Abstract
Gendered Places is an invitation to consider gender norms and cultures at a local level and to extend theories of gender inequality. Building on a long line of research on gender-based inequalities and a newly emerging literature on culture and spatial gendered norms, William J. Scarborough takes on the formidable task of parsing out how gender norms vary in different local contexts across the United States. He suggests that national-level data, while providing important insights, are not sufficient to account for variations in local gender norms. Using representative data from multiple sources, he lays out the different dimensions of gender inequality that together provide a more nuanced way of looking at how gender intersects with geography, culture, the economy, and more. The author draws on both quantitative and qualitative scholarship to build a framework for examining how local contexts matter and how gender, like many other aspects of our lives, is embedded in place.
Scarborough argues that the different places where people live and work are consequential and impact the ways in which gender inequalities and cultural norms are sustained, reproduced, or questioned. The theoretical framework of Gendered Places suggests that rather than considering gender norms along a single axis (egalitarian vs. traditional), we need to consider them at different levels and in a variety of spheres. Accordingly, Scarborough uses multiple data sources to identify four major spheres in which gender norms can be assessed: women’s advancement, public sphere gender essentialism, intensive mothering, and private sphere gender essentialism. He argues that there are nuances across these four dimensions in different places. For instance, local gender norms can be more egalitarian along one of these and at the same time be more traditional when considering other dimensions.
One illuminating example of Scarborough’s argument appears in a comparison between Madison and Milwaukee, two cities in Wisconsin, less than 80 miles apart. Scarborough begins with examples of gendered terms that are used for describing each city and goes on to explain how these terms may in fact reflect varied gender norms. He elaborates his argument by showing that gender norms are more egalitarian in Madison across all four spheres; but more importantly, he argues that in Milwaukee, which overall has more traditional gender norms, there are stark variations across the four spheres: While intensive mothering norms are quite traditional in Milwaukee, other dimensions are similar to the national average or are somewhat more egalitarian.
Gendered Places contributes to the literature in a number of important ways. First, the book offers one of the first accounts of local gender norms across the United States. While there are studies of cross-national comparisons of gender norms, there has been little attention to how such norms vary across different localities in the United States. The author uses commuting zones as the unit of analysis to show variations across different places and to compare local gender norms. Second, as mentioned earlier, the book moves beyond existing ways of measuring gender norms and introduces the four dimensions of gender cultures. Third, Scarborough discusses the consequences of different gender norms and how they impact local culture and such tangible material outcomes such as wage gap. He concludes by a discussion on how we can address gender inequalities through a better understanding of the existing disparities in different places.
The book does a good job in outlining and using a complex set of theoretical frameworks and data. The back and forth between data sources (such as surveys and social media data) and theoretical dimensions is interesting and compelling. However, some further explanation of the overlaps and distinctions of the four dimensions would have been helpful (for instance, how intensive mothering and private sphere gender essentialism are interrelated and share some of the same ideological origins). Furthermore, while setting up the main arguments needed meticulous attention and explanation, in some parts of the book, this leads to repetition and disruptions in the flow of the arguments. Finally, an open question for the author and for all of us would be how to bring non-binary identities and experiences into the conversation when no substantial data are available or even collected. While this lack of data justifies the absence of such identities in the manuscript, the book could have acknowledged that gender is not necessarily a binary and that some of the tangible consequences discussed in the book extend to gender and sexuality minorities as well.
Still, this book is an important contribution to scholarly works on gender in the United States. It is also a welcome addition to studies that take space and place seriously and are attuned to nuances across different geographical locations. The theoretical foundation and methodological approaches can provide interesting insights for graduate students in sociology and gender studies and the empirical chapters are accessible for undergraduates.