reason. These findings suggest that the common assumption (and often-found effect) that women are less likely than men to engage in infidelity is, at least partially, a reflection of traditional gender-based differences in power that exist in society. 
• Recommended Readings
  • Wiederman, Michael W. The Truth Must Be in Here Somewhere: Examining the Gender Discrepancy in Self‐Reported Lifetime Number of Sex Partners. Journal of Sex Research 34, no. 4 (1997): 375-86. {Main ideas.} [doi:10.1080/00224499709551905] AbstractOne of the most consistent and troubling findings in sexuality research is that men report a substantially greater number of sexual intercourse partners compared to women. In a population that is more or less closed and is comprised of approximately equal proportions of men and women, such a finding is illogical. In the current article, I review the primary explanations that have been offered for this gender discrepancy and review the relevant data that exist for each explanation. Afterwards, I present data from two studies in which I further explored the apparent gender discrepancy and factors that may account for it. The first study involved a sample of college students (N = 324), whereas the second study was based on a nationally representative sample of adults (N = 2,524; 1994 General Social Survey, Davis & Smith, 1994). In Study 1, accounting for a lack of inclusion of casual sex partners and for self‐rated dishonesty in reporting did not affect the gender discrepancy in lifetime number of sex partners, whereas correcting for the ratio of men versus women on campus did to a small degree. Only correcting for self‐rated inaccuracy eliminated the gender discrepancy. In Study 2, removing those respondents who had participated in prostitution reduced the gender discrepancy somewhat. However, the gender discrepancy appeared to be driven primarily by men's greater tendency to report large, “round” numbers of partners. The results are discussed with regard to possible explanations for greater distortion in men's estimates of lifetime sex partners compared to women's estimates, directions for further investigation are suggested, and recommendations are provided for researchers who ask respondents to report lifetime number of sex partners.; {for more on this, a recent follow up is: Mitchell, Kirstin R., Catherine H. Mercer, Philip Prah, Soazig Clifton, Clare Tanton, Kaye Wellings, and Andrew Copas. Why Do Men Report More Opposite-Sex Sexual Partners Than Women? Analysis of the Gender Discrepancy in a British National Probability Survey. The Journal of Sex Research 56, no. 1 (2019): 1-8. [doi:10.1080/00224499.2018.1481193] AbstractIn a closed population and defined time period, the mean number of opposite-sex partners reported by men and women should be equal. However, in all surveys, men report more partners. This inconsistency is pivotal to debate about the reliability of self-reported sexual behavior. We used data from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3), a probability sample survey of the British population, to investigate the extent to which survey sampling, accounting strategies (e.g., estimating versus counting), and (mis)reporting due to social norms might explain the inconsistency. Men reported a mean of 14.14 lifetime partners; women reported 7.12. The gender gap of 7.02 reduced to 5.47 after capping the lifetime partner number at the 99th percentile. In addition, adjusting for counting versus estimation reduced the gender gap to 3.24, and further adjusting for sexual attitudes narrowed it to 2.63. Together, these may account for almost two-thirds of the gender disparity. Sampling explanations (e.g., non-U.K.-resident partners included in counts; sex workers underrepresented) had modest effects. The findings underscore the need for survey methods that facilitate candid reporting and suggest that approaches to encourage counting rather than estimating may be helpful. This study is novel in interrogating a range of potential explanations within the same nationally representative data set.}
  • Ford, Jessie, and Paula England. Hookups, Sex, and Relationships at College. Contexts (2014)AbstractWhat is going on in today’s heterosexual college scene, which features both casual “hookups” and exclusive relationships? How does gender structure students’ experiences? We’ll give you an overview, using data from the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) led by Paula England. This survey was taken online by more than 20,000 students from 21 four-year colleges and universities between 2005 and 2011. Since we’re looking at heterosexual sex and relationships, we limit our analysis to those who said they are heterosexual.
  • Blumberg, Eric S. The Lives and Voices of Highly Sexual Women. Journal of Sex Research 40, no. 2 (2003): 146-57. {Read selectively for the main ideas.}  [doi:10.1080/00224490309552176] AbstractAmerican women who experience very strong and frequent sexual desire have often been either ignored or stigmatized. This exploratory study of 44 highly sexual women ages 20 to 82, which used a convenience sample and a semi-structured in-depth interview method, allowed participants to describe their lives and how their sexuality has affected them. Highly sexual women reported that their lives have been strongly affected by their sexuality. First, the participants internally sensed demand for sexual excitement and satisfaction is too intense to be ignored. For some it was a major organizing principle of their time and energy. Second, their lives are lived in a society that often defines highly sexual women in pejorative ways. Women reported experiencing struggles and challenges in almost every area of their lives because of their sexuality, including feelings about themselves and their relationships with partners, female friends, and acquaintances.
  • Ford, Jessie V. “Going with the Flow”: How College Men's Experiences of Unwanted Sex Are Produced by Gendered Interactional Pressures. Social Forces 96, no. 3 (2018): 1303-24. {Read for the key points.} [doi:10.1093/sf/sox066] AbstractWhile scholars are giving greater attention than previously to sexual assault against women, they have ignored the fact that men report unwanted sex as well. This article examines thirty-nine heterosexual men's narratives about their experience of unwanted sex in college. My analysis of these data shows how unwanted sex with women is interactionally produced through a process where men seek to save face and to make sense to others. Unwanted sex relates not only to interactional processes, but also to the content of what is considered acceptable behavior in heterosexual interactions. That is, cultural norms governing gender provide the content for what allows a man to save face and for his actions to make sense to a female partner. In particular, men consent to unwanted sex because accepting all opportunities for sexual activity is a widely accepted way to perform masculinity. Findings also show that men conduct their sex lives in the shadow of presumed gendered reputational consequences. They fear ridicule if stories are told portraying them as the kind of man who does not jump at any opportunity for sex with an attractive woman. Moreover, it seems that women, as arbitrators of men's sense of self, may play an important role in policing masculinity and upholding gender expectations, at least in undergraduate sexual cultures. Amidst current attention to sexual assault on college campuses, I argue for a closer look at the importance of interaction and the implicit gendered rules of what is considered acceptable and masculine in heterosexual
  • DeLamater, John D., and Janet Shibley Hyde. Essentialism Vs. Social Constructionism in the Study of Human Sexuality. Journal of Sex Research 35, no. 1 (1998): 10-18. [doi:10.1080/00224499809551913] AbstractAccording to classical essentialism, there are underlying true forms or essences, there is discontinuity between different forms rather than continuous variation, and these true forms are constant over time. Modern essentialism consists of a belief that certain phenomena are natural, inevitable, and biologically determined. We consider sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, genetic research, brain research, and endocrine research as examples of essentialist approaches, focusing particularly on how these research approaches treat sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Social constructionism, in contrast, rests on the belief that reality is socially constructed and emphasizes language as an important means by which we interpret experience. We briefly review social constructionist research on sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Finally, we review examples of conjoint or interactionist research, uniting biological and social influences. We conclude that, although there may be theories and research that conjoin biological and social influences, there can be no true conjoining of essentialism and social constructionism.
  • Twenge, Jean M., Ryne A. Sherman, and Brooke E. Wells. Changes in American Adults’ Sexual Behavior and Attitudes, 1972–2012. Archives of Sexual Behavior 44, no. 8 (2015): 2273-85. [doi:10.1007/s10508-015-0540-2] AbstractIn the nationally representative General Social Survey, U.S. Adults (N = 33,380) in 2000–2012 (vs. the 1970s and 1980s) had more sexual partners, were more likely to have had sex with a casual date or pickup or an acquaintance, and were more accepting of most non-marital sex (premarital sex, teen sex, and same-sex sexual activity, but not extramarital sex). The percentage who believed premarital sex among adults was “not wrong at all” was 29 % in the early 1970s, 42 % in the 1980s and 1990s, 49 % in the 2000s, and 58 % between 2010 and 2012. Mixed effects (hierarchical linear modeling) analyses separating time period, generation/birth cohort, and age showed that the trend toward greater sexual permissiveness was primarily due to generation. Acceptance of non-marital sex rose steadily between the G.I. generation (born 1901–1924) and Boomers (born 1946–1964), dipped slightly among early Generation X’ers (born 1965–1981), and then rose so that Millennials (also known as Gen Y or Generation Me, born 1982–1999) were the most accepting of non-marital sex. Number of sexual partners increased steadily between the G.I.s and 1960s-born GenX’ers and then dipped among Millennials to return to Boomer levels. The largest changes appeared among White men, with few changes among Black Americans. The results were discussed in the context of growing cultural individualism and rejection of traditional social rules in the U.S.
  • Adamczyk, Amy, and Yen-Chiao Liao. Examining Public Opinion About LGBTQ-Related Issues in the United States and across Multiple Nations. Annual Review of Sociology 45, no. 1 (2019): 401-23. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022332] AbstractOver the last three decades, many countries across the world, including the United States, have experienced major increases in support for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) individuals and related issues. In partial relation to these changes, multiple studies have examined the factors shaping public opinion. In this review, we focus on four major areas of research on public opinion in this field of study. First, we assess the terms that scholars typically use when examining attitudes and highlight the areas of public opinion research that have received the most attention. Second, we focus on the data and measurement challenges related to examining attitudes in the United States and across many nations. Third, we consider how and why attitudes and related laws have changed over time and across nations. Finally, we discuss the major micro and macro empirical forces that influence and the theoretical explanations for why there are such differences in attitudes. We end by offering several suggestions for future research.
  • Schilt, Kristen, and Danya Lagos. The Development of Transgender Studies in Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 43, no. 1 (2017): 425-43. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053348] AbstractThe field of transgender studies has grown exponentially in sociology over the last decade. In this review, we track the development of this field through a critical overview of the sociological scholarship from the last 50 years. We identify two major paradigms that have characterized this research: a focus on gender deviance (1960s–1990s) and a focus on gender difference (1990s–present). We then examine three major areas of study that represent the current state of the field: research that explores the diversity of transgender people's identities and social locations, research that examines transgender people's experiences within institutional and organizational contexts, and research that presents quantitative approaches to transgender people's identities and experiences. We conclude with an agenda for future areas of inquiry.
  • Bogaert, Anthony F. Asexuality: What It Is and Why It Matters. The Journal of Sex Research 52, no. 4 (2015): 362-79. [doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1015713] AbstractIn this review article, human asexuality, a relatively understudied phenomenon, is discussed. Specifically, definitions and conceptualizations of asexuality (e.g., is it a unique category of sexual orientation?), biological and historical contexts, identity issues, discrimination against asexual people relative to other minorities, origins, and variations, including gender differences, are reviewed. Whether asexuality should be construed as a disorder is also discussed. The study of asexuality allows for a better understanding of an underrecognized sexual minority but also affords a unique opportunity to examine and better understand human sexuality.
  • Barthes, Julien , Pierre-André Crochet, and Michel Raymond. Male Homosexual Preference: Where, When, Why?. PLoS One 10, no. 8 (2015): e0134817. [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134817] AbstractMale homosexual preference (MHP) has long been of interest to scholars studying the evolution of human sexuality. Indeed, MHP is partially heritable, induces a reproductive cost and is common. MHP has thus been considered a Darwinian paradox. Several questions arise when MHP is considered in an evolutionary context. At what point did MHP appear in the human evolutionary history? Is MHP present in all human groups? How has MHP evolved, given that MHP is a reproductively costly trait? These questions were addressed here, using data from the anthropological and archaeological literature. Our detailed analysis of the available data challenges the common view of MHP being a "virtually universal" trait present in humans since prehistory. The conditions under which it is possible to affirm that MHP was present in past societies are discussed. Furthermore, using anthropological reports, the presence or absence of MHP was documented for 107 societies, allowing us to conclude that evidence of the absence of MHP is available for some societies. A recent evolutionary hypothesis has argued that social stratification together with hypergyny (the hypergyny hypothesis) are necessary conditions for the evolution of MHP. Here, the link between the level of stratification and the probability of observing MHP was tested using an unprecedented large dataset. Furthermore, the test was performed for the first time by controlling for the phylogenetic non-independence between societies. A positive relationship was observed between the level of social stratification and the probability of observing MHP, supporting the hypergyny hypothesis.
  • Silcock, Faith. Uncovered: Stripping as an Occupation. Women's Studies Journal (New Zealand) 28, no. 1 (2014): 68-73. AbstractAlthough there has been substantial research conducted in New Zealand over the last 20 years into prostitution, there has been no enquiry into the lives of strippers, strip clubs or the striptease industry in general. Yet, women who take their clothes off for a living are a discrete group in the sex industry with distinct motivations who occupy a different habitus to prostitutes or pornographic actresses. This paper, based on undergraduate research, is a review of international literature pertaining to strippers from the year 2000 onwards. The review revealed that, in contrast to the research conducted on the industry before 2000, current feminist scholarship has moved away from a polarised narrative of stripping work as either oppressive or emancipating. Instead, recent research has been concerned with the complexities of the occupation of stripping for young women, both in the workplace and in their wider lives. In particular, this study identified four dominant thematic areas where current research was focused: (a) othering (or the differentiation of strippers from other women); (b) sexualisation (self-worth as based on their sexuality); (c) gender performance (stripping on a spectrum of femininity), and (d) emotional work (stripping work and its emotional demands). In summary, it would seem that the strip-club is a site of both oppression and resistance, a space where women can use their sexual power for financial gain if they are willing to make compromises at work and in their personal lives.
  • Levin, Roy J. Recreation and Procreation: A Critical View of Sex in the Human Female. Clinical Anatomy 28, no. 3 (2015): 339-54. [doi:10.1002/ca.22495] AbstractThis review deals critically with many aspects of the functional genital anatomy of the human female in relation to inducing sexual arousal and its relevance to procreation and recreation. Various controversial problems are discussed including: the roles of clitorally versus coitally induced arousal and orgasm in relation to the health of women, the various sites of induction of orgasm and the difficulty women find in specifically identifying them because of “'ambiguity problems” and “genital site pareidolia,” the cervix and sexual arousal, why there are so many sites for arousal, why multiple orgasms occur, genital reflexes and coitus, the sites of arousal and their representation in the brain, and identifying aspects and functions of the genitalia with appropriate new nomenclature. Clin. Anat. 28:339–354, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
  • Tang-Martínez, Zuleyma. Rethinking Bateman’s Principles: Challenging Persistent Myths of Sexually Reluctant Females and Promiscuous Males. The Journal of Sex Research 53, no. 4-5 (2016): 532-59. [doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1150938] AbstractIn 1948, Angus Bateman published a paper on fruit flies that tested Charles Darwin?s ideas of sexual selection. Based on this one fruit fly study, Bateman concluded that because males are able to produce millions of small sperm, males are likely to behave promiscuously, mating with as many females as possible. On the other hand, because females produce relatively fewer, larger, and presumably more expensive eggs, females are likely to be very discriminating in selecting only one high-quality sexual partner. He also posited that a male?s reproductive success increases linearly with the number of females he is able to mate with, but that a female?s reproductive success peaks after she mates with only one male. Consequently, in almost all organisms, sexual selection acts most strongly on males. These ideas became a recurring theme in attempts to explain wide-ranging differences in male and female behavior not only in nonhuman animals but also in humans. As such, Bateman?s conclusions and predictions have become axiomatic and, at times, have gone unquestioned even when modern empirical data do not conform to this model. This article reviews the origins and history of these ideas and uses modern data to highlight the current and growing controversy surrounding the validity and general applicability of this paradigm.
  • Brubaker, Rogers. Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Abstract"In the summer of 2015, shortly after Caitlyn Jenner came out as transgender, the NAACP official and political activist Rachel Dolezal was "outed" by her parents as white, touching off a heated debate in the media about the fluidity of gender and race. If Jenner could legitimately identify as a woman, could Dolezal legitimately identify as black? Taking the controversial pairing of "transgender" and "transracial" as his starting point, Rogers Brubaker shows how gender and race, long understood as stable, inborn, and unambiguous, have in the past few decades opened up in different ways and to different degrees to the forces of change and choice. Transgender identities have moved from the margins to the mainstream with dizzying speed, and ethnoracial boundaries have blurred. Paradoxically, while sex has a much deeper biological basis than race, choosing or changing one's sex or gender is more widely accepted than choosing or changing one's race. Yet while few accepted Dolezal's claim to be black, racial identities are becoming more fluid as ancestry increasingly understood as mixed loses its authority over identity, and as race and ethnicity, like gender, come to be understood as something we do, not just something we have. By rethinking race and ethnicity through the multifaceted lens of the transgender experience encompassing not just a movement from one category to another but positions between and beyond existing categories Brubaker underscores the malleability, contingency, and arbitrariness of racial categories."--Publisher's description.
  • Bivona, Jenny M., Joseph W. Critelli, and Michael J. Clark. Women's Rape Fantasies: An Empirical Evaluation of the Major Explanations. Archives Of Sexual Behavior 41, no. 5 (2012): 1107-19. [doi:10.1007/s10508-012-9934-6] AbstractThis study evaluated explanations of rape fantasy in a sample of female undergraduates (N = 355) using a sexual fantasy checklist which included eight types of rape fantasy, participants' detailed descriptions of a rape fantasy they have had, a rape fantasy scenario audio presentation, and measures of personality. Three explanations of rape fantasy were tested: openness to sexual experience, sexual desirability, and sexual blame avoidance. Women who were higher in erotophilia and self-esteem and who had more frequent consensual sexual fantasies and more frequent desirability fantasies, particularly of performing as a stripper, had more frequent rape fantasies. Women who were higher in erotophilia, openness to fantasy, desirability fantasies, and self-esteem reported greater sexual arousal to rape fantasies. Sexual blame avoidance theory was not supported; sexual desirability theory was moderately supported; openness to sexual experience theory received the strongest support.
  • Impett, Emily A., and Letitia Anne Peplau. Sexual Compliance: Gender, Motivational, and Relationship Perspectives. The Journal of Sex Research 40, no. 1 (2003): 87-100. [doi:10.1080/00224490309552169] AbstractThis paper provides a systematic review of research on sexual compliance in heterosexual relationships. Three perspectives shed light on which individuals are the most likely to comply with a sexually interested partner's desire for sex and why. A gender perspective highlights the common male-female asymmetry in compliant sexual behavior and identifies factors that contribute to women's greater likelihood of being the sexually compliant partner. A motivational perspective distinguishes between approach and avoidance motives for compliance and considers the possible consequences of these motives for emotional reactions, sexual risk taking, and sexual violence. A relationship maintenance perspective views sexual compliance as illustrative of broader patterns of sacrifice in committed relationships. Each perspective suggests important new directions for empirical research.
  • Joan Acker. "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations"  Gender & Society 1990 4: 139-158. [doi: 10.1177/089124390004002002]
  • David L. Weis. "The Use of Theory in Sexuality Research". The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 35, No. 1, The Use of Theory in Research and Scholarship on Sexuality (1998), pp. 1-9 [jstor: 3813160]
  • Crawford, M., et. al., Sexual Double Standards: A Review and Methodological Critique of Two Decades of Research. The Journal of Sex Research v. 40 no. 1 (February 2003) p. 13-26 [jstor: 3813767]
  • Carl N. Degler. "What Ought To Be and What Was: Women's Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century." The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 5 (Dec., 1974), pp. 1467-1490  [jstor: 1851777]
  • Dennis D. Waskul, Phillip Vannini, Desiree Wiesen.  "Women and Their Clitoris: Personal Discovery, Signification, and Use."   Symbolic Interaction May 2007, Vol. 30, No. 2: 151–174 [doi: pdfplus/10.1525/si.2007.30.2.151]
  • Breanne Fahs.  "Compulsory Bisexuality?: The Challenges of Modern Sexual Fluidity."    Journal of Bisexuality, Volume 9, Issue 3 & 4 July 2009 , pages 431-449 [doi: 10.1080/15299710903316661]
  • John A. Miller, Joan Acker, Kate Barry, Miriam M. Johnson and Lois A. West. "Comments on MacKinnon's 'Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State'." Signs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 168-184; [jstor: 3174252; and Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Reply to Miller, Acker and Barry, Johnson, West, and Gardiner." Signs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 184-188 [jstor: 3174253]
  •  Steven Epstein. "An Incitement to Discourse: Sociology and the History of Sexuality."  Sociological Forum, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 485-502 [jstor: 3648894]
• Related Readings
  • Zaylía, Jessica Leigh(2009) 'Toward a Newer Theory of Sexuality: Terms, Titles, and the Bitter Taste of Bisexuality', Journal of Bisexuality, 9: 2, 109 - 123 [doi: 10.1080/15299710902881467]
  • Nicole Constable. "The Commodification of Intimacy: Marriage, Sex, and Reproductive Labor."  Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 38: 49-64 (2009) [doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085133]
  • Impett, E. A., & Peplau, L. A. (2003). Sexual Compliance: Gender, Motivational, And Relationship Perspectives. Journal of Sex Research, 40(1), 87-100 [doi: 10.1080/00224490309552169]
  • Ronald Weitzer. "Sociology of Sex Work."  Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 35: 213-234 (2009) [doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-120025]
  • Pennington, Suzanne(2009) 'Bisexuals "Doing Gender" in Romantic Relationships', Journal of Bisexuality, 9: 1, 33-69 [doi: 10.1080/15299710802660029]
  • Lisa Duggan "From Instincts to Politics: Writing the History of Sexuality in the U.S."  The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 27, No. 1, Feminist Perspectives on Sexuality. Part 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 95-109  [jstor: 3812885]
  • Michael W. Wiederman. "The Truth Must Be in Here Somewhere: Examining the Gender Discrepancy in Self-Reported Lifetime Number of Sex Partners." The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 34, No. 4 (1997), pp. 375-386 [jstor: 3813479]
  • Norman R. Brown, Robert C. Sinclair. "Estimating Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners: Men and Women Do It Differently." The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Aug., 1999), pp. 292-297 [jstor: 3813440]
  • John Levi Martin, Matt George. "Theories of Sexual Stratification: Toward an Analytics of the Sexual Field and a Theory of Sexual Capital." Sociological Theory, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 107-132 [jstor: 25046714]
  • Judith Treas, Deirdre Giesen. "Sexual Infidelity among Married and Cohabiting Americans." Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 48-60 [doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00048.x]
  • Blow, Adrian J.; Hartnett, Kelley. "Infidelity In Committed Relationships II: A Substantive Review ." Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Volume 31, Issue 2, (2005): 217-33. [doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2005.tb01556.x]
  • Lever, J., Frederick, D., & Peplau, L. A. (2006). Does Size Matter? Men's And Women's Views On Penis Size Across The Life Span. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 7(3), 129-143 [doi: 10.1037/1524-9220.7.3.129]

7. What is the role of violence and intimidation in the relationships between men and women? 

Most theoretical approaches to gender inequality suggest that violence between women and men plays a role in sustaining inequality; some also point toward violence as an initial cause.  A recurring issue concerns the degree to which violence is an expression or result of gender inequality or, alternatively, is a cause of inequality.  The separate roles of rape, harassment, and domestic violence, and their relationships to each other are another critical question.  Much research and argument has also been focused on the question of women's aggressive impulses and actions. 

• Analytical Task
  • Analytical Task: Try to develop a reasonable explanation for why women do not engage in sexual harassment or sexual violence at rates similar to those of men.  Here, our strategy is to reverse the usual way people approach the problem of gender violence, aiming to explain the (suppressed) rates for women rather than the (elevated) rates for men.
  • Thinking Tools:
    • To pursue this task, we need to consider what we mean by violence or aggression.  When people refer to the patterns of violence between women and men (in modern societies), they are usually referring to several kinds of aggressive behavior, particularly: (1) sexual violence (especially rape), (2) sexual harassment, and (3) intimate partner violence (which includes wife battering).  
    • These three categories implicitly distinguish patterns of aggression based on several criteria: (1) the degree to which the aggressive acts involve sexuality, (2) the severity of the aggressive acts, and (3) the existing relationship between the relevant men and women. 
    • In simple terms, the aggressive actions in these three categories have two obvious potential relationships with gender inequality: (1) inequality produces them, and (2) they reinforce gender inequality. 
      • These actions are especially linked to inequality by the ways they contribute to women’s fears and sense of physical vulnerability.  That fear is crucial.  For it is the prospect of possible violence that induces women to restrict their behavior, to seek male protectors, and to heed men’s wishes.  The fear of violence is commonly a more prevalent and effective mechanism of control than the experience of violence.
      • Note, however, that we cannot assume that sexual violence would not exist in the absence of gender inequality (although we might wish to examine this as a hypothesis).  We know, for example, that partner violence occurs in gay male and lesbian couples at rates comparable to those of heterosexual couples.  To put it differently, we have good evidence for inferring that gender inequality is a contributory cause for sexual violence, but not for the claim that it is a necessary cause.  Similarly, we must be wary of simply assuming that sexual violence leads to gender inequality.
    • To simplify our task, we will set aside the question of intimate partner violence and focus on the other two kinds mentioned above, sexual violence and sexual harassment.  So, our goal is to explain why women, seemingly, indulge less often in sexual violence and harassment toward men than the reverse.
    • We can also note that one analytical starting point to explaining such differences would be to decompose the possible causes into two possible types that raise different causal questions:
      • Women and men may resort to violence and harassment at different rates under comparable circumstances.  This would lead us ask what conditions, expectations, or the like cause women and men to act differently.
      • Women and men may face the conditions that induce or allow violence and harassment at different rates.  This would lead us to ask how and why women and men find themselves at different rates in circumstances that promote aggression toward the other sex.
    • [Both men and women vary greatly, so we must decide if we will abstract away all that variation (and thus talk of "men" or "women" in the most generic or abstract possible manner) or if we feel that some variations (e.g. wealth or age) require consideration for the analysis.  Remember that you can restrict the scope of your analysis.]
    • Try to approach the problem of defining potential causes as systematically as you can.  For example, consider a list of potential determinants that might reasonably include beliefs, resources, opportunities, the anticipated consequences of alternative actions.  Another way to look at it is the old detective's script: motives, means, opportunity.  The key here is to avoid randomly attaching yourself to one or two possible causes, just because they happen to be what you first think about.  You want to think seriously about what you might have neglected.
      
    • It is often useful to start this kind of analytic reasoning concretely, concentrating on circumstances we know best.  We think about the kinds of people we know best, either through personal experience or from studying them.  We ask ourselves why the women in these circumstances or groups do not engage in sexual harassment or sexual violence toward men as much as do men toward women.  If we can gain an explanatory foothold in these familiar circumstances, we have a starting point for developing a more general explanation.
  • So, taking into account the ideas above, and the ideas in the materials we have read up to this point, you want to develop a reasonable explanation why women do not engage in harassment or violence toward men at the rates that men do toward women.
• Common Readings
  • A cautionary note on biology
    • Sapolsky, Robert M. Doubled-Edged Swords in the Biology of Conflict. Frontiers in psychology 9, no. 2625 (2018). [doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02625]  {pp. 1-4} AbstractConsiderable advances have been made in understanding the biological roots of conflict, and such understanding requires a multidisciplinary approach, recognizing the relevance of neurobiological, endocrine, genetic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. With these insights comes the first hints of biological interventions that may mitigate violence. However, such interventions are typically double-edged swords, with the potential to foster conflict rather than lessen it. This review constitutes a cautionary note of being careful of what one wishes for.
  • The distribution of gender violence
    • Garcia-Moreno, Claudia, Henrica A. F. M. Jansen, Mary Ellsberg, Lori Heise, and Charlotte H. Watts. Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the Who Multi-Country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence. The Lancet 368, no. 9543 (2006): 1260-69. [doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69523-8]  {Pp. 1260-1263, 1266-1268}  AbstractSummaryBackground Violence against women is a serious human rights abuse and public health issue. Despite growing evidence of the size of the problem, current evidence comes largely from industrialised settings, and methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. We aimed to estimate the extent of physical and sexual intimate partner violence against women in 15 sites in ten countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania. Methods Standardised population-based household surveys were done between 2000 and 2003. Women aged 15–49 years were interviewed and those who had ever had a male partner were asked in private about their experiences of physically and sexually violent and emotionally abusive acts. Findings 24 097 women completed interviews, with around 1500 interviews per site. The reported lifetime prevalence of physical or sexual partner violence, or both, varied from 15% to 71%, with two sites having a prevalence of less than 25%, seven between 25% and 50%, and six between 50% and 75%. Between 4% and 54% of respondents reported physical or sexual partner violence, or both, in the past year. Men who were more controlling were more likely to be violent against their partners. In all but one setting women were at far greater risk of physical or sexual violence by a partner than from violence by other people. Interpretation The findings confirm that physical and sexual partner violence against women is widespread. The variation in prevalence within and between settings highlights that this violence in not inevitable, and must be addressed.
    • Statistics on Sexual Violence in the U.S., selected (by RMJ) excerpts from government publications
    • Edwards, Katie M., Kateryna M. Sylaska, and Angela M. Neal. Intimate Partner Violence among Sexual Minority Populations: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda for Future Research. Psychology of Violence 5, no. 2 (2015): 112-21. [doi:10.1037/a0038656] {Pp. 112-114} AbstractObjective: This authors provide an overview and critical analysis of research on intimate partner violence (IPV) among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons and discuss recommendations for future research on the topic. Method: Ninety-six empirical articles published from 1999 to the present, examining IPV among samples of LGB persons, were reviewed. Results: Research documents that rates of IPV among LGB individuals are equal to or greater than rates observed among heterosexual individuals. A number of risk factors for IPV victimization and perpetration among LGB individuals have also been identified; these risk factors are similar to those documented among heterosexual individuals and also include minority stress risk factors (e.g., internalized homonegativity), which may help explain increased rates of IPV among sexual minorities. A substantial research literature also documents disclosure, help-seeking, leaving, and recovery processes among LGB victims of IPV, indicating a number of similarities to heterosexual victims of IPV, as well as differences, which too can be understood through a minority stress framework. Conclusion: We identified a number of important future research strategies within the domains of measurement, participants/sampling, study methodology, and IPV co-occurrence with other forms of violence. We also discussed the importance of addressing minority stress in IPV prevention efforts for LGB individuals, and improving LGB IPV service availability and provider sensitivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved); for more, compare Laskey, Philippa, Elizabeth A. Bates, and Julie C. Taylor. A Systematic Literature Review of Intimate Partner Violence Victimisation: An Inclusive Review across Gender and Sexuality. Aggression and Violent Behavior 47 (2019): 1-11. [doi:10.1016/j.avb.2019.02.014] AbstractThe traditional view of intimate partner violence (IPV) is that the perpetrator is male and the victim is female (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson & Daly, 1992). As a result of this, most research into victimisation experiences appears to be conducted with female victims of IPV (Morin, 2014), and research with male victims, and victims from the LGBTQ+ community is less common. The main aim of the current research was to conduct a systematic literature review to synthesise the literature base of IPV victimisation experiences to ascertain how abuse is experienced, and the effects of that abuse. The secondary aim was to investigate the prevalence of different victim groups, across gender and sexuality, in current research studies. The review highlighted that victims of IPV experience several different types of abuse and the negative mental and physical health outcomes associated with that abuse are significant. Additionally, it was found that the large majority of research studies included in the review were conducted with female victims in opposite-sex relationships, and were quantitative and cross-sectional in nature. The implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are put forward.
  • Aggression and violence between "intimate partners" (married, living together, or in a sexual relationship)
    • Pierotti, R. S. Increasing Rejection of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence of Global Cultural Diffusion. American Sociological Review 78, no. 2 (2013): 240-65. [doi:10.1177/0003122413480363] {240-243, 244 (chart & explanation), 260-262}  AbstractThis study extends existing world society research on ideational diffusion by going beyond examinations of national policy change to investigate the spread of ideas among nonelite individuals. Specifically, I test whether recent trends in women’s attitudes about intimate partner violence are converging toward global cultural scripts. Results suggest that global norms regarding violence against women are reaching citizens worldwide, including in some of the least privileged parts of the globe. During the first decade of the 2000s, women in 23 of the 26 countries studied became more likely to reject intimate partner violence. Structural socioeconomic or demographic changes, such as urbanization, rising educational attainment, increasing media access, and cohort replacement, fail to explain the majority of the observed trend. Rather, women of all ages and social locations became less likely to accept justifications for intimate partner violence. The near uniformity of the trend and speed of the change in attitudes about intimate partner violence suggest that global cultural diffusion has played an important role.
    • Muehlenhard, Charlene L., Terry P. Humphreys, Kristen N. Jozkowski, and Zoë D. Peterson. The Complexities of Sexual Consent among College Students: A Conceptual and Empirical Review. The Journal of Sex Research 53, no. 4-5 (2016): 457-87. [doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1146651] {Pp. 457-460, 462-467, plus summaries on pp. 470, 472, 473}  AbstractHeadlines publicize controversies about sexual assault among college students, and universities face pressure to revise their sexual consent policies. What can the social science literature contribute to this discussion? In this article, we briefly discuss reasons for the recent upsurge in attention to these issues, the prevalence of sexual assault among college students, and aspects of college life that increase the risk of sexual assault and complicate sexual consent. We then review the conceptual challenges of defining sexual consent and the empirical research on how young people navigate sexual consent in their daily lives, focusing primarily on studies of U.S. and Canadian students. Integrating these conceptual issues and research findings, we discuss implications for consent policies, and we present five principles that could be useful for thinking about consent. Finally, we discuss some of the limitations of the existing research and suggest directions for future research.
    • The principal debate about mutual versus domineering aggression.
      • Fergusson, David M., L. John Horwood, and Elizabeth M. Ridder. Partner Violence and Mental Health Outcomes in a New Zealand Birth Cohort. Journal of Marriage and Family 67, no. 5 (2005): 1103-19. [doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00202.x] {read: 1103-05, 1113-14}  AbstractThis study examines the prevalence and extent of domestic violence and the consequences of domestic violence for mental health outcomes in a birth cohort of New Zealand young adults studied at age 25 years. A total of 828 young people (437 women and 391 men) were interviewed about the domestic violence victimization and violence perpetration in their current or most recent partner relationship. Key findings of the study were (a) domestic conflict was present in 70% of relationships, with this conflict ranging from minor psychological abuse to severe assault; (b) men and women reported similar experiences of victimization and perpetration of domestic violence; and (c) exposure to domestic violence was significantly related to increased risks of major depression (p < .05) and suicidal ideation (p < .005) even after extensive control for covariates.
      • Johnson, Michael P. Domestic Violence: It's Not About Gender-or Is It?. Journal of Marriage and Family 67, no. 5 (2005): 1126-30. [doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00204.x] Abstract"I want to make four major points in my response to the Fergusson, Horwood, and Ridder article, points that are equally relevant to other articles like it that continue to appear in our journals and in the general media suggesting that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. First, there are three major types of intimate partner violence, only one of which is the kind of violence that we all think of when we hear the term ‘‘domestic violence.’’ Second, that type of intimate partner violence is, indeed, primarily male perpetrated and is most definitely a gender issue. Third, Fergusson, Horwood, and Ridder’s article is not about that type of violence. In fact, it is hardly about violence at all. Fourth, serious errors of fact, theory, and intervention inevitably follow from the failure to acknowledge the major differences among the three types of intimate partner violence."
      • Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy. Male Versus Female Intimate Partner Violence: Putting Controversial Findings into Context. Journal of Marriage and Family 67, no. 5 (2005): 1120-25. [doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00203.x] {Pp. 1120-22} 
      • Fergusson, David M., L. John Horwood, and Elizabeth M. Ridder. Rejoinder. Journal of Marriage and Family 67, no. 5 (2005): 1131-36. [doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00205.x] {Pp. 1131-33}
      • Straus, Murray A. Dominance and Symmetry in Partner Violence by Male and Female University Students in 32 Nations. Children and Youth Services Review 30, no. 3 (2008): 252-75. [doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.10.004] AbstractThe study investigated the widely held beliefs that physical violence against partners (PV) in marital, cohabiting, and dating relationships is almost entirely perpetrated by men, and that the major risk factor for PV is male dominance in the relationship. The empirical data on these issues were provided by 13,601 university students in 32 nations who participated in the International Dating Violence Study. The results in the first part of this paper show that almost one-third of the female as well as male students physically assaulted a dating partner in the previous 12 months, and that the most frequent pattern was bidirectional, i.e., both were violent, followed by "female-only" violence. Violence by only the male partner was the least frequent pattern according to both male and female participants. The second part of the article focuses on whether there is gender symmetry in a crucial aspect of the etiology of partner PV--dominance by one partner. The results show that dominance by either the male or the female partner is associated with an increased probability of violence. These results, in combination with results from many other studies, call into question the assumption that PV is primarily a male crime and that, when women are violent, it is usually in self-defense. Because these assumptions are crucial elements in almost all partner PV prevention and treatment programs, a fundamental revision is needed to bring these programs into alignment with the empirical data. Prevention and treatment of PV could become more effective if the programs recognize that most PV is bidirectional and act on the high rate of perpetration by women and the fact that dominance by the female partner is as strongly related to PV as dominance by the male partner.
      • Hamberger, L. Kevin, and Sadie E. Larsen. Men’s and Women’s Experience of Intimate Partner Violence: A Review of Ten Years of Comparative Studies in Clinical Samples; Part I. Journal of Family Violence 30, no. 6 (2015): 699-717. [doi:10.1007/s10896-015-9732-8] AbstractThe present paper reviews literature published between 2002 and 2013 regarding gender differences in the perpetration, motivation, and impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) in clinical samples in order to update and extend a previous review by Hamberger (2005). Results showed that although both women and men are active participants in acts of physical IPV and emotional abuse, women’s physical violence appears to be more in response to violence initiated against them. Although both men and women participate in emotional abuse tactics, the type and quality appears to differ between the sexes. Men tend to use tactics that threaten life and inhibit partner autonomy; women use tactics that consist of yelling and shouting. Men are the predominant perpetrators of sexual abuse. Analysis of patterns of violence and abuse suggests that women are more highly victimized, injured, and fearful than men in clinical samples. Research and clinical implications are discussed.
    • Winstok, Zeev, and Murray A. Straus. Bridging the Two Sides of a 30-Year Controversy over Gender Differences in Perpetration of Physical Partner Violence. Journal of Family Violence 31, no. 8 (2016): 933-35. [doi:10.1007/s10896-016-9896-x] AbstractIn the longstanding controversy over gender differences in perpetration of physical intimate partner violence (PV), one side argues for gender asymmetry (i.e., mainly men perpetrate PV) and the other side argues for gender symmetry (i.e., women perpetrate PV in similar proportions to men). This article proposes an empirical bridge between the two sides of the controversy, through a typology that inherently recognizes both the symmetrical and asymmetrical aspects of PV. This empirical bridge may facilitate a broader and deeper view of the problem.
  • Women compared to men: aggressive impulses and aggressive acts
    • Archer, John. Sex Differences in Aggression in Real-World Settings: A Meta-Analytic Review. Review of General Psychology 8, no. 4 (2004): 291-322. [doi:10.1037/1089-2680.8.4.291] {Pp. 291-93, 311-13}  AbstractMeta-analytic reviews of sex differences in aggression from real-world settings are described. They cover self-reports, observations, peer reports, and teacher reports of overall direct, physical, verbal, and indirect forms of aggression, as well as (for self-reports) trait anger. Findings are related to sexual selection theory and social role theory. Direct, especially physical, aggression was more common in males and females at all ages sampled, was consistent across cultures, and occurred from early childhood on, showing a peak between 20 and 30 years. Anger showed no sex differences. Higher female indirect aggression was limited to later childhood and adolescence and varied with method of measurement. The overall pattern indicated males' greater use of costly methods of aggression rather than a threshold difference in anger. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved); For further discussion, see Richardson, Deborah South. The Myth of Female Passivity: Thirty Years of Revelations About Female Aggression. Psychology of Women Quarterly 29 (2005): 238-47. [doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2005.00218.x] AbstractThis article reviews an extensive program of research that has examined gender differences in aggressive behavior. Early research in the aggression laboratory that was designed to explain why females were nonaggressive actually revealed that females did respond to provocation and that they could not accurately be depicted as passive individuals. Subsequent studies that examined both indirect and direct aggression revealed that women were at least as likely as men to employ indirect aggressive strategies and that the nature of relationship is a better determinant of aggressive action than gender. Directly relevant to the theme of this volume, the later research revealed that males and females reported equally high levels of direct aggression in interaction with romantic partners.
    • Thompson, Carleen M., Susan M. Dennison, and Anna Stewart. Are Female Stalkers More Violent Than Male Stalkers? Understanding Gender Differences in Stalking Violence Using Contemporary Sociocultural Beliefs. Sex Roles 66, no. 5 (2012): 351-65. [doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9911-2] {Pp. 351-4, 359-61}  AbstractThis study investigated gender differences in the perpetration of stalking violence and how sociocultural beliefs may account for these differences/similarities. A sample of 293 Australian undergraduate and postgraduate students classified as relational stalkers completed a self-report questionnaire assessing violence perpetration (no/moderate/severe violence) and sociocultural beliefs (justifications for relational violence; assessments of target fear). Female relational stalkers perpetrated elevated rates of moderate violence; however, there were no gender differences for severe violence. Both male and female relational stalkers were more supportive of justifications for female-perpetrated relational violence than male-perpetrated relational violence. Violent male relational stalkers were more likely to believe they caused fear/harm than their female counterparts. These findings are interpreted in the context of sociocultural beliefs that view male-to-female violence as more unacceptable and harmful than female-to-male violence.
  • What causes what?
    • Jackman, Mary R. Gender, Violence, and Harassment.. In Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, edited by Janet Saltzman Chafetz, 275-317. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2006. [doi:10.1007/0-387-36218-5_14] {Pp. 299-310}  Abstract"In sum, research on gender and violence has focused overwhelmingly on interpersonal, physical behaviors in which men inflict physical and psychological injuries on women. The extent to which women share complicity in the violence that they endure is a contentious issue to which much significance is attached. The exclusive focus of most analysts on violence against women, combined with underlying preconceptions about the nature of violence, has fostered the view that gender relations are driven by misogyny. ... My purpose in this chapter is to make a broad assessment of the relationship between gender and violence. In keeping with the nucleus of research, I focus primarily on violence against women, but I expand the scope to include violence against men. ... I begin by appraising the daunting problems of observation and measurement that plague research and the main sources of available data. Second, I survey research on the broad variety of violent behaviors found in social life, to assess the prevalence and severity of various forms of violence against women as well as men. What are the main forms of violence to which women and men are vulnerable, and to what extent does each gender participate in the practice of violence? Third, I discuss the issue of cultural and legal support for violence against women and men. Does society distinctively encourage men to assault and abuse women, as some analysts have alleged? Fourth, I examine the contentious issue of victim compliance in incidents of gender violence: are women liable for their own victimization? Finally, I address the theoretical explanation of the relationship between gender and violence. After briefly discussing the leading explanations of violence against women, I propose an alternative approach based on a wider scan of violence in bothwomen's and men's lives."
    • Sanday, Peggy R. Rape-Prone Versus Rape-Free Campus Cultures. Violence Against Women 2, no. 2 (1996): 191-208. [doi:10.1177/1077801296002002006] {read: 191-199, 201-3}  AbstractUsing the concepts of rape-free and rape-prone societies, I suggest that the next step for rape research is to investigate rape-free campus environments. Based on the articles in this volume and ethnographic research, I summarize what is known about rape-prone campus cultures and compare this information with rape-free fraternity cultures. The question of variation is also examined by comparing the rape incidence and prevalence rates averaged by campus using the data of Koss's national study of 32 campuses. The question of the criteria by which campuses might be labeled rape-free or rape-prone is raised. "concept of rape free versus rape prone comes from my study of 95 band and tribal societies in which I concluded that 47% were rape free and 18% were rape prone. ... In Fraternity Gang Rape, I suggest that rape-prone attitudes and behavior on American campuses are adopted by insecure young men who bond through homophobia and "getting sex.""; for a related, earlier assessment, see: Martin, Patricia Yancey, and Robert A. Hummer. Fraternities and Rape on Campus. Gender & Society 3, no. 4 (1989): 457-73. [doi:10.1177/089124389003004004] AbstractDespite widespread knowledge that fraternity members are frequently involved in the sexual assaults of women, fraternities are rarely studied as social contexts-groups and organizations-that encourage the sexual coercion of women. An analysis of the norms and dynamics of the social construction of fraternity brotherhood reveals the highly masculinist features of fraternity structure and process, including concern with a narrow, stereotypical conception of masculinity and heterosexuality; a preoccupation with loyalty, protection of the group, and secrecy; the use of alcohol as a weapon against women's sexual reluctance; the pervasiveness of violence and physical force; and an obsession with competition, superiority, and dominance. Interfraternity rivalry and competition-particularly over members, intramural sports, and women-encourage fraternity men's commodification of women. We conclude that fraternities will continue to violate women socially and sexually unless they change in fundamental ways.
    • Vaillancourt, Tracy. Do Human Females Use Indirect Aggression as an Intrasexual Competition Strategy?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1631 (2013): 20130080. [doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0080] AbstractIndirect aggression includes behaviours such as criticizing a competitor's appearance, spreading rumours about a person's sexual behaviour and social exclusion. Human females have a particular proclivity for using indirect aggression, which is typically directed at other females, especially attractive and sexually available females, in the context of intrasexual competition for mates. Indirect aggression is an effective intrasexual competition strategy. It is associated with a diminished willingness to compete on the part of victims and with greater dating and sexual behaviour among those who perpetrate the aggression.; for more general accounts, see Campbell, Anne. The Evolutionary Psychology of Women's Aggression. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1631 (2013): 20130078. [doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0078] {Sections 1-3, 6}  AbstractEvolutionary researchers have identified age, operational sex ratio and high variance in male resources as factors that intensify female competition. These are discussed in relation to escalated intrasexual competition for men and their resources between young women in deprived neighbourhoods. For these women, fighting is not seen as antithetical to cultural conceptions of femininity, and female weakness is disparaged. Nonetheless, even where competitive pressures are high, young women's aggression is less injurious and frequent than young men's. From an evolutionary perspective, I argue that the intensity of female aggression is constrained by the greater centrality of mothers, rather than fathers, to offspring survival. This selection pressure is realized psychologically through a lower threshold for fear among women. Neuropsychological evidence is not yet conclusive but suggests that women show heightened amygdala reactivity to threatening stimuli, may be better able to exert prefrontal cortical control over emotional behaviour and may consciously register fear more strongly via anterior cingulate activity. The impact of testosterone and oxytocin on the neural circuitry of emotion is also considered. and Stockley, Paula, and Anne Campbell. Female Competition and Aggression: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1631 (2013): 20130073. AbstractThis paper introduces a Theme Issue combining interdisciplinary perspectives in the study of female competition and aggression. Despite a history of being largely overlooked, evidence is now accumulating for the widespread evolutionary significance of female competition. Here, we provide a synthesis of contributions to this Theme Issue on humans and other vertebrates, and highlight directions for future research. Females compete for resources needed to survive and reproduce, and for preferred mates. Although female aggression takes diverse forms, under most circumstances relatively low-risk competitive strategies are favoured, most probably due to constraints of offspring production and care. In social species, dominance relationships and threats of punishment can resolve social conflict without resort to direct aggression, and coalitions or alliances may reduce risk of retaliation. Consistent with these trends, indirect aggression is a low cost but effective form of competition among young women. Costs are also minimized by flexibility in expression of competitive traits, with aggressive behaviour and competitive signalling tailored to social and ecological conditions. Future research on female competition and the proximate mediators of female aggression will be greatly enhanced by opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange, as evidenced by contributions to this Theme Issue.
    • Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Laura T. Hamilton, Elizabeth M. Armstrong, and J. Lotus Seeley. “Good Girls”: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus. Social Psychology Quarterly 77, no. 2 (2014): 100-22. [doi:10.1177/0190272514521220] {Pp. 100-104, 117-119}  AbstractWomen?s participation in slut shaming is often viewed as internalized oppression: they apply disadvantageous sexual double standards established by men. This perspective grants women little agency and neglects their simultaneous location in other social structures. In this article we synthesize insights from social psychology, gender, and culture to argue that undergraduate women use slut stigma to draw boundaries around status groups linked to social class?while also regulating sexual behavior and gender performance. High-status women employ slut discourse to assert class advantage, defining themselves as classy rather than trashy, while low-status women express class resentment?deriding rich, bitchy sluts for their exclusivity. Slut discourse enables, rather than constrains, sexual experimentation for the high-status women whose definitions prevail in the dominant social scene. This is a form of sexual privilege. In contrast, low-status women risk public shaming when they attempt to enter dominant social worlds.; for more on class and gender inequality, see also Bettie, Julie. Women without Class: Chicas, Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society 26, no. 1 (2000): 1-35. AbstractFocuses on class differences and gender performances in California. Differences between white and Mexican-American college girls; Aspirations of non-college prep girls; Views of young women on boys, family, and fashion; Determinant of clique membership; Link of group membership with social roles.
    • Murnen, Sarah K., Carrie Wright, and Gretchen Kaluzny. If “Boys Will Be Boys,” Then Girls Will Be Victims? A Meta-Analytic Review of the Research That Relates Masculine Ideology to Sexual Aggression. Sex Roles 46, no. 11/12 (2002): 359-75. [doi:10.1023/a:1020488928736] {Pp. 359-363}  AbstractIn feminist sociocultural models of rape, extreme adherence to the masculine gender role is implicated in the perpetuation of sexual assault against women in that it encourages men to be dominant and aggressive, and it teaches that women are inferior to men and are sometimes worthy of victimization. Many researchers have linked components of masculine ideology to self-reports of past sexual aggression or future likelihood to rape. Thirty-nine effect sizes were examined in this meta-analysis across 11 different measures of masculine ideology to determine how strongly each index of masculine ideology was associated with sexual aggression. Although 10 of the 11 effect sizes were statistically significant, the 2 largest effects were for Malamuth's construct of “hostile masculinity” (e.g., Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, & Tanaka, 1991) and Mosher's construct of “hypermasculinity” (e.g., Mosher & Sirkin, 1984), both of which measure multiple components of masculine ideology including acceptance of aggression against women and negative, hostile beliefs about women. The next strongest relationships concerned measures of agreement that men are dominant over women and measures of hostility toward women. Scores on general measures of gender-role adherence, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), were not strong predictors of sexual aggression. Sociocultural models that link patriarchal masculine ideology and situational factors to sexual aggression should prove most predictive in future research.
    • Quinn, Beth A. Sexual Harassment and Masculinity: The Power and Meaning of "Girl Watching". Gender & Society 16, no. 3 (2002): 386-402. [doi:10.1177/0891243202016003007] {Pp. 386-89}  AbstractThat women tend to see harassment where men see harmless fun or normal gendered interaction is one of the more robust findings in sexual harassment research. Using in-depth interviews with employed men and women, this article argues that these differences may be partially explained by the performative requirements of masculinity. The ambiguous practice of “girl watching” is centered, and the production of its meaning analyzed. The data suggest that men's refusal to see their behavior as harassing may be partially explained through the objectification and attenuated empathy that the production of masculine identities may require. Thus, some forms of harassment and their interpretations may more accurately be seen as acts of ignoring than states of ignorance (of the effects of the behavior or the law). Implications for anti-sexual harassment policies and training are explored.; for a more general account, see Pina, Afroditi, and Theresa A. Gannon. An Overview of the Literature on Antecedents, Perceptions and Behavioural Consequences of Sexual Harassment. Journal of Sexual Aggression 18, no. 2 (2012): 209-32. [doi:10.1080/13552600.2010.501909] AbstractAbstract The detrimental effects of sexual harassment have been documented in the literature over the past 35 years, and recognized as a serious problem for all working women. In this paper, we review the existing research surrounding the phenomenon of sexual harassment, focusing upon the factors that may facilitate its occurrence. We also provide an overview of the differences in perceptions of what constitutes sexual harassment according to gender, organisational power and context. The negative impact of sexual harassment on its victims is also reviewed. Finally, the relatively new research on victims' responses to sexual harassment experiences and the link between this work and the stress and coping literature is recognized. Several suggestions are made for future research, policy making and treatment avenues.
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  • Down So Long:  Intimate Combat: Violence and Intimidation
  • Data on rates in the United States ...
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization, 2019. By Rachel E. Morgan and Jennifer L. Truman. Washington, D.C., 2020. https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=7046. Abstract This report is the 47th in a series that began in 1973. It provides official estimates of criminal victimizations reported and not reported to police from BJS's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). It describes the characteristics of crimes, victims, and offenders. In addition, this year, BJS provides new classifications of urban, suburban, and rural areas, with the goal of presenting a more accurate picture of where criminal victimizations occur. Highlights: The rate of violent crime excluding simple assault declined 15% from 2018 to 2019, from 8.6 to 7.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Among females, the rate of violent victimization excluding simple assault fell 27% from 2018 to 2019. There were 880,000 fewer victims of serious crimes (generally felonies) in 2019 than in 2018, a 19% drop. From 2018 to 2019, 29% fewer black persons and 22% fewer white persons were victims of serious crimes. The rate of violent victimization in urban areas—based on the NCVS's new classifications of urban, suburban, and rural areas—declined 20% from 2018 to 2019.
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Nonfatal Domestic Violence, 2003–2012. By Jennifer L. Truman and Rachel E. Morgan. Washington, D.C., 2014. http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4984. AbstractPresents estimates on nonfatal domestic violence from 2003 to 2012. Domestic violence includes victimization committed by current or former intimate partners (spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends), parents, children, siblings, and other relatives. This report focuses on the level and pattern of domestic violence over time, highlighting selected victim and incident characteristics. Incident characteristics include the type of violence, the offender's use of a weapon, victim injury and medical treatment, and whether the incident was reported to police. The report provides estimates of acquaintance and stranger violence for comparison. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to police. The NCVS is a self-report survey administered every six months to persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Highlights: In 2003–12, domestic violence accounted for 21% of all violent crime. A greater percentage of domestic violence was committed by intimate partners (15%) than immediate family members (4%) or other relatives (2%). Current or former boyfriends or girlfriends committed most domestic violence. Females (76%) experienced more domestic violence victimizations than males (24%).
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Intimate Partner Violence, 1993–2010. By Shannan Catalano. Washington, D.C., 2012 (rev 2015). http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4536. AbstractPresents data on nonfatal intimate partner violence among U.S. households from 1993 to 2010. Intimate partner violence includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. This report presents trends in intimate partner violence by sex, and examines intimate partner violence against women by the victim’s age, race and Hispanic origin, marital status, and household composition. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Highlights: From 1994 to 2010, the overall rate of intimate partner violence in the United States declined by 64%, from 9.8 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older to 3.6 per 1,000. Intimate partner violence declined by more than 60% for both males and females from 1994 to 2010. From 1994 to 2010, about 4 in 5 victims of intimate partner violence were female. Females ages 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 generally experienced the highest rates of intimate partner violence. Compared to every other age group, a smaller percentage of female victims ages 12 to 17 were previously victimized by the same offender. The rate of intimate partner violence for Hispanic females declined 78%, from 18.8 victimizations per 1,000 in 1994 to 4.1 per 1,000 in 2010. Females living in households comprised of one female adult with children experienced intimate partner violence at a rate more than 10 times higher than households with married adults with children and 6 times higher than households with one female only.
    • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States — 2010. By M.J. Breiding, Chen J. and M.C. Black. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=267363. AbstractHighlights of findings from this report on the problem of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the United States include the following: nearly 1 in 10 women in this country have been raped by an intimate partner, while an estimated 16.9 percent of women and 8 percent of men have experienced sexual violence other than rape; women have a higher lifetime prevalence of severe physical violence compared to men, 24.3 percent and 13.8 percent, respectively; almost half of men and women have experienced at least 1 psychologically aggressive behavior by an intimate partner during their lifetime; and Black non-Hispanic women and multiracial non-Hispanic women had significantly higher lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, and stalking compared to White, non-Hispanic women, while bisexual women had a significantly higher prevalence of lifetime rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner compared to lesbian women. Data for this report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were obtained from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), an ongoing survey that collects information from English- and/or Spanish-speaking men and women aged 18 or older about experiences of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking. This specific report deals with information collected during the 2010 data collection period. Key topics covered in the report include overall lifetime and 12-month prevalence of IPV victimization; prevalence of IPV victimization by demographic variables; impact of IPV victimization; characteristics of IPV victimization; and services needed and disclosure related to IPV victimization. Tables, figures, references, and appendixes
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Intimate Partner Violence: Attributes of Victimization, 1993–2011. By Shannan Catalano. Washington, D.C., 2013. http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4801. AbstractPresents data on trends in nonfatal intimate partner violence among U.S. households from 1993 to 2011. Intimate partner violence includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. This report focuses on attributes of the victimization such as the type of crime, type of attack, whether the victim was threatened before the attack, use of a weapon by the offender, victim injury, and medical treatment received for injuries. The report also describes ways these attributes of the victimization may be used to measure seriousness or severity of the incident. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police. The NCVS is a self-report survey administered every six months to persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Highlights: From 1994 to 2011, the rate of serious intimate partner violence declined 72% for females and 64% for males. „„ Nonfatal serious violence comprised more than a third of intimate partner violence against females and males during the most recent 10-year period (2002-11). „„ An estimated two-thirds of female and male intimate partner victimizations involved a physical attack in 2002-11; the remaining third involved an attempted attack or verbal threat of harm. „„ In 2002-11, 8% of female intimate partner victimizations involved some form of sexual violence during the incident. „„ About 4% of females and 8% of males who were victimized by an intimate partner were shot at, stabbed, or hit with a weapon in 2002-11.
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010. By Erika Harrell. Washington, D.C., 2012. http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4557. AbstractPresents findings on the rates and levels of violent victimization committed by offenders who were strangers to the victims, including homicide, rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. The report presents annual trends and compares changes across three 6-year periods in the incidence and type of violence committed by strangers from 1993 through 2010. It describes the characteristics of victims and circumstances of the violent crime. The nonfatal violent victimization estimates were developed from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes, reported and not reported to the police, against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. The homicide data are from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) for 1993 through 2008. Highlights: In 2010, strangers committed about 38% of nonfatal violent crimes, including rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. In 2005-10, about 10% of violent victimizations committed by strangers involved a firearm, compared to 5% committed by offenders known to the victim. From 1993 to 2008, among homicides reported to the FBI for which the victim-offender relationship was known, between 21% and 27% of homicides were committed by strangers and between 73% and 79% were committed by offenders known to the victims.
    • National Research Council. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Edited by Candace Kruttschnitt, William D. Kalsbeek and Carol C. House Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. [doi:10.17226/18605] AbstractThe Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) measures the rates at which Americans are victims of crimes, including rape and sexual assault, but there is concern that rape and sexual assault are undercounted on this survey. BJS asked the National Research Council to investigate this issue and recommend best practices for measuring rape and sexual assault on their household surveys. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault concludes that it is likely that the NCVS is undercounting rape and sexual assault. The most accurate counts of rape and sexual assault cannot be achieved without measuring them separately from other victimizations, the report says. It recommends that BJS develop a separate survey for measuring rape and sexual assault. The new survey should more precisely define ambiguous words such as "rape," give more privacy to respondents, and take other steps that would improve the accuracy of responses. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault takes a fresh look at the problem of measuring incidents of rape and sexual assault from the criminal justice perspective. This report examines issues such as the legal definitions in use by the states for these crimes, best methods for representing the definitions in survey instruments so that their meaning is clear to respondents, and best methods for obtaining as complete reporting as possible of these crimes in surveys, including methods whereby respondents may report anonymously. Rape and sexual assault are among the most injurious crimes a person can inflict on another. The effects are devastating, extending beyond the initial victimization to consequences such as unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, sleep and eating disorders, and other emotional and physical problems. Understanding the frequency and context under which rape and sexual assault are committed is vital in directing resources for law enforcement and support for victims. These data can influence public health and mental health policies and help identify interventions that will reduce the risk of future attacks. Sadly, accurate information about the extent of sexual assault and rape is difficult to obtain because most of these crimes go unreported to police. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault focuses on methodology and vehicles used to measure rape and sexual assaults, reviews potential sources of error within the NCVS survey, and assesses the training and monitoring of interviewers in an effort to improve reporting of these crimes.
  • Moreno, Eduardo. The 'out of Africa Tribe' (II). Communicative & Integrative Biology 6, no. 3 (2013): e24145. [doi:10.4161/cib.24145] AbstractIt is generally difficult to establish a timeline for the appearance of different technologies and tools during human cultural evolution. Here I use stochastic character mapping of discrete traits using human mtDNA phylogenies rooted to the Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) as a model to address this question. The analysis reveals that the ancestral state of Homo sapiens was hunting, using material innovations that included bows and arrows, stone axes and spears. However, around 80,000 y before present, a transition occurred, from this ancestral hunting tradition, toward the invention of protective weapons such as shields, the appearance of ritual fighting as a socially accepted behavior and the construction of war canoes for the fast transport of large numbers of warriors. This model suggests a major cultural change, during the Palaeolithic, from hunters to warriors. Moreover, in the light of the recent Out of Africa Theory, it suggests that the ?Out of Africa Tribe? was a tribe of warriors that had developed protective weapons such as shields and used big war canoes to travel the sea coast and big rivers in raiding expeditions.
  • Thomae, Manuela, and Afroditi Pina. Sexist Humor and Social Identity: The Role of Sexist Humor in Men’s in-Group Cohesion, Sexual Harassment, Rape Proclivity, and Victim Blame. HUMOR 28, no. 2 (2015): 187-204. [doi:10.1515/humor-2015-0023] {read: 190-196 on In-Group Cohesion & Sexual Harassment} AbstractJokes have been recognized as ways in which negative attitudes and prejudice can be communicated and enacted in hidden ways (e.g., Allport 1954; Freud 2004 [1905]). In this paper, we review the existing literature on the functions and effects of sexist humor, using Martineau’s (1972) model on the social functions of humor as well as Tajfel and Turner’s (2004 [1986]) Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Turner et al.’s (1987) Self Categorization Theory. Within these frameworks, we particularly focus on sex as an intergroup context and on the way sexist humor functions to a) enhance male in-group cohesion (sexist humor as a predictor) b) serves as a form of sexual harassment (sexist humor as an outcome) and c) amplifies self-reported rape proclivity and victim blame (sexist humor as a moderator). The paper concludes by highlighting gaps in the existing literature and providing directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
  • Dreher, Jean-Claude, Simon Dunne, Agnieszka Pazderska, Thomas Frodl, John J. Nolan, and John P. O’Doherty. Testosterone Causes Both Prosocial and Antisocial Status-Enhancing Behaviors in Human Males. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016): 201608085. [doi:10.1073/pnas.1608085113] AbstractAlthough in several species of bird and animal, testosterone increases male–male aggression, in human males, it has been suggested to instead promote both aggressive and nonaggressive behaviors that enhance social status. However, causal evidence distinguishing these accounts is lacking. Here, we tested between these hypotheses in men injected with testosterone or placebo in a double-blind, randomized design. Participants played a modified Ultimatum Game, which included the opportunity to punish or reward the other player. Administration of testosterone caused increased punishment of the other player but also, increased reward of larger offers. These findings show that testosterone can cause prosocial behavior in males and provide causal evidence for the social status hypothesis in men.Although popular discussion of testosterone’s influence on males often centers on aggression and antisocial behavior, contemporary theorists have proposed that it instead enhances behaviors involved in obtaining and maintaining a high social status. Two central distinguishing but untested predictions of this theory are that testosterone selectively increases status-relevant aggressive behaviors, such as responses to provocation, but that it also promotes nonaggressive behaviors, such as generosity toward others, when they are appropriate for increasing status. Here, we tested these hypotheses in healthy young males by injecting testosterone enanthate or a placebo in a double-blind, between-subjects, randomized design (n = 40). Participants played a version of the Ultimatum Game that was modified so that, having accepted or rejected an offer from the proposer, participants then had the opportunity to punish or reward the proposer at a proportionate cost to themselves. We found that participants treated with testosterone were more likely to punish the proposer and that higher testosterone levels were specifically associated with increased punishment of proposers who made unfair offers, indicating that testosterone indeed potentiates aggressive responses to provocation. Furthermore, when participants administered testosterone received large offers, they were more likely to reward the proposer and also chose rewards of greater magnitude. This increased generosity in the absence of provocation indicates that testosterone can also cause prosocial behaviors that are appropriate for increasing status. These findings are inconsistent with a simple relationship between testosterone and aggression and provide causal evidence for a more complex role for testosterone in driving status-enhancing behaviors in males.
  • Eisner, Manuel. Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime. Crime and Justice 30 (2003): 83-142. [doi:10.2307/1147697] AbstractResearch on the history of crime from the thirteenth century until the end of the twentieth has burgeoned and has greatly increased understanding of historical trends in crime and crime control. Serious interpersonal violence decreased remarkably in Europe between the mid-sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Different long-term trajectories in the decline of homicide can be distinguished between various European regions. Age and sex patterns in serious violent offending, however, have changed very little over several centuries. The long-term decline in homicide rates seems to go along with a disproportionate decline in elite homicide and a drop in male-to-male conflicts in public space. A range of theoretical explanations for the long-term decline have been offered, including the effects of the civilizing process, strengthening state powers, the Protestant Reformation, and modern individualism, but most theorizing has been post hoc.
  • Feeley, Malcolm M., and Deborah L. Little. The Vanishing Female: The Decline of Women in the Criminal Process, 1687-1912. Law & Society Review 25, no. 4 (1991): 719. [doi:10.2307/3053868] AbstractThis article challenges the prevailing scholarly belief that women have always been at the periphery of crime and argues that a central issue for those studying the criminal process should be the decline over time of women as criminal offenders and defendants. Our argument rests on examination of criminal cases in the Old Bailey in London for 1687-1912, as well as of data drawn from English and some American courts for this period. For much of the eighteenth century women made up a substantial portion (over 45 percent at times) of all those indicted for felony offenses, in sharp contrast to contemporary levels of less that 15 percent. We conclude that the change is "real"-it cannot be explained away as an artifact of selective reporting, shifting jurisdiction, short-lived idiosyncratic enforcement policies, etc. We argue that these changes parallel and may be explained by significant shifts in the roles accorded women in the economy, the family, and society, and we conclude that the vanishing female in the criminal process may reflect a shift to more private forms of social control brought on by shifting social attitudes and the rise of industrialism.
  • Campbell, Bradley, and Jason Manning. Microaggression and Moral Cultures. Comparative Sociology 13, no. 6 (2014): 692-726. [doi:10.1163/15691330-12341332] AbstractCampus activists and others might refer to slights of one’s ethnicity or other cultural characteristics as “microaggressions,” and they might use various forums to publicize them. Here we examine this phenomenon by drawing from Donald Black’s theories of conflict and from cross-cultural studies of conflict and morality. We argue that this behavior resembles other conflict tactics in which the aggrieved actively seek the support of third parties as well as those that focus on oppression. We identify the social conditions associated with each feature, and we discuss how the rise of these conditions has led to large-scale moral change such as the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past.
  • Hollander, Jocelyn A. Vulnerability and Dangerousness: The Construction of Gender through Conversation About Violence. Gender & Society 15, no. 1 (2001): 83-109. [doi:10.1177/089124301015001005] AbstractIn this article, the author argues that beliefs about vulnerability and dangerousness are central to conceptions of gender and are constructed and transmitted through conversation. Using data from 13 focus groups, the author demonstrates that ideas about gender and its relationship to vulnerability and danger are pervasive in talk about violence, and that this talk is further marked by ideas about age, race, social class, and sexual identity. These ideas are based, in part, on shared beliefs about human bodies, which reinforce the perceived naturalness (and therefore the invisibility) of these ideas. The article concludes with a discussion of the consequences of these ideas for the daily lives of women and men.
  • McCarthy, Margaret M. Multifaceted Origins of Sex Differences in the Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371, no. 1688 (2016): 20150106. [doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0106] AbstractStudies of sex differences in the brain range from reductionistic cell and molecular analyses in animal models to functional imaging in awake human subjects, with many other levels in between. Interpretations and conclusions about the importance of particular differences often vary with differing levels of analyses and can lead to discord and dissent. In the past two decades, the range of neurobiological, psychological and psychiatric endpoints found to differ between males and females has expanded beyond reproduction into every aspect of the healthy and diseased brain, and thereby demands our attention. A greater understanding of all aspects of neural functioning will only be achieved by incorporating sex as a biological variable. The goal of this review is to highlight the current state of the art of the discipline of sex differences research with an emphasis on the brain and to contextualize the articles appearing in the accompanying special issue.
  • Saguy, Abigail C. Employment Discrimination or Sexual Violence? Defining Sexual Harassment in American and French Law. Law & Society Review 34, no. 4 (2000): 1091. [doi:10.2307/3115132] AbstractIn this article I examine how and why the term "sexual harassment" has been defined very differently in American and French law. Drawing on political and legal history, I argue that feminists mobilized in both countries to create sexual harassment law, but encountered dissimilar political, legal, and cultural constraints and resources. Having adapted to these distinct opportunities and constraints, feminists and other social actors produced sexual harassment laws that varied by body of law, definition of harm, scope, and remedy. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for studies of culture, gender and the state, globalization, and public policy.
  • Sapolsky, Robert. Testosterone Rules. Discover 18, no. 3 (1997): 45-50
  • Whaley, Rachel Bridges. The Paradoxical Relationship between Gender Inequality and Rape: Toward a Refined Theory. Gender & Society 15, no. 4 (2001): 531-55. [doi:10.1177/089124301015004003] AbstractThis article develops and tests a refined feminist theory of rape. The author proposes that the short-term effect of gender equality is an increased rape rate via increased threats to the status quo, whereas the long-term effect of gender equality is reduced rape rates via an improved social climate toward women. Using panel data for 109 U.S. cities over three decades—1970, 1980, and 1990—the author's expectations are generally confirmed. Because measures of inequality are used, supportive cross-sectional coefficients are negative and supportive lagged coefficients are positive. In the short term, gender inequality reduces the rape rate, whereas in the long term, higher levels of gender inequality are associated with higher levels of rape. Gender inequality in income, education, access to high-status occupations, and legal status are each positively associated with the change in rape in at least one change period (1970 to 1980, 1980 to 1990, and 1970 to 1990).
  • Wood, Wendy, and Alice H. Eagly. A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences. Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 5 (2002): 699-727. [doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699] AbstractThis article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and their situated activity in society.
  • Archer, J. (2002). Sex Differences In Physically Aggressive Acts Between Heterosexual Partners: A Metaanalytic Review. Aggression & Violent Behavior, 7(4), 313–351. [doi: 10.1016/S1359-1789(01)00061-1]
  • Saguy, Abigail C. "Employment Discrimination or Sexual Violence?: Defining Sexual Harassment in American and French Law." Law & Society Review. 34:4 (2000):1091-1128. also see Saguy, Abigail C. "What is Sexual Harassment? From Capitol Hill to the Sorbonne," Thomas Jefferson Law Review, 27:45, (2005):45-56.  [jstor: 3115132]
  • Manuel Eisner.  "Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime. " Crime and Justice, Vol. 30, (2003), pp. 83-142 [jstor: 1147697]
  • Malcolm M. Feeley, Deborah L. Little.  "The Vanishing Female: The Decline of Women in the Criminal Process, 1687-1912."  Law & Society Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (1991), pp. 719-758  [jstor: 3053868]
  • Rachel Bridges Whaley, "The Paradoxical Relationship between Gender Inequality and Rape: Toward a Refined Theory." Gender & Society, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 531-555, Aug 2001  [doi: 10.1177/089124301015004003]
  • Review Robert Sapolsky,  "Testosterone Rules" from section III above.
  •  Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699-727. [note: also recommended for previous section]  [doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699]
• Related Readings
  • Linda Gordon. "Family Violence, Feminism, and Social Control." Feminist Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 453-478 [jstor: 3177907]
  • Christopher Uggen & Amy Blackstone. "Sexual Harrasment as a Gendered Expression of Power."  American Sociological Review, Volume 69, Number 1, (February 2004): 64-92 [doi: 10.1177/000312240406900105]
  • Sandy Welsh. "Gender And Sexual Harassment." Annual Review of Sociology  25 (1999): 169-190 [doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.169]
  • Lee Ellis and Charles Beattie. "The Feminist Explanation for Rape: An Empirical Test." The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1983), pp. 74-93  [jstor: 3812420]
  • Kimberly Martin, Lynne M. Vieraitis and Sarah Britto. "Gender Equality and Women's Absolute Status: A Test of the Feminist Models of Rape."  Violence Against Women. 12 (4) 2006: 321-339 [doi: 10.1177/1077801206286311]
  • Gwen Hunnicutt. "Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women Resurrecting "Patriarchy" as a Theoretical Tool."  Violence Against Women. 15 (5) 2009: 553 - 573   [doi: 10.1177/1077801208331246]
  • Tom W. Smith. "The Polls: Gender and Attitudes Toward Violence." The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 384-396 [jstor: 2748632]
  • Richard C. Eichenberg. "Gender Differences In Public Attitudes Toward The Use Of Force By The United States, 1990-2003." International Security 28.1 (2003) 110-141
  • Jon Hurwitz and Shannon Smithey, "Gender Differences on Crime and Punishment." Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 89-115 [jstor: 448831]
  • Joan B. Kelly & Michael P. Johnson. "Differentiation Among Types Of Intimate Partner Violence: Research Update And Implications For Interventions." Family Court Review, Volume 46, Issue 3, 2008 (p 476-499)   [doi: 10.1111/j.1744-1617.2008.00215.x]
  • Richard B. Felson, Alison C. Cares. "Gender and the Seriousness of Assaults on Intimate Partners and Other Victims." Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 67, Issue 5 (2005):1182-1195 [doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00209.x]
  • Murray A. Straus and Ignacio Luis Ramirez. 2007. "Gender Symmetry In Prevalence, Severity, And Chronicity Of Physical Aggression Against Dating Partners By University Students In Mexico And USA." Aggressive Behavior 33:281-290.  [doi: 10.1002/ab.20199]
  • Russell P. Dobash and R. Emerson Dobash. "Women's Violence to Men in Intimate Relationships." The British Journal of Criminology 44 (2004): 324-349   [doi: 10.1093/bjc/azh026]

8. How has the economy influenced men and women's positions in society?

Essentially all analyses of gender inequality give great importance to the economy.  Gender inequality appears everywhere embedded in economic inequality, in the sense that a critical aspect of gender inequality involves unequal access to economic resources and positions.  Sometimes this is understood as an expression of gender inequality, sometimes a cause of gender inequality, sometimes a result. Many analyses consider it all three.

• Analytical Task
  • Describe two examples of atypical (but not rare oddities) circumstances in which women may have higher economic status or economy-related status than men (e.g., wives who earn more than their husbands).  
    • Pure economic inequality between women and men would require that every man has an economic status and economic opportunities greater than every woman.  Realistically, such pure economic inequality by gender does not appear in any society. 
    • While our interest lies in what causes or sustains the economic facets of gender inequality, in this task we approach the contested terrain indirectly, by first considering exceptions, conditions where some women have a better economic location then some men. 
  • For each example (of the two you choose), try to explain briefly both (1) what conditions or processes ensure that it is atypical and (2) similarly explain what conditions or processes allow the atypical examples to arise.
    • in developing your explanations, consider the actions of both women and men, as well as differences in the opportunities and constraints they typically face
    • consider also how other kinds of relevant people respond to such atypical arrangements
    • try to take into account the orientation and actions of both people with power and ordinary people who lack it
• Common Readings
  • The Long Term - How and why women's participation in the economy changed since the 19th century.
    • Jackson, Robert Max. Employment: Gaining Equality from the Economy.. Chap. 3 In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998AbstractThe reasons why the economy has absorbed and elevated women are, paradoxically, both more complex and simpler than most people expect. Most accounts seeking to explain women's rising employment stress one process that influenced women's employment, especially shortages of male labor, a rising female wage rate, reduced household work, greater education, and fewer children. Realistically, these economic processes all contributed to the transformation. Even more processes that have not received sufficient attention, such as rationalization and occupational segregation, also contributed to women's rising employment. Yet, while women's economic assimilation happened only through the complex combined effects of these varied processes, a simpler explanation also exists at a higher level of abstraction. All the processes that stimulated women's employment reflected a growing inconsistency between the interests produced by modern economic organization and the requirements for preserving gender inequality. This inconsistency created an ever-increasing pressure to disembed gender inequality from economic inequality. The economic resources committed to male advantages declined as the opportunities to profit by women's employment expanded. The rate at which various specific economic processes helped to advance women's status depended on historical contingencies independent of the long-term causal pressures. Under different historical conditions, the timing and importance of the individual processes would have differed. Yet the overall pattern of women's rising employment would still have grown out of the same range of economic influences, all traceable to the inconsistencies between modern economic organization and gender inequality.; the best historical economist on gender summarizes her analyses in Goldin, Claudia. The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family. American Economic Review 96, no. 2 (2006): 1-21. [doi:10.1257/000282806777212350] AbstractWomen's increased involvement in the economy was the most significant change in labor markets during the past century. Their modern economic role emerged in the United States in four distinct phases. The first three were evolutionary; the last was revolutionary. The revolution was a "quiet" one, not the "big-bang" type. The evolutionary phases led, slowly, to the revolutionary phase. First, I will discuss the three evolutionary phases and how they led to the revolutionary phase. I will then describe the changes that occurred during the revolutionary phase and end with whether the revolution, as some have claimed, is stalled or being reversed.; for a classic demographic analysis, see Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincade. Demographic Influence on Female Employment and the Status of Women. American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 4 (1973): 946. [doi:10.1086/225412] AbstractThis paper is concerned with one example of demographically related social change-women's changing work roles. The argument is that continued economic development in our society has led to increases in the demand for female labor which, combined with demographically induced shifts in the supply of unmarried and young women, have resulted in the considerable post-World War II rise in the labor-force participation of married women. The evidence is that these changes are irreversible and will not be greatly affected by the entry of the baby-boom cohorts into the labor market. Nevertheless, women's increasing dissatisfaction with job opportunities can be expected because several of the higher-level traditional female occupations will probably not expand greatly in the near future.; and for a cross-national comparative assessment of historical changes (and economic interpretations, see Olivetti, Claudia, and Barbara Petrongolo. The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries. Annual Review of Economics 8, no. 1 (2016): 405-34. [doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-080614-115329] AbstractWomen in developed economies have made major advancements in labor markets throughout the past century, but remaining gender differences in pay and employment seem remarkably persistent. This article documents long-run trends in female employment, working hours, and relative wages for a wide cross section of developed economies. It reviews existing work on the factors driving gender convergence, and novel perspectives on remaining gender gaps. Finally, the article emphasizes the interplay between gender trends and the evolution of the industry structure. Based on a shift-share decomposition, it shows that the growth in the service share can explain at least half of the overall variation in female hours, both over time and across countries.
  • The "wage gap."  How and why jobs have paid women less than men.
    • Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations. Journal of Economic Literature 55, no. 3 (2017): 789-865. [doi:10.1257/jel.20160995] {This is the latest in a long series on this topic by these authors, and it (the latest version) is widely considered the fundamental, authoritative statement.}  AbstractUsing Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) microdata over the 1980-2010 period, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably during this time. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution than at the middle or bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human-capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women's work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high-skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than, say, occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences.; for an analogous sociological presentation see: England, Paula. Gender Inequality in Labor Markets: The Role of Motherhood and Segregation. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 12, no. 2 (2005): 264-88. [doi:10.1093/sp/jxi014] AbstractThis article provides an overview of gender inequality in labor markets in the United States. I show trends in labor force participation, occupational segregation, and the pay gap. Though my main focus is the United States, I note where similar findings exist for other affluent nations. I explain what we know from past research about the causes of inequality and note the gaps in our knowledge. In broad brush strokes, the sex gap in pay in the United States has two major sources: the segregation of jobs and the effects of women’s responsibility for childrearing. My major thesis is that at least in the United States, these two are largely unrelated. That is, the causes of segregation do not seem to be largely about women’s mothering responsibilities, and the penalties for motherhood do not appear to flow largely through segregation. This thesis is at odds with much thinking among economists, who have seen segregation as a rational response by employers and employees to gender differences in intermittence of employment. In this economic view, women choose more “mother-friendly” jobs, which maximize their earnings conditional on intermittent and flexible employment but tradeoff on-the-job training, higher earnings, and steeper wage trajectories to do so.
    • Kleven, Henrik, Camille Landais, and Jakob Egholt Søgaard. Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 11, no. 4 (2019): 181-209. [doi:10.1257/app.20180010] {Pp. 181-4}  AbstractUsing Danish administrative data, we study the impacts of children on gender inequality in the labor market. The arrival of children creates a long-run gender gap in earnings of around 20 percent driven by hours worked, participation, and wage rates. We identify mechanisms driving these "child penalties" in terms of occupation, sector, and firm choices. We find that the fraction of gender inequality caused by child penalties has featured a dramatic increase over the last three to four decades. Finally, we show that child penalties are transmitted through generations, from parents to daughters, suggesting an influence of childhood environment on gender identity.; also skim the introduction of the following for a better known (in sociology) statement about the U.S., with a different causal emphasis: Correll, Shelley J., Stephen Benard, and In Paik. Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?. American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 5 (2007): 1297-339. [doi:10.1086/511799] {Pp. 1297-1302}  AbstractSurvey research finds that mothers suffer a substantial wage penalty, although the causal mechanism producing it remains elusive. The authors employed a laboratory experiment to evaluate the hypothesis that status‐based discrimination plays an important role and an audit study of actual employers to assess its real‐world implications. In both studies, participants evaluated application materials for a pair of same‐gender equally qualified job candidates who differed on parental status. The laboratory experiment found that mothers were penalized on a host of measures, including perceived competence and recommended starting salary. Men were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent. The audit study showed that actual employers discriminate against mothers, but not against fathers.
    • Goldin, Claudia, and Cecilia Rouse. Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians. American Economic Review 90, no. 4 (2000): 715-41. [doi:10.1257/aer.90.4.715] {Pp. 715-24, 737-8; note this is considered an exceptional, classic study}  AbstractA change in the audition procedures of symphony orchestras--adoption of "blind" auditions with a "screen" to conceal the candidate's identity from the jury--provides a test for sex-biased hiring. Using data from actual auditions, in an individual fixed-effects framework, we find that the screen increases the probability a woman will be advanced and hired. Although some of our estimates have large standard errors and there is one persistent effect in the opposite direction, the weight of the evidence suggests that the blind audition procedure fostered impartiality in hiring and increased the proportion women in symphony orchestras.
    • Williams, Christine L. The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the "Female" Professions. Social Problems 39, no. 3 (1992): 253-67. [doi:10.1525/sp.1992.39.3.03x0034h] {Pp. 264-65 (widely cited, commonly misrepresented)}  AbstractThis paper addresses men's underrepresentation in four predominantly female professions: nursing, elementary school teaching, librarianship, and social work. Specifically, it examines the degree to which discrimination disadvantages men in hiring and promotion decisions, the work place culture, and in interactions with clients. In-depth interviews were conducted with 99 men and women in these professions in four major U.S. cities. The interview data suggest that men do not face discrimination in these occupations; however, they do encounter prejudice from individuals outside their professions. In contrast to the experience of women who enter male-dominated professions, men generally encounter structural advantages in these occupations which tend to enhance their careers. Because men face different barriers to integrating nontraditional occupations than women face, the need for different remedies to dismantle segregation in predominantly female jobs is emphasized.
  • The stalled progress thesis.
    • England, Paula, Andrew Levine, and Emma Mishel. Progress toward Gender Equality in the United States Has Slowed or Stalled. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 13 (2020): 6990-97. [doi:10.1073/pnas.1918891117] {The premier statement in sociology, but compare with Blau & Kahn above.}  AbstractSocial scientists have documented dramatic change in gender inequality in the last half century, sometimes called a “gender revolution.” We show dramatic progress in movement toward gender equality between 1970 and 2018, but also that in recent decades, change has slowed or stalled. The slowdown on some indicators and stall on others suggests that further progress requires substantial institutional and cultural change. Progress may require increases in men’s participation in household and care work, governmental provision of child care, and adoption by employers of policies that reduce gender discrimination and help both men and women combine jobs with family care responsibilities.We examine change in multiple indicators of gender inequality for the period of 1970 to 2018. The percentage of women (age 25 to 54) who are employed rose continuously until ∼2000 when it reached its highest point to date of 75%; it was slightly lower at 73% in 2018. Women have surpassed men in receipt of baccalaureate and doctoral degrees. The degree of segregation of fields of study declined dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, but little since then. The desegregation of occupations continues but has slowed its pace. Examining the hourly pay of those aged 25 to 54 who are employed full-time, we found that the ratio of women’s to men’s pay increased from 0.61 to 0.83 between 1970 and 2018, rising especially fast in the 1980s, but much slower since 1990. In sum, there has been dramatic progress in movement toward gender equality, but, in recent decades, change has slowed and on some indicators stalled entirely.
    • Goldin, Claudia, and Et al. The Expanding Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from the LEHD-2000 Census. American Economic Review (2017). [doi:10.1257/aer.p20171065] {Pp. 113-114}  AbstractThe gender earnings gap is an expanding statistic over the lifecycle. We use the LEHD Census 2000 to understand the roles of industry, occupation, and establishment 14 years after leaving school. The gap for college graduates 26 to 39 years old expands by 34 log points, most occurring in the first 7 years. About 44 percent is due to disproportionate shifts by men into higher-earning positions, industries, and firms and about 56 percent to differential advances by gender within firms. Widening is greater for married individuals and for those in certain sectors. Non-college graduates experience less widening but with similar patterns.
  • At the upper end of the  economy.
    • At the upper end of the  economy.
      • Yavorsky, Jill E., Lisa A. Keister, Yue Qian, and Michael Nau. Women in the One Percent: Gender Dynamics in Top Income Positions. American Sociological Review 84, no. 1 (2019): 54-81. [doi:10.1177/0003122418820702] {Pp. 54-56, and charts on pp. 66-7}  AbstractA growing body of research documents the importance of studying households in the top one percent of U.S. income distribution because they control enormous resources. However, little is known about whose income—men’s or women’s—is primarily responsible for pushing households into the one percent and whether women have individual pathways to earning one percent status based on their income. Using the 1995 to 2016 Surveys of Consumer Finances, we analyze gender income patterns in the one percent. Results show that women’s income is sufficient for one percent status in only 1 in 20 of all elite households. Although self-employment and higher education increase the likelihood that women will personally earn sufficient income for one percent status, marrying a man with good income prospects is a woman’s main route to the one percent. In contrast, men’s one percent status is most closely associated with their own characteristics (self-employment and higher education). Importantly, the gender gap in personally earning one percent income has not narrowed since the mid- to late-1990s, indicating another area in which gender progress has stalled. This research suggests that men retain most of the primary breadwinning positions in top income households and that a financial glass ceiling remains firmly intact at the one percent level.
      • Roth, Louise Marie. Women on Wall Street: Despite Diversity Measures, Wall Street Remains Vulnerable to Sex Discrimination Charges. Academy of Management Perspectives 21, no. 1 (2007): 24-35. [doi:10.5465/amp.2007.24286162] {Pp. 24-5}  AbstractShaken by sexual harassment charges and costly lawsuits, Wall Street in the late 1990s saw a real shift away from its “old boy network” past – at least on paper anyway. In response to sexual harassment suits, many firms on Wall Street implemented strict sexual harassment policies, and even family friendly work-life balance policies. Unfortunately, the lawsuits have continued, prompting many to wonder why Wall Street continues to be so hostile to anyone other than white males. In a research study conducted in 1998 and 1999 with 76 men and women working on Wall Street, I found a number of reasons why change has been so slow in the making.
      • Gorman, Elizabeth H, and Julie A Kmec. Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms. American Journal of Sociology 114, no. 5 (2009): 1428-74. [doi:10.1086/595950] {Pp. 1428-31}  AbstractThis article revives the debate over whether women’s upward mobility prospects decline as they climb organizational hierarchies. Although this proposition is a core element of the “glass ceiling” metaphor, it has failed to gain strong support in previous research. The article establishes a firm theoretical foundation for expecting an increasing female disadvantage, with an eye toward defining the scope conditions and extending the model to upper‐level external hires. The approach is illustrated in an empirical setting that meets the proposed scope conditions: corporate law firms in the United States. Results confirm that in this setting, the female mobility disadvantage is greater at higher organizational levels in the case of internal promotions, but not in the case of external hires.
      • Hughes, Melanie M., Pamela Paxton, and Mona Lena Krook. Gender Quotas for Legislatures and Corporate Boards. Annual Review of Sociology 43, no. 1 (2017): 331-52. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053324] {Read 331-337; skim remainder}  AbstractThe global proliferation of quotas for women over the past 30 years is both remarkable and consequential. Targeting decision-making positions historically resistant to women's equal inclusion, the adoption of electoral and corporate board quotas has at times been controversial. After adoption, quotas have influenced women's numbers, the performance and outcomes of decision-making bodies, and broader public attitudes. In this review, we distinguish among types of electoral and corporate quotas, trace arguments for and against the adoption of quotas, and review research on factors that influence quota adoption across time and space. After outlining the methodological difficulties in demonstrating an impact of gender quotas, we review research that is able to isolate an impact of quotas in politics and business. We conclude by providing several suggestions to ensure that future research continues to advance our understanding of the form, spread, and impact of gender quotas.
      • Srivastava, Sameer B., and Eliot L. Sherman. Agents of Change or Cogs in the Machine? Reexamining the Influence of Female Managers on the Gender Wage Gap. American Journal of Sociology 120, no. 6 (2015): 1778-808. [doi:10.1086/681960] {Pp. 1778-87}  AbstractDo female managers act in ways that narrow or instead act in ways that preserve or even widen the gender wage gap? Although conceptual arguments exist on both sides of this debate, the empirical evidence to date has favored the former view. Yet this evidence comes primarily from cross-establishment surveys, which do not provide visibility into individual managers’ choices. Using longitudinal personnel records from an information services firm in which managers had considerable discretion over employee salaries, we estimate multilevel models that indicate no support for the proposition that female managers reduce the gender wage gap among their subordinates. Consistent with the theory of value threat, we instead find conditional support for the cogs-in-the-machine perspective: in the subsample of high-performing supervisors and low-performing employees, women who switched from a male to a female supervisor had a lower salary in the following year than men who made the same switch.
      • England, Paula, Jonathan Bearak, Michelle J. Budig, and Melissa J. Hodges. Do Highly Paid, Highly Skilled Women Experience the Largest Motherhood Penalty?. American Sociological Review 81, no. 6 (2016): 1161-89. [doi:10.1177/0003122416673598] AbstractMotherhood reduces women’s wages. But does the size of this penalty differ between more and less advantaged women? To answer this, we use unconditional quantile regression models with person-fixed effects, and panel data from the 1979 to 2010 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). We find that among white women, the most privileged—women with high skills and high wages—experience the highest total penalties, estimated to include effects mediated through lost experience. Although highly skilled, highly paid women have fairly continuous experience, their high returns to experience make even the small amounts of time some of them take out of employment for childrearing costly. By contrast, penalties net of experience, which may represent employer discrimination or effects of motherhood on job performance, are not distinctive for highly skilled women with high wages.
    • Further searching for causes.  {Although optional, these are well known and important sources.}
      • Budig, Michelle J. Male Advantage and the Gender Composition of Jobs: Who Rides the Glass Escalator?. Social Problems 49, no. 2 (2002): 258-77. [doi:10.1525/sp.2002.49.2.258] {Pp. 258-9, 274-5}  AbstractIs the gender gap in pay constant across all jobs, or does the gender composition of the job affect male advantage? Using data from the NLSY and a finely detailed measure of the gender composition of jobs, I investigate gender differences in wages and in wage growth. I show how they differ between female-dominated, male-dominated, and balanced jobs. Predictions from Kanter's theory of tokenism and the Williams and Acker theory of gendered organizations are tested. Findings indicate that men are advantaged, net of controls, in both pay levels and wage growth in all jobs, regardless of gender composition. Contrary to predictions generated from Kanter's tokenism theory, men do not suffer when they are tokens, in terms of pay. Not only are predictions from Kanter's theory untrue for male tokens, they also do not hold for female tokens when it comes to wages. Rather, consistent with the Williams and Acker theory of gendered organizations, men are no more-and no less-advantaged when women are tokens; in terms of earnings, men are uniformly advantaged in male-dominated, female-dominated, and balanced jobs. Analyses of promotions data indicate that men are also not additionally advantaged whether they are the numerically dominant or minority gender; in fact, male advantage in promotions is the smallest when men are tokens.
      • Charles, Maria. Deciphering Sex Segregation: Vertical and Horizontal Inequalities in Ten National Labor Markets. Acta Sociologica 46, no. 4 (2003): 267-87. [doi:10.1177/0001699303464001] {Pp. 267-9}  AbstractScholars and policy-makers increasingly treat occupational sex segregation as a generic indicator of female economic disadvantage. This view is difficult to reconcile with evidence that levels of sex segregation are lower in reputably ‘gender-traditional’ countries such as Italy, Japan, and Portugal than in ‘progressive’ Sweden and the United States. Understanding such seemingly anomalous patterns requires a two-dimensional conceptualization of occupational sex segregation - in particular, an analytical distinction between vertical and horizontal gender inequalities. Based on data from 10 industrialized countries, claims regarding (1) the hybrid nature of sex segregation and (2) the cultural and structural factors that influence its various components are empirically assessed. Results confirm that unequal distributions across the manual-non-manual divide (‘horizontal segregation’) and status differentials within these sectors (‘vertical segregation’) together account for a considerable share of occupational gender inequality. Gender-egalitarian cultural norms are associated with lower levels of vertical segregation in the non-manual sector, while postindustrial economic structures coincide with greater horizontal segregation (and more vertical segregation of non-manual occupations). The complex horizontal and vertical dynamics revealed here cast further doubt on unidimensional conceptualizations of sex segregation. They also provide the key for deciphering some long-standing empirical puzzles in the field.
      • Reskin, Barbara F. Bringing the Men Back In: Sex Differentiation and the Devaluation of Women's Work. Gender & Society 2, no. 1 (1988): 58-81. [doi:10.1177/089124388002001005] AbstractTo reduce sex differences in employment outcomes, we must examine them in the context of the sex-gender hierarchy. The conventional explanation for wage gap—job segregation—is incorrect because it ignores men's incentive to preserve their advantages and their ability to do so by establishing the rules that distribute rewards. The primary method through which all dominant groups maintain their hegemony is by differentiating the subordinate group and defining it as inferior and hence meriting inferior treatment. My argument implies that neither sex-integrating jobs nor implementing comparable worth will markedly improve women's employment status because men can subvert these mechanisms or even change the rules by which rewards are allocated. As evidence, I show that occupational integration has failed to advance women appreciably, and I argue that comparable worth is not likely to be much more effective. Instead, we must seek political analyses and political solutions.
      • Reskin, Barbara F. Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality: 2002 Presidential Address. American Sociological Review 68, no. 1 (2003): 1-21. [doi:10.2307/3088900] AbstractSociologists' principal contribution to our understanding of ascriptive inequality has been to document race and sex disparities. We have made little headway, however, in explaining these disparities because most research has sought to explain variation across ascriptive groups in more or less desirable outcomes in terms of allocators' motives. This approach has been inconclusive because motive-based theories cannot be empirically tested. Our reliance on individual-level data and the balkanization of research on ascriptive inequality into separate specialties for groups defined by different ascriptive characteristics have contributed to our explanatory stalemate. Explanation requires including mechanisms in our models-the specific processes that link groups' ascribed characteristics to variable outcomes such as earnings. I discuss mechanisms that contribute to variation in ascriptive inequality at four levels of analysis-intrapsychic, interpersonal, societal, and organizational. Redirecting our attention from motives to mechanisms is essential for understanding inequality and-equally important-for contributing meaningfully to social policies that will promote social equality.
  • Recommended Readings
    • Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone as Far as They Can?" Academy of Management Perspectives 21 (February 2007): 7-23.  [Reduced version of chapter in Declining Significance of Gender] [doi: 10.5465/AMP.2007.24286161]
    • Christine E. Bose, Philip L. Bereano and Mary Malloy. "Household Technology and the Social Construction of Housework." Technology and Culture, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 53-82  [jstor: 3104669]
    • Claudia Goldin. "The Changing Economic Role of Women: A Quantitative Approach." Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 13, No. 4, The Measure of American History (Spring, 1983), pp. 707-733  [jstor: 203887]
    • England, Paula, Paul Allison, and Yuxiao Wu. "Does Feminization Lower Wages, Do Declines in Wages Cause Feminization, and How Can We Tell From Longitudinal Data?" Social Science Research 36(3) (2007): 1237-56. [doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2006.08.003]
    • Petersen, Trond, Vemund Snartland, and Eva M. Meyersson Milgrom. Are Female Workers Less Productive Than Male Workers?. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 25, no. 1 (2007): 13-37. [doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2006.05.002] AbstractThis paper addresses whether there are productivity differences between men and women among blue-collar workers. We compare the wages under piece- and time-rate contracts of men and women working in the same occupation in the same establishment in three countries: the U.S., Norway, and Sweden. The findings are summarized in four points. First, the gender wage gap is smaller under piece- than under time-rate work. According to the interpretation put forth here, two-thirds of the gap at the occupation–establishment level is due to productivity differences, while one-third is not “accounted for,” but could be due to discrimination or experience or other factors. Productivity differences between sexes in typically male-dominated blue-collar industries are however very small, of 1–3%: Sweden 1%, U.S. 2%, and Norway 3%. Second, in age groups where women on average have extensive family obligations, the wage gap is larger than in other age groups. Third, under time-rate work, the wage gap is more or less independent of supposed occupation-based productivity differences between men and women, while under piece-rate work, the wage gap mirrors quite closely assumed productivity differences, with women receiving a wage premium in female-advantageous settings and a penalty in male-advantageous settings. Fourth, in contrast to Sweden, in Norway and the U.S. women sort more often into piece-rate work than men. " What are the implications of these findings for our understanding of the overall gender wage gap? Assuming the results can be extended to other types of jobs, the implication is that very little of the overall gender wage gap is due to productivity differences at the occupation–establishment level, strongly mirroring findings for the wage gap at that level. What is central for the overall wage gap is the segregation of men and women into different kinds of occupations and establishments that differ in their wage levels. With our data we cannot answer whether this occupational sorting is due to productivity differences by sex, where the sexes sort into occupations according to how productive they are in various settings, or whether it is due to employers hiring disproportionally from the more productive sex, or due to discrimination. But once sorting has occurred, there is little evidence of productivity differences by sex in the occupations studied here."
    • Judge, Timothy A, and Beth A Livingston. Is the Gap More Than Gender? A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Gender Role Orientation, and Earnings. J Appl Psychol 93, no. 5 (2008): 994-1012. [doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.5.994] AbstractThis study investigated the relationships among gender, gender role orientation (i.e., attitudes toward the gendered separation of roles at work and at home), and earnings. A multilevel model was conceptualized in which gender role orientation and earnings were within-individual variables that fluctuate over time (although predictors of between-individual differences in gender role orientation were also considered). Results indicated that whereas traditional gender role orientation was positively related to earnings, gender significantly predicted the slope of this relationship: Traditional gender role orientation was strongly positively associated with earnings for men; it was slightly negatively associated with earnings for women. Occupational segregation partly explained these gender differences. Overall, the results suggest that although gender role attitudes are becoming less traditional for men and for women, traditional gender role orientation continues to exacerbate the gender wage gap.
  • Related Readings
    • Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, Ilyana Kuziemko. "The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap." The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Fall, 2006), pp. 133-156 [jstor: 30033687]
    • Jerry A. Jacobs. "Gender Inequality and Higher Education."  Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 22 (1996): 153-185 [doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.153]
    • Claudia Buchmann, Thomas A. DiPrete, Anne McDaniel.  "Gender Inequalities in Education."  Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 34 (2008): 319-337 [doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134719]
    • England, Paula and Su Li. "Desegregation Stalled: The Changing Gender Composition of College Majors, 1971-2002." Gender & Society 20(5) (2006):657-677. [doi: 10.1177/0891243206290753]
    • M. Evertsson, P. England, I. Mooi-Reci, J. Hermsen, J. de Bruijn, D. Cotter. "Is Gender Inequality Greater at Lower or Higher Educational Levels? Common Patterns in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States." Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 16(2):210-241 (2009) [doi: 10.1093/sp/jxp008]
    • Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & van Engen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 569-591. [doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.4.569]
    • Eckel, Catherine; de Oliveira, Angela C. M.; Grossman, Philip J.  "Gender and Negotiation in the Small: Are Women (Perceived to Be) More Cooperative than Men?" Negotiation Journal, Volume 24, Issue 4, 2008: 429 [doi: 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2008.00196.x]; Kolb, Deborah M.  "Too Bad for the Women or Does It Have to Be? Gender and Negotiation Research over the Past Twenty-Five Years." Negotiation Journal, Volume 25, Issue 4, 2009: 515 [doi: 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2009.00242.x]; Bowles, Hannah Riley; McGinn, Kathleen L.  "Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game."  Negotiation Journal, Volume 24, Issue 4, 2008: 393 [doi: 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2008.00194.x]
    • Sue Bowden, Avner Offer. "Household Appliances and the Use of Time: The United States and Britain Since the 1920s." The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Nov., 1994), pp. 725-748  [jstor: 2597714]
    • Graciela Chichilnisky.  "The Gender Gap." Review of Development Economics, Volume 12, Issue 4 (p 828-844) [gender gap as a Nash equilibrium--not for the economically faint of heart]  [doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00456.x]
    • Justin Wolfers. "Diagnosing Discrimination: Stock Returns and Ceo Gender"  Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 4, No. 2/3, Papers and Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (Apr. - May, 2006), pp. 531-541  [jstor: 40005119]
    • Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The Gender Pay Gap," The Economists' Voice (June 2007). [doi: 10.2202/1553-3832.1190]
    • Claudia Goldin. "The Long Road to the Fast Track: Career and Family." The Annals Of The American Academy Of Political And Social Science. 2004 596 (2004): 20-35.  [doi: 10.1177/0002716204267959]
    • Claudia D. Goldin. "The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women's Employment." The American Economic Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Sep., 1991), pp. 741-756  [jstor: 2006640]
    • Michael Bittman, Paula England, Liana Sayer, Nancy Folbre, and George Matheson. "When Does Gender Trump Money?: Bargaining and Time in Household Work." American Journal of Sociology 109 (2003):186-214.  [doi: pdf/10.1086/378341]

9.  How have men resisted and furthered change?  How have women furthered and resisted change?  {Jump to Topic 10 -- the two topics are now merged there}

Both women and men have acted in every possible way towards gender inequality.  What we want to understand are the circumstances in which they predictably act in ways that either reinforce or erode inequality.  People's actions complex results of interests, ideology, circumstance, opportunity, and constraint. 

• Analytical Task
  • General Problem: In any simple model of gender inequality, men and women are principal actors.  For the analysis of gender inequality, their relevant actions may be categorized into those that reinforce inequality and those that challenge it.  Inequality is sustained when the cumulative effects of actions reinforcing inequality outweigh the effects of actions that challenge it.  Here we will try to develop a simplified model of men's and women's actions that decide the depth and persistence of some aspect of gender inequality.
  • First, select and specify one kind or aspect of gender inequality.  The more specific the choice, the easier it is to model.  Clearly state how the chosen example is an inequality, specifying
    • what kinds of women and men are unequal,
    • how this inequality manifests itself (i.e., in what way and in what circumstances does this inequality occur), and
    • how things look different when the degree of this inequality is great compared to when it is small.
  • Second, identify relevant actions by reinforce or repel gender inequality for both women and men. With respect to this type of inequality, offer two or more examples of each of the following:
    • common actions by men that help sustain the inequality,
    • common actions by men that contribute to eroding the inequality,
    • common actions by women that help sustain the inequality and
    • common actions by women that contribute to eroding the inequality.
  • Third, try to specify the range of circumstances under which each of these four types of action are likely to occur.  
    • It is useful to distinguish between regularly repeating or "normal" actions and occasional responsive actions that occur only when something unexpected happens, promising threat or opportunity.
    • Try to consider possible distinctions amongst kinds of people that divide them into ones more likely or less likely to act in the way being discussed.
    • Consider how the likelihood of these four kinds of actions might vary depending on whether the overall level of gender inequality is low versus high, and on whether gender inequality is stable or changing.   Note here that it is plausible both that the relative rates of these influences the severity and stability of gender inequality and that the severity and stability of inequality influences the rates of these types of actions.
  • Fourth, can you distill  your observations into  a couple generalizations?  When you consider the implications of the "model" you have devised, how would you summarize it?
• Common Readings
  • Destined for Equality: Surrendering the Heritage of Male Dominance
  • Destined for Equality: Women's Rejection of Subordination
  • Susan E. Marshall. "Ladies against Women: Mobilization Dilemmas of Antifeminist Movements." Social Problems, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Apr., 1985), pp. 348-362  [jstor: 800757]
  • Laura L. Miller. "Not Just Weapons of the Weak: Gender Harassment as a Form of Protest for Army Men." Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 32-51 [jstor: 2787010]
  • ...
• Recommended Readings
  • Noah P. Mark, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Cecilia L. Ridgeway. "Why Do Nominal Characteristics Acquire Status Value? A Minimal Explanation for Status Construction." AJS Volume 115 Number 3 (November 2009): 832–62 .... [doi: pdf/10.1086/606142]
  • Kirsten Dellinger. "Masculinities in "Safe" and "Embattled" Organizations: Accounting for Pornographic and Feminist Magazines." Gender & Society, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 545-566, Oct 2004... [doi: 10.1177/0891243204267401]
  • Carl N. Degler. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman on the Theory and Practice of Feminism." American Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1956), pp. 21-39   [jstor: 2710295]
  • Jo Freeman. "Political Organization in the Feminist Movement." Acta Sociologica, Vol. 18, No. 2/3 (1975), pp. 222-244  [jstor: 4194062]
  • Emily Stoper, Roberta Ann Johnson. "The Weaker Sex & the Better Half: The Idea of Women's Moral Superiority in the American Feminist Movement." Polity, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Winter, 1977), pp. 192-217  [jstor: 3234258]
  •  Ann-Dorte Christensen and Jørgen Elm Larsen. "Gender, Class, and Family: Men and Gender Equality in a Danish Context. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 2008 15(1):53-78  [doi: 10.1093/sp/jxn004]
  • ...
• Related Readings
  • ...
  • Holly J. McCammon, Courtney Sanders Muse, Harmony D. Newman, and Teresa M. Terrell. "Movement Framing and Discursive Opportunity Structures: The Political Successes of the U.S. Women's Jury Movements." American Sociological Review 2007 72(5): 725-749.   [doi: 10.1177/000312240707200504]
  • Elsie Clews Parsons. "Feminism and Conventionality." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 56, Women in Public Life (Nov., 1914), pp. 47-53  [jstor: 1011977]
  • Catherine Hakim. "Five Feminist Myths about Women's Employment." The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 429-455 [jstor: 591850]
  • Linda Thompson, Alexis J. Walker. "Gender in Families: Women and Men in Marriage, Work, and Parenthood." Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), pp. 845-871  [jstor: 353201]
  • See also from Section II above, Deniz Kandiyoti, "Bargaining with Patriarchy"." [jstor: 190357]

  • ...

10.  How have political processes and structures sustained men's and women's relative status? {Previous topic 9 on male and female actions now merged here}

As structure and as actor, the state has been unavoidably central to ongoing practice of gender inequality, to its persistence, and to changes in the form and amount of gender inequality.

States or governments have power. Through the military and police, a state can enforce conformity to its rules, repel and punish challenges from the scale of individual acts to collective rebellions, and by threat, implicit or explicit, deter rebellions from appearing. Through the law, regulations, and bureaucratic policies, a state can define what constitutes acceptable or legitimate behavior at all levels of social organization. Through economic policies of taxation, expenditures, and redistributions (such as welfare policies or agricultural supports), a state influences the relative economic status of different groups.

By acting differently toward groups with regard to any of these aspects of government power, a state can create, reinforce, or exacerbate social inequalities. Analogously, a state can, in theory, obstruct, destabilize, or diminish social inequality by using its power in ways that are inconsistent with social inequalities. States determine, influence, legitimize, and sanction rights and opportunities; they may do so in more or less egalitarian ways.

When significant, enduring, social inequality exists, those privileged by that form of inequality will normally have more influence over the state than do those disadvantaged by the inequality, and the overall effect of state policies will reinforce the exercise and persistence of the inequality. A fundamental problem for all state theories is who or what decides state policies and actions. To some degree, those "in" the state (elected, appointed, hired, or appropriated) make decisions based on their interests and outlooks as members of the state apparatus. To some degree, state actors respond to the influence of power brokers outside the state, such as the economically powerful. In either case, when making policy or strategic planning decisions, those influencing state actions are in part responding to what they perceive will be the responses of all actors in the nation affected by those decisions.  States, or the political actors who comprise the government, also have their own interests, most notably preserving their power, and these interests are not automatically consistent with the interests of dominant social groups.

Any political policy, agenda, body, or process may support and enforce gender inequality, passively permit it, or oppose gender inequality (as is true with any form of social inequality).  A political process or policy may have different implications for different aspects of gender inequality (for example, labor protections laws for women that guard them from some possibilities of employer exploitation while simultaneously limiting their competitive access to some kinds of jobs).  In general, to protect and use their advantages, socially dominant groups seek to sustain influence over political processes.  Conforming with this expectation, the long monopoly of men over political power has consistently both demonstrated and sustained gender inequality.  Yet, over the past two centuries government actions have also contributed to the decline of gender inequality.  Thus, with respect to political power we face a series of critical questions: how did political power become and remain a male domain?, how has political power and governance reflected and contributed to gender inequality?, and how and why did some aspects of political power and government act in ways more consistent with improving women's status than preserving gender inequality?

• Analytical Task
  • Analytical Task: You will propose a government strategy for  reducing gender inequality and analyze its plausibility in a causal analysis of gender inequality and its possible effects.
  • Motivation:  While we commonly focus on differences over the desirability of government policies due to contending political agendas, policy making efforts commonly founder on the basic inability to find a solution that works for any agenda.  All government policies rely on theories (explicit or implicit) concerning the causes of the social phenomena they aim to influence and the effects of the social mechanisms they hope will produce desired outcomes.  Without sufficient and accurate theories about the relevant causal processes, government policies become trial and error efforts, as likely to make things worse as they are to make them better.
  • Task Scenario:  You have been hired by a newly elected President of the United States (or the analogous top political position in another country that you prefer to examine).  One of the new President’s main goals for her years in office is to use government power to improve gender inequality and the status of women.  Your job is to recommend toward what specific goals she should focus her efforts.
  • Alternative Strategies: You may recommend new legislation (or the removal of old), new administrative strategies such as who gets appointed, new executive policies (for example, rules for the military) that are within the President’s power without legislation, concerted efforts to influence public opinion or state level governance.  In short, you can consider the entire range of actions available to a President.
  • First, you should propose at least three distinct initiatives that you believe could serve this purpose.
  • Second, from those three, chose the one strategy you believe holds the most promise. 
  • Third, for this selected strategy, you must provide an analytical justification. Your justification should consider the following:
    • At what aspects of gender inequality is the policy aimed? 
    • Include a brief analysis of this inequality that explains what is unequal, how great is the inequality, who does it effect, how widely is it recognized, how it has (or has not) changed over time, and what seem to be the principal causes.
    • Describe how have government actions (or inaction) influenced this inequality in the past.
    • Show why we should expect that it will be easy or hard to carry out the proposed policy strategy and how the possible difficulties reflect the influence or effects of gender inequality.
    • Explain how the proposed strategy can be expected to alleviate gender inequality.  This explanation should connect directly to the causal explanation of the inequality being diminished.
  • In short, you should propose several strategies by which a government could promote greater gender equality, then provide an analytic appraisal of the strategy you deem best.  This appraisal should stress the causes of relevant facets of gender inequality, how the proposed strategy will affect that causal process, and how gender inequality has a causal influence on government policy that must be countered to implement the policy.  Do not forget to provide a historical context.
  • Alternative Analytical Task
    • Our goal in this task is to attempt a basic analysis of political or power inequality based on empirical examples.  As a practical matter, in the time available, we cannot sensibly attempt a sophisticated analysis in terms either of the data or ideas.  We can, however, try to think our way through a simple analysis, using the ideas in this and previous weeks' readings.  We can think of this being like the starting steps a scholar interested in these questions would take to set up the theoretical and research possibilities.
    • To begin, select one kind or aspect of political or power inequality that exists some places between women and men, for example married women's and men's legal rights over property.  Clearly state how this is an inequality, specifying
      • what kinds of women and men are unequal,
      • how this inequality manifests itself in the unequal treatment of women and men or unequal outcomes for them, and
      • how things look different when the inequality is great compared to when it is small. 
      • In short, we want to clearly identify and describe the inequality, and we what to show how we can distinguish varying levels of that inequality.
    • Next, put together a simple analysis of what might generate or moderate this type of inequality.
      • First, specify two instances where this type of inequality is large and two where it is small. This is our selection of cases that form the basis of our analysis.  Having two large and two small is a minimal research design for identifying the implications of difference in degree of inequality separate from the specifics of our cases.
      • Comparing the cases having greater inequality with those that have less, what effects on other aspects or kinds of gender inequality do the selected instances of political or power inequality seem to have? 
      • Focusing on the key causal issue, what circumstances or processes seem to explain why the aspect of gender inequality being examined is large in two cases and small in the other two?
      • Finally, from the analysis of the cases you have selected, can you make any generalizations beyond those cases about the circumstances or processes you have just used to explain the differences?
• Common Readings
  • Gender and political representation in modern government
    • Lawless, Jennifer L. Female Candidates and Legislators. Annual Review of Political Science 18 (2015): 349-66. {Read 349-58}  [doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-020614-094613] AbstractFor decades, scholars have uncovered evidence that male and female legislators' priorities and preferences differ and that women's inclusion brings to elite-level politics a more cooperative leadership style. They also point to the symbolic benefits associated with more diversity among candidates and office holders. Although these effects are not uniform, there is no question among political scientists that women's presence in US political institutions bears directly on issues of substantive and symbolic representation. Accordingly, it is important to understand why we have so few women in politics, whether they are willing to run for office, what happens when they do, and the extent to which their presence systematically affects the legislative process. I cover each of these topics in this review, emphasizing the latest and most interesting research that speaks to these questions.; for an analogous review from sociologists, see Paxton, Pamela, Sheri Kunovich, and Melanie M. Hughes. Gender in Politics. Annual Review of Sociology 33, no. 1 (2007): 263-84. [doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131651] AbstractWomen's political participation and representation vary dramatically within and between countries. We selectively review the literature on gender in politics, focusing on women's formal political participation. We discuss both traditional explanations for women's political participation and representation, such as the supply of women and the demand for women, and newer explanations such as the role of international actors and gender quotas. We also ask whether women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a difference to public policy? Throughout the review we demonstrate that a full understanding of women's political representation requires both deep knowledge of individual cases such as the United States and broad knowledge comparing women's participation across countries. We end with four recommended directions for future research: (a) globalizing theory and research, (b) expanding data collection, (c) remembering alternative forms of women's agency, and (d) addressing intersectionality.
    • Fox, Richard L., and Jennifer L. Lawless. Uncovering the Origins of the Gender Gap in Political Ambition. American Political Science Review 108, no. 3 (2014): 499-519. {Read 499-505, 511-12} [doi:10.1017/S0003055414000227] {skim} AbstractBased on survey responses from a national random sample of nearly 4,000 high school and college students, we uncover a dramatic gender gap in political ambition. This finding serves as striking evidence that the gap is present well before women and men enter the professions from which most candidates emerge. We then use political socialization—which we gauge through a myriad of socializing agents and early life experiences—as a lens through which to explain the individual-level differences we uncover. Our analysis reveals that parental encouragement, politicized educational and peer experiences, participation in competitive activities, and a sense of self-confidence propel young people's interest in running for office. But on each of these dimensions, women, particularly once they are in college, are at a disadvantage. By identifying when and why gender differences in interest in running for office materialize, we begin to uncover the origins of the gender gap in political ambition. Taken together, our results suggest that concerns about substantive and symbolic representation will likely persist.
    • Hayes, Danny, and Jennifer L. Lawless. Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.  {This book, available online, provides a much fuller account than Lawless's work above.} [doi:10.1017/CBO9781316336007] AbstractClaims of bias against female candidates abound in American politics. From superficial media coverage to gender stereotypes held by voters, the conventional wisdom is that women routinely encounter a formidable series of obstacles that complicate their path to elective office. Women on the Run challenges that prevailing view and argues that the declining novelty of women in politics, coupled with the polarization of the Republican and Democratic parties, has left little space for the sex of a candidate to influence modern campaigns. The book includes in-depth analyses of the 2010 and 2014 congressional elections, which reveal that male and female House candidates communicate similar messages on the campaign trail, receive similar coverage in the local press, and garner similar evaluations from voters in their districts. When they run for office, male and female candidates not only perform equally well on Election Day - they also face a very similar electoral landscape.
  • The how and why of long-term changes in the gendered distribution of power in the United States {Read these chapters sufficiently to understand the causal arguments.}
    • Jackson, Robert Max. Citizenship: Gaining Equality from the State. Chap. 2 In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status, 24-70. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998AbstractGovernment policies favorable to women's status developed in three overlapping phases. First, in the nineteenth century, state governments sought some basic, formal, legal equalities between the sexes. This occurred through changes in state laws and judicial interpretations that gradually gave married women independent control of inherited property. These changes also granted women control over any income they earned and gave them the right to make contracts. In the second phase, culminating during the Progressive Era, the state enacted formal political equality between the sexes by granting women the right to vote. In response, legislative attention to women's concerns increased, and a few women squeezed into political positions. Finally, in the third phase, the state loosely adopted the goal of formal economic and social equality. Since World War II, laws and court decisions have increasingly banned forms of discrimination that restricted women's economic and institutional opportunities. In recent years, women have risen to new prominence in political offices. During each phase, the state expanded the ways women and men received equal treatment under the law. No consistent actor or interest was responsible for the overall trend toward legal and political equalization. Instead, the initiative behind the legal and political changes benefiting women sometimes emerged from within the state itself, sometimes from business interests, and sometimes from women's organizations.
    • Jackson, Robert Max. Surrendering the Heritage of Male Dominance. Chap. 6 In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status, 214-40. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998AbstractIn the past, men have acted individually and collectively, both informally and formally through legal and economic institutions, to keep women in their place. Even when men thought only of competing with other men and fulfilling their sex-role obligations, they reinforced sex inequality by using their advantages. When women directly threatened to violate sex-role expectations, however, men typically resisted with concerted efforts to control these threats. Even then men usually perceived themselves as just, protecting rights they had earned and preserving a pattern of life that benefited all. Within-class cooperation among men against women was as common as coordinated actions by dominant classes against subordinate classes. In both cases, cooperation to control the subordinate group was intermittent and often disguised. ... Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, these conditions have all been changing. Men have got less from women's dependent status, men's capacity to keep women in a secondary status has diminished, and men have had less belief in the value or justice of female subordination. These altered circumstances have gradually reduced ordinary men's efforts to forestall changes that improved women's status and reduced sex inequality. Simultaneously, the interests of economic and political organizations, and of other social institutions outside the home, increasingly favored assimilating women. Men in power have commonly chosen to further the interests of the institutions they control, which they identify with their personal interests, over the interests of their sex.
    • Jackson, Robert Max. Women's Rejection of Subordination. Chap. 5 In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status, 173-213. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998AbstractWomen helped erode gender inequality through several levels of action, including passive responses to altered circumstances, active efforts as individuals, and collective action in social movements. As the economy and political orders developed, in an unobservable systemic process, gender inequality underwent a gradual structural disembedding from positional inequality. Women (like men) responded to a complex realignment of interests and relationships that were not reducible to a simple series of historical events. Reducing childrearing, taking unwanted jobs, and going to school were but a few of women's important adaptations to changing circumstances. Individual efforts at advancement by ambitious women rose above simple adaptation, quietly but continuously. Women sought to better themselves, to achieve new identities, to acquire new freedoms. Taken together, these actions left a marked historical trace. Individually, they were part of people's biographies rather than public history, and their traces died with the people who experienced them. Feminist activity transcended the limits of individual actions, occurring in sporadic but conspicuous bursts. These movements were public historical events. They were able to influence changes in social structures and norms directly.
  • The how and why of contemporary conflicts over the gendered distribution of power
    • Krook, Mona Lena, and Diana Z. O’Brien. All the President’s Men? The Appointment of Female Cabinet Ministers Worldwide. The Journal of Politics 74, no. 3 (2012): 840-55. {Read 840-44, 853-54; the discussion of the data, 844-48 is also a valuable look on measurement issues.} [doi:10.1017/S0022381612000382] AbstractWomen have traditionally been underrepresented among government ministers, and when included in cabinets have largely been relegated to “feminine” and low-prestige policy areas. Recently, however, some countries have witnessed changes in the number, gender, and/or prestige of women’s appointments. What accounts for this variation in women’s access to ministerial power? To answer this question, we posit three competing theoretical explanations: political institutions, social indicators of gender equality, and broader trends in women’s political recruitment. To test these hypotheses, we compile an original dataset of 117 countries and construct a new measure—the Gender Power Score—which differentially weights cabinet positions based on women’s numbers and the gender and prestige of the ministries to which they are assigned. Using a finite mixture model to evaluate competing hypotheses, we find that political variables—rather than social factors—have the strongest impact on gender parity in cabinets.
    • World Bank. Women, Business and the Law 2021. Women, Business and the Law. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2021. {Look over pp. 1-25 enough to have a sense of the findings.}  [doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-1652-9] AbstractWomen, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of studies that analyze laws and regulations affecting women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. Eight indicators—structured around women’s interactions with the law as they begin, progress through, and end their careers—align with the economic decisions women make at various stages of their lives. The indicators are Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. Data in Women, Business and the Law 2021 are current as of October 1, 2020. The indicators are used to build evidence of the relationship between legal gender equality and women’s entrepreneurship and employment. By examining the economic decisions women make as they go through different stages of their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past two years, Women, Business and the Law makes a contribution to policy discussions about the state of women’s economic opportunities.
    • Gelb, Joyce, and Marian Lief Palley. Women and Interest Group Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Federal Decision-Making. The Journal of Politics 41, no. 02 (1979): 362-92. {Read 362-68, 389-92.} [doi:10.2307/2129770] AbstractThe Decade of the 1970s has seen both a changing and an increasing role for women activists and their supporters in American politics. Though not always victorious in the pursuit of their goals of economic, social and political equality, feminist groups and their supporters have experienced considerable success for relative newcomers to the political process. An ongoing and unified women's movement has been created although it will be demonstrated that despite general support from women's groups, lobbying efforts by feminists have become functionally specialized along issue-related lines.
• Recommended Readings
  • Down So Long:  The Reproduction of Economic and Political Power
  • Stryker, Robin. Half Empty, Half Full, or Neither: Law, Inequality, and Social Change in Capitalist Democracies. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 3, no. 1 (2007): 69-97. [doi:10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.3.081806.112728] AbstractReviewing research on organizational compliance, the politics of law, law and social movements, law and inequality, and law and social change, this article examines conditions under which legal institutions have more or less capacity to promote inequality-reducing social change in democratic capitalism. Law produces social change through a combination of rational adaptation to legal incentive structures, cultural meaning making and institutional diffusion, and political mobilization and counter-mobilization. Substantive effects-oriented administrative, adjudicative, and organizational interpretations of welfare-oriented legislation maximizes inequality reduction. These interpretations are most likely to be achieved through a combination of collective mobilization for strategic litigation in conjunction with sustained political mobilization from below both in society and in organizations, accompanied by the influence in implementation and also active monitoring by law and social science–savvy reformers representing the interests of disadvantaged classes and groups.
  • Marschall, Melissa. A Descriptive Analysis of Female Mayors. In Local Politics and Mayoral Elections in 21st Century America, edited by Sean D. Foreman and Marcia L. Godwin, 35-51: Taylor & Francis, 2014. [doi:10.4324/9781315740089]
  • Bailey, Alison. Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye’s ‘Oppression’. Journal of Social Philosophy 29, no. 3 (1998): 104-19. [doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.1998.tb00124.x] AbstractMarilyn Frye's "Oppression" (1983) is essential reading in most courses with political and feminist content. One of the merits of her essay is the way in which examples such as men opening doors for women, metaphors that equate oppression with a double-binds, and birdcage-like social structures get tied to the meaning of oppression. ... This essay continues the conversation Frye began in a way that makes connections between oppression and privilege. It is my hope that by providing a parallel account of privilege in general-and white, heterosexual, male privilege in particular-I can extend Frye's analysis to clarify the political dimensions of privilege.
  • Smith, Kevin B., Douglas R. Oxley, Matthew V. Hibbing, John R. Alford, and John R. Hibbing. Linking Genetics and Political Attitudes: Reconceptualizing Political Ideology. Political Psychology 32, no. 3 (2011): 369-97. [doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00821.x] {Voices from the other side of the universe.}  AbstractIn this paper, we trace the route by which genetics could ultimately connect to issue attitudes and suggest that central to this connection are chronic dispositional preferences for mass-scale social rules, order, and conduct?what we label political ideology. The need to resolve bedrock social dilemmas concerning such matters as leadership style, protection from outgroups, and the degree to which norms of conduct are malleable, is present in any large-scale social unit at any time. This universality is important in that it leaves open the possibility that genetics could influence stances on issues of the day. Here, we measure orientation to these bedrock principles in two ways?a survey of conscious, self-reported positions and an implicit association test (IAT) of latent orientations toward fixed or flexible rules of social conduct. In an initial test, both measures were predictive of stances on issues of the day as well as of ideological self-labeling, thereby suggesting that the heritability of specific issue attitudes could be the result of the heritability of general orientations toward bedrock principles of mass-scale group life.
  • Ann Shola Orloff. "Gendering the Comparative Analysis of Welfare States: An Unfinished Agenda." Sociological Theory 27(3):317-343 (2009) [doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2009.01350.x]
  • Lynne Haney. "Homeboys, Babies, Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance." American Sociological Review, Vol. 61, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), pp. 759-778 [jstor: 2096452]
  • Karen Beckwith. "Women's Movements At Century's End: Excavation and Advances in Political Science." Annual Review of Political Science 2001 4, 371-390 [doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.371]
  • Torben Iversen, Frances Rosenbluth. "The Political Economy of Gender: Explaining Cross-National Variation in the Gender Division of Labor and the Gender Voting Gap."  American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 1-19 [doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00166.x]
  •  Pamela Johnston Conover. "Feminists and the Gender Gap." The Journal of Politics, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Nov., 1988), pp. 985-1010  [jstor: 2131388]
• Related Readings
  • Karen Beckwith. "The Comparative Politics of Women's Movements." Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 583-596  [jstor: 3689038]
  • Vicky Randall. "Legislative Gender Quotas and Indian Exceptionalism: The Travails of the Women's Reservation Bill." Comparative Politics, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Oct., 2006), pp. 63-82 [jstor: 20434021]
  • Guillaume R. Fréchette, Francois Maniquet, Massimo Morelli. "Incumbents' Interests and Gender Quotas." American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Oct., 2008), pp. 891-909 [jstor: 25193856]
  • Lynne A. Haney. "Feminist State Theory: Applications to Jurisprudence, Criminology, and the Welfare State." Annual Review of Sociology 26:641-666 (2000) [doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.641]
  • Richard L. Fox, Jennifer L. Lawless. "Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision to Run for Office." American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 2004), pp. 264-280 [jstor: 1519882]
  • Kira Sanbonmatsu. "Gender Stereotypes and Vote Choice." American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 20-34. [jstor: 3088412]
  • Marvin Harris. "Caste, Class, and Minority." Social Forces, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Mar., 1959), pp. 248-254 [jstor: 2572971]
  • Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr.  "History and Current Status of Divorce in the United States." The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Children and Divorce (Spring, 1994), pp. 29-43.. [jstor: 1602476]

11.  How we to assess and interpret evolutionary influences? 

Evolutionary psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on evolutionary explanations of human behavior that has experienced explosive growth over the past three decades.  Its ruling assumption is that modern humans are born with behavioral predispositions that evolved among our human ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago.  The fundamental starting point of this field and what the participants consider their most established claims concern behavioral dispositions that purportedly distinguish women from men and explain a critical range of gender behavior. 

• Analytical Task
  • Start task description
    • points
    • more
• Common Readings
  • What is Evolutionary Psychology?
    • Laland, Kevin N., and Gillian R. Brown. Evolutionary Psychology. Chap. 5 In Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 {the entire book merits reading}  AbstractIt is clear that evolutionary psychology is a mixed bag. There are undoubtedly some very fine pieces of work that show genuine promise of being able to decipher the evolved structures of the human mind. The best of evolutionary psychology is as rigorous and sophisticated as any research carried out in the general area of human behaviour and evolution. However, the discipline is marred by a number of weak studies that do little more than use a Pleistocene stereotype to contrive a ‘Just so’ evolutionary story. Sadly, these poorer studies frequently have a sensational quality that results in their receiving considerable attention. Perhaps too much research in the field is a documentation of what is already known, accompanied by a post hoc evolutionary spin and a snappy press release. Other psychologists have stressed the need for more sophisticated theories than are typical of evolutionary psychology.
  • Human Mating - the archetype for evolutionary psychology.
    • Buss, David M. The Evolution of Human Mating. Acta Psychologica Sinica 39, no. 3 (2007): 502-12. {A succinct summary of Buss's position.}AbstractMating is close to the engine of the evolutionary process—differential reproductive success. As descendants of reproductively successful ancestors, modern humans have inherited the mating strategies that led to our ancestor’s success. These strategies include long-term committed mating (e.g., marriage), short-term mating (e.g., a brief sexual encounter), extra-pair mating (e.g., infidelity), mate poaching (luring another person’s mate), and mate guarding (effort devoted to keeping a mate). Since men and women historically confronted different adaptive problems in the mating domain, the sexes differ profoundly in evolved psychology of mating solutions. These psychological sex differences include possessing distinct mate preferences, dissimilar desires for short-term mating, and distinct triggers that evoke sexual jealousy. This article reviews empirical evidence supporting evolution-based hypotheses about these mating strategies. The study of human mating is one of the true “success stories” of evolutionary psychology.
    • Buss, David M. Sexual Strategies Theory: Historical Origins and Current Status. Journal of Sex Research. 35, no. 1 (1998): 19-31. [doi:10.1080/00224499809551914] AbstractIn sexually reproducing organisms, no domain is more closely linked with the engine of the evolutionary process than sexuality. Men and women over human evolutionary history have confronted different adaptive problems in the sexual domain. Sexual Strategies Theory offers an account of these adaptive problems and presents a view of human sexual psychology as a rich repertoire of mechanisms that have evolved as adaptive solutions. A host of specific predictions about human sexuality follows from this analysis, including an account of sex differences in the desire for sexual variety, the qualities preferred in short‐term and long‐term mates, context‐dependent shifts in mate preferences, the nature of sexual jealousy, the tactics that are effective for attracting and retaining a mate, and the causes of sexual conflict between men and women. After reviewing the theory's historical origins, I summarize a portion of the extensive empirical research designed to test its tenets. An evaluation of the theory notes its strengths as well as its weaknesses, with a special focus on the issues of prediction and falsification. It ends with a challenge for other theories of human sexuality to reach an equivalent level of specific predictions, a comparable empirical foundation, an equally parsimonious account of sex differences, a compelling ultimate account of causal origins, and a comparable level of multi‐level conceptual integration; for a more recent overview of this perspective, see: Buss, David M., and David P. Schmitt. Mate Preferences and Their Behavioral Manifestations. Annual Review of Psychology 70, no. 1 (2019): 77-110. [doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103408] AbstractEvolved mate preferences comprise a central causal process in Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Their powerful influences have been documented in all sexually reproducing species, including in sexual strategies in humans. This article reviews the science of human mate preferences and their myriad behavioral manifestations. We discuss sex differences and sex similarities in human sexual psychology, which vary according to short-term and long-term mating contexts. We review context-specific shifts in mating strategy depending on individual, social, and ecological qualities such as mate value, life history strategy, sex ratio, gender economic inequality, and cultural norms. We review the empirical evidence for the impact of mate preferences on actual mating decisions. Mate preferences also dramatically influence tactics of mate attraction, tactics of mate retention, patterns of deception, causes of sexual regret, attraction to cues to sexual exploitability, attraction to cues to fertility, attraction to cues to resources and protection, derogation of competitors, causes of breakups, and patterns of remarriage. We conclude by articulating unresolved issues and offer a future agenda for the science of human mating, including how humans invent novel cultural technologies to better implement ancient sexual strategies and how cultural evolution may be dramatically influencing our evolved mating psychology.
  • The violence and rape argument (a logical extension of the mating arguments?).
    
  • Thornhill, Randy, Nancy Wilmsen Thornhill, and et al. The Evolutionary Psychology of Men's Coercive Sexuality (plus commentaries and response). Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15, no. 2 (1992): 363-75, 376-. [doi:10.1017/S0140525X00069120] {The "target" article by the Thornhills and their response to commentaries show the logic of their argument, but the diverse commentaries show us some of the cracks in the foundations. }  AbstractPsychological adaptation underlies all human behavior. Thus, sexual coercion by men could either arise from a rape-specific psychological adaptation or it could be a side-effect of a more general psychological adaptation not directly related to rape. Determining the specific environmental cues that men's brains have been designed by selection to process may help us decide which these rival explanations is correct. We examine six testable predictions against existing data: (1) Both coercive and noncoercive will be associated with high levels of sexual arousal and performance in men. (2) Achieving physical control of a sexually unwilling woman will be sexually arousing to men. (3) Young men will be more sexually coercive than older men. (4) Men of low socioeconomic status will likewise be more sexually coercive. (5) A man's motivation to use sexual coercion will be influenced by its effects on social image. (6) Even in long-term relationships men will be motivated to use coercion when their mates show a lack of interest in resistance to sex because these are interpreted as signs of sexual infidelity. Current data support all six predictions and are hence consistent with the rape-specific hypothesis, but this does not eliminate the side-effect hypothesis, which is likewise compatible with the findings, as well as with the further evidence that forced matings increased the fitness of ancestral males during human evolution. We suggest some research that may help decide between the two hypotheses. .... In The Study of Men's Coercive Sexuality: What Course Should It Take?, Thornhill & Thornhill dismiss certain comments as not legitimately disputable, & address issues surrounding: (A) the appropriateness of evolutionary psychology for the analysis of rape; (B) the role of sociocultural or environmental factors in shaping the psychological mechanisms underlying sexual coercion; (C) the naturalist fallacy; (D) the notion of general vs specific biological adaptation; (E) rape in nonhuman animals; (F) the sexual coercion/noncoercion continuum; & (G) the utility of alternative models of coerciveness.
  • Palmer, Craig T., and Randy Thornhill. Straw Men and Fairy Tales: Evaluating Reactions to a Natural History of Rape. The Journal of Sex Research 40, no. 3 (2003): 249-55. [doi:10.1080/00224490309552189] {Palmer & Thornhill published a more developed and extensive version of the evolutionary argument above in a 2000 book, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion; this article is a response to the book's critics.}  AbstractIn this paper we respond to two frequent criticisms of our book, A Natural History of Rape (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). The first criticism portrays the book as little more than a ?just?so? story that human rape is an adaptation. We demonstrate that this portrayal is not accurate. The second criticism reflects a common response to the book's challenge of the popular assertion that rapists are not motivated by sexual desire but instead commit these crimes motivated by the urge to power, domination, and violence, and the urge to degrade and humiliate women. We demonstrate that such criticisms of our book are inherently contradictory and illogical. We believe it is important for sex researchers to understand that these sorts of criticisms are seriously flawed so that future research efforts toward understanding the causes of sexual coercion are not stalled.
  • Support from others
    • Archer, John. The Reality and Evolutionary Significance of Human Psychological Sex Differences. Biological Reviews 94, no. 4 (2019): 1381-415. [doi:10.1111/brv.12507] {What the terrain of sex differences looks like to evolutionary psychology insiders.}  AbstractABSTRACT The aims of this article are: (i) to provide a quantitative overview of sex differences in human psychological attributes; and (ii) to consider evidence for their possible evolutionary origins. Sex differences were identified from a systematic literature search of meta-analyses and large-sample studies. These were organized in terms of evolutionary significance as follows: (i) characteristics arising from inter-male competition (within-sex aggression; impulsiveness and sensation-seeking; fearfulness; visuospatial and object-location memory; object-centred orientations); (ii) those concerning social relations that are likely to have arisen from women's adaptations for small-group interactions and men's for larger co-operative groups (person-centred orientation and social skills; language; depression and anxiety); (iii) those arising from female choice (sexuality; mate choice; sexual conflict). There were sex differences in all categories, whose magnitudes ranged from (i) small (object location memory; negative emotions), to (ii) medium (mental rotation; anxiety disorders; impulsivity; sex drive; interest in casual sex), to (iii) large (social interests and abilities; sociosexuality); and (iv) very large (escalated aggression; systemizing; sexual violence). Evolutionary explanations were evaluated according to whether: (i) similar differences occur in other mammals; (ii) there is cross-cultural consistency; (iii) the origin was early in life or at puberty; (iv) there was evidence for hormonal influences; and (v), where possible, whether there was evidence for evolutionarily derived design features. The evidence was positive for most features in most categories, suggesting evolutionary origins for a broad range of sex differences. Attributes for which there was no sex difference are also noted. Within-sex variations are discussed as limitations to the emphasis on sex differences.
    • McCarthy, Margaret M. Multifaceted Origins of Sex Differences in the Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371, no. 1688 (2016): 20150106. [doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0106]  AbstractStudies of sex differences in the brain range from reductionistic cell and molecular analyses in animal models to functional imaging in awake human subjects, with many other levels in between. Interpretations and conclusions about the importance of particular differences often vary with differing levels of analyses and can lead to discord and dissent. In the past two decades, the range of neurobiological, psychological and psychiatric endpoints found to differ between males and females has expanded beyond reproduction into every aspect of the healthy and diseased brain, and thereby demands our attention. A greater understanding of all aspects of neural functioning will only be achieved by incorporating sex as a biological variable. The goal of this review is to highlight the current state of the art of the discipline of sex differences research with an emphasis on the brain and to contextualize the articles appearing in the accompanying special issue.
    • Pinker, Steven. Why Nature & Nurture Won't Go Away. Daedalus 133, no. 4 (2004): 5-17. [doi:10.1162/0011526042365591] AbstractCognitive science has shown that there must be complex innate mechanisms for learning and culture to be possible in the ½rst place. Evolutionary psychology has documented hundreds of universals that cut across the world’s cultures, and has shown that many psychological traits (such as our taste for fatty foods, social status, and risky sexual liaisons) are better adapted to the evolutionary demands of an ancestral environment than to the actual demands of the current environment. Studies of twins and adoptees have discovered that in fact virtually all behavioral traits are partly (though never completely) heritable. Remarkably, most studies of intelligence, personality, and behavior turn up few or no effects of the shared environment.
    • Smuts, Barbara. The Evolutionary Origins of Patriarchy. Human Nature 6, no. 1 (1995): 1-32. [doi:10.1007/BF02734133] {Trying to make an evolutionary account support feminist arguments.}  AbstractThis article argues that feminist analyses of patriarchy should be expanded to address the evolutionary basis of male motivation to control female sexuality. Evidence from other primates of male sexual coercion and female resistance to it indicates that the sexual conflicts of interest that underlie patriarchy predate the emergence of the human species. Humans, however, exhibit more extensive male dominance and male control of female sexuality than is shown by most other primates. Six hypotheses are proposed to explain how, over the course of human evolution, this unusual degree of gender inequality came about. This approach emphasizes behavioral flexibility, cross-cultural variability in the degree of patriarchy, and possibilities for future change.
  • Questioning the evolutionary psychological accounts
    • Stewart-Williams, Steve, and Andrew G. Thomas. The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences?. Psychological Inquiry 24, no. 3 (2013): 137-68. [doi:10.1080/1047840X.2013.804899] AbstractThis article looks at the evolution of sex differences in sexuality in human beings and asks whether evolutionary psychology sometimes exaggerates these differences. According to a common understanding of sexual selection theory, females in most species invest more than males in their offspring, and as a result, males compete for as many mates as possible, whereas females choose from among the competing males. The males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model applies to many species but is misleading when applied to human beings. This is because males in our species commonly contribute to the rearing of the young, which reduces the sex difference in parental investment. Consequently, sex differences in our species are relatively modest. Rather than males competing and females choosing, humans have a system of mutual courtship: Both sexes are choosy about long-term mates, and both sexes compete for desirable mates. We call this the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. Although much of the evolutionary psychology literature is consistent with the MMC model, the traditional MCFC model exerts a strong influence on the field, distorting the emerging picture of the evolved sexual psychology of Homo sapiens. Specifically, it has led to the exaggeration of the magnitude of human sex differences, an overemphasis on men's short-term mating inclinations, and a relative neglect of male mate choice and female mate competition. We advocate a stronger focus on the MMC model.; This article was followed by about 80 pages of comments from many scholars in the same issue (they are worth looking at when you have time) and then the authors' response to those comments: Stewart-Williams, Steve, and Andrew G. Thomas. The Ape That Kicked the Hornet's Nest: Response to Commentaries on “the Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock”. Psychological Inquiry 24, no. 3 (2013): 248-71. [doi:10.1080/1047840X.2013.823831] AbstractWe respond to the commentaries on our target article, ?The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock.? We start with specific issues raised by the article. These relate to the magnitude of human sex differences; the evolution and relative importance of pair bonding, paternal care, and polygyny in our species; and the distinction between the males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model of human sexual psychology and the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. We then evaluate two competing theories of human sex differences and similarities: Social Role Theory and Attachment Fertility Theory. We conclude with some thoughts about how to present and teach evolutionary psychological research and theories without conveying an exaggerated impression of the scale of human sex differences.
    • Wood, Wendy, and Alice H. Eagly. A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences. Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 5 (2002): 699-727. [doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699] AbstractThis article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and their situated activity in society.
    • Joseph, Jay. "The Mzt–Dzt Equal Environment Assumption: The Achilles Heel of the Classical Twin Method." Chap. 7 In The Trouble with Twin Studies: A Reassessment of Twin Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 153-78. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Abstract"The Trouble with Twin Studies questions popular genetic explanations of human behavioral differences based upon the existing body of twin research. Psychologist Jay Joseph outlines the fallacies of twin studies in the context of the ongoing decades-long failure to discover genes for human behavioral differences, including IQ, personality, and the major psychiatric disorders. This volume critically examines twin research, with a special emphasis on reared-apart twin studies, and incorporates new and updated perspectives, analyses, arguments, and evidence. "--
    • Zentner, Marcel, and Alice H. Eagly. A Sociocultural Framework for Understanding Partner Preferences of Women and Men: Integration of Concepts and Evidence. European Review of Social Psychology 26, no. 1 (2015): 328-73. [doi:10.1080/10463283.2015.1111599] AbstractIn the current sociocultural framework for understanding mating preferences, we propose that gender roles affect sex differences and similarities in mate preferences. Gender roles, in turn, are shaped by the unequal division of labour between women and men. As a consequence, mating preferences and choices should converge across the sexes as the weakening of this division puts the sexes in more similar social roles in their societies. To evaluate these assumptions, we review relevant findings from three domains that show variability in gender roles: (a) cross-cultural variability related to differences in societies? division of labour, (b) historical variability related to temporal changes in the division of labour, and (c) individual variability in gender attitudes that reflects the gradual and uneven spread of shifts toward gender equality throughout each society. The bringing together of multiple lines of evidence puts the sociocultural framework on a new and more secure foundation.
    • Marlowe, Frank W. Mate Preferences among Hadza Hunter-Gatherers. Human Nature 15, no. 4 (2004): 365-76. [doi:10.1007/s12110-004-1014-8] AbstractThe literature on human mate preferences is vast but most data come from studies on college students in complex societies, who represent a thin slice of cultural variation in an evolutionarily novel environment. Here, I present data on the mate preferences of men and women in a society of hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of Tanzania. Hadza men value fertility in a mate more than women do, and women value intelligence more than men do. Women place great importance on men’s foraging, and both sexes rate character as important. Unlike college students, Hadza men place considerable importance on women being hard-working, and Hadza women cite looks about as often as men do.
• Recommended Readings
  • Gould, Stephen J., and Richard C. Lewontin. The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 205, no. 1161 (1979): 581-98. [doi:10.1098/rspb.1979.0086] {A classic critique of addiction to evolutionary explanations (and source of the "just so" caricature.} AbstractAn adaptationist programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United States during the past 40 years. It is based on faith in the power of natural selection as an optimizing agent. It proceeds by breaking an organism into unitary 'traits' and proposing an adaptive story for each considered separately. Trade-offs among competing selective demands exert the only brake upon perfection; non-optimality is thereby rendered as a result of adaptation as well. We criticize this approach and attempt to reassert a competing notion (long popular in continental Europe) that organisms must be analysed as integrated wholes, with Bauplane so constrained by phyletic heritage, pathways of development and general architecture that the constraints themselves become more interesting and more important in delimiting pathways of change than the selective force that may mediate change when it occurs. We fault the adaptationist programme for its failure to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin (male tyrannosaurs may have used their diminutive front legs to titillate female partners, but this will not explain why they got so small); for its unwillingness to consider alternatives to adaptive stories; for its reliance upon plausibility alone as a criterion for accepting speculative tales; and for its failure to consider adequately such competing themes as random fixation of alleles, production of non-adaptive structures by developmental correlation with selected features (allometry, pleiotropy, material compensation, mechanically forced correlation), the separability of adaptation and selection, multiple adaptive peaks, and current utility as an epiphenomenon of non-adaptive structures. We support Darwin's own pluralistic approach to identifying the agents of evolutionary change.
  • Eastwick, Paul W., Laura B. Luchies, Eli J. Finkel, and Lucy L. Hunt. The Predictive Validity of Ideal Partner Preferences: A Review and Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin 140, no. 3 (2014): 623-65. [doi:10.1037/a0032432] AbstractA central element of interdependence theory is that people have standards against which they compare their current outcomes, and one ubiquitous standard in the mating domain is the preference for particular attributes in a partner (ideal partner preferences). This article reviews research on the predictive validity of ideal partner preferences and presents a new integrative model that highlights when and why ideals succeed or fail to predict relational outcomes. Section 1 examines predictive validity by reviewing research on sex differences in the preference for physical attractiveness and earning prospects. Men and women reliably differ in the extent to which these qualities affect their romantic evaluations of hypothetical targets. Yet a new meta-analysis spanning the attraction and relationships literatures (k = 97) revealed that physical attractiveness predicted romantic evaluations with a moderate-to-strong effect size (r = ∼.40) for both sexes, and earning prospects predicted romantic evaluations with a small effect size (r = ∼.10) for both sexes. Sex differences in the correlations were small (rdifference = .03) and uniformly nonsignificant. Section 2 reviews research on individual differences in ideal partner preferences, drawing from several theoretical traditions to explain why ideals predict relational evaluations at different relationship stages. Furthermore, this literature also identifies alternative measures of ideal partner preferences that have stronger predictive validity in certain theoretically sensible contexts. Finally, a discussion highlights a new framework for conceptualizing the appeal of traits, the difference between live and hypothetical interactions, and the productive interplay between mating research and broader psychological theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
  • Naqvi, Sahin, Alexander K. Godfrey, Jennifer F. Hughes, Mary L. Goodheart, Richard N. Mitchell, and David C. Page. "Conservation, Acquisition, and Functional Impact of Sex-Biased Gene Expression in Mammals." Science 365, no. 6450 (2019): eaaw7317. [doi:10.1126/science.aaw7317]
  • Evolutionary Psychology and similar approaches:  The debates over evolution
  • Naqvi, Sahin, Alexander K. Godfrey, Jennifer F. Hughes, Mary L. Goodheart, Richard N. Mitchell, and David C. Page. Conservation, Acquisition, and Functional Impact of Sex-Biased Gene Expression in Mammals. Science 365, no. 6450 (2019): eaaw7317. [doi:10.1126/science.aaw7317] AbstractIn mammals, many species exhibit sex-specific phenotypes that differ between males and females. Although attention has been directed to the effects of the X and Y sex chromosomes, we do not understand how sex affects the rest of the genome. Naqvi et al. examined gene expression in 12 tissues in male and female humans, mice, rats, dogs, and cynomolgus macaques and identified diversity in gene expression between the sexes. Examining sex-biased gene expression in human height identified opposing male or female bias. Although conservation of differential sex-specific gene expression among species was observed, specific genes differed in the sexes among species and lineages suggesting the evolution of species- or lineage-specific sex-biased expression.Science, this issue p. eaaw7317 INTRODUCTION Sex differences are widespread in humans and other mammals. For example, the distribution of height or body size is shifted upwards in males relative to females, and sex differences are found in the immune and cardiovascular systems as well as in metabolism. However, little is known about how gene expression differs between the sexes in a broad range of mammalian tissues and species. A catalog of such sex-biased gene expression could help us understand phenotypic sex differences. Assessing the extent to which sex-biased gene expression is conserved across the body could also have important implications for the use of nonhuman mammals as models of sex-biased human biology. RATIONALE To identify both conserved and lineage- or species-specific sex differences in gene expression, we sequenced RNA from male and female samples in 12 tissues in each of four nonhuman mammals (cynomolgus macaque, mouse, rat, and dog) and analyzed these data jointly with publicly available data from postmortem male and female human tissues. To assess the impact of sex-biased gene expression on the sex difference in mean human height, we applied methods that integrate the effects of genetic variation on both gene expression and phenotype (height in this case). We sought to understand which transcription factors (TFs) contribute to evolutionary changes in sex bias by analyzing motifs gained or lost concurrently with lineage- or species-specific changes in sex bias. RESULTS Linear modeling revealed ~3000 genes with conserved (species-shared) sex bias in gene expression, most of which was tissue specific. The cumulative effects of conserved sex bias explain ~12% of the sex difference in mean human height, and cases such as that of LCORL, a TF with conservation of both female-biased expression and genetic association with height, suggest a contribution to sex differences in body size beyond humans. However, most sex-biased gene expression (~77%) was specific to single species or subsets of species, implying that it arose more recently during evolution. We identified 83 instances where TFs showed sex-biased expression in the same tissue, in which their motifs were associated with gain or loss of sex bias at other genes, accounting for a significant portion (~27%) of lineage-specific changes in sex bias. CONCLUSION By conducting a 12-tissue, five-species survey of sex differences in gene expression, we found that although conserved sex bias in gene expression exists throughout the body, most sex bias has been acquired more recently during mammalian evolution. Height is likely subject to opposing selective pressures in males and females; our study thus documents how such selective forces can result in sex-biased expression which, when layered upon genetic pathways acting identically in males and females, can lead to trait distributions shifted between the sexes. Our findings also suggest that, in many cases, molecular sex differences observed in humans may not be mirrored in nonhuman mammals.RNA sequencing of male and female samples in 12 tissues and five species reveals the functional impact and mechanistic underpinnings of sex-biased gene expression. A survey of sex differences in gene expression using RNA sequencing data (left) leads to the discovery of both conserved (sp cies-shared) and lineage- or species-specific sex biases in expression across the genome. Genes with conserved sex bias contribute to the sex difference in mean height in humans and other mammals, whereas lineage-specific changes can be partially explained by gains and losses of motifs for sex-biased TFs.Sex differences abound in human health and disease, as they do in other mammals used as models. The extent to which sex differences are conserved at the molecular level across species and tissues is unknown. We surveyed sex differences in gene expression in human, macaque, mouse, rat, and dog, across 12 tissues. In each tissue, we identified hundreds of genes with conserved sex-biased expression—findings that, combined with genomic analyses of human height, explain ~12% of the difference in height between females and males. We surmise that conserved sex biases in expression of genes otherwise operating equivalently in females and males contribute to sex differences in traits. However, most sex-biased expression arose during the mammalian radiation, which suggests that careful attention to interspecies divergence is needed when modeling human sex differences.
  • Evolutionary Psychology and similar approaches:  The debates over evolutionary psychology - in general and as applied to gender inequality - are very important but often difficult to follow and assess.  Here are some starting points for learning the basics.  Buller's supplies a sophisticated overview and critique of the most influential paradigm in evolutionary psychology (while supportive of the more general venture), Downes and Walter present guided views of the field, and other pieces provide further commentaries and some studies that explore key issues facing this approach.
    • Downes, Stephen M. "Evolutionary Psychology." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2020. AbstractEvolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce.
    • Walter, Sven. Evolutionary Psychology. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (10 August, 2016 2009). AbstractIn its broad sense, the term “evolutionary psychology” stands for any attempt to adopt an evolutionary perspective on human behavior by supplementing psychology with the central tenets of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary Psychology in the narrow sense is a narrowly circumscribed adaptationist research program which regards the human mind as an integrated collection of cognitive mechanisms that guide our behavior and form our universal human nature. These cognitive mechanisms are supposed to be adaptations—the result of evolution by natural selection, that is, heritable variation in fitness. Adaptations are traits present today because in the past they helped our ancestors to solve recurrent adaptive problems. In particular, Evolutionary Psychology is interested in those adaptations that have evolved in response to characteristically human adaptive problems that have shaped our ancestors’ lifestyle as hunter-gatherers during our evolutionary past in the Pleistocence, like choosing and securing a mate, recognizing emotional expressions, acquiring a language, distinguishing kin from non-kin, detecting cheaters or remembering the location of edible plants.
    • Buller, David J. "Evolutionary Psychology: A Critique." Chap. 10 In Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, edited by Elliott Sober, 197-214. Cambridge, MA: A Bradford Book, 2006. [also, compare David Buller. "A Guided Tour of Evolutionary Psychology" (In A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. Eds. Marco Nani and Massimo Marraffa. "An official electronic publication of the Department of Philosophy of University of Rome" 2000.) Also by Buller see: "Evolutionary Psychology: The Emperor's New Paradigm," Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9 (2005): 277-283 and for a full treatment his book Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books, 2005.]
    • Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Beyond Difference: A Biologist's Perspective. Journal of Social Issues 53, no. 2 (2010): 233-58. [doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1997.tb02442.x] AbstractThis piece addresses some of the challenges to social scientific thought originating from the field of evolutionary psychology and from social scientists committed to making biological arguments an important component of the sociological discussion of gender: I provide my own biological perspective on these contemporary discussions, noting especially the different kinds of explanatory value one can expect from particular kinds of argument. I also call for the application of stricter scientifc standards to arguments about the evolution of sex differentiated human behaviors. I introduce some basic genetic concepts, such as the norm of reaction, which focus attention on the interaction between genes and environment during intra-generational development. Finally, I challenge the idea that there is a necessary correlation between hormone levels and reproductive behavior in vertebrates.
    • Goodman, Madeleine J., P. Bion Griffin, Agnes A. Estioko-Griffin, and John S. Grove. The Compatibility of Hunting and Mothering among the Agta Hunter-Gatherers of the Philippines. Sex Roles 12, no. 11-12 (1985): 1199-209. [doi:10.1007/bf00287829] AbstractWomen's hunting is widely held biologically impracticable in foraging societies, chiefly because hunting is presumed incompatible with maternal responsibilities. A three-year study of hunting practices among the Agta Negrito people of northern Luzon reveals women's active participation in hunting, singly and in groups, without detriment to normal fertility and child care.
    • Rigby, Nichole, and Rob J. Kulathinal. Genetic Architecture of Sexual Dimorphism in Humans. Journal of Cellular Physiology 230, no. 10 (2015): 2304-10. [doi:10.1002/jcp.24979] AbstractMales and females differ across a broad spectrum of morphological, physiological, and behavioral characters. In fact, sexually dimorphic traits typically contribute the largest component of phenotypic variance in most taxa that use sex to reproduce. However, we know very little about the mechanisms that maintain these dimorphic states and how these sexually dimorphic traits evolve. Here, we review our current knowledge of the underlying genetic basis of sexual dimorphism in humans. First, we briefly review the etiology of sex differences starting from sex determination's initial switch early in embryogenesis. We then survey recent sex-biased transcriptomic expression literature in order to provide additional insight into the landscape of sex-biased gene expression in both gonadal and non-gonadal tissues: from overall prevalence to tissue specificity to conservation across species. Finally, we discuss implications of sex-biased genetic architecture to human health and disease in light of the National Institute of Health's recently proposed initiative to promote study samples from both sexes. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
    • Stulp, Gert, and Louise Barrett. Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Height Variation. Biological Reviews 91, no. 1 (2016): 206-34. [doi:10.1111/brv.12165] AbstractHuman height is a highly variable trait, both within and between populations, has a high heritability, and influences the manner in which people behave and are treated in society. Although we know much about human height, this information has rarely been brought together in a comprehensive, systematic fashion. Here, we present a synthetic review of the literature on human height from an explicit evolutionary perspective, addressing its phylogenetic history, development, and environmental and genetic influences on growth and stature. In addition to presenting evidence to suggest the past action of natural selection on human height, we also assess the evidence that natural and sexual selection continues to act on height in contemporary populations. Although there is clear evidence to suggest that selection acts on height, mainly through life-history processes but perhaps also directly, it is also apparent that methodological factors reduce the confidence with which such inferences can be drawn, and there remain surprising gaps in our knowledge. The inability to draw firm conclusions about the adaptiveness of such a highly visible and easily measured trait suggests we should show an appropriate degree of caution when dealing with other human traits in evolutionary perspective.
    • Henrich, Joseph. A Cultural Species: How Culture Drove Human Evolution. Psychological Science Agenda (February 16, 2015 2011). AbstractLong before the origins of agriculture, humans expanded across the globe, from the arid deserts of Australia to the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic. Surviving in this immense diversity of habitats depended not on specific genetic adaptations, but on large bodies of culturally transmitted know-how, abilities, and skills that no single individual could figure out in his or her lifetime (e.g., blowguns, animal tracking). Lacking local cultural knowledge, many an explorer has perished in supposedly “harsh” environments in which local adolescents would have easily survived (Boyd, Richerson, & Henrich, 2011a). Even among foraging societies, humans show an immense variety of social organizations, group sizes, kinship structures, and mating patterns: more diversity than the rest of the primate order combined (Henrich & McElreath, 2007). Ethnographically, this diversity is at least partially rooted in culturally-acquired and widely shared social rules. No other species depends on cultural information to this degree, and paleo-anthropological evidence increasingly suggests that culture appears early in the evolutionary history of our genus (Alperson-Afil et al., 2009; Brown et al., 2009). Overall, much theory and evidence now converges to indicate that we are an ultra-cultural species —unlike any other—whose brains, genes, and biology have long been shaped by the interaction between cultural and genetic evolution. Culture appears to have opened up entirely new evolutionary vistas not available to less cultural species. Taking these observations seriously, my colleagues and I have focused on constructing an evolutionary account of human behavior and psychology that fully incorporates culture and cultural evolution under the Darwinian umbrella.
    • Hopcroft, Rosemary L. Gender Inequality in Interaction -- an Evolutionary Account. Social Forces 87, no. 4 (2009): 1845-71. [doi:10.1353/sof.0.0185] AbstractIn this article I argue that evolutionary theorizing can help sociologists and feminists better understand gender inequality. Evolutionary theory explains why control of the sexuality of young women is a priority across most human societies both past and present. Evolutionary psychology has extended our understanding of male violence against women. Here I add to these theories and present a sexual selection argument to postulate possible evolved predispositions that promote young female deference to adult males in interaction and the converse, lack of male deference to young females. According to this argument, the pattern of greater female deference disappears when the women involved are past menopause. Put together, these ideas form an evolutionary account of gender inequality that complements and extends traditional sociological and feminist theories.
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12. What role does ideology play in determining the relations between men and women?

Ideology is near the center of almost all efforts to explain gender inequalities.  Gender ideology includes people's understandings of masculinity and femininity, ideas about when it is fair to treat women and men differently, divergent expectations about women's and men's abilities, internalized schema that evoke different judgments of women's and men's actions, and rules about proper male and female behavior applied to children.  All these and more facets of gender ideology induce us to feel differently about women and men and to treat them differently.  Gender ideology is crucial to the organization and persistence of gender inequality.  Conversely, every belief that symbolizes, legitimates, invokes, guides, induces, or helps sustain gender inequality is itself in part a product of gender inequality.  However, while the form of gender inequality may shape gender ideology over time, we are generally more interested in gender ideology's role in shaping and preserving gender inequality.

• Analytical Task
  • The general analytical problem. This week's task explores the relationship between beliefs – ideology – and some aspect of gender inequality.  We want to look at ideas used to explain, justify, and challenge gender inequality.  What decides which ideas become salient and influential? How do beliefs about gender help sustain or destabilize gender inequality? 
  • To begin, choose one aspect or component of gender inequality.  This may involve the direct relationships between women and men or a difference in the opportunities or status available to women and men.  Examples might be the way that women select less prestigious fields of study than men in college, that higher education used to turn away women, that women are objects of sex trafficking, that male professional sports have much higher status, or the different kinds of restaurants that use male vs. female waiters.  You might try to be a bit creative. It can be helpful to focus your discussion using a concrete instance of that type of inequality with which you are familiar. 
  • Contents of the analysis.  Use the following schematic outline as a starting point. (Click on each numbered item below to see [or hide] the details.)
    1. Clarify what aspect or component of gender inequality is your focus.
       • As always, remember to give the basic characteristics and principal patterns of the inequality as you understand it.  Among other possibilities, this will normally include: (1) describe what is unequal; (2) describe what this inequality looks like, how it is experienced, or how it has its impact in social life; (3) assess how the distribution appears or is manifest in the world, how we would recognize the differences between more or less of it, and how it is currently distributed).
       • The goal is to ensure that the reader (and you) clearly understand what inequality between women and men is relevant, and what examples of that inequality you will address.
    2. Describe the principal ideological beliefs or ideas relevant to the inequality being examined.
       • While identifying the relevant beliefs is obviously crucial, it can also be difficult.  The range of potentially relevant beliefs may be very large, so we have to exercise judgment selecting which are most important
       • It may help to distinguish beliefs that motivate people to "perform" or defend gender inequality from those that legitimate it.  Of course, some beliefs perform both functions.
       • It is crucial to consider the actions and ideas of both men and women.  The sexes commonly share some relevant beliefs and diverge about others. 
       • Consider also how much the beliefs motivating or legitimating this aspect of gender inequality vary by times, places, or circumstances.   We want to decide what characteristics of the beliefs seem unchanging cross time and place and what beliefs vary more.  For example, the beliefs that motivated male resistance to women entering "male" occupations may have varied by the status of the occupation and by the time period women began to enter.
       • Consider the degree of consensus (or dispute) over the important beliefs.  When is the consensus high or low, what causes it to be high or low, and what difference does the degree of agreement make?  In particular, do people dispute some aspects of the beliefs relevant to this type of inequality, such that the dispute affects the inequality or informs us about it? Remember, that an idea exists does not mean that all people hold it, even less does it ensure they will act in conformity to it. The more that people disagree about a belief or category of actors, the less that the belief can mold consistent responses (although this may not diminish its appeal as a justification).
       • Beliefs vary in other ways that can be important to analyzing their significance. For example, a belief can be narrow and focused, but it can also become broad and general, varying from the context- or issue-specific belief to the general principal. A belief can be so salient and so vigorous that people refer to it all the time or so insignificant and loosely held that it plays a role only when forced to the forefront.
    3. Assess the effects of these beliefs.
       • Consider the social significance or function of gender beliefs. The effects of beliefs are generally understood by comparing them to real or hypothetical alternatives.  How would the functioning of gender inequality work if a belief did not exist or was reversed?  How have the effects of beliefs differed by the degree of gender inequality? 
       • Although beliefs exist only by being held by individuals, we generally want to think of beliefs as cultural phenomena. The beliefs that concern us are those preserved and imposed by cultures or acquired as the common effect of shared or parallel experiences. People are prone to all kinds of idiosyncratic beliefs, but only shared beliefs have social effect.
       • At the individual level, we want to ask how or when people holding a belief act differently than those who believe otherwise. At the social level, we ask how the presence of those beliefs in a group or circumstance has social consequences -- such as influencing the structure of organizations, the prevailing legal system, or direction of historical changes.
       • What we identify as important effects will therefore depend on which beliefs we consider.  So we need to select and assess our beliefs that seem to appear only in more egalitarian (or more unequal) circumstances, reversal of beliefs about women and men (often implausible in reality, but potentially clarifying as an imaginary experiment), the absence of any such beliefs, or the presence of some reasonable hypothetical alternative beliefs.
       • As usual, we want to give some thought to both women and men, and we want to consider how the effects of the beliefs might vary depending on the context or other mediating influences. Typically, we expect to find women and men share many beliefs, but are sharply divided on others.
       • Beliefs can affect judgments, motives, aspirations, quality of experience, and so forth.  Again, deciding what is important is an analytical judgment. We are trying to figure out which beliefs really make a difference to the strength, durability, or form of gender inequality and how they have these effects.
    4. Try to explain how the relevant beliefs come to exist and why they persist.
       • Up to this point, we have described how the aspect of gender inequality works, we have examined what gender-related beliefs seem important, and we have considered the effects those beliefs can have.  Now, we want to consider why those beliefs exist.  Thus, for the example of inequality being examined, we are trying to explain how beliefs or ideas might arise as a result of the presence of the inequality that they legitimate and motivate.  This is our central goal, and it is difficult.
       • It can help to do a hypothetical experiment.  Consider an imaginary circumstance (which might have a real historical counterpart) where the relevant aspect of gender inequality did not exist, nor did the related beliefs – then at some point in time this type of gender inequality came into existence.  Then try to think through how ideas would change as a result of the emergence of this facet of gender inequality.  Consider what issues might arise if this type of inequality came to exist, but the beliefs still did not, and how might the response to such issues lead to new beliefs. Think about both women and men trying to make sense of the unequal circumstances, and trying to mold the perception of reality and justice to fit their circumstances.
       • To make the analysis more concrete, see if you can provide evidence or observations about real circumstances where this type of inequality is minimal (different cultures, different historical periods, different parts of society).  Assess how the beliefs under minimal inequality compare to those where it is high.
       • It is a good idea to consider under what conditions, if any, would the beliefs associated with a facet of gender inequality exist without the presence of this facet of gender inequality. That is, could similar or analogous beliefs appear with different kinds of inequality or under conditions of little inequality.  The first possibility is critical, because it suggests beliefs due to the presence of inequality per se, not dependent on the type of inequality.  The second possibility suggests the prospect of beliefs hijacked from conditions distinct from inequality, then converted to some service to reinforce or challenge inequality.
       • It is also a good idea to consider how people acquire the relevant beliefs.  Are they part of general cultural expectations, are the transferred in specific contexts, or do people generate them from experience rather than learning them from others?  We must never forget that not all people agree with dominant beliefs.
       • Finally, ask what happens if some people question or reject the beliefs? This question applies to both women and men.  The mechanisms to ensure acceptance and conformity are crucial to the preservation and effectiveness of beliefs.
    5. Finally, after completing the steps in the analysis above, try to give an overall assessment about the significance of ideology to the facet of gender inequality you are considering. 
  • Additional Notes 
    • Throughout, be careful to distinguish between empirical claims and moral claims.  Both kinds of beliefs are important.  And they may be confused or overlapping rather than neatly distinguished in real life.  Still, they are crucially different.  Similarly, distinguish between the explanation of beliefs and the justification of beliefs.
    • Do try to introduce appropriate connections between the argument(s) you present and the readings.  Consider not only the common readings from this week, but also past readings and optional ones from this week that seem particularly relevant. 
• Common Readings
  • A Sideways Entrance (lighthearted and scholarly, this should inspire some insights as you read other material).
    • Schwitzgebel, Eric. Aiming for Moral Mediocrity. Res Philosophica 96, no. 3 (2019): 346-68. {Read 346-56} [doi:10.11612/resphil.1806] AbstractMost people aim to be about as morally good as their peers, not especially better, not especially worse. We do not aim to be good, or non-bad, or to act permissibly rather than impermissibly, by fixed moral standards. Rather, we notice the typical behavior of our peers, then calibrate toward so-so. This is a somewhat bad way to be, but it's not a terribly bad way to be. We are somewhat morally criticizable for having low moral ambitions. Typical arguments defending the moral acceptability of low moral ambitions - the So-What-If-I'm-Not-a-Saint Excuse, the Fairness Argument, the Happy Coincidence Defense, and the claim that you're already in The-Most-You-Can-Do Sweet Spot - do not withstand critical scrutiny.
  • What do gender ideologies look like and who believes what?
    • Ridgeway, Cecilia L. "Cultural Beliefs and the Gendering of Social Relations." Chap. 3 In Framed by Gender, 56-91: Oxford University Press, 2011. {Read pp. 56-71, 88-91} AbstractThe chapter first examines the nature and content of contemporary cultural beliefs about gender, as represented in widely known, culturally hegemonic gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes have descriptive and prescriptive aspects, act as the rules for coordinating behavior in terms of gender, contain gender status beliefs, and have a reciprocal relationship with material arrangements between men and women. Drawing on expectation states theory and a large body of empirical evidence, the chapter shows how gender stereotypes shape judgments, interpersonal behavior, and social outcomes in contextually varying ways, with gender typically acting as a background identity in social relations. The interpersonal effects of gender stereotypes fall into a distinctive pattern of biases for status and competence and expectations for women's communality.
    • Grubbs, Joshua B., Jessica J. Good, and Tay Hack. "Ambivalent Sexism, Benevolent Sexism, Hostile Sexism." In The Sage Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender, edited by Kevin Nadal, 61-63, 136-37, 895-96. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2017.
    • Davis, Shannon N., and Theodore N. Greenstein. Gender Ideology: Components, Predictors, and Consequences. Annual Review of Sociology 35, no. 1 (2009): 87-105. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-115920] {Pp. 87-95; skim remainder}  AbstractThe purpose of this article is to review research on the construction of gender ideology and its consequences. The article begins with a summary of research focused on measuring gender ideology—individuals' levels of support for a division of paid work and family responsibilities that is based on the belief in gendered separate spheres. We describe the ways this concept has been operationalized in widely available data sources and provide a categorization schema for the items used to measure gender ideology. We also review the research predicting gender ideology, focusing on social and demographic characteristics while concurrently examining studies using cross-sectional, trend, and panel data. Finally, this article summarizes research focused on the consequences of gender ideology, both in families and family-related behaviors and in other areas of social life where beliefs about gender are relevant, such as the workplace. We conclude with implications for future research for measurement tools, predictors of gender ideology, and consequences of ideology in individuals' lives.
    • Additional Recommended...
      
      • Chatillon, Anna, Maria Charles, and Karen Bradley. Gender Ideologies.. In Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, edited by Barbara J. Risman, Carissa M. Froyum and William J. Scarborough, 217-26. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. [doi:10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_16] AbstractThis chapter provides a broad overview of sociological research on gender ideologies and their co-constitutive relationships with individuals, social groups, and societies. Gender ideologies are sets of widely taken-for-granted cultural beliefs about the essential natures and relative worth of men and women. In contemporary Western societies, these beliefs are nearly always based on a binary understanding of two naturally distinct and “opposite” sexes that are rooted in biology and map unambiguously onto two gender categories. The chapter starts with a discussion of measurement issues. This is followed by a review of empirical and theoretical research on how ideologies about gender shape persons, interpersonal interactions, and social institutions, and on the factors that predict ideological variability within and across societies. The chapter closes with suggestions for further study.
      • Blanton, Hart, and James Jaccard. Unconscious Racism: A Concept in Pursuit of a Measure. Annual Review of Sociology 34, no. 1 (2008): 277-97. [doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131632] AbstractIt is common in scientific and popular discussions to claim that unconscious racism is both prevalent and potent in modern societies. We review the theoretical models that posit different forms of unconscious racism and evaluate the empirical evidence for them. Our analysis suggests that people may sometimes lack knowledge of and control over the causes and consequences of their racial biases. However, there is little evidence to support the more provocative claim: that people possess unconscious racist attitudes. Many of the arguments to the contrary rest on strong interpretations of response patterns on implicit attitude measures. Although advances in implicit measurement can improve our understanding of racial bias, at present their use as tools for rooting out unconscious racism is limited. We describe research programs that might move these constructs to firmer scientific footing, and we urge inferential caution until such research programs are carried out.
      • Campbell, Bradley, and Jason Manning. Microaggression and Moral Cultures. Comparative Sociology 13, no. 6 (2014): 692-726. [doi:10.1163/15691330-12341332] AbstractCampus activists and others might refer to slights of one’s ethnicity or other cultural characteristics as “microaggressions,” and they might use various forums to publicize them. Here we examine this phenomenon by drawing from Donald Black’s theories of conflict and from cross-cultural studies of conflict and morality. We argue that this behavior resembles other conflict tactics in which the aggrieved actively seek the support of third parties as well as those that focus on oppression. We identify the social conditions associated with each feature, and we discuss how the rise of these conditions has led to large-scale moral change such as the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past.
      • Colman, Andrew M., Briony D. Pulford, and Eva M. Krockow. Persistent Cooperation and Gender Differences in Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma Games: Some Things Never Change. Acta Psychologica 187 (2018): 1-8. [doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.04.014] AbstractIn the finite-horizon repeated Prisoner's Dilemma, a compelling backward induction argument shows that rational players will defect in every round, following the uniquely optimal Nash equilibrium path. It is frequently asserted that cooperation gradually declines when a Prisoner's Dilemma is repeated multiple times by the same players, but the evidence for this is unconvincing, and a classic experiment by Rapoport and Chammah in the 1960s reported that cooperation eventually recovers if the game is repeated hundreds of times. They also reported that men paired with men cooperate almost twice as frequently as women paired with women. Our conceptual replication with Prisoner's Dilemmas repeated over 300 rounds with no breaks, using more advanced, computerized methodology, revealed no decline in cooperation, apart from endgame effects in the last few rounds, and replicated the substantial gender difference, confirming, in the UK, a puzzling finding first reported in the US in the 1960s.
      • Damaske, Sarah. Work, Family, and Accounts of Mothers’ Lives Using Discourse to Navigate Intensive Mothering Ideals. Sociology Compass 7, no. 6 (2013): 436-44. [doi:10.1111/soc4.12043] AbstractDespite the dramatic increase in women’s employment since the 1970s, mothers’ decisions about work remain closely scrutinized. The intensive mothering ethos in which “good” mothers are highly involved in the minutiae of their children’s lives, continues to be the prevailing parenting paradigm in the United States. This article asks: How do women use discourse to navigate the demands of intensive motherhood? First, this article reviews literature on ideologies of intensive mothering. The article then considers research on how accounts are used to navigate the moral dilemmas surrounding women’s work and motherhood. This article provides us with a better understanding of how traditional gender divides remain culturally relevant, how people use discourse to expand cultural schemas to fit their own social location, and how the process of expanding the framework of a schema through this negotiation process can allow traditional gender schemas to remain salient even while different actions are incorporated.
      • Döring, Nicola, Anne Reif, and Sandra Poeschl. How Gender-Stereotypical Are Selfies? A Content Analysis and Comparison with Magazine Adverts. Computers in Human Behavior 55, Part B (2016): 955-62. [doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.10.001] AbstractSelfies (self-portrait photographs often taken with a camera phone) are popularly used for self-presentation in social media like Facebook and Instagram. These modern user-generated self-portraits have the potential to draw a more versatile picture of the genders instead of reproducing traditional gender stereotypes often presented in mainstream media and advertising. To investigate the degree of gender stereotyping in selfies, a random sample of 500 selfies uploaded on Instagram (50% representing females, 50% males) was drawn and subjected to quantitative content analysis. The degree of gender stereotyping in the selfies was measured using Goffman's (1979) and Kang's (1997) gender display categories (e.g. feminine touch, lying posture, withdrawing gaze, sparse clothing) plus three social media-related categories (kissing pout, muscle presentation, faceless portrayal). Additionally, gender stereotyping in selfies was directly compared to the degree of gender stereotyping in magazine adverts measured in the same way (Döring & Pöschl, 2006). Results reveal that male and female Instagram users' selfies not only reflect traditional gender stereotypes, but are even more stereotypical than magazine adverts.
      • Young, Isaac F., and Daniel Sullivan. Competitive Victimhood: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature. Current Opinion in Psychology 11 (2016): 30-34. [doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.004] AbstractCompetitive victimhood (CV), which is a tendency to see one's group as having comparatively suffered relative to an outgroup, has been gaining attention in social psychology. An increasing number of researchers have begun to address CV, both directly and indirectly. The present review organizes the literature related to CV around three themes: intractable conflict, structural inequality, and intra-minority intergroup relations. Although literature related to CV is diverse, CV has been consistently linked to important aspects of intergroup relations (e.g., continuation of and resistance to resolving conflict) and intrapersonal processes (e.g., biased memory and self-perception). This review highlights the pervasive and impactful role of CV, while also drawing attention to cultural developments that explain the rising interest in CV in contemporary research.
      • Zotos, Yorgos C., and Eirini Tsichla. Female Stereotypes in Print Advertising: A Retrospective Analysis. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 148 (2014): 446-54. [doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.07.064] AbstractThe depiction of females in advertising has received considerable academic attention, fuelled by the feminist movement and the evolution of women's roles in the society. Early studies revealed the prevalence of traditional portrayals such as housewives, women dependent on a man's protection and depictions of sexual objectification. Even though a decrease in female stereotyping would be reasonable considering the contemporary structure of society that prescribes multiple gender roles, this does not seem to be the case: The literature is replete with studies documenting that female stereotyping is alive and well, even if it manifests itself with different types and patterns than it did some decades ago. This study strives to adopt a holistic outlook to the phenomenon of female stereotypes in print advertisements, tracing its origins, analyzing the interplay of stereotypes and advertising, undertaking an exhaustive perusal of the particular stream of literature, addressing methodological issues and proposing directions for further research.
      • Ellemers, Naomi. Gender Stereotypes. Annual Review of Psychology (2018). [doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011719] AbstractThere are many differences between men and women. To some extent, these are captured in the stereotypical images of these groups. Stereotypes about the way men and women think and behave are widely shared, suggesting a kernel of truth. However, stereotypical expectations not only reflect existing differences, but also impact the way men and women define themselves and are treated by others. This article reviews evidence on the nature and content of gender stereotypes and considers how these relate to gender differences in important life outcomes. Empirical studies show that gender stereotypes affect the way people attend to, interpret, and remember information about themselves and others. Considering the cognitive and motivational functions of gender stereotypes helps us understand their impact on implicit beliefs and communications about men and women. Knowledge of the literature on this subject can benefit the fair judgment of individuals in situations where gender stereotypes are likely to play a role.
      • Hatemi, Peter K., and Rose McDermott. Give Me Attitudes. Annual Review of Political Science 19, no. 1 (2016): 331-50. [doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-103113-034929] AbstractExplorations of political attitudes and ideologies have sought to explain where they come from. They have been presumed to be rooted in processes of socialization; to be imposed by elites through partisan affiliations, the social milieu, and experiences; or to result from psychological traits. Far less attention has been focused on the inherent component of attitudes and where attitudes lead. Synthesizing research across academic fields, we propose that attitudes are a core constituent element of individual temperament, with far-reaching influence on many aspects of psychological and social functioning. Once instantiated, political values guide human behavior across domains, including affiliation into social networks, mate selection, physiological perception, psychological disposition, personality characteristics, morality construction, decision making, and selection into the very environments that influence political preferences. Here, we reconceptualize the ontology of political attitudes and ideologies from both a top-down and bottom-up perspective and as a combination of biological and environmental processes that drive an entire suite of coordinated downstream effects across the life course.
      • Dorrough, Angela R., and Andreas Glöckner. A Cross-National Analysis of Sex Differences in Prisoner's Dilemma Games. British Journal of Social Psychology 58, no. 1 (2019): 225-40. [doi:10.1111/bjso.12287] AbstractIn a comprehensive cross-national study involving samples from 12 different countries that were representative for the adult populations in terms of age and sex (N = 2,429), we found that women cooperate significantly less overall than men in fully incentivized one-shot prisoner's dilemma games. This gender gap in cooperation can be explained by the fact that women hold lower expectations regarding the cooperativeness of their anonymous interaction partners. These results contradict both the common stereotype that women are more communal, caring, emotionally expressive, and warm than men and substantial empirical evidence showing that women act more prosocially in many contexts.
  • Ideologies, Interests, & Morality
    • Swedberg, Richard. Can There Be a Sociological Concept of Interest?. Theory and Society 34, no. 4 (2005): 359-90. [doi:10.1007/s11186-005-1986-3] {Read as needed to get the main ideas.}  AbstractThis article raises the question of whether it is possible to have not only an economic concept of interest but also a sociological one, and, if so, what such a concept would be like. By way of an answer, the history of how sociologists have tried to use the concept of interest in their analyses is traced, starting with Gustav Ratzenhofer in the 1890s and ending with Pierre Bourdieu and John Meyer today. This focus on what sociologists have to say about interest represents a novelty as the conventional histories of this concept pass over the contribution by sociologists in total silence. The various attempts by sociologists to use the concept of interest are divided into two main categories: when interest is seen as the driving force in social life, and when interest is seen as a major force in social life, together with other factors. I also discuss the argument by some sociologists that interest is of little or no importance in social life. The different strategies for how to handle the concept of interest in a sociological analysis are discussed in the concluding remarks, where it is argued (following Weber and Bourdieu) that interests can usefully be understood to play an important role in social life, but together with other factors.
    • Jackson, Robert Max. Excerpts on Interests { Read: In General (264-68); optionally, for greater depth, look at: Women's Vs. Men's (175-79), Men's Changing (221-231), and Interests of the State & Powerful Men (44-46, 67-70, 231-6)}. In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998
    • Additional Recommended
      • Demeulenaere, Pierre. Interests in Sociological Analysis.. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), edited by James D Wright, 391-95. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015. [doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.32080-3] AbstractA sociological study of interests involves a definition of the concept of interests, since they can be said to vary socially. It is also concerned with the relation between interests (notably economic ones) and other human ends, for instance the values that lie behind any social order. Therefore, it implies a methodological debate about human agency: should it be considered as intrinsically selfish or unselfish, and how does one interpret any behavior that departs from the pursuit of selfish interests? This methodological debate is related to an appreciation of the different kinds of rationality that can be associated with human behavior. This article will describe mainly the way classical sociology has conceptualized the issue of interests, and the contemporary developments of those classical positions.
      • Sapiro, Virginia. When Are Interests Interesting? The Problem of Political Representation of Women. The American Political Science Review 75, no. 3 (1981): 701. [doi:10.2307/1960962] AbstractRecent years have witnessed an increasing demand by women for political representation of women. This demand points the way toward a number of important problems for political research, many of which remain unsolved primarily because of the segregation of women's studies from the dominant concerns of political science. This discussion focuses on the problem of group interests and representation, drawing on and suggesting further research on public opinion, interest groups, social movements, international politics, political elites, and public policy.
      • Abend, Gabriel. What’s New and What’s Old About the New Sociology of Morality. In Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, edited by Steven Hitlin and Stephen Vaisey, 561-84. New York, NY: Springer New York, 2010. [doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-6896-8_30] {Valuable for any analytical approach to morality}  AbstractIn this chapter I ask what’s new and what’s old about the new sociology of morality. What might it learn from earlier sociologies of morality? What wheels needn’t be reinvented? In the second section I discuss three old issues: (a) whether morality can and should be scientifically investigated; (b) the fact of moral variation; and (c) the explanation of moral variation. I spell out these three points using the writings of Martineau, Lévy-Bruhl, and Durkheim. In the third section I discuss two new challenges: (a) the implications of moral realism; and (b) the implications of moral neuroscience. I argue that neither challenge can be easily dismissed. Finally, in the fourth section, I very briefly consider the future of the new sociology of morality: what’s next and what unique contributions it can make.
      • Tappin, Ben M., and Ryan T. McKay. The Illusion of Moral Superiority. Social Psychological and Personality Science 8, no. 6 (2017): 623-31. [doi:10.1177/1948550616673878] AbstractMost people strongly believe they are just, virtuous, and moral; yet regard the average person as distinctly less so. This invites accusations of irrationality in moral judgment and perception—but direct evidence of irrationality is absent. Here, we quantify this irrationality and compare it against the irrationality in other domains of positive self-evaluation. Participants (N = 270) judged themselves and the average person on traits reflecting the core dimensions of social perception: morality, agency, and sociability. Adapting new methods, we reveal that virtually all individuals irrationally inflated their moral qualities, and the absolute and relative magnitude of this irrationality was greater than that in the other domains of positive self-evaluation. Inconsistent with prevailing theories of overly positive self-belief, irrational moral superiority was not associated with self-esteem. Taken together, these findings suggest that moral superiority is a uniquely strong and prevalent form of “positive illusion,” but the underlying function remains unknown.
  • More on the Causal Questions
    • Jackson, Robert Max. "Meritocratic Ideology." In Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status, 125-30, 46-57. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. AbstractMeritocratic ideas reflect the unintended consequences of institutional individualism. Meritocratic ideas and practices originated in diverse institutional contexts—among businessmen defending their status against the established elite and seeking ways to tame their growing firms, among politicians seeking legitimacy for the state and contending with the government's bureaucratic expansion, and in schools applying bureaucratic standards to the educational process. They arose because they met institutional needs. Regardless of origins, meritocratic customs propagated the belief that qualifications should decide who gets promotions and rewards. These ideas and practices implied that suppressing qualified women was both unfair and counter to organizational interests (in getting the best personnel at the lowest salary). Sex inequality had nothing to do with their origin or development. Yet even if the men controlling these institutions had thoroughly understood how meritocratic ideology would affect women's claims for equal treatment, they would have been unlikely to reduce their support for these new ideas. The abstract issue of gender inequality's fate over the long term was too vague and remote compared with the immediate and self-interested reasons for adopting meritocratic ideals.
    • Down So Long:  Disputed Ideals: Ideologies of Domesticity and Feminist Rebellion  {Pp. 193-199, 205-214, 225-228}  Abstract If we divide American history of the past 200 years into several periods, popular feminist ideals at each stage have reflected the past improvements in women's status and the contemporary opportunities for further reductions in inequality. In contrast, at each stage an ideology of female domesticity reflected efforts to justify women's continued dependence on men by denying and defying the direction of social and economic development. Because women's social position has improved progressively, the feminist ideals have gained a wider following in each period, until the anti-rationalist and anti-egalitarian ideologies of female subordination could no longer subdue them.
    • Alexander, Amy C., Ronald Inglehart, and Christian Welzel. Emancipating Sexuality: Breakthroughs into a Bulwark of Tradition. Social Indicators Research 129, no. 2 (2016): 909-35. [doi:10.1007/s11205-015-1137-9] {Pp. 909-14, 932-33}  AbstractThis article presents evidence for a rising emancipatory spirit, across generations and around the world, in a life domain in which religion hitherto blocked emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms. We propose an explanation of rising emancipative values that integrates several approaches into a single idea—the utility ladder of freedoms. Specifically, we suggest that objectively improving living conditions—from rising life expectancies to broader education—transform the nature of life from a source of threats into a source of opportunities. As life begins to hold more promise for increasing population segments, societies climb the utility ladder of freedoms: practicing and respecting universal freedoms becomes increasingly vital to take advantage of rising life opportunities. This trend has begun to spill over into a life domain in which religious norms have until recently been able to resist emancipatory gains: sexual freedoms. We present (1) crossnational, (2) longitudinal, (3) generational and (4) multilevel evidence on an unprecedentedly broad basis in support of this theory.
    • Pierotti, R. S. Increasing Rejection of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence of Global Cultural Diffusion. American Sociological Review 78, no. 2 (2013): 240-65. [doi:10.1177/0003122413480363] {Pp, 240-45}  AbstractThis study extends existing world society research on ideational diffusion by going beyond examinations of national policy change to investigate the spread of ideas among nonelite individuals. Specifically, I test whether recent trends in women’s attitudes about intimate partner violence are converging toward global cultural scripts. Results suggest that global norms regarding violence against women are reaching citizens worldwide, including in some of the least privileged parts of the globe. During the first decade of the 2000s, women in 23 of the 26 countries studied became more likely to reject intimate partner violence. Structural socioeconomic or demographic changes, such as urbanization, rising educational attainment, increasing media access, and cohort replacement, fail to explain the majority of the observed trend. Rather, women of all ages and social locations became less likely to accept justifications for intimate partner violence. The near uniformity of the trend and speed of the change in attitudes about intimate partner violence suggest that global cultural diffusion has played an important role.
    • Additional Recommended ...
      • Adamczyk, Amy, and Yen-Chiao Liao. Examining Public Opinion About LGBTQ-Related Issues in the United States and across Multiple Nations. Annual Review of Sociology 45, no. 1 (2019): 401-23. [doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022332] AbstractOver the last three decades, many countries across the world, including the United States, have experienced major increases in support for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) individuals and related issues. In partial relation to these changes, multiple studies have examined the factors shaping public opinion. In this review, we focus on four major areas of research on public opinion in this field of study. First, we assess the terms that scholars typically use when examining attitudes and highlight the areas of public opinion research that have received the most attention. Second, we focus on the data and measurement challenges related to examining attitudes in the United States and across many nations. Third, we consider how and why attitudes and related laws have changed over time and across nations. Finally, we discuss the major micro and macro empirical forces that influence and the theoretical explanations for why there are such differences in attitudes. We end by offering several suggestions for future research.
      • Eagly, Alice H., Christa Nater, David I. Miller, Michèle Kaufmann, and Sabine Sczesny. Gender Stereotypes Have Changed: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of U.S. Public Opinion Polls from 1946 to 2018. American Psychologist (2019). [doi:10.1037/amp0000494] AbstractThis meta-analysis integrated 16 nationally representative U.S. public opinion polls on gender stereotypes (N = 30,093 adults), extending from 1946 to 2018, a span of seven decades that brought considerable change in gender relations, especially in women’s roles. In polls inquiring about communion (e.g., affectionate, emotional), agency (e.g., ambitious, courageous), and competence (e.g., intelligent, creative), respondents indicated whether each trait is more true of women or men, or equally true of both. Women’s relative advantage in communion increased over time, but men’s relative advantage in agency showed no change. Belief in competence equality increased over time, along with belief in female superiority among those who indicated a sex difference in competence. Contemporary gender stereotypes thus convey substantial female advantage in communion and a smaller male advantage in agency but also gender equality in competence along with some female advantage. Interpretation emphasizes the origins of gender stereotypes in the social roles of women and men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
      • Herek, Gregory M., and Kevin A. McLemore. Sexual Prejudice. Annual Review of Psychology 64, no. 1 (2013): 309-33. [doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143826] AbstractDespite shifts toward greater acceptance in U.S. public opinion and policy, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people remain widely stigmatized. This article reviews empirical research on sexual prejudice, that is, heterosexuals' internalization of cultural stigma, manifested in the form of negative attitudes toward sexual minorities and same-sex desires and behaviors. After briefly reviewing measurement issues, we discuss linkages between sexual prejudice and religion, gender, sexuality, and related variables, and consider how the cultural institutions encompassing these domains create a social context within which individual expressions of prejudice can meet important psychological needs. These include needs for securing social acceptance, affirming values that are central to one's self-concept, and avoiding anxiety and other negative emotions associated with threats to self-esteem. We conclude by discussing factors that may motivate heterosexuals to reduce their own sexual prejudice, including intergroup contact, as well as avenues for future empirical inquiry.
      • Hirst, William, and Alin Coman. Building a Collective Memory: The Case for Collective Forgetting. Current Opinion in Psychology 23 (2018): 88-92. [doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.002] AbstractThe shared reality of a community rests in part on the collective memories held by members of that community. Surprisingly, psychologists have only recently begun to study collective memories, an area of interest in the social sciences for several decades. The present paper adopts the perspective that remembering is often an act of communication. One consequence of communicative acts of remembering is that speaker and listeners can come to share the same memories, thereby providing a foundation on which to build a collective memory. Another consequence is that the selectivity of communicative acts of remembering can induce collective selective forgetting, clearly one component of any collective memory. The phenomenon of retrieval-induced forgetting is discussed in the context of dyadic conversational exchanges of unrelated individuals and conversational exchanges between ingroup and outgroup members. In addition, the paper reviews work demonstrating that what occurs at the dyadic level can shape global outcomes of complex social networks, including convergence of memories across a network. The bottom-up approach described in this paper can help us understand how individual memories can come to be shared across a community.
      • Mac Giolla, Erik, and Petri J. Kajonius. Sex Differences in Personality Are Larger in Gender Equal Countries: Replicating and Extending a Surprising Finding. International Journal of Psychology (2018). [doi:10.1002/ijop.12529] AbstractSex differences in personality have been shown to be larger in more gender equal countries. We advance this research by using an extensive personality measure, the IPIP-NEO-120, with large country samples (N > 1000), from 22 countries. Furthermore, to capture the multidimensionality of personality we measure sex differences with a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis distance D). Results indicate that past research, using univariate measures of effect size, have underestimated the size of between-country sex differences in personality. Confirming past research, there was a strong correlation (r = .69) between a country's sex differences in personality and their Gender Equality Index. Additional analyses showed that women typically score higher than men on all five trait factors (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), and that these relative differences are larger in more gender equal countries. We speculate that as gender equality increases both men and women gravitate towards their traditional gender roles.
      • Mears, Ashley. Size Zero High-End Ethnic: Cultural Production and the Reproduction of Culture in Fashion Modeling. Poetics 38, no. 1 (2010): 21-46. [doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2009.10.002] AbstractThe fashion modeling industry has long been criticized for using excessively thin and exclusively Anglo-looking models in advertising and runway shows. How do fashion producers make decisions to hire models, and why is the fashion model aesthetic defined so narrowly? Based on participant observation and interviews with modeling agents and clients in New York and London, the current study explains how producers in the modeling industry weigh their decisions on two publicly polemical issues: slenderness and racial exclusion. As workers in cultural production, agents and clients face intense market uncertainty when selecting models. In the absence of objective standards, they rely on conventions, imitation, and stereotypes to guide their decisions. Producers hire fashion models to articulate market-specific versions of femininity. In the commercial market, they emphasize demographics, racial inclusion, sex appeal and attainable beauty; in the high-end editorial market, they seek distinction, sexual unavailability and rarefied beauty. As cultural producers, agents and clients ultimately reproduce culture by fashioning femininity along race and class lines.
      • Nelson, Julie A. The Power of Stereotyping and Confirmation Bias to Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case of Economics, Gender, and Risk Aversion. Journal of Economic Methodology 21, no. 3 (2014): 211-31. [doi:10.1080/1350178X.2014.939691] AbstractBehavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly ?robust? claim that ?women are more risk averse than men? is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.
      • Smith, Kevin B., John R. Alford, John R. Hibbing, Nicholas G. Martin, and Peter K. Hatemi. Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology. American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 2 (2017): 424-37. [doi:10.1111/ajps.12255] AbstractAbstract Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically predict consequent changes in political orientations, and, at least in part, moral foundations must be heritable. We test these hypotheses and find substantial variability in individual-level moral foundations across time, and little evidence that these changes account for changes in political attitudes. We also find little evidence that moral foundations are heritable. These findings raise questions about the future of MFT as a theory of ideology.
      • Spencer, Steven J., Christine Logel, and Paul G. Davies. Stereotype Threat. Annual Review of Psychology 67, no. 1 (2016): 415-37. [doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-073115-103235] AbstractWhen members of a stigmatized group find themselves in a situation where negative stereotypes provide a possible framework for interpreting their behavior, the risk of being judged in light of those stereotypes can elicit a disruptive state that undermines performance and aspirations in that domain. This situational predicament, termed stereotype threat, continues to be an intensely debated and researched topic in educational, social, and organizational psychology. In this review, we explore the various sources of stereotype threat, the mechanisms underlying stereotype-threat effects (both mediators and moderators), and the consequences of this situational predicament, as well as the means through which society and stigmatized individuals can overcome the insidious effects of stereotype threat. Ultimately, we hope this review alleviates some of the confusion surrounding stereotype threat while also sparking further research and debate.
      • Flore, Paulette C., and Jelte M. Wicherts. Does Stereotype Threat Influence Performance of Girls in Stereotyped Domains? A Meta-Analysis. Journal of School Psychology 53, no. 1 (2015): 25-44. [doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2014.10.002] AbstractAlthough the effect of stereotype threat concerning women and mathematics has been subject to various systematic reviews, none of them have been performed on the sub-population of children and adolescents. In this meta-analysis we estimated the effects of stereotype threat on performance of girls on math, science and spatial skills (MSSS) tests. Moreover, we studied publication bias and four moderators: test difficulty, presence of boys, gender equality within countries, and the type of control group that was used in the studies. We selected study samples when the study included girls, samples had a mean age below 18years, the design was (quasi-)experimental, the stereotype threat manipulation was administered between-subjects, and the dependent variable was a MSSS test related to a gender stereotype favoring boys. To analyze the 47 effect sizes, we used random effects and mixed effects models. The estimated mean effect size equaled −0.22 and significantly differed from 0. None of the moderator variables was significant; however, there were several signs for the presence of publication bias. We conclude that publication bias might seriously distort the literature on the effects of stereotype threat among schoolgirls. We propose a large replication study to provide a less biased effect size estimate.
      • Whaley, Arthur L. Advances in Stereotype Threat Research on African Americans: Continuing Challenges to the Validity of Its Role in the Achievement Gap. Social Psychology of Education 21, no. 1 (2018): 111-37. [doi:10.1007/s11218-017-9415-9] AbstractOver the past two decades, there have been significant advances in stereotype threat research on African Americans. The current article reviews general issues of internal validity and external validity (or generalizability) beyond college laboratories in stereotype threat studies, and as they are revealed specifically in the context of advances in research on African Americans. Research suggests an internally valid operational definition of stereotype threat relevant to the African American students’ experience is the expectation of, and reactions to, interviewer or teacher bias. The external validity of laboratory research on stereotype threat is very limited. Effect sizes and variance explained in multivariate models in most survey and field studies of stereotype threat variables are very small. Advances in stereotype threat research emphasize the relatively greater importance of school racial climate and faculty diversity in efforts to reduce the achievement gap. Interventions to improve the educational experiences of African American students should address situational factors of school racial climate, faculty diversity, and cultural competence training for non-African American instructors and interviewers.
• Recommended Readings
  • Shannon N. Davis, Theodore N. Greenstein. "Gender Ideology: Components, Predictors, and Consequences." Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 35 (2009): 87-105 [doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-115920]
  • Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox. "The Gender Gap in Ideology." Political Behavior (2008) 30:503–523.   DOI 10.1007/s11109-008-9061-1 [doi: 10.1007/s11109-008-9061-1]
  • Carl N. Degler. "Revolution without Ideology: The Changing Place of Women in America."  Daedalus, Vol. 93, No. 2, The Woman in America (Spring, 1964), pp. 653-670  [jstor: 20026849]
  • Bem, S. L. (1981) Gender Schema Theory: A Cognitive Account Of Sex Typing. Psychological Review, Vol 88(4), Jul 1981, 354-364. [doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.88.4.354]
  • Review readings by Ridgeway in Section II and Valian in Section VII
  •  Mary Blair-Loy. 2001. "Cultural Constructions of Family Schemas: The Case of Women Executives." Gender & Society 15(5) (2001): 687-709. [doi: 10.1177/089124301015005004]
  • S. M. C. Kelley, C. G. E. Kelley, M. D. R. Evans and Jonathan Kelley. "Support for Mothers' Employment at Home: Conflict between Work and Family." International Journal of Public Opinion Research, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 98-110, Spring 2009  [doi: 10.1093/ijpor/edp004]
• Related Readings
  • Catherine I Bolzendahl, Daniel J Myers.. "Feminist Attitudes and Support for Gender Equality: Opinion Change in Women and Men, 1974-1998." Social Forces, vol. 83, no. 2 (Dec 2004): 759-789
  • Thornton, Arland; Young-DeMarco, Linda, "Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes toward Family Issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s." Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 1009-1037, Nov 2001  [doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.01009.x]
  • Emily W. Kane, Mimi Schippers. "Men's and Women's Beliefs about Gender and Sexuality." Gender and Society, Vol. 10, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), pp. 650-665 [jstor: 189887]
  • Eric D. Widmer, Judith Treas, Robert Newcomb. "Attitudes toward Nonmarital Sex in 24 Countries." The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Nov., 1998), pp. 349-358... [jstor: 3813111]
  • Bem, S, L, (1994) Defending The Lenses of Gender. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 97-101. [jstor: 1449094]
  • Frable, D. E., & Bem, S. L. (1985). If You Are Gender Schematic, All Members Of The Opposite Sex Look Alike. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 459-468. [doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.49.2.459]

13.  What does the future hold? 

Where do we go from here?  Will gender inquality continue to decline, and greater gender equality spread throughout the world?  Are some aspects of gender inquality particularly resistant to reduction, and if so why?  Could change stagnate?  Behind such concerns are two principal questions.  What has caused the long-term pattern of declining gender inequality?  And what has preserved aspects of gender inequality in the face of these accumulating changes?  Combining the answers to these two questions with an effort to project the relevant influences into the future, is the basis for trying to understand the possibilities for the future.  Behind this also lies another analytical question with moral overtones: what does gender equality really mean?

• Analytical Task
  • Select two types of inequality, both important, one that you believe to be moving toward greater equality at a relatively high rate, the other that you believe is moving toward equality at a relatively slow rate (or is stalled or is moving backwards)
    • for each of these two types, describe what is the inequality (how are women and men unequal, which women and men experience it, how do things differ when this inequality is high from when it is low)
    • describe the evidence and logic that suggests one type is declining relatively quickly and the other relatively slowly
  • Try to explain why the two different rates of movement toward equality
    • For each, consider what processes, conditions, interests, and the like propel the movement toward greater equality
    • For each, consider what circumstances, activities, and the like obstruct the movement toward greater equality
    • Try to explain how and why the balance between the causes propelling greater equality and the causes sustaining existing inequality differ between the two types of gender inequality
• Common Readings
  • Paula England.  "Toward Gender Equality: Progress and Bottlenecks," in Declining Significance of Gender?, (ed. Francine Blau, Mary Brinton, David Grusky), 2007; also Paula England. "The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled." Gender & Society 2010 24: 149-166.  [doi: 10.1177/0891243210361475]
  • Cecilia L. Ridgeway.  "Gender as an Organizing Force in Social Relations: Implications for the Future of Inequality," in Declining Significance of Gender?, (ed. Francine Blau, Mary Brinton, David Grusky), 2007
  • Robert Max Jackson.  "Opposing Forces: How, Why, and When Will Gender Inequality Disappear?," in Declining Significance of Gender?, (ed. Francine Blau, Mary Brinton, David Grusky), 2007
• Recommended Readings
  • Maria Charles and Karen Bradley.  "Indulging Our Gendered Selves? Sex Segregation by Field of Study in 44 Countries."  American Journal of Sociology 114:4 (2009), 924-976  [doi: pdf/10.1086/595942]
  • Richard Breen and Lynn Prince Cooke. "The Persistence of the Gendered Division of Domestic Labour."  European Sociological Review 2005 21(1): 43-57 [doi: 10.1093/esr/jci003]
  • Luisa Escriche, Gonzalo Olcina, and Rosario Sánchez. "Gender Discrimination And Intergenerational Transmission Of Preferences." Oxford Economic Papers (2004) 56(3): 485-511 [doi: 10.1093/oep/gpf058]
  • Gerda Neyer and Dorothea Rieck. "Moving Towards Gender Equality." Ch. 7 in How Generations and Gender Shape Demographic Change United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Conference "How Generations and Gender Shape Demographic Change," 14 to 16 May 2008 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva 
  • Cecilia Ridgeway.  Framed by Gender.  Oxford: 2011. [doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755776.001.0001]
• Related Readings
  • ...
  • ...

  
  

Additional Resources

A1.   How to Prepare a Good Literature Review.

Preparing a good literature review is a task easily overlooked.  Yet, a weak strategy for literature reviews in the early stages of a project can jeopardize one's chances of developing something good.  At later stages, a poor literature review can undermine all the efforts we make at research and reasoning.  A good literature review depends on two critical skills: (1) knowing how to find the existing research and theoretical work that is relevant to one's project and (2) knowing how to select and present the important ideas and findings in that literature.

• Basic Readings
  • Becker, Howard Saul, and Pamela Richards. "Terrorized by the Literature." Chap. 8 In Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article, 135-49. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007
  • The following offer advice about literature reviews.  Use these as practical guides.
    • Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science & Politics 39, no. 1 (2006): 127-32. [doi:10.1017/S1049096506060264]
    • Graham, Charles R. "Reviewing the Literature When There Is So Much of It." Chap. 3 In Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments, edited by Anthony G. Picciano, Charles D. Dziuban, Charles R. Graham and Patsy D. Moskal, 28-42: Routledge, 2015. [doi:10.4324/9781315814605]
    • Boote, David N., and Penny Beile. "Scholars before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation." Educational Researcher 34, no. 6 (2005): 3-15. [doi:10.3102/0013189x034006003]
    • Jackson, Robert Max.  "How to Develop a Literature Review – Some Suggestions."
• Additional Recommended
  
  • The following offer further advice about literature reviews.  Take a quick look at them, read further if their approach or specific information seems to better fit your needs than those above.
    • https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/write-a-literature-review
    • https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/ReviewofLiterature.html
    • Torraco, Richard J. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4, no. 3 (2005): 356-67. [doi:10.1177/1534484305278283]
    • Webster, Jane, and Richard T. Watson. "Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review." MIS Quarterly 26, no. 2 (2002): xiii-xxiii.
  • Denney, Andrew S., and Richard Tewksbury. "How to Write a Literature Review." Journal of Criminal Justice Education 24, no. 2 (2013): 218-34. [doi:10.1080/10511253.2012.730617]
  • Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage Publications, 1998.
  • Porter, Alan L., Alisa Kongthon, and Jye-Chyi Lu. "Research Profiling: Improving the Literature Review." Scientometrics 53, no. 3 (March 01 2002): 351.

A2. Notes on how to write a critical review. 

Criticizing the analyses in scholarly publications is an essential part of a scholar's work.  The role of scholarly critique in a paper ranges from a one sentence comment on some aspect of a publication to being the central theme pervading every paragraph.  The capacity to write effective critiques is not a natural trait but a learned skill.  As with most scholarly skills, learning the skills from others is more efficient and effective than trying to invent them anew.  

• Some notes on preparing a critical review can be found: here (click)

A3. Causality - What are causes, mechanisms, and the like?

We casually refer to causes and effects in normal interactions all the time. We all conduct our lives – choosing actions, making decisions, trying to influence others – based on theories about why and how things happen in the world. From the early stages of childhood we attribute causes, building a vision of the social (and physical) world that makes it understandable. Every action, every choice about what to do, is based on our anticipation of its effects, our understandings of consequences.  Analytical and scientific reasoning has a similar form, but requires that we approach causation more systematically and self-consciously. While stopping well short of becoming philosophers of science, as social scientists, we must have a reasonable grip on thinking about causality.  Even when empirical and theoretical social science tries to avoid questions about social causation, it usually relies on critical assumptions about causation.  Unfortunately, causal thinking is difficult and fads guide causal argument choices as much as (and often more than) rigorous logic.  To write about research and theory in the social sciences, we therefore need to achieve a practical grasp of causal thinking.   So, here we want to look at some of the basic causal ideas used by social scientists. 

• Basic Readings
  • Freese, Jeremy, and J. Alex Kevern. "Types of Causes." In Handbook of Causal Analysis for Social Research, edited by Stephen L. Morgan, 27-41. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013. [doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6094-3_3]
  • Stinchcombe, Arthur L. "The Logic of Scientific Inference." Chap. 2 In Constructing Social Theories, 15-56. New York: Harcourt, 1968.
  • Hill, Sir Austin Bradford. "The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?." Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 108, no. 1 (2015 [orig 1965]): 32-37. [doi:10.1177/0141076814562718] {For a contrast, to help keep ourselves grounded, it is worth looking carefully at the practical strategy for assessing causality put forth by  the epidemiologist and statistician, Sir Austin Bradford Hill a half-century ago that had profound and lasting influence on real-world assessments of causality and public health. This should remind us that in science and in life, causality is ultimately a practical problem, not a philosophical one.}
  • Supplementary Notes on common causal issues:
    • On Control Variables
    • On Competing versus Complementary Explanations
• Additional Recommended
  • Wikipedia. "Causality"
  • John Gerring.  "Causation: A Unified Framework for the Social Sciences." Journal of Theoretical Politics, (2005) 17(2), 163-198.  (doi:10.1177/0951629805050859)
  • Epstein, Joshua M. "Why Model?." Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 11, no. 4 (2008).
  • Hedström, Peter, and Petri Ylikoski. "Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences." Annual Review of Sociology 36, no. 1 (2010): 49-67. [doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102632]

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