Industry wage differentials and affirmative action: A comment

Conclusion  Although I find the analysis in this paper superior to earlier papers that simply attempt to measure wage differentials across occupations, the analysis still remains flawed and the underlying assumptions of the authors are not clearly stated and can be questioned. The authors assume that firms erect barriers that prevent women from entering certain occupations and that, therefore, also prevent women from taking advantage of higher relative pay. The idea that there might not be a sufficient number of women who want to work in or are qualified for any given occupation is not considered. The authors also do not give an adequate theoretical explanation for their finding of a positive correlation between profitability and smaller gender wage gaps. Economic theory sometimes suggests the opposite conclusion and therefore it is up to the authors to provide an alternative theoretical explanation. It is also assumed that all productivity factors have been “controlled for” in the analysis and that any wage gap that exists between men and women is due to “bad” discrimination. The conclusion of the paper therefore being that if affirmative action is having an effect on wage differentials between men and women (which their evidence indicates is the case for some industries) that this is a positive effect. However, if the assumptions upon which this conclusion is based are questionable, then the conclusion is questionable as well. Affirmative action legislation that decreases the wage gap between men and women may actually be counter-productive. Deborah Walker received her B.S. and MBA from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. She worked as an Associate Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans from 1987 to 2000. She has also worked as a policy analyst in Washington, D.C. She is currently a part-time instructor at the University of Colorado at Denver and Metropolitan State College of Denver and has started her own business. She has published several journal articles and public policy analyses and has contributed to several books. Most of her publications have been in the area of the economics of women in labor markets.     

Emancipation, crime and problem behavior of women: A perspective from Germany

The debate on women and crime has been dominated by two paradigms during the last decades: The “power-paradigm” predicted a steep rise of female crime rates, as a result of the thorough change of gender roles in this period, while the “victim paradigm” directed attention to rising rates of alcohol and drug addiction as well as mental health problems and suicides among women. Both paradigms have been linked by the proposition that the low involvement of women in crime was compensated by their higher rates of all types of passive problem behavior like depression or addiction. In this study, which covers the period from 1965 to 1990, both paradigms are examined by analysing female and male crime rates, as well as respective rates of alcohol and drug addiction, mental disorders, and suicides for all of Germany (before reunification), an urban metropolitan region and a rural state in the North of Germany. The results clearly show that both paradigms were wrong in exaggerating a negative impact of the process of emancipation. Until the early 1980s, female crime rates as well as proportions of other types of problem behavior only slightly gained compared to men, but since 1985 this trend has levelled off and has been inverted, most visible for crime rates. In contrast to both paradigms, these results show that women profited enormously in terms of mental health and other problem behaviors from the opportunities opening up in the process of emancipation. They clearly lend more support to two more recent theories, the “power-control” theory by Hagan and the “control-balance” theory by Tittle that both stress potential gains for women. Susanne Karstedt is an asociologist and criminologist. She is Professor of Criminology at the Department of Criminology of Keele University, Great Britain. In the field of gender studies she has pbulished on female criminality, problem behavior of women in social crises (postwar Germany), on the definition of social problems by the women's movement in the 19th century from a, comparative perspective and on the women's movement from a historical and comparative perspective.     

Women journalists in the Chinese enlightenment, 1915–1923

May Fourth women journalists appropriated the discourse of women’s emancipation advocated by New Culturalists to shape their discussions of women’s suffrage, labor movement, and legal rights. The rhetoric of emancipation enabled women writers to redefine gender norms and legitimized women’s presence in coeducational schools, modern professions, and public spaces. The interplay between the discourse and practices associated with new women enabled women activists to embrace the subject positions opened by the ideal of the “new woman” and to appropriate the rhetoric of human rights to advocate the sharing of male power and privilege, while seriously exploring how to be women in the political and social landscape of an emerging modern China. She has authored “Cross Dressing in Modern Japan” (Japan Studies Review, 2002), “Male Feminism and Women's Subjectivities: Zhang Xichen, Chen Xuezhao, and The New Woman” (Twentieth-Century China, 2003), and “Constructing Manchukuo Womanhood to Serve Japanese Imperialism” (The Journal of Georgia Association of Historian, 2005).     

The new men’s movement: Retreat and regression with America’s weekend warriors

The “new” men’s movement, signaled by the popularity of works by Robert Bly and Sam Keen, and the hundreds of weekend “mythopoetic” retreats, indicates a growing restlessness among American men. This essay examines the assumptions and political implications of the mythopoetic men’s movement and presents a feminist-inspired critique. First, we describe the movement’s essentialist assumptions about gender, stressing the ways these assumptions reproduce power inequalities between women and men. Second, we explore the psychoanalytic diagnosis of male malaise and argue that feminist psychoanalysis provides a more compelling case. Third, we explicate the celebration of anthropological initiation rituals and place these rituals within larger cultural contexts of male-female relationships. Fourth, we describe the historical antecedents for the current mythopoetic retreats, suggesting the structural conditions under which fears of feminization of manhood are likely to be expressed. Finally, we discuss the sociology of developmental regression contained within the mythopoetic vision, arguing that what is to be retrieved is not “deep manhood,” but “deep boyhood,” a playfully innocent and romanticized view of masculinity without adult responsibility of work and family. We claim that only by developing an explicitly pro-feminist politics can men’s lives be meaningfully changed. Michael Kaufman, resident fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University in Toronto, is a founder and originator of the White Ribbon Campaign against violence against women in Canada. His books includeBeyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power and Exchange (Oxford University Press, 1987) andCracking the Armour: Power Pain and the Lives of Men (Viking Canada, 1993).Michael S. Kimmel, associate professor of sociology at SUNY at Stony Brook, is the national spokesperson for the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS). His books includeChanging Men (Sage, 1987),Men’s Lives (Macmillan, 1989; 2nd ed. 1992),Men Confront Pornography (Crown, 1990), andAgainst the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States, 1776–1990 (Beacon, 1992).     

Institutionalizing and globalizing women’s studies at Illinois State University

Feminist thought and the women’s movement have had a major influence over most of the disciplines and many institutions of higher education. Women's Studies has matured as a field of study, and programs and departments may be found throughout the United States and around the world that combined high academic standards and critical feminist perspectives. Nonetheless, Women's Studies programs continue to be widely criticized and many are under-resourced. This article describes the successful efforts of one Women's Studies program to develop a rigorous multi-disciplinary curriculum, collaborate with departments and colleges across the university, and build ties with community organization through strategies of expansion, gender mainstreaming, and internationalization. Valentine M. Moghadam is Director of the Women's Studies Program at Illinois State University, and Associate Professor of Sociology. She teaches “Women, Gender, and Society” and “Contemporary Social Movements.” She is the author of Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Lynne Rienner, 1993) and Women, Work and Economic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa (Lynne Rienner, 1998). She has edited five books, including Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies (Clarendon Press/OUP, 1993) and Patriarchy and Economic Development: Women's Positions at the End of the Century (Clarendon Press/OUP, 1996). Her current research is on globalization and transnational feminist networks, and on women, citizenship and civil society in the Middle East and North Africa.     

Cohabitation and child Well-Being

In “Cohabitation and Child Well-Being,” Wendy D. Manning, an associate professor in Bowling Green State University's Department of Sociology, summarizes what is known about cohabitation and its effects on children. She describes how some people view “cohabiting-couple” households (that is, unmarried couples cohabiting with a biological child of at least one of the adults) as a two-parent family form and that one of the major goals of the 1996 welfare reform law was to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. The main sources of data she uses are the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Decennial Census, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).     

Loose women or lost women? The re-emergence of the myth of white slavery in contemporary discourses of trafficking in women

This article compares current concerns about “trafficking in women” with turn of the century discourses about “white slavery.” It traces the emergence of narratives on “white slavery” and their re-emergence in the moral panics and boundary crises of contemporary discourses on “trafficking in women.” Drawing on historical analysis and contemporary representations of sex worker migration, the paper argues that the narratives of innocent, virginal victims purveyed in the “trafficking in women” discourse are a modern version of the myth of “white slavery.” These narratives, the article argues, reflect persisting anxieties about female sexuality and women's autonomy. Racialised representations of the migrant “Other” as helpless, child-like, victims strips sex workers of their agency. The article argues that while the myth of “trafficking in women”/”white slavery” is ostensibly about protecting women, the underlying moral concern is with the control of “loose women.” Through the denial of migrant sex workers' agency, these discourses serve to reinforce notions of female dependence and purity that serve to further marginalise sex workers and undermine their human rights. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Studies Association Convention, Washington D.C., February 16–20, 1999, and is available on-line at www.walnet.org/NSWP.     

An Inductive Analysis of Young Adults’ Conceptions of Femininity and Masculinity and Comparison to Established Gender Inventories

This study provides an analysis of the content of feminine and masculine characteristics/behaviors described in writing by 366 young women and 289 young men from the U.S. Emergent characteristics/behaviors were placed into domains. For both femininity and masculinity, the domains of “physical differences related to sex” and “emphasized physical differences” emerged. For masculinity, additional domains were: “activities and interests focused on the body,” “powerful or oriented toward power,” and “emotion-control or emotionally-limited.” For femininity, additional domains were “lacking power,” “orientation to other people,” and “emotional.” We then compared the characteristics/behaviors and domains we discovered to gender inventories that are commonly used in the contemporary period. The masculine domains focused on physical differences, activities, and interests that emerged from the present study are mostly absent from these masculinity inventories. The domains focused on power and restricted emotion are evident in these inventories, but these inventories do not cover all of the characteristics within our domains. The feminine domains that emerged from the present study are more often covered in these inventories, but some of the specific feminine characteristics we found are not evident in these inventories. Results are discussed in terms of gender role theory, gender inequality, and potential application for qualitative and quantitative inquiries into the construction of gender.     

Learning and Experiencing Chinese Qigong in Norway

This article discusses the reception of Chinese qigong in a Western context by focusing on the learning and experiencing of qigong in Norway. Drawing on ethnographic material from fieldwork among participants of a style of qigong referred to as Biyun medical qigong, I in particular explore the variety of body–mind states that Norwegian qigong students experience. I have differentiated five “stages” of Biyun practice. Using these stages as a framework, I demonstrate the gradual progression in the learning of qigong. “Body,” “concentration,” and qi (“life energy”) are all important constitutive dimensions in the practice, but as the learning progresses, qi becomes more and more prominent. Drawing on a definition of the body as “learning to be affected” and “learning to affect” (Despret, Body Soc 10:111–134, 2004; Latour, Body Soc 10:205–229, 2004), I suggest that qigong may be perceived as a practice that, at its core, involves learning to be affected by qi as well as to affect qi.

Wearing gender and sexuality “On your sleeve”: Dress norms and the importance of occupational and organizational culture at work

Gender scholars have long argued that workplace culture is an important key to understanding how informal norms create, maintain, and sometimes undermine gender and sexual inequality at work. Although most studies have defined workplace culture as occupational culture, less emphasis has been placed on the importance of organizational culture. This article addresses the importance of both aspects of workplace culture by examining the occupational and organizational dress and appearance norms of men and women who work as editors and accountants at a heterosexual men's pornographic magazine and at a feminist magazine. This comparative case study demonstrates that workers face different expectations about the appropriate split between “personal” and work identities, depending on what they do and where they work. These informal, unwritten occupational and organizational norms play a large part in workers' definitions of appropriate and inappropriate expressions of gender and sexuality at work and should be attended to more carefully in attempts to achieve equality for men and women in all workplaces. Kirsten Dellinger is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality in the workplace. She has published on organizational culture and sexual harassment (Social Problems, 2002), organizational sexuality (American Review of Sociology, 1999), and make-up at work (Gender & Society, 1997).     

Gender and judicial decisions: Do female judges decide cases differently than male judges?

After more than thirty years of feminism and dramatic changes in the number of women entering the legal profession, legal scholars and researchers continue to debate the impact of women's presence on the administration of justice. Central to this debate is the question of whether gender affects legal outcome. Using data collected from state trial judges (N=195) in Pennsylvania, this study examines whether the gender of the litigant and/or judge affects case outcome. Findings show that while litigant characteristics do not affect judicial decisions, the gender of the judge does. Phyllis Coontz is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds joint appointments in Women's Studies and Sociology. She is currently doing research on drug treatment needs among newly arrested offenders, focusing on women's drug use patterns and treatment needs. She has done extensive research on a wide range of gender related issues and has published articles on gender and the legal profession, gender and involuntary commitment, gender and crime, gender and international law, family violence, and the impact of large scale unemployment on fathers' involvement with their small children. She has also published articles on gambling policy and sports bookmaking and has a forthcoming book that focuses on the social organization of sports bookmaking.     

Wisdom, goodness and power: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the history of woman suffrage

In the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her co-authors crafted a rhetorical history that not only celebrated Stanton's role in the suffrage movement, but also promoted her broader, more radical vision of complete gender equality. In the context of a movement divided over strategy, Stanton and her editors made the case not just for the vote, but for expanding the role of women in all realms of American social and political life. Documenting the contributions of women since the Revolution, the History advocated the full political and legal “sovereignty” of women by showing how their wisdom, goodness, and power had contributed to the nation's progress. [W]e hope to rouse new thoughts in minds prepared to receive them.—History of Woman Suffrage (1881) She has written several articles on the rhetoric of the nineteenth-century women's rights movement.     

Examining Sex Differences in the Use of Direct and Indirect Aggression

Direct and indirect aggressive behaviors were studied using surveys and interviews of students in two public schools. The variables of “sex-of-aggressor” and “sex-of-target” were included. Claims in previous research that girls engage in far more indirect aggression than boys are not supported. Further, it was found that girls are more likely to target the opposite sex with direct aggression than boys. This suggests more gender fluidity in the use of aggression by girls and adds to a growing body of research that dispels the notion that direct and indirect aggression can be neatly sorted into male and female categories of behavior.

Stem Cell Science and its Public: The Case of Singapore

In this paper, we attempt to elucidate a “public” that has emerged in response to the work of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC)—an expert body appointed by the Singapore Government—that culminated in the publication of two reports relating to stem cell science and technology. We follow Annelise Riles in explicating a recursive form from which both the “public” and stem cell science and technology draw reference in their co-production. In this regard, we borrow Sheila Jasanoff’s terminology of “civic epistemology” in explicating this form, with focus on the practices institutionalised in the BAC and the ways in which knowledge claims are presented, tested and put to use in the public domain. We further attempt to provide an analysis of particular ethical constructs (such as “embryo” and “egg”) that have emerged. In so doing, we illustrate the development and refinement of a “civic epistemology” since 2001 whilst setting out the current ethical landscape in Singapore.     

Helping hands: A study of altruistic behavior

The purpose of this paper is to better understand how altruistic behavior varies by gender, race, age, and dress. Eagly & Crowley’s (1986) social role theory maintains that the traditional male sex role promotes heroic and chivalrous helping behavior. Based on this theoretical insight, we hypothesized that men would be more likely to exhibit helping behavior than women (regardless of their race, age, or dress), especially if the person requiring assistance was a woman. We also expected that fewer women than men would offer assistance to another, especially if the person in need of help was a man. To test our hypotheses, we went to the downtown Waterside Festival Marketplace, where male and female actors “dropped” a stack of books. We found no significant differences in helping behavior between male and female subjects, all else being equal. Elizabeth Monk-Turner is professor of sociology and criminal justice, and chair at Her primary research interests are in education, gender, and labor markets. A developing research interest is in better understanding the factors that shape altruistic behavior.     

Vital Spots, Mortal Wounds, and Forensic Practice: Finding Cause of Death in Nineteenth-Century China

The Qing inquest was one function of the bureaucracy which administered justice throughout the empire. Concern over integrity of this component of judicial process fuelled development of standardized techniques to ensure quality of forensic determinations. A key method for determining cause of death was use of knowledge of parts of the body for which trauma could be fatal—the so-called “vital spots.” This way of conceptualizing wounds formed part of a basic rubric which officials used to determine the mortal wound and assign legal responsibility in homicide cases. This article uses a nineteenth-century homicide case drawn from Yilibu’s “Elementary Models for Studying Cases” (1838) to examine the observational and analytical procedures used in inquests to transform effects of violence on a body into evidence for adjudication. Not only did these techniques reinforce relationships of power within the bureaucracy but they also reflect the extent to which Qing forensic knowledge was conceptually, institutionally, and procedurally inseparable from judicial process and codified law.     

The Voice on the Bridge: Taiwan’s Regulatory Engagement with Global Pharmaceuticals 橋上之聲: 全球醫藥法規中的臺灣處遇

This paper analyzes Taiwan’s engagement with the standardization of pharmaceutical clinical trials at the turn of this century. Unlike approaches that treat local encounters with globalization as either reluctant acceptance or lasting resistance, this study calls attention to a complicated process of negotiation, the conceptual gap between the illusion of a unified world and the reality of persistently divided nation-states. To address this gap, an ethnographic investigation is required. Two concepts, “bridging” and “voicing” (fasheng), are introduced in order to capture Taiwan’s unstable status, what I term “the voice on the bridge,” in this process. Bridging emerged as a technical concept for evaluating pharmaceutical drugs’ possible differential ethnic effects. But it also reflects the ambiguous reality of a world in which each state is an islet connected to others by imaginary bridges. Fasheng (“voicing”) has to do with Taiwan’s long-held desire for world recognition as a state. This paper is an ethnography of globalization and the state that traces how Taiwan created a regulatory resolution through the idea of bridging and how this “voice” was articulated through various social strategies. It explores not only the complexity of interactions in the technical field of regulatory science, but also argues that looking at such entanglements of science and society makes it possible to move beyond simple interpretations of globalization.