Race, Gender, and the Black Women's Standpoint

Hill Collins (1997, 1998, 2000) argues that because of their position within the intersecting hierarchies of race, gender, and class, black women as a group possess a “unique angle of vision” on the social world. Rooted in the everyday experiences of black women, the “black women’s standpoint” is marked by an intersectional understanding of oppression and a “legacy of struggle” against such oppression. In this article, I employ quantitative analyses of data from the National Survey of Black Americans (1992) and the National Black Feminist Study (2004–2005) to investigate the black women’s standpoint. I ask: “Do black women as a group tend toward the black women’s standpoint that Hill Collins describes?” and “Do black women embrace this perspective more than black men?” Results from numerous χ² and logistic regression analyses suggest that, within the black community, gender is not a significant predictor of the standpoint that Hill Collins describes, with black men and black women being equally likely to embrace many of the core ideas associated with the black women’s standpoint. I conclude by discussing the implications of this finding for gender and race‐based standpoint theory.     

Untangling Inequalities: Gender,Race, and Socioeconomic Differences in Depression1

In their important paper, Link and Phelan (1995) argue that socioeconomic status is a fundamental cause of variation in well‐being and that the social resources associated with socioeconomic status constitute the fundamental cause of variation in well‐being. In this article, I elaborate on the fundamental cause perspective in three respects: by suggesting an expansion of the definition of resources, by examining how race and gender influence variation in the relationship between resources and mental health, and by developing a model of the relationship between social class, race, and gender that takes account of the potential asymmetry in the influence of resources across race and gender. Using the 2003 National Health Interview Survey and ordinary least squares regression, I find that black and white men are significantly less depressed than black and white women. However, women accrue greater mental health advantage from marriage, home ownership, and education. African‐American men experience less depression as a result of being unmarried and non‐Hispanic white women experience less benefit from full‐time employment, relative to African‐American women and men. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research on race, class, and gender differences in health.     

The “male” privilege of White women,the “White” privilege of Black women,and vulnerability to violence: an intersectional analysis of Peace Corps workers in host countries

This article is an intersectional analysis of race, gender, and nationality in development work. Using interview, document, and observational data, I situate this inquiry in the context of US women’s work in the Peace Corps, an organization within a field marked by colonialism. I find that White women and women of color have similar and yet instructively different experiences of their gendered identities in field sites, because race and gender differently affect their identities and relative privilege abroad. Specifically, White women volunteers are often afforded some degree of “male” privilege because of their race (though their race may render them vulnerable to sexual violence), while some volunteers of color are afforded a degree of “White” privilege because of their nationality (although their race may also render them vulnerable to violence). However, because the Peace Corps does not challenge conventional race and gender privileges, it lacks the organizational orientation and capacity to effectively address safety and assault among its women volunteers.     

Developments in gender and U.S. politics: A call for intersectionality

Since “women and politics” scholarship emerged in the 1970s, social, institutional, and theoretical developments have shaped the trajectory of U.S. scholarship in this field. First, the presence of women in formal politics has increased, albeit unevenly across parties and minority groups over time. Simultaneously, the capacity to study “political women” has become supported through institutional mechanisms such as academic journals and communities of practice. Moreover, gender as a critical focus of analysis has been developed and refined. In the literature on women and politics, the shift from studying sex differences to interrogating gendered political institutions is especially salient. This institutional focus, along with recent intersectional studies of gender and politics, increases opportunities for cross‐pollination of sociological and political science perspectives. In this review, I provide a brief history of the U.S. scholarship on gender and politics and map these relevant social, institutional, and theoretical advances. I highlight the value of recent intersectional contributions in this field and make the case for bringing partisanship—an increasingly salient political identity and structure—into intersectional approaches to gender and politics.     

Race,Sex, and Perception of the Occupational Opportunity Structure among College Students*

Questionnaires were administered to 70 black female, 75 black male, 1,457 white female and 1,429 white male university freshmen. In order to test three alternative theories regarding perceptions of discrimination, analyses of variance related sex, race, and SES to total scores of perceived occupational discrimination against blacks (BDST) and against women (WDST). Blacks perceived significantly more discrimination against black people than did whites; neither sex nor SES differentialed scores on BDST. Black females and white males perceived significantly more discrimination against women than did white females; black females had the highest and white females the lowest WDST scores. A discriminant analysis on white females indicated that high WDST scorers were characterized by an “underdog syndrome” whereas low WDST scorers held internal, individualistic values. The findings indicated the greatest support for the formulation that differential anticipatory socialization into the role of “a person who is discriminated against” characterized white females who perceived more or less discrimination against women.     

IT'S MY WORLD?

A positive sense of control over one's life is essential for maintaining health and well-being. Those with a strong sense of control believe changes in their social world are responsive to their choices, actions, and efforts. In contrast, a sense of powerlessness or fatalism is on the other end of the continuum. There is little research that explores how race and gender relate to feelings about personal control. To examine their effects on perceptions of personal control, we analyze data from the American Changing Lives Survey, 1986. Controlling for race and gender in the full model led to results that failed to reveal the complexity of relationships when compared with results of analyses among the subgroups. Some key factors distinct for the various groups were, for white men, functional health, positive support from friends and relatives, and having people to share their feelings with; for black men, age and visiting mental health facilities; for white women, visiting medical care facilities, the number of children, tobacco, and having someone to call for help; and, for black women, being involved with organizations (groups, clubs, and churches) and religion. When there are no significant racial or gender differences, examining models simultaneously stratified by race and gender introduced a more dynamic and multidimensional relationship between the control and dependent variables than was previously understood.     

DESPAIR, DISTRUST AND DISSATISFACTION AMONG BLACKS AND WOMEN, 1973–1987

Discontent among American blacks and women is examined with indicators of the anomia of despair and distrust, and of job and financial dissatisfaction. Nine years of General Social Survey data covering 1973 through 1987 show that blacks' discontent exceeds whites' in most instances examined; and black women more frequently show significantly higher discontent than other race/gender groups. Also, blacks' discontent more often exceeds whites' among persons high in SES than among those low in SES. But gender main effects are almost nonexistent; and white women almost never show more discontent than other race/gender groups. This unexpected finding may be related to white women's greater identification with race than gender and their perception of general but not personal discrimination. Failure of the gender/discontent relationships to differ with the American president in office may have a similar explanation. But, as expected, racial differences in discontent tended to be higher during the Nixon/Ford and Reagan administrations than Carter's.     

Gender and physical health: a study of African American and Caribbean black adults

Although gender disparities in health in the United States remain a primary concern among health professionals, less is known about this phenomenon within the black American population. Using the National Survey of American Life, the author examines gender differences in self-rated health, chronic illness, and functional limitations among African Americans (n = 3,330) and Caribbean blacks (n = 1,562) and the extent to which the availability of resources explains these differences. The results reveal a consistent disadvantage among African American women across indicators of health. The gender-health relationship among Caribbean blacks is somewhat weaker, but there is a health disadvantage for immigrant women and U.S.-born Caribbean men when certain resources are taken into account. These findings illustrate the importance of the intersections of race, ethnicity, and nativity in our understanding of gender differences in health.     

“SUPPORTING OUR BLACK MEN”: REPRODUCING MALE PRIVILEGE IN A BLACK STUDENT POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Data collected from participant observation and interviews show how a predominately female Black student political organization privileged male members to increase the group's prestige and ensure turnout at public events. The group accepted the men immediately, forgave their failures, and assigned them high profile tasks. While the women worked behind the scenes, they often chose men to represent the public face of the organization. These seemingly minor privileges allowed the men to outpace the women in accruing cultural and social capital. This analysis relies on Patricia Hill Collins' intersectional view of race and gender to identify conditions that encourage male privilege in oppressed groups and inhibit gender solidarity across racial lines.     

Comparing Offers and Take‐ups of Employee Health Insurance across Race,Gender, and Decade*

How often do U.S. employees receive health insurance offers from employers? When offered, how often do they take up their employer‐based health insurance? This article uses the 1992 and 2002 waves of the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) to investigate changes in access to (offers) and employees electing to accept, take, or purchase their employers’ health insurance plans (take‐ups) among wage and salaried workers. Although much research has studied employee health benefits, little has examined the intersection of gender and race regarding both offers and take‐ups of such benefits. Logistic regression results indicate that offers and take‐ups of personal health benefits declined from 1992 to 2002, net of salient controls. Further analyses demonstrate that these declines did not affect all workers identically. Offers declined somewhat for both women and men among whites and African Americans, but declined more among Hispanic women and men. Among other ethnoracial groups, offers declined the most among men, but increased among comparable women. Take‐ups declined among white men and Hispanic workers. However, white and African American women's take‐ups did not change and among African American men take‐ups increased. We discuss the need to examine gender and race simultaneously and urge researchers to more closely examine changes in health benefit offers and take‐ups.     

Propaganda or public relations campaign? International communication on the war against Iraq

Cross-cultural survey on the war against Iraq from different cultures may help to assess whether the public relations war has succeeded or failed. Overall the public of the U.S. and the U.K. formed similar evaluations of the war; whereas South Korean opinion was lay on the opposite side of the continuum. The present study suggests that public relations campaigns administered by the U.S. government did not generate favorable opinions in countries other than the U.S.     

The Abortion Attitudes Paradox: Model Specification and Gender Differences

Rather unexpectedly, prior work has failed to find consistent gender differences in public support for legal abortion. Given that gender differences in public opinion emerge for a wide range of other issue areas, it seems paradoxical that there is no consistent gender difference on the issue of abortion. I propose that this failure to find a consistent gender difference is due to how abortion attitudes are modeled. Controlling for religiosity, which research has shown women to score higher on, results in a small and consistent gender gap in support for legal abortion with women more likely than men to support.     

THE ETHNIC, RACE, AND GENDER GAPS IN WORKPLACE AUTHORITY: Changes over Time in the United States

We analyze factors explaining differences in hierarchical authority between men and women within and across categories of race and ethnicity in two time periods, finding that the processes leading to authority within the workplace operate differently by gender than by race or ethnicity. The demand-side factor, percentage of women in an occupation, helps explain authority differences between men and women in most groups. Supply-side factors, and, in white–black comparisons, occupational location, contribute to differences by race and ethnicity within genders. In the later period, education is particularly important for Hispanic men reflecting, we believe, the recent surge in immigration rates.     

Race, Gender, and Opinion Toward Black and Female Presidential Candidates

Using data from the 1974 and 1978 General Social Surveys, publicopinion toward blacks and women as presidential candidates wasexplored. We tested the hypotheses that white males would beleast likely to support presidential candidates from both groups,while black females would be the most likely to express thissupport. We found that although blacks in general were moresupportive of black candidacies than were whites, women werenot consistently more supportive of female candidates. Whileblack women were more likely than black males to support femalecandidates, among whites few gender differences were found.     

Competing Cultural Narratives: Gender and the Representation of US K–12 Teachers in Contemporary School Reform Policies

Cultural narratives about the proper scope and focus of teaching are embedded in contemporary school reform policies. This review examines literature related to two competing cultural narratives about US primary and secondary teachers: that “good teachers” are autonomous saviors, defined by their abilities to act independently and against great odds to improve academic outcomes for low‐income and minority students, and that “good teachers” are disempowered technicians who follow the guidance of externally‐recognized experts in their efforts to reduce educational inequalities. A review of literature critiquing these narratives finds that scholars have often analyzed these narratives using theoretical frameworks associated with race, class, and/or neoliberalism. This review examines what historians of education and feminist scholars can contribute to a critical analysis of the representation of US teachers in political speech and popular culture. It demonstrates that gender, as part of an intersectional approach, is important to understanding how White middle‐class women teachers can be positioned simultaneously as “autonomous saviors” and as “disempowered technicians” and how these narratives influence the professional status and autonomy associated with the work of teaching.     

Safety segregation: The importance of gender, race, and ethnicity on workplace risk

Using micro data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics we examine the extent and the causes of workplace risk inequality in the United States. Far more men than women and far more blacks and Hispanics than whites are killed or injured at work. Occupational differences between men and women and among the races explain most, but not all, of the workplace risk inequality in the United States. After controlling for occupation, men experience twice as many workplace fatalities as women but fewer nonfatal injuries, while black and Hispanic males experience slightly more workplace fatalities than white males but fewer nonfatal workplace injuries. We find little evidence men choose higher risk jobs and women lower risk jobs because of differences in economic circumstances or risk preferences. But economic and taste factors explain large fractions of the fatal and the nonfatal injury rate differences by race/ethnicity. Workplace risk inequality among the races primarily reflects differences in educational attainment.     

THE STATE STREET MILE: AGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMPETITION AVERSION IN THE FIELD

Gender differences in “competitiveness,” previously documented in laboratory experiments, are hypothesized to play a role in a wide array of economic outcomes. This paper provides evidence of competition aversion in a natural setting somewhere between the simplicity of a laboratory experiment and the full complexity and ambiguity of a labor market. The “State Street Mile” race offers both male and female participants a choice between two different levels of competition. Large, systematic age and gender differences are observed in the relationship between true ability and the decision to enter the more competitive race. Overall, qualified women and older runners are far less likely than qualified young men to enter a competitive race with prizes. However, the fastest young women unanimously enter the competitive race. Therefore, while we confirm age and gender differences in competitiveness in our field setting, the economic consequences to capable young women are rather small. (JEL J1, J7, M5)     

Traversing the Margins: Intersectionalities in the Bullying of Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth

SUMMARY

This study explores the perspectives of service providers and youth advocates on bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and intersectionalities in LGBT peer victimization. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine key informants (4 male, 4 female, 1 transgender male; 4 gay, 3 lesbian, 2 non-identified; 6 white, 1 South Asian, 2 Middle Eastern) recruited using purposive sampling from diverse education and social service settings. Narrative thematic analysis and a constant comparative method were used to identify themes. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) “transgressing gender norm boundaries”; (2) homophobic sexism vs. sexist homophobia; (3) “you choose sexuality or you choose race”; (4) newcomer youth and citizenship; and (5) “multiple wires together … create the cage.” Findings suggest the importance of an intersectional approach to conceptualizing and addressing LGBT bullying and to uncovering the differential experiences of bullying among LGBT youth. Bullying related to sexual orientation should not be assumed to be the only or primary form of violence shaping the lives of LGBT youth.     

Gender,Race/Ethnicity,and Deviant Drinking: A Longitudinal Application of Social Structure and Social Learning Theory

Aker's (1998) theory of social structure and social learning (SSSL) argues that structural variations in deviant behavior, such as gender or race/ethnic differences in underage or heavy drinking, are mediated by social learning variables. However, longitudinal analyses of deviant drinking in an urban sample of white, black, and Hispanic adolescents fail to support the SSSL mediation hypothesis. Significant gender and race/ethnic differences persist after controls for social learning variables as well as for social bonding variables. Interaction effects involving two social bonding variables—family attachment and moral belief—point to theoretically important conditions that maintain a gender gap in underage drinking and relatively low levels of deviant drinking among African American adolescents.