“It Is What It Is”: Masculinity,Homosexuality, and Inclusive Discourse in Mixed Martial Arts

In this article we make use of inclusive masculinity theory to explore online media representations of male homosexuality and masculinity within the increasingly popular combat sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). Adopting a case-study approach, we discuss narratives constructed around one aspirational male MMA fighter, Dakota Cochrane, whose history of having participated in gay pornography became a major talking point on a number of MMA discussion/community Web sites during early 2012. While these narratives attempted to discursively rescue Cochrane’s supposedly threatened masculinity, highlighting both his “true” heterosexuality and his prodigious fighting abilities, they also simultaneously celebrated the acceptance of homosexual men within the sport that Cochrane’s case implied. Thus, we suggest that these media representations of homosexuality and masculinity within MMA are indicative of declining cultural homophobia and homohysteria and an inclusive vision of masculinity, as previously described by proponents of inclusive masculinity theory.     

Labour Underutilisation and Gender: Unemployment Versus Hidden-Unemployment

As labour markets have become more complex there has been increasing interest among researchers in understanding the ways that social and labour market processes and contexts impact on various labour market states. One important area has been in understanding the differences between unemployment and hidden unemployment. This paper considers the ways in which these two labour market states differ for a sample of male and female respondents to the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey. It presents data related to the reasons why respondents in these two labour force states consider they are jobless and analyses the characteristics of male and female respondents in the two labour market states to consider differences in outcomes. The findings suggest that there are differences in the two states of labour market outcomes and that these are further complicated when one considers processes for males and females.     

中国的男孩偏好和婚姻挤压——初婚与再婚市场的综合分析

中国强烈的男孩偏好和对女性的歧视导致了婚姻市场上严重的男性婚姻挤压。本文使用中国2000年普查数据和所预测的2001~2050年人口数据,结合初婚和再婚市场设计了度量婚姻挤压的指标,测度了2001~2050年中国的婚姻挤压程度,考察了男孩偏好和再婚因素对中国未来婚姻挤压的影响。结果表明未来中国婚姻市场每年有10%~15%男性过剩人口,达到120万人。男孩偏好导致的高出生性别比显著影响未来婚姻市场,而再婚人口对婚姻市场上过剩人口也有显著影响。     

Sun, sand, and citizenship: the marketing of gay tourism

This article investigates trends in the marketing of gay and lesbian tourism. It reviews gay and lesbian travel guides from the 1960s to the 1990s before examining more recent travel materials including brochures and Web sites promoting specific American cities. These promotional materials are a valuable object of inquiry because they are uniquely situated at the intersection of discussions of sexuality, the market, representation, space, and citizenship. Through an aggregate semiotic analysis and ideological criticism, this article examines themes and concerns raised by the recent wave of gay tourism marketing, including questions of visibility, privacy, and assimilation. I argue that while marketers' recent attempts to lure gay and lesbian tourists to specific destinations may seem to suggest increased tolerance and societal inclusion, the specific strategies that they employ actually reveal the second-class citizen status still experienced by gays and lesbians within the rest of American society.     

Finding Erotic Oases: Locating the Sites of Men's Same-Sex Anonymous Sexual Encounters

ABSTRACT

Because anonymous sexual relations between two men are widely considered deviant many men seeking such activities look to erotic oases—natural environments appropriated for covert, often furtive sexual purposes. Previous research on erotic oases has focused on characteristics of involved men and processes of locating, negotiating with, and consummating sexual relations with others. This study draws on one major Web site listing of “cruising places” in the United States to identify common locations for erotic oases. Results show that the most common locations identified as erotic oases by users are public parks, adult bookstores, health clubs, and college campuses. Locations most likely to be listed as believed to be under law enforcement surveillance are outdoor, high traffic locations. Based on these results existing research has only begun to examine the most common locations for this highly stigmatized, deviant behavior and subculture.     

"Nobody's ever going to make a fag pretty woman": stigma awareness and the putative effects of stigma among a sample of Canadian male sex workers

The purpose of this study was to examine male sex workers' awareness of the social stigma surrounding involvement in the sex industry and the possible effects of that stigma. Personal interviews were conducted with 21 men (9 independent escorts who advertised via the Internet and 12 escorts/erotic masseurs who were on contract with an agency). Results indicated that a majority of interviewees believed sex work was stigmatized but attributed this stigma to society's tendency to conflate escort/erotic masseur with street-based prostitute and society's negative view of human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. It should be noted that interviewees did not necessarily perceive the gay community as more tolerant than the heterosexual community of persons involved in the male sex industry. In terms of how participants saw the sex trade, both prior to and during their involvement, multifarious viewpoints emerged (i.e., some engaged in "whore mythologizing" while others reported having no clearly defined perception of male sex workers). Finally, results suggested that some participants believed their involvement in a stigmatized industry was deleterious to them personally whereas others maintained that the consequences of being an escort/ erotic masseur were largely positive.     

“I knew there has to be a better way”: Women’s pathways to freebirth in Poland

BackgroundEach year a small number of women decide to birth at home without midwifery and medical assistance despite the availability of maternity services in the country. This phenomenon is called freebirth and can be used as a lens to look into shortcomings of maternity care services.AimBy exploring women’s pathways to freebirth, this article aims to examine the larger context of maternity services in Poland and identify elements of care contributing to women’s decision to birth without midwifery and medical assistance.MethodsA qualitative methodology was used employing elements of ethnographic fieldwork, including digital ethnography. Semi-structured interviews with twelve women who freebirth, analysis of online support groups, secondary sources of information and elements of participant observation were used.FindingsWomen’s decisions to freebirth were born out of their previous negative experiences with maternity care. Persistent use of medical technology and lack of respect from maternity care providers played a major role in pushing women away from available Polish maternity services. While searching for a better environment for themselves and their babies for the subsequent births, women experienced a rigidity of both mainstream and homebirth services and patchy availability of the latter that contributed to their decisions to freebirth.ConclusionsFreebirth appears to be a consequence of inadequate maternity services both mainstream and homebirth rather than a preference. Women’s freebirth experiences can be used to improve maternity care in Poland and inform similar contexts globally.     

Does the marriage market sex ratio affect parental sex selection? Evidence from the Chinese census

Recent increases in the (male/female) sex ratio at birth in eastern Asia are thought to be associated with a preference for sons and to result from parental sex selection. However, males are less likely to marry and to have offspring as the ratio increases, and that decreases the expected number of grandchildren. Using data from the 2000 Chinese census, we test whether the sex ratio in the marriage market has an effect on the gender of subsequent births and hence on the sex ratio of the birth cohort. The slow population growth caused by the Great Famine in the early 1960s and the quick recovery that followed produced major changes in the sex ratio for those of marriageable age two decades later. We estimate that an increase of 1 % in the number of marriageable males relative to females, the marriage market sex ratio, would decrease the probability of having a son by 0.02 percentage points. That implies that the Great Famine, which occurred around 1960, led to an increase in the early 1980s of 5.8 extra male births per 100 females.     

Representing sex workers in video games: feminisms,fantasies of exceptionalism,and the value of erotic labor

This article critiques the representation of sex workers in “AAA” video games, with a focus on the devaluing of erotic labor. Existing feminist commentary has interpreted these representations as examples of the objectification of female game characters, perpetuating harmful misconceptions of sex work as fundamentally exploitative. By contrast, taking cues from feminist media studies, porn studies, and sex workers rights activism, I argue that what makes these representations of sex workers problematic is not their engagement in erotic labor but the ways that the games in which they appear devalue that labor, through both dialogue and interactive elements. Across their many appearances in AAA games, it is strikingly common for sex workers to offer their services to player-characters for free or at a discount, or for games to allow players to take their money back after erotic labor has been performed. This contributes to a gendered fantasy of exceptionalism in which a player-character’s masculinity is tied to being too attractive or too powerful to pay for sex. Critiquing these representations demonstrates how AAA video games prompt players to reenact widespread cultural biases against sex work. It also points toward the need for a diversity of feminisms within game studies.     

Education,health and family size as determinants of labor market activity for the poor and nonpoor

The effect of head’s and wife’s educational attainment, health and the number of the head’s dependents under 18 on the amount of time spent in the labor force by white and black male heads of both poor and nonpoor families is investigated in this paper. The technique employed is multivariate regression analysis using disaggregated data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. While educational attainment has a positive effect on the supply of labor of nonpoor heads, it has an insignificant effect on the black poor and a nonlinear effect on white poor heads. The health of head and wife has a very important effect on the ability of the poor to supply labor services while for the nonpoor the health effect is insignificant. For both the poor and nonpoor, there is a positive relationship between family size and the supply of labor. Evidence is also presented to indicate that the black husband’s and wife’s labor market activity are substitutes while they are complementary within white families.     

Ageing in the United States at the end of the century

"The belief that America is a ?young' nation is widely held by many individuals in the United States. Historically, individualism, self-reliance, and an orientation towards youth have been cherished values reflecting...our national heritage and tradition dating from the 18th through the mid-20th century. However, America is no longer a ?young' nation. Rather, we are an ?aging' population, as we show in our analysis of demographic transitions reviewed in this paper. The phenomenon of ?cultural (or structural) lag' is discussed in two different contexts: first--the context of the aging family; and second--the context of ethnic/racial minority groups. Finally, some of the relevant public policy responses to aging are described. We look at government programs in four major categories, namely, (1) income; (2) health care; (3) social services; and (4) housing."     

The Impact of Deviations from Desired Hours of Work on the Life Satisfaction of Employees

We estimate an ordinal logistic multilevel model to examine the determinants of the life satisfaction of employees in Europe. Data drawn from the European social survey reveals that deviations from desired hours of work (measured as the absolute difference between the actual and preferred weekly number of hours) reduce overall life satisfaction, but the effect is smaller in countries with higher unemployment rates. We interpret this finding as evidence that in environments where anxieties about job security are high, having a job brings about a certain level of life satisfaction regardless of the gap between the actual and preferred time spent in the labor market. We also find no statistically significant difference between male and female employees with regard to the impact of the work hours mismatch. This finding suggests that the gender differences which would have been expected in this context are already incorporated in the respondents’ subjectively determined desired hours of work. In fact, further examinations confirm that ‘desired hours’ are associated with both socio-demographic characteristics (in particular, gender) and preferences for labor market work.     

Readability of Menopause Web Sites: A Cross-Sectional Study

More women are frequently referring to the Internet for health information, yet the readability of information about menopause on the Internet has not been widely studied. To address this gap, this study examined the readability of information about menopause on 25 Internet Web sites. Findings included that information on the Web sites had a reading level higher than the recommended sixth-grade level, and culturally appropriate health information was lacking. Health educators and practitioners are in a pivotal role to help women understand information useful for healthcare decisions. Several criteria are discussed to help practitioners evaluate Web sites.     

The use of public transportation in urban areas: Toward a causal model

In this study, using the statistical models recently introduced by Goodman, we analyze the reasons why individuals choose the car or public transportation for the journey to work and draw out some of the implications of our analysis for public policy. Building on the work of Schnore, we develop a model in which both structural and individual variables are interrelated and show that the structural contexts within which individuals make decisions about their choice are crucial. We also show that, while status differentials are largely accounted for by income differences, male preferences for the automobile tend not to be due either to the structural variables or to income differences. Our findings suggest that present policies designed to induce people to shift to public transportation for the journey to work are not likely to be effective, since they do nothing to alter present cost differentials between the two modes.     

Measuring labour market segmentation for a comparative analysis among countries

This article raises one main question in a comparative analytical exercise between two countries in different continents, Spain and Argentina. To what extent does labour market segmentation generate similar dynamics of structuring of labour inequalities in two countries with different socio-economic contexts and social models, and which aspects are specific to each country? The article is the first an analytical work aimed at comparing European and Latin American countries from the theoretical perspective of labour market segmentation. We set two main objectives. The first was to construct an analysis model to study inequalities in the labour market in comparative terms between Europe and Latin America, taking as a reference Spain and Argentina. To this end, demand and supply variables were combined from an employment perspective. We sought to corroborate the general hypothesis that there is no single labour market that adjusts supply and demand, but that several segments can be expected to structure hierarchical positions in the labour market in line with specific labour supply profiles. We expected to obtain a high correspondence between the employment segments of the two countries, despite the contextual and socio-historical differences. The second objective was to propose a methodology to obtain two synthetic measures of labour market segmentation: first, a categorical measurement through a typology constructed from hierarchical positions and profiles using multivariate techniques (combining multiple correspondence factor analysis [MCA] and cluster analysis [CLA]); and second, a continuous measurement based on the results of factor analysis, resulting in a composite indicator of labour inequality.

     

Politics of Sex Appeal in Advertising

This article is an ethnographic exploration of how gender ideologies were negotiated in the South Korea of the 2000s, in advertising texts and in advertising workplaces. Advertising has been criticized for reproducing gender stereotypes, and it is easy to assume that it is men within advertising agencies who are responsible for the objectifying and sexualizing portrayals of women. Yet behind some of the raciest South Korean advertising campaigns were ambitious women, who not only eagerly repeated the marketing adage that “sex sells” but also, provocatively, attempted to obliterate the lingering patriarchal norms and double sexual standards—with sexualized advertising. This article examines the politics of sex appeal in contemporary South Korean advertising by drawing on participant observation at an advertising agency, interviews, and public discourse analysis. Having situated the women's interventions within the cultural–historical context of South Korea, I, first, show how women's embrace of the sex-appeal aesthetic was a strategy to succeed in a male-dominated work environment and, second, detail how fighting gender discrimination with sex-appeal advertising was a profoundly contradictory project. I suggest that the politics of sex appeal in advertising was symptomatic of how women's struggles for equality were collapsing into neoliberal post-feminist sensibility.     

Low-wage mobility during the early career

Despite the size of the low-wage workforce, knowledge of the low-wage labor market is markedly sparse. In particular, little is known about the mobility patterns of low-wage workers. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I analyze low-wage mobility during the early career. I find that exits from low-wages are common, but the odds of exit and the permanence of an exit vary by social group membership and have changed in recent decades. Women, African Americans, residents of the South, and the less educated fare worse in the low-wage labor market. My findings also suggest that low-wage mobility has changed since the 1970s, with low-wages becoming more difficult to avoid.     

性别失衡背景下大龄未婚男性的商业性行为——基于中国农村地区的研究发现

基于2008年安徽省CH市JC区的调查数据,通过与同年龄段已婚男性的对比,对性别失衡背景下中国农村大龄未婚男性的商业性行为、安全套使用情况及其影响因素进行分析。研究发现,在中国性别失衡背景下,男性婚姻挤压导致大龄未婚男性难以获取正常、稳定的性行为,商业性行为作为一种有效的替代和弥补方式,其发生率在农村地区的大龄未婚男性当中存在显著升高的可能性;相对于较高的商业性行为发生率而言,大龄未婚男性的安全套使用率处于较低的水平,使得大龄未婚男性的商业性行为具有高风险特征。     

Mother’s home time and the production of child quality

This paper deals with the effect of mother’s time spent out of the labor force, and presumably in the home, on the “production” of child quality, where child quality is measured by intelligence (IQ), level of schooling attained, and market earning power. The results indicate that mother’s home time is most effective in producing (male) child quality for mothers who have attained relatively high levels of schooling. The results suggest that education programs which devote equal school resources to all (male) children do not necessarily provide equal educational opportunity and that the influence of family background on economic success is indirect, operating through home investments in children.